And by the way, the U S Government has paid farmers for years to not grow crops and let their land sit idle because they are growing too much grain. I know because I grew up farming in the midwest.

 

As far as not having enough food to feed 6 Billion people in the world, is that really my problem? Maybe someone should instruct the folks in Africa, India, and China (who cannot support their families) that maybe having 20 kids is a bad idea. What do they do with their arable land? Nothing? Regardless, it is an entirely different topic but suffice it to say that I am more concerned about my ability to transport myself than I am to feed folks in poor countries that do nothing about their hyper growth of people. Selfish, maybe so but it is reality.

Regardless of whether or not you believe Ethanol to be a permanent alternative fuel source, you'd have to agree that it would lessen our dependence on foreign oil. You're also forgetting about the fact that Ethanol is made from a renewable resource. Yes, they'll need fertilizer but how can you quantify and compare that to the savings in oil consumption from the use of alternative fuels?


Why does Brazil mandate that all vehicles be FFV type vehicles? Folks there can decide whether they will buy gasoline or ethanol depending on price (apparently 9 months of the year ethanol is less expensive). The program works there and they are no longer dependent on foreign sources of energy. There are no imports, they produce the ethanol in house. Their economy improves. Just like it would here.

Our farmers have been economically depressed for years. The growth of grains for ethanol production could help pull them out of the rut. There would always be a market for their product and as you said, they wouldn't experience the extreme price fluctuations in the market. You question how they can "dare" to grow a product for energy consumption rather than putting food on the table? I say to you, how dare you question their way to make a living? If they can make more selling corn and other grains for fuel instead of food, more power to them. That's the American way.

There is no shortage of raw petroleum world wide at the moment. The problem is that demand is increasing and production is the same. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that means a price increase is immiment. Here in the States, we were exposed by the hurricanes. The refining capacity was severely handicapped. Who knew that we were maxed out on refining capability? Now maybe the Oil companies will consider refining it before it gets here or building additional facilities in less prone areas.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not convinced that this is the best solution. At this point however, I believe it is the most sensible. The hyrbid and fuel cell technology just isn't there right now.

I think you're trying to combine the pollutant issue with the oil issue and that's not a fair assesment. We're talking about lessening our dependence on foreign sources of fuel. Yes, ethanol will pollute the environment but from what I've read it will be to a much lesser degree. To me, that is a secondary benefit and not my primary concern. There is no feasible fuel source that doesn't pollute. Until we can mass produce hydrogen technology that emits solely water vapor, we'll never see the day.

Yes, we definitely need to begin to consider getting businesses and residences in the Northeast off heating oil. The amount consumed for this purpose alone is outrageous. If folks would consider nuclear energy, we'd save so much in oil around these parts.

My $.02,
Eric

 

All I know is when the oil prices fluctuate widely, I'd love to have the E85 alternative available to me.

I'm just plain looking at this as a cash-in-pocket type of thing. If E85 is cheaper than gas, and I'm not out looking for a pedal-mashing good-time (because without changes to the engine in terms of compression or super/turbo-charging, ethanol will give less power), I'd put E85 in it. It doesn't take much apparently to make a vehicle flex-fuel. Look at all the people with Explorer V6's that didn't realize they were flex-fuel

 

FRED FOR PRESIDENT!

 

I am not lying to you boys. Corn based ethanol is not propaganda or a pipe dream. We have dozens of plants in this state on line right now grinding corn 24/7 and making ethanol to blend with dinosar gas. Dozens more are in the planning stage. It is real! No one is going broke making ethanol and selling distillers grain to the feed lots. Maybe the tax subsidy is the key to profitability, or maybe it just gets everyone to burn it, but whatever, it is here to stay.

Some states (oil rich states I might add) have powerful folks fighting ethanol, for good reason. Would you want to kill the goose that layed the golden egg?
Well, their ox will be gored. The public will not stand for the oil barrons continually robbing them of spendable income enriching themselves with obscene profits, when they could simply burn E-10 or E-85 and save cash. The nicest think is you're spending money for fuel that a portion of it stays right here in the USA, not flowing over to the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or wherever sand pit you find a sheik with an oil pumper. And as far as Big Oil building more refineries---Why? Increasing production will drive prices down...Why would they do that?

Some things just can't be stopped, and this ethanol and E-85 are here to stay, and I am sure Ford will eventually get everything tuned to burn it. The next renuable fuel is soy diesel. A diesel fuel based on soybean oil. Plants are already being constructed to crank that stuff out. In the years to come, the mid west will not just be supplying you folks with beef steaks and pork chops, but also your motor fuel. We as a nation will be better off once this comes to pass.

Yeah- wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen all need further development, but Ethanol is here NOW!

 

Well this is shaking up my understanding of the universe.... Hitler during WWII supposedly ran an entire one of his armies on methanol (admittedly not ethanol) and other than an aversion to water it pretty well worked except that they had to double the fuel tank capacities to be acceptable. So we're saying ethanol has fully double the retrievable energy content of methanol?

Here I am driving an '05 V-10 on Minnesota-mandated 10% ethanol and getting
only 10 mpg driving reasonably conservatively - which has now become 9 mpg since I added 500 pounds of sand in the bed - and this isn't due to crap gas?

What we should do is get mpg feedback from people who live in states that sell real gasoline versus those that don't. From the comments I've been reading long-haulers certainly seem to know the difference!

 

Fred, I've come to respect your opion over the course of time but I will have to greatly disagree with you on this subject, don't take it personaly.

I do however agree 100% with mdpopo59, the current CRP program is crap!! I do like it as it gives me many areas to hunt but on the other hand the majority of it is posted anyway, yet my tax dollars are going towards the payment to that same farmer that won't let me hunt it, WTF! Isn't there something wrong with this picture?? Many farmers rely on that government substidy to keep them a float and the production of E85 may help more than a few keep the family farm together for another generation. Yes, we will need fertilizer to produce these crops but what do you think the farmers do now, I honestly cann't remember the last time I seen a field that was in summer fallow (essetialy left alone for a year to regain nutrients). As far as electricity to produce some these materials, we're (ND) are currently producing a whole lot of FREE electricity with the Garrison Dam and the multiple wind Turbine fields that are going up, last time I checked wind and water was free from mother nature, unfortunatly she sure dishes out a whole lot of wind to our state. We also seem to have an ungodley amount of coal but it souce will eventuialy run out no different than oil.

Also that speaker was from the one of the OIL COMPANIES, not a rep for ethonal or biodiesel which I would have thought we be a direct competor but I was wrong. Also maybe you forgot about the bids that China and Asia are throughing out there to get the new reserves. They need it and they're willing to pay for it. I think us as americans aren't willing to pay $4-$5 a gallon to power our 10-15mpg trucks, I don't know about you but I'll be driving something that runs on a renuable energy source that I can fill up for $2-$3 a gallon. Possibly a diesel (sorry guys) since the largest biodiesel plant in north america is being built accross the road from my office.

Also dont' take this the wrong way fred, but buying foreign oil is far from being a redblood american (for those whishing fred was president). Don't you think us guys that want the US to be indpendant with our energy, putting money in our citizens pockets and saving the country money by not having these trade embargos and fuel taxes and the base cost of crude going to some rich arab that seems to believe our way of life is evil and wrong!!! I think us guys from the midwest may all be in agreement that if anything is good for OUR county it would be having no dependance on foriegn oil. I personally feel that we should have our own dependance on a lot of things but I guess thats what free trade is all about, untill you add the surcharges, trade embargos, taxes, import rates ect ect ect........ Free trade my a$$!! You can't tell me that us midwesterners are unamerican.

I would lastly like to touch on the fact that the farm equiptment runs on diesel which also has the potential to be a very good renuable energy source, even more so than E85. So if the farmers all stopped using Crude diesel and started using Biodiesel then that again would cut our dependancy down, through in the truckers and most all things that use diesel, have the other vehicles run on E85 and now we are essentially down to using oil for lubrication of parts and and certain distillmants that need a petrolium product to exist. This would cut our forieng oil dependancy to "0", we can produce enough oil for our selfs to supply motor oil and other likes that will still be a product of the Crude.

So everyone that has bad things to say about E85, think about a few years down the road when it's costing you $120-$150 for 30 gallons of gasoline and I'm down at the station at the end of the road filling my E85 "Supercharged" "High Compresion" V10 with ethonal for less than half of what your paying, or maybe I be driving a biodiesel that smells like a micky Ds when i stomp on the go pedal.

 

Barebones I'll let you knwo the MPG difference in my taurus after a few months. I keep a log book in all my vehicles and record my fills, cost, Gallons, brand, mileage, and date. I prefer to average my MPGs over a month or more to get an accurate reading so you don't get the one trip that you have a 50mph tail wind and make 37mpg turning into your average. my new taurus burns E85 so I plan to run for a month or so on regualr and the same on E85. I'll post the results but I't won't be untill feb or later, I just bought the car the day before thanksgiving.

Also some of your poor mileage is attributed to oxygenated fuel, some to the way your truck runs in cold weather until at normal opertating temp and probably less than .5% on that 10% ethonal thats added to the fuel. Also don't forget about your warmup times in the winter.

4wd hit the ball outa the park and is calling his shot!! I was typing while you were posts so theres some repetitive data in my post. Good post nontheless. on a side note hows the pheasant population down there. We need some snow here, dang birds are wild as all get out, won't hold for nothin.

 

My fuel economy dropped substantially after the winter fuel kicked in around here. In the summer I get 13.2 (long term average), I am now down to 11.1.

On a good note the pheasant (and deer) hunting has been outstanding!!

 

I am never really offended or ticked off at normal logical and courteous discussion. What makes this country great is the ability, nay the RESPONSIBILITY to debate and discuss!

This is simply an issue I choose as a good way to get folks to research, think, and form opinions with many more facts then when the topic started.

Many of you have valid arguments and on first blush the E85 issue seems pretty Cut 'n Dry.

My point is that it is a mistake in the larger view of this planet.

The observation some one made about starving folks in distant lands is a very selfish and narrow minded view. If you had ever been there and seen the suffering, children sick and weak, parents frustrated and in dispare.... even the most callous, heartless, of us would have to morally ask ourselves ....What can be done to fix this problem? OK we are NOT able to solve that issue here and the discussion could rage for years...at least is has for my entire 50 Years on this planet. (Pity, we can go to the moon, build twin towers, live in New Orleans behind levies and millions of other forms of extreme consumption but we can not agree to solve a solvable problem.)

Our dependence on foreign oil is by design.(Big oil wants to reserve domestic oil for when the price is OBSCENELY high)

We have more resource right here then we need.

Big oil is a free market commodity just like any other.

Oil shortages are a MYTH.

Distribution is deliberately set up to impact the pump price.

Pollution, although a very real problem is NOT a serious problem in America.

The OIL Shill you hear at the presentation is from one of the Conglomerates of a Major Energy Producer. They are out to Exploit and Control that resource Also!

My position is that internally we are not in any severe crisis that requires this extreme reaction. The fundamental problems with oil costs, fuel costs are all well within the ability for us to adapt and pay the price, reduce our personnel consumption, and eventually the price is absorbed back into our incomes or the price of goods and services. In fact the higher costs of over the road and air travel fuel costs have already been reabsorbed and accounted for in pass along price and tax increases. Many of Americas workers that are impacted, government employees, Social Security recipients, retired military and others have had their fixed incomes and travel reimbursement payments increased based on the one time spike of the oil costs.

All I am trying to say is that I think E85 MANDATED is a bad idea.
That the big business that wants this is no better then the Oil companies
That every one of them wants this fuel scheme MANDATED to all of us BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Did I say that loud enough for some of you to get loud n clear?

THEY (the producers and profiteers of this scheme) WANT THE FED TO MANDATE the use of this fuel on ALL OF US

 

SLE - You're the man! Please keep up posted. There are so many conflicting claims in these areas that my brain hurts just trying to keep up with it.....

Fredvon4 - Sorry, can't buy the argument that there's not a serious polution problem in America. Seems like just 3 or 4 months ago "there was a study released" indicating that today's women of child bearing age have hundreds of artificial chemicals/toxins in their blood and I seriously doubt that's a good thing. Time will tell.

On the other hand, I have certainly seen the argument many times that some portion of the drying process in creating ethanol requires as much energy as is eventually produced when burned in cars. But the question may be, which problem are we trying to solve? A lot of your points regarding manipulation of oil supplies and distribution networks could well be true, and is exactly what Enron was doing in the field of electrical energy. Is this the problem this forum is trying to solve, because if so, we're only describing the back end of the problem, which is more governmental in nature. As long as politicians need money for re-election, monied interests will get the laws they want.

On the other hand, if ethanol would work, in these times where so many thousands of jobs are going overseas, what's wrong with creating jobs for farmers in this country?

 

Its also the jobs in the Ethonal plants that is produced and extracted right here in america. I have one point out of freds discusion About government mandated fuel. you had mentioned that E85 advicates are pushing to have it mandated by the government but what did big oil do, doesn't the governement really run everything anyways. look at low sulfer fuel, unleaded fuel, some states runing a mandated amount of ethonal (which is local government), when you get right down to it it's all really the same in this aspect isn't it. also as long as both fuels are used the manufacturers will have to produce vehicles that run on both, yet and engine design specificly for one or the othe would perform better in both performance and fuel mileage, I would love to have both readly avalable but why on the other hand why not have a single fuel as it would be cheaper and more effiecient to have one (as far as costs associated with build cars) than to have two different engines in the same model that accomplish comparable results as far as perforance and mileage. Just a thought that was running though my head, weather or not it makes any sence is a wholen nother topic, lol.

This is a great discusion, it amazes me how civily it always stays down here in the V10 forum, I would bet this wouldn't make it past the third page under a lot of the other forums. keep up the good posts guys!

 

This is some very interesting reading and I have mixed feelings on both points of view.

Here in Canada, over half of what we pay for fuel is Government tax. When gas goes up so does the Governments take.

Northern Alberta has huge reserves of oil but it is expensive to develop better ways of getting it out of the ground. Is it as expensive as running a War Machine to look after an oil supply in a part of the world that hate North Americans with a passion and always will. A lot of Dogs do bite the hand that feed them.

And we can't only think of this Middle East war effort in the cost of dollars only, money is paper, I think of all the brave people that have lost their lives, been crippled to try and keep political stability in a place that never will have it.

Farmers in Canada were paid for years not to grow grain and right now if you had the money to start a wheat farm , 10 years from now you would have less than you started. That is a sad joke among wheat farmers, they love it so much , if they won a lottery, they would just keep farming until the money was gone.

I drive a new 6.8 litre V10 that runs very clean. I drive it because it works for my life style. I pull an RV with it and I use it on my short 8 mile commute to work.

I had a tree hugger that commutes 60 miles one way in a 1987 Mazda scold me for buying the truck. Tell me who is more of a pollution criminal. A guy who chooses to live 60 miles from work, drive an 18 year old car 120 miles a day compared to my 16 in a new V10. This type of attitude makes me puke.

I do not fly all over the planet on Jet Planes that are the real culprit in air pollution.
Yes, a lot of flying is necessary, but a lot of it is bull crap perks for business people.
Through the Internet we can do most of the business that is done by the Jet Set business style.

Our Paper mill had helicopters Flying in and out of here 3 times a day for years.
When the place almost closed down, the company sold the helicopters, it was all smoke and mirrors so some fat *** suit could have lunch 100 miles away and the fumes from those choppers was more sickening than anything coming out our stacks.

Speaking of waste, what bigger waste than the newsprint Indusrty. Grab your big fat Daily read it for 30 minutes and chuck it. Yet the newsprint Indusrty is huge and a very well paid Industry, If I worked all the OT I was offered I would make over a 100,000 bucks a year pulling wrenches and I am but a lowly tradesmen .Most top operators make a lot more than me.

Anyway, I am rambling but thanks for some good reading and nobody is going to make me feel that pickup drivers are evil. SUV owners, yes, but not truck guys.

 

I read everywhere that the big oil companies are gouging and profiting on the high price of oil. What I don't understand are the figures. I think it was Mobil that showed they made 100 Billion dollars last year. But it also showed that their profits were 9 Billion. To me, a 9% profit on a product is not very big. If I owned a business, that would be too small a profit on any thing I sell. Maybe someone could explain to me why a 9% profit is wrong and deserves to be demonized.

 

You are a scolar, well traveled, and a sharp cookie (after all you do drive a V-10 Super Duty!). But, you have missed the mark here on ethanol use being mandated by law. Here in Iowa, it is totally voluntary. If you like 87 octane dinosar unleaded at 8-10 cents/gallon pump price higher than 89 octane ethanol(E-10), or 40 to 50 cents higher than E-85 then go ahead buy it! The only law on the Iowa books that encourages ethanol consumption is the 10 cent/gal tax rebate.

If you want to pay, you can buy anything you want to fuel your vehical.