One more thought, then I'm done

flying belgian

Well-known Member
I am a full time farmer and make my living raising corn so I want to like ethanol, I really do want to. But why don't they power these ethanol plants with ethanol? Oil industry powers there refineries with oil. If ethanol were the better deal then oil ind. would use it to power there refineries and ethanol would use it to power their own plants. OK I'm ready.
 
I believe the cost of heat from natural gas or coal is much lower than the opportunity cost of not selling the ethanol.
 
As far as I could tell, the whole ethanol thing started with a bunch of scam artists (several of them went to jail, but most escaped with the money and no jail time).

It's pretty similar to the CNG hoax foisted on the public. ADOT put in a pumping station and converted quite a few vehicles. The engines ran poorly, had the nasty habit of dying in the middle of the intersection when taking off after a red light - and the darn vehicles couldn't be made to pass emissions tests!!

When politics takes over, common sense and the laws of physics go out the window.

Whenever I am in a state with high ethanol content, my mileage takes a serious dip.
We need something better than ethanol.
 
corn is cattle feed . not to make lousy gas out of. farmers feed the world let the oil barrons provide the gas kinda tired of replacing fuel pumps that are gumed up or stuck from sorry gas
 
I have made that comment on here a couple of times. I believe the answer is there would be nothing left to sell
 
People confuse actual price with subsidized price.

How many times have you heard people talk about how cheap electricity is when generated with solar panels or windmills because the State and Federal subsidies made the panels/windmills so cheap? That doesn"t make the electricity cost effective, it just forces someone else to pay for it (think taxpayers). Same with ethanol.
 
Yea,and the solar panel factories would get their electric power from solar panels,but what are you gonna do.
 
Bingo. Different fuels for different purposes- you can put ethanol in a tank for vehicle fuel, but not so with natural gas or coal, at least on a practical basis.

And you corn guys really need to try harder to like ethanol. Or two dollar corn. Take your pick.
 
Oil companies power their refineries with natural gas. They can"t afford the oil either.
 
No one on this forum knows the answer to Why Ethanol, or Why to solar, or Why to wind, but on and on come some explanations of the source.
I know when the best brains in the world will tell you we don't know until time tested procedures, are proven the best which fuel will be the one - is still unknown even in time, maybe not our time. But transportation as we know it, will change. Why some one would claim to know all about ethanol, is beyond belief, when they use this product to begin research. Bill Gates claims many things can be used. It is still unknown. AS we speak, Arizona will charge, for solar power going back into the grid. When the general public finds out what the masses needs we will have the power issue solved.
 
Oil refineries use natural gas, just as all big consumers of stationary heat do. You always take a lower value, less dense fuel to make heat, and use the higher valued fuels, ethanol, gasoline, diesel, bio diesel, as transportation fuel with their very high weight/volume to energy ratios.

It would be foolish to use these fuels to just make more of the same fuels.

The new versions of ethanol plants are planning to start using corn stover to make cellulosic ethanol, in addition to the ethanol from grain. They plan to use the residue of the stover to create heat. This would do what you say, basically use the corn stalks to cook the ethanol.

Just as you want.

Will it work, I donno, only a couple of pilot plants are being set up now to work out the bugs. You would gather corn, corn stalks. Ferment the corn, ferment the stalks in a different bin. Distill out the ethanol from both using the heat from burning the used up cornstalks. Sell ethanol from both, sell ddg from the corn side, and use the ash from the cornstalk side for a low level fertilizer.

Paul
 
(quoted from post at 03:59:59 11/28/13) People confuse actual price with subsidized price.

How many times have you heard people talk about how cheap electricity is when generated with solar panels or windmills because the State and Federal subsidies made the panels/windmills so cheap? That doesn"t make the electricity cost effective, it just forces someone else to pay for it (think taxpayers). Same with ethanol.

Oil is subsidized with our childrens lives. Would we be in the middle east if not for oil?
 
I think ethanol was originally added to gasoline to reduce pollution, and I think that is a justifiable reason to use 10%, but any more than that is not feasible.
 
I believe Ethanol started as the Corn Growers Assocation. They looked at Brazil and the fact that they were using straight alcohol in lot of veh.'s and it was made from sugar cane. At this time there was a surplus of corn and so low prices. Our people were holloring about oil and gas cost and the middle east so the growers pushed for Ethanol and got congress to pass laws for it's use, hoping it would relieve oil and boost corn prices. . So you see it's us--FARMERS for the mess we are in with Ethanol
 
After the ethanol is extracted from the corn the corn is fed to cattle. It does both. No protein is lost from the corn when making ethanol. My son in law and grandson sell all the corn they grow and truck in the corn mash to use in their cattle feed business where they have contracts to fill cattle feeders for several thousand head of cattle with their bulk feed trucks. They would have to charge more if they bought corn to grind to fill the feeders.
 
(quoted from post at 15:53:06 11/27/13) You still feed the cattle with the wet feed after the process is done. I don"t know why some people can"t see that.

Because you're paying for a lot of water and it's obscenely expensive by the time you get it trucked to your stock.
 
(quoted from post at 16:10:14 11/27/13) No one on this forum knows the answer to Why Ethanol, or Why to solar, or Why to wind, but on and on come some explanations of the source.
I know when the best brains in the world will tell you we don't know until time tested procedures, are proven the best which fuel will be the one - is still unknown even in time, maybe not our time. But transportation as we know it, will change. Why some one would claim to know all about ethanol, is beyond belief, when they use this product to begin research. [b:2c6e8ceb15] Bill Gates claims many things can be used. [/b:2c6e8ceb15] It is still unknown. AS we speak, Arizona will charge, for solar power going back into the grid. When the general public finds out what the masses needs we will have the power issue solved.

Bill Gates is a computer builder, not a fuel genius or any other kind of genius. Look into some of the other "really great ideas" Bill and Melinda have come up with.
 
(quoted from post at 16:57:03 11/27/13)
(quoted from post at 03:59:59 11/28/13) People confuse actual price with subsidized price.

How many times have you heard people talk about how cheap electricity is when generated with solar panels or windmills because the State and Federal subsidies made the panels/windmills so cheap? That doesn"t make the electricity cost effective, it just forces someone else to pay for it (think taxpayers). Same with ethanol.

Oil is subsidized with our childrens lives. Would we be in the middle east if not for oil?

The why are we in Korea, Japan, Germany, Spain, Africa, Central America and all over the worlds oceans? Big story just day before yesterday on how Saudi Arabia is losing influence because mid east oil just isn't that important anymore. Ya think maybe 9/11 had a little something to do with us being in Afghanistan, a nation with basically no oil?
 
I've read/heard about oil being subsidized by the companies receiving tax breaks for things like for exploration. Well, if a farmer plants an experimental crop they write off the cost of tillage, planting, fertilizing, depreciation of equipment, weed control and harvesting (farmer may also qualify for grants for an experimental crop). If JD spends money developing a new tractor they write that off. If a company pays for market research they too write that off.

The government isn't forcing people to use gas or oil. They do force people to use ethanol. So by mandate ethanol has a government guarantied market.

"Our children lives subsidizing oil"? Today, with current population levels we need certain things to survive. Food and oil are the 2 biggest items. Now the American farmer has proven that they can indeed feed the US. We may not get everything we like to eat from the US but farmers can produce more food than Americans can consume. We can live and live well if we stopped importing any food. We cannot live without importing oil at this time. Over 40% of our daily needs has to be imported. Not only used to move our collectively lazy back sides around but it plants our food, takes others to and from work, moves goods to the consumer, heats our homes, cooks out food and plants/harvests our food. So oil is vital to our national security. Cheap oil is just as important. So our young men and women, in harms way, in the middle east, are not subsidizing oil. They are protecting us and our way of life. You cannot say that about ethanol.

Other than making corn prices artificially high and putting more money in some farmers pockets show me what good ethanol does. Don't get me wrong. Farmers should make money. But they should do it the same way most other businesses do. By meeting supply and demand. Not by chasing last years prices. If you can't make a living or a reasonable profit without government intervention maybe you shouldn't be farming.

Corn growers who advocate ethanol because it drives up the price of corn are no better than the companies operating out of sheer greed IMO. You can't "feed the world" if the people can't afford to eat.

Rick
 
When you talk about using other fuel to make fuel. Think of this. I live in western NE and the railroads are full of coal trains going to various power plants. The powerplants produce electricity they use coal or natural gas to power them. The train engines use diesel fuel to pull the coal trains. The cranes and trucks and diggers at the coal mines use diesel fuel. The windturbines and towers are made in factorys that use electricity. Farm tractors and combines use oil products are made of steel and other products. The use of ethanol wind, solar, and nuke will never get rid of the need of OIL. Some relief but not riddance. I agree that the gov. regulations are the problem. Really the EPA is ruining the country not saving it.
 
and people who constantly whine about things that they don't know much about are no better than, well, people who whine about things they don't know much about.
 
(quoted from post at 16:01:57 11/27/13) Oil companies power their refineries with natural gas. They can"t afford the oil either.

Oh they can afford the oil but NG is a byproduct of oil/ oil wells. Lot of places they just burn it off. So using it t power a refinery is simple math. Take what is burned as a waste product and burn it for power.

Rick
 
(quoted from post at 08:04:05 12/02/13) and people who constantly whine about things that they don't know much about are no better than, well, people who whine about things they don't know much about.


What? Trying to get people to see your side by ridiculing them seldom works. Lot of anti ethanol folks don't know any more about ethanol than what they have been told. Most corn growers only know that it puts money in their pocket. I've yet to meet a farmer who is also a petro chemical engineer or a CEO of a large publicly traded company.

So, from the anti's I expect to hear that ethanol sucks. From the corn grower I expect to hear that ethanol is the greatest thing sense sliced bread or toilet paper. From a CEO running an ethanol plant I expect him to pretty much say the same thing as the corn grower. Now just why should I believe the latter 2 when their prime motivation is greed?

Rick
 
(quoted from post at 09:32:22 12/02/13) Greed? Seriously?

A farmer makes a little money for a couple years, and that's greed?

No the greed parts come in when that individual maintains that what they are doing is great when in fact it can be bad for the tax payer, the environment, public safety or anything else that stands in the way of profit. When a company acts like that we all yell about greed but yet a farmer can do the same thing and it isn't greed?

I know that foreign countries are yell that we are not planting enough wheat, not cause shortages but driving the price up where their people can't afford to buy it. I also know that food prices here in the US have gone up.

I know the EPA is claiming environmental concerns with the land coming out of CRP.

I know farmers who raise livestock that have been hurt by corn prices which spiked because of ethanol.

I know farmers who receive subsidies which is bad for every tax payer.

I don't know one corn grower who cares one little bit about the above and defends ethanol because of money in their pockets. Sorry, that's greed. What would you call it?

Rick
 
I'd call it capitalism.

I don't know of one livestock farmer who cares one little bit when a corn farmer is losing his shirt. They defend low corn prices because it puts money in their pockets.

Same goes with the foreign countries who are crying about wheat prices. They don't care if the farmer is producing the wheat at a loss. They just care that it's cheap.

All farmers receive subsidies to keep the price of food artificially low in this country so the people don't riot and revolt. Without them most farmers would go bankrupt, the food supply would disappear, prices would skyrocket, and all hell would break loose.
 
For myself, I like Ethanol simply for fuel diversity. Not all vehicles can be electric, gas or diesel. Just diversity. There's also the fact that it can be made. MUCH harder to make gasoline. Of course we can also make bio diesel, but diversity helps us survive. Ethanol is a straight forward process and can even be done at home.

While having industry at it's height is great, I think most can agree that the earth has not seen its last downturn.

From an economic standpoint, at least its another thing corn can go for. Some people say it's raised food prices while others point to huge overstocks of corn.

Plants use other fuel sources because it's more efficient, not because they can't.
 
(quoted from post at 21:16:11 12/02/13) For myself, I like Ethanol simply for fuel diversity. Not all vehicles can be electric, gas or diesel. Just diversity. There's also the fact that it can be made. MUCH harder to make gasoline. Of course we can also make bio diesel, but diversity helps us survive. Ethanol is a straight forward process and can even be done at home.

While having industry at it's height is great, I think most can agree that the earth has not seen its last downturn.

From an economic standpoint, at least its another thing corn can go for. Some people say it's raised food prices while others point to huge overstocks of corn.

Plants use other fuel sources because it's more efficient, not because they can't.
ith all the chemicals growers use now days, it probably isn't fit to eat, so do something else with it!
 
Once again, you overestimate your own intelligence. (Hint; Anything above moron and you're there Dude! ) I have no illusions of winning you over. It's apparent from the get go that you're too close minded and unable to think for yourself to see anything but your point of view. I'm not going to waste MY valuable time attempting to educate you. It's just pure entertainment stirring up windbags like yourself.

So, you see the ability to run a profitable business in todays economy as "greed". That sounds like rationale for your failures at your occupation. Never begrudge others for your own shortcomings.

And yes, I HAVE met a number of farmers who ARE CEO's of large publicly traded companies. Funny thing....You don't get to that pay grade by being an idiot that backs losing propositions on a regular basis.
 
(quoted from post at 10:32:36 12/04/13) Once again, you overestimate your own intelligence. (Hint; Anything above moron and you're there Dude! ) I have no illusions of winning you over. It's apparent from the get go that you're too close minded and unable to think for yourself to see anything but your point of view. I'm not going to waste MY valuable time attempting to educate you. It's just pure entertainment stirring up windbags like yourself.

So, you see the ability to run a profitable business in todays economy as "greed". That sounds like rationale for your failures at your occupation. Never begrudge others for your own shortcomings.

And yes, I HAVE met a number of farmers who ARE CEO's of large publicly traded companies. Funny thing....You don't get to that pay grade by being an idiot that backs losing propositions on a regular basis.

Not only are you in denial, but also and abusive, name calling adolescent. Sure are such a big man hiding behind a computer screen calling people names.

Rick
 
HAAAAAAAAA! So did you get your itty bitty feelings hurt little girl?

That's funny stuff,,, Calling me names and accusing me of being a "name calling adolescent".

Not in denial Sparky. The difference between me and you is, I can see reality and you haven't the foggiest notion what reality is. Go play with your Barbie doll and leave mommy's computer alone until you grow up a bit.
 

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