So i guess ethanol isnt as cool as everyone thought it was...
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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15635751/the_ethanol_scam_one_of_americas_biggest_political _boondoggles

The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn't that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after "solutions" that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make from corn.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22301669/

Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since World War II. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price.The nation's corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen runs off fields in Corn Belt states, it makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually pours into the Gulf, where it contributes to a growing "dead zone" — a 7,900-square-mile patch so depleted of oxygen that fish, crabs and shrimp suffocate.

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http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/27/magazines/fortune/ethanol.fortune/index.htm

The ethanol bust:

Cargill announces it's scrapping plans for a $200 million ethanol plant near Topeka, Kan. A judge approves the bankruptcy sale of an unfinished ethanol plant in Canton, Ill.. And that was just Tuesday. Indeed, plans for as many as 50 new ethanol plants have been shelved in recent months, as Wall Street pulls back from the sector

 

and this is surprising anyone?....i was complaining about this recently in a global warming or gas price thread.

 

There's nothing wrong with biofuels. The model T could run on ethanol, and the original diesel was designed to run on vegetable oil, so it's not like it's ground breaking technology, the petroleum products were simply cheaper. The problem is corn and soybeans are not an economically viable crop to produce the fuels. High oil prices have made the research into alternative crops more widespread, but production at a meaningful capacity is still years away. The other problem, especially with ethanol, is the lack of pipeline availability for transportation.

The bottom line is, biofuels, like any other product will be affected by supply and demand. If a gallon of gas hits $10.00, then $5.00 ethanol will sell fine.

 

We're going into a recession. The economy is slowing down. And so will oil consumption.

We've been complaining about high gas prices so long it might not seem like they will ever come down. But if they do, no one will be much interested in ethanol anymore.

 

I've been thinking for awhile that ethanol did not seem like the "cure-all" for oil prices.

I kinda feel like this- Everyone starts growing corn as corn prices go up, other crops are neglected, and then what? Maybe I'm wrong though.

Not surprised to hear about the ethanol plant plans being scrapped, although at my company (process engineering/pump sales) we were trying to get in on a couple ethanol plants that we never heard much about (BIG bucks there).

I'm guessing it probably fell through.

 

i was talking to some of my customer's lately and they've been tell me that the guys growin vegie's arnt goin to do so this year because they can make more $$ growing corn or soybeans. so it looks like there wont be hardly any taters to haul this fall and im shure the price of them spuds will go up in store too.

 

Yeah it sucks because all of these farmers that would otherwise grow something other then corn are now solely growing corn which in turn makes the price of everything else in the supermarkets go up.

 

If you look at pictures of old gas stations you will see a pump for regular gasoline and
and ethanol or gasahol pump, This has been around for a long time and obviously it
didn't work well then and that is why we moved on to a higher btu containing fuel!!
Synthetic gas is a possibility and we should be pouring researchg dollars into that.
**** germany ran their whole war effort on synthetic fuels derived from COAL!! We have lots of coal and the new power generation plants are coal gasification plants, SO
we already have the infrastructure to deliver the coal, the plants to convert the coal
maybe expand them some, The individuals with working knowledge of the process, We
just need to demand the production and supplemention of our crude based fuel with
the synthetic. With oil $103.00 a barrel it is probably getting close to economically
feasible to use the syngas. If it went up .50 cents and it stayed at that price I would
be happy to just know that the price is stable and I can hopefully budget for the price
better, maybe a pay raise too to off set the increase. But this constant flux is driving
me crazy and it is hard to figure out the operating budget when next week the price
could go up .15 cents a gallon like it just did!!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_gas

 

That's what I was thinking...

but then I thought about all the farmers that are being paid to not grow anything, so I didn't know how much extra capacity they had

 

Another problem with ethanol was on our local news. In case of an accident and fire, ethanol can't be extinguished with conventional foam using conventional methods. It takes a special foam that costs 30% more and special application techniques to get the fires out. Most fire departments don't have the foam or training to handle the fires. If you use water, the fire spreads down through drains and wherever the water goes.

 

I heard that story too. It mentioned how ethanol burns hotter that gasoline. It's an interesting point, but it seems like the gasoline tanker fires I've seen on the news are always allowed to just burn themselves out since the fires are too hot & dangerous to get close to. Or maybe they don't have enough of the gas foam either.

No point here really, just an observation. Maybe we have a fireman that can enlighten us if this really is a big deal.