U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than

https://www.reuters.com/business/en...te-than-gasoline-study-finds-2022-02-14/

Assuming u buy into climate change agenda. I don't.

Seems like all the green new stuff really takes more fuel to produce than just using fossil fuels. That big farming and mining equipment drinks lots of fuel. The promoters of these great new ideas are the only benefactors. JMHO

Roger that Flipper.

Unless they can covert it in oxygen it’s probably not good for the environment then, the whole idea that you burn no lead but more of it because of poor performance it never seemed like we ever really gained much.

Ethanol contains less energy per gallon than gasoline, to varying degrees, depending on the volume percentage of ethanol in the blend. Denatured ethanol (98% ethanol) contains about 30% less energy than gasoline per gallon

It's all a crock

I've said that to my farmer friends right from the beginning. Senators from Iowa and Illinois were the early backers of ethanol. Lots of people have made millions from it.

well it is just plane wasteful

just in Natural gas needed to make it you could just drive the car on that and save everything else.

it wasn't about saving the planet it was about lining a pocket book from day one.


want to make a change , if it changes the climate or not , incentivize insulating houses to R30 in the walls R40 in the ceiling
use the energy saving to Fuel your car

make the car to be maintained and on CNG no reason it can't hit 500K miles then get a get rebuild and do it again.

making things disposable and using rare earth metals isn't going to make things green. might make some people rich but not green

large grazing operations taking up the space that ethanol corn is taking now , where you need no fertilizer and you could ride your horse or small motorbike out to to move the herd it sure would mean a lot more wild life also

heating largely on dead and dying trees any where it is feasible

plant the edges of those new pastures in trees for shade for the animals and fuel to heat with

it is going to change the labor dynamic but that is going to change any way

Nuclear

Natural gas powered vehicles makes more sense than electric ones. It's all about money, not pollution or saving the planet.

Do you guys really believe the study the article is based on is factual and not agenda motivated? I don't for one minute. I could care less one way or the other about ethanol. But people buying into misleading, agenda motivate, pretend science done with intention to mislead the general public is killing this country. With that said I hate government interference in our economy with subsidies and usage mandates which our farmers are getting more dependent on every year but that report is exactly what I said it was.

A lot of things in the Ag world I don't like (and I make my living in it) but I also see the left making agriculture look like the bad guys falsely to further there agenda. Be careful what you believe. The same people that hate guns, trapping and the use of natural resources are the ones that try to make agriculture look like the bad guys.

I don't think farmers are the bad guys at all , most really love the land but they grow stuff and when growing corn pays the bills they grow corn , if hay payed the bills they would grow hay

they follow the path that lets them keep farming most are hopelessly addicted to it as a way of life.

Me either

Imagine that?

Here's an idea. How about stripping ALL govt monies and input from the ag and automotive sectors, and all other ares of the market while we're at it, and let's see how market forces shake it out.

Yup

The modern larger scale farming with the corresponding much higher yields use a fraction of the fossil fuels per bushel or ton then even a few decades ago. Especially for corn, beans and wheat. Harvesting forages (hay, haylage) etc. with 3-5 cuts per year utilizes a lot of energy in harvesting, not as much in N fertilizer and chemicals. The politicians created the ethanol market which basically created a market for about 30% more corn. Farmers may well prefer not to raise as much corn but the profit numbers lead them there. We grow over 300 million acres plus of just wheat, corn and beans. If the very dry weather from the great plains and to the great basin persist then hay could be a crop to ship there if there is to be millions of range cattle having calves. Right now ranchers can not afford to pay the price for hay that would cause a farmer to not raise corn or beans and invest in more expensive and high maintenance equipment.
If we are going to get rid of all credits and subsidies then the depletion allowance should go as well. It is not as important today as in the past due to the much lower taxes on businesses but still a significant subsidy.
It would be better in my opinion that we could have more decentralized Ag and other industries but capitalism favors those that win and win big. The larger long term loss is the lack of creativity that we get from many involved in producing products and finding new and better ways. When we had smaller businesses we had smaller government, just maybe we have set ourselves up for exactly what many never wanted.

I'm wondering what it REALLY costs to produce and distribute a gallon of gasoline.
It costs to pump it as crude.
It costs to ship it to a distilling plant. Thats a long sea voyage sometimes.
It costs to distill it.
It costs to ship it to a gas station. Of course this cost is shared with alcohol.
just

AKAjust,
Flipper might know this, but I just read yesterday that Marathon Oil, oil shale business, can make money on $35 a barrel oil.

I'm not saying the oil companies didn't take a big hit the last few years, and I know they actually do pay more in taxes than other large companies, no matter how the left vilifies them.

And it is a free market. But if you can do oil shale at $35/barrel, make money, and supply gas at a reasonable cost to the consumer, there is no need for the US to suffer climate control when the major polluters are in Asia.

Cooking corn to make ethanol was not a good idea.

When using alcohol in racing, it takes twice as much to equal gasoline. But it runs cooler and its less wear and tear on the motor.

Like button

Don’t underestimate how much the oil companies receive in government subsidies which helps to make $35 oil profitable. Also how much money they spend slandering ethanol since it takes away their market share.
A big reason for using ethanol is as an oxygenate/octane booster, replacing MTBEs which were found to be horribly carcinogenic. The octane boost from ethanol allows the gasoline producers (blenders) to use much lower octane (lower quality) base products while maintaining the target octane levels of the blend, which helps their cost too. Without this octane boost the prices at the pump would be even higher.
Others things not often considered when comparing ethanol - 1/3 of the weight of corn processed ends up being a high protein animal feed product (DDGS), crude corn oil is recovered and further processed to biodiesel, carbon dioxide produced during fermentation is captured and used for industrial and food processing purposes. Corn grown for ethanol takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, negating some of the carbon dioxide released when ethanol is burned, no such offset exists for gasoline production and use.
Ethanol’s lower energy content per unit is often brought up, this is irrelevant though since there are many other substances - liquids, solids, gases; which have a greater energy content than gasoline. But they aren’t used for one reason or another - it’s the overall picture that matters.
Ethanol is far from perfect, but it’s also not the villain it is sometimes made out to be.

I've often heard of oil companies getting subsidies, just never heard how ,A J perhaps you can tell me how.

RM - I don’t have the source readily available, but I’ll gladly post more tomorrow.

Climate change is real!!

It has more to do with solar cycles than carbon, though.

Below is a copied statement regarding fossil fuel subsidies for the USA and the EU Yes there are high levels of subsidy but all developed energy utilizing companies are subsidizing fossil fuel energy at significant levels.
Bryce
Conservative estimates put U.S. direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at roughly $20 billion per year; with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil. European Union subsidies are estimated to total 55 billion euros annually.
www.eesi.org

I know the lead author of the study, sort of. He and I see things very differently. He started off as an engineer before he decided to become an environmental scientist. Either the corn ethanol industry treated him bad at one point or he decided this was the topic he was going to ride until it ran out of gas, pardon my bad pun. The got his PhD at U of Wisc-Madison with this topic and hasn't left. His first paper came out in 2015 and he's still on the horse. He and his colleagues at "Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies" at UW do what I call "advocacy science". They have a desired policy outcome- in this case to have the US EPA not renew the current Renewable Fuels Standard with 1st generation biofuels (aka current corn ethanol and biodiesel) and go directly to non annual tilled cellulosic (perennial grass) feed stocks for biofuels. These researchers then go gather the data and do the modeling to support their goals. And modern corn (mostly) and soybean (secondary) farming can be seen as a half full or half empty glass depending on what worldview you want to emphasize, the negative costs over the positive goods or vice versa. I don't know any of the economists that were involved with the paper, although they follow a school of "applied" economics called "econometrics". If you're not into boatloads of complex mathematical formulas (they put me to sleep), don't go there. The PNAS journal "shepherd" to this article was an "ag" economist out of U. of Minnesota.

My main problem with the lead author is that he only sees corn production in the U.S. through the lens of biofuels. No other "drivers" of why farmers raise corn is really considered. Corn as a grain has lots of properties and chemists since WWII have been figuring out how to take it apart and put it back together in all kinds of combinations for various uses. These people don't really view changes in global grain commodities except in terms of biofuels. I personally think the lead author's goal, besides sinking 1st generation biofuels, is to become a political appointee someday leading the EPA or as a under- or assistant secretary of Ag or some other fed department. He wants to make policy. And he'll ride this horse for all its worth with that goal in mind. Just my opinion. We'll see...

Here’s an article regarding oil company subsidies:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02847-2

That article isn't worth the bandwidth it takes up

I've seen Natural gas vehicle turn into bombs

Looks to me like they get tax breaks on equipment and drilling costs to be able to deduct expenses the year that they are incurred rather than pro rated. Is that a subsidy or a tax break, if that's the case every business and most people get subsidies. That being said the gov. should get out of all businesses and let the chips fall where they may. Supply and demand should be our mantra.

That article doesn’t cover everything, it’s just one I pulled up quickly.
Gas company profits are in the billions. Probably shouldn’t be getting tax money, tax breaks, subsidies, etc...
I agree about government staying out of business.

I don’t agree with the climate change angle of it, but the point being discussed was oil companies and financial help from government. Which does occur and that is indisputable, whether you like it happening or not.

The investment tax credit was repealed after 1985. That was a true subsidy, but it was available to any company that purchased capital equipment. Anyone who claims the oil and gas business in the United States is subsidized is misinformed. Please feel free to provide evidence to the contrary.

The ONLY thing Ethanol in fuel was good for is getting votes from farmers. The only thing ethanol is good for is slowly melting the ice in your drink. As far as global warming a good volcano will put off more greenhouse gasses in a few weeks than mankind can do in a year.

There is no political advantage to be gained from threatening to regulate volcanoes.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/...s-can-restart-international-cooperation/

https://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/

Tax breaks are a subsidy.
Keeping things on topic of this thread - the ethanol industry was criticized for receiving government help. Relevant point is so does the oil industry. Whatever you want to call that help.

As I said in an earlier post, I don’t agree with the climate change angle and I don’t think government should be involved. But if we are going to make comparisons between industries, then we should be honest and it should be known about what is going on.

Are you saying that being able to deduct business expenses is a subsidy? I am not sure what you mean by "tax breaks".

By definition of subsidy - yes.
I don’t hate the player, I hate the game.

"Under the More Alaska Production Act (MAPA), Alaska has a net tax with progressivity accomplished through a per barrel tax credit, making it more complicated than taxes in the five states shown in Table 2. Alaska’s tax is an attempt to capture the true economics of a project or production. Our tax rate is 35 percent. If oil falls below $80 per barrel, oil companies receive an $8 dollar tax credit to offset the 35 percent tax.[7] The tax credit is $7 at $90 per barrel, $6 at $100 per barrel, and so on until it is $0 when the price of oil exceeds $150 per barrel. These tax credits are used against the production taxes owed on the companies’ net profits. The per barrel tax credit does not take money which would otherwise be allocated to state services to alleviate tax burdens. North Slope oil production is additionally subject to a minimum tax, which is also progressive — between 0 and 4 percent based on the gross value and the amount of tax due. The mandatory minimum tax puts a cap on the amount of cost risk the state is willing to share with the oil companies."

The State owes the oil companies 1 billion in unpaid refunds.

"Alaska High Court Nixes State’s $1 Billion Scheme for Oil and Tax Credits"

They just got spanked for trying to issue bonds to pay them.

By your example my company should pay taxes on the money spent to purchase electricity(expense) and the supplier of the electricity should also pay taxes on the money(income) collected from my company for the electricity they supply to us. In your game there would be a lot fewer willing players.