US might have been wrong about Ethanol

It’s always been true burning regular gas was more efficient and less harmful that ethanol blended fuel.

Or maybe just a farm subsidy that created a lobby too big to stop.

The sooner more is transitioned to electric the better. ;)

"Or maybe just a farm subsidy that created a lobby too big to stop." Bingo and American style

Not only that, if trucks lose ten percent of MPG with the blend, that means we burn ten percent more fuel for any given distance. And we don't save ten percent in fuel cost per gallon either.

Ethenol fuel never was and never will be a winner for drivers - consumers. Nice penny pot for corn farmers though.

Got nothing against farmers - just think farmers should farm what we eat, or what livestock eats, so we can eat livestock too. :)

I can't hear videos, most don't have CC built in.....
I have a rather "green" oriented family, I could never understand why ethonal in gas was good. I went from needing 10 gals of gas per x mile's, to needing approx 11.x gals of gas along with a shade over a gallon of ethonal. I'm still trying to add up how that helped us get less dependant on oil, fewer emissions, got less power......
Had the same issue with dmax with diesel mixed with biodiesel. Not as much of an issue with GM 6.5TD or my IDI7.3. hard to tell with smaller 2-4 cyl Motors in trackhoe, skid steers and sailboat. The newer computer controlled had more fuel loss etc
My 02 on this

Marty

As the saying goes, "old news". Even Al Gore admitted that the ethanol mandate does not work - there is a quote from him somewhere about that.

.... off to go look up the quote!...

This is from 2010:


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethanol-gore/u-s-corn-ethanol-was-not-a-good-policy-gore-idUSTRE6AL3CN20101122

“It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol,” said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank.

“First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small.

“It’s hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.”

They knew 20 years ago corn was a poor choice for ethanol but the lobbyists won once again. Farm subsidies and import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol made it worse.

Brazil has proven ethanol blended fuel is viable and beneficial when manufactured with sugarcane. There were discussions in the early 2000s of Jamaica and Honduras growing sugarcane for us but that evidently fell off the table.

I remember discussing this back in college in the 70's. Basically the discussion was it was wrong to use food products to produce fuel for various reasons. We also in class decided that using waste products to produce methanol was a better idea. Back then the technology wasn't refined to use methanol as a fuel. Now we have technology to produce ethanol from methanol using waste products and have had it for quite a few years. But the lobbies aren't interested in changing.

Wow, didn’t know cabin fever existed in Texas….
But it must, to create a thread just posting common knowledge.
This is akin to a thread describing how to make toast. Most people already understand