Gasoline made with corn

[Dogbrain]

Originally Posted by richardnorton

Now using veggie oils mixed with diesel is a GREAT idea, but something has to be found that isn't food and grows wild. I wish the idea of alge would catch on and was cheap to grow, I mean it does grow wild.

That's entirely the wrong thing to want. All it does is create yet ANOTHER "crop" that competes against food, driving up food prices. What you want is for "useless" parts of currently-grown crops to be used for producing fuel. For example, cornstalks. They're too tough to even use in animal feed, too tough for use in making mulches and composts, pretty much too tough for nearly anything, but not tough enough to use as building material (not as tough as bamboo, for example). So, what's done with them? They're wasted. Tons of them every year get burned or otherwise just handled as waste. Instead of that, they could be fermented and used as the basis of fuel.

Why is this not done? Ask the grain company lobbyists who are behind the "ethanol is the fuel of the future" stupidity--that's right, it's NOT "hippies" or "ecofreaks" behind the ethanol scam, it's Arthur-Daniel-Midlands, Monsanto, and that group. THEY are the ones with the money to lobby Congress, not the hippies.

[richardnorton]

Making fuel from alge is the wrong thing to want, I mean alge isn't even grown in soil so it doesn't take up any room used to grow food, and I don't think we would even eat alge in this country. Now the truth is I don't believe that the production of alge as a fuel crop is even at the stage to give us enough quanties at a price that would beat the price of oil at this stage of the game. The idea of waste products like corn stalks and/or even grass cuttings and the discarded cotton plants etc would be a good idea if it could be used as a bio fuel, but again I think as a substitute for gasoline it is not yet been developed. But if you look at the history of the diesel engine, it was originally created to be operated on vegtible oils, diesel fuel didn't even exist back then. Bio diesel isn't that har to make, just in this country we have to make it difficult and even produce something that damages the rubber fuel lines in our older engines, how dumb is that?

[skays1]

Originally Posted by Dogbrain

Ethanol is more expensive to make than gasoline on a per-volume basis. It is less energetic on a per-volume basis, too. If the oil companies had their way, they wouldn't add any of it. The law requires them to . Why? It's an example of what happens when moralists infect the legislature. "We must save the earth!" is just another form of busybody moralism, after all.

It also is a higher pollutant Because you have to use more to go the same distance than regular petroleum, the statistics are calculated based on the same amount of fuel being burned in a lab, in real life its close to a 3 to 1 usage rate to accomplish the same goal. Emissions have gotten WORSE since "bio/flex fuels" were forced on the market.

As with everything the moralist eviro eco nut jobs advocate it is both poorly thought through and being pulled in the background by the very people they despise. Look at the price of goods made with corn, they are valued about 250% higher across the board than they were in 2000, they are making a killing and they dont even care that close to 4 times the amount of pollution is being created.

Yet by repeating the same lie over and over again that "ethynol is somehow better that petrollium" people believe them, kind of the same way "glabal warming" became an "established fact"

[Dogbrain]

Originally Posted by richardnorton

Making fuel from alge is the wrong thing to want, I mean alge isn't even grown in soil so it doesn't take up any room used to grow food,

So what? The water that would be used for algae is ALREADY USED FOR SOMETHING ELSE in the USA. Not a single bit of fresh water in this country is not already put to some use or another.

and I don't think we would even eat alge in this country.

We already raise corn for food and we throw away the stalks. Why is it better to waste enormous amounts of money trying to develop a "crop" that nobody currently grows instead of using a part of a crop that is already grown but it just not put to any use at the moment?

he idea of waste products like corn stalks and/or even grass cuttings and the discarded cotton plants etc would be a good idea if it could be used as a bio fuel, but again I think as a substitute for gasoline it is not yet been developed.

It's developed and already in the pipeline for pilot plants in the midwest.

But if you look at the history of the diesel engine, it was originally created to be operated on vegtible oils, diesel fuel didn't even exist back then. Bio diesel isn't that har to make

It is no harder to make from corn stalks than from algae.

[subwyking]

how about corn made with gasoline... now that's something to worry about.

[southtxdstroyer]

i have read that you can still buy gasoline without ethanol at marinas
i havent check locally but i believe the reasoning is due to boats sitting more than vehicles and not having the same laws that on road vehicles applied to them
i really should go check one of these days