EPIC calls for some unity on the ethanol issue, darnit
Holidays in the U.S. are used for so much more than celebrating. We've got President's day sales, the Christmas shopping season, special Easter candy flavors (notice a trend?). For the Fourth of July, something to do with being free is often in order, and this year the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) has decided that it's energy independence that we need to focus on as a country, dagnabit.
EPIC has put out a statement calling for "unity in search of solutions." By coming together, fellow Americans, EPIC thinks that July 4th could become Energy Independence Day, with ethanol and other renewables for all. A few smarter driving sacrifices (if you can call consolidating trips when gas is at $4/gallon a sacrifice) and increased biofuel output would shift the balance of domestic vs. foreign energy sources to a more homegrown one.
Note: if we're going to be using corn to make all of this ethanol, let's not forget that October 16 is World Food Day.
[Source: EPIC]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sasha 12:11PM (7/03/2008)
I've got some unity for you. Let's all unify to get together and lynch these ethanol bastards.
Making fuel out of edible foods is just about the stupidest thing I can think of. The only stupider thing is squeezing high fructose corn syrup out of it to poison our kids.
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david burgdorff 12:47PM (7/03/2008)
Believe it or not there are people in my area that buy E85 even though its only $0.50/gallon less than gas. Don't they know it has 20% less energy content?
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jpm100 1:21PM (7/03/2008)
"I've got some unity for you. Let's all unify to get together and
lynch these ethanol bastards. "
You do realize when corn becomes economical to make ethanol for biofuel, that we can choose to not to pursue it. But that won't stop other nations from buying our corn to make ethanol. Some European countries are on a path to primarily use ethanol already and this includes countries that don't grow any of their own sources.
Just like increased export demand for North American produce has helped drive up the cost of food, they'll simply buy it to make ethanol too. [when it becomes cost effective to do so].
We can miss that boat here too and be stuck with oil as our only source of liquid fuel.
Fortunately, cellulosic has a chance of making that all moot anyway.
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matt 4:18PM (7/03/2008)
I am all for ethanol, though I would like to see it made out of something else other than corn. (cough..switch grass or hemp).
Anyway, I seen various Subaru tuners make 40 more HP out of ethanol tunes yet loose only 1-2mpg. Turbo Subaru's seem to respond well to ethanol. The ecu tunes can make more HP with less boost, thus being safer for the car's longevity. The faster burn of ethanol spools the turbo a little quicker as well. If there was a station near me, I'd gladly pay 500.00 for a custom ecu map(you can get some of that back as a bio conversion expense).
If I wanted to run regular gas, I'd have to switch computer maps manually. However, unlike flex-fuel cars I wouldn't loose as much mpg since I be tuned more aggressively for the 105 octane. e.g. flex-fuel cars need to be dumbed down slightly to account for the differences in fuel mixtures.
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MadScientistMatt 3:51PM (7/04/2008)
Ethanol does have an advantage as cheap race fuel - I recall once seeing an E85 Mustang walk off with the most horsepower award at a dyno shootout, and they'd brought a four cylinder to run against V8s!
But environmentally, I don't see corn based ethanol being a long term solution. You grow an entire corn plant to just make ethanol from the kernels, and the distillation technology they use isn't just a mature technology now, it was a mature technology when Jack Daniels set up his still in the 19th century. I don't see much room for improvement.
The corn ethanol industry has been responsible for a lot of the disunity. There's a limited amount of money that is available for environmental causes, like it or not, and way too much of it has gone into places like Archer Daniels Midland's pockets. I'd respect EPIC's call for unity a lot more if they also called for Big Agriculture to do their part towards unity - maybe calling for a complete abolition of corn ethanol subsidies so the idea could stand on its own merits instead of wasting tax dollars.