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Ethanol Again--In Michigan

D

Donnie Baker

Member
Might be stirring the pot so I am using my alter ego but here goes. I was up towards Mt. Pleasant today and noticed the that construction on the new ethanol plant at Ithaca has ground to a halt, what gives? Wasn"t that long ago there were billboards all over the place wanting people to invest in the biggest plant in the state. I"ll check back later my direct supervisor Randy is on my back again jeez that guy is a dork, I gotta go
 
Ethanol plants are pretty much just a feel good government boondoggle. They can't make a profit on their own and are in constant need of government handouts to keep running. They artificially inflate other commodities and in general are a complete waste of time and money. But they make some people feel good and that's all that matters.
 
A group of people here got together about 18 months ago and said they were going to build one across the road here from my little water plant. They had a deal worked out to buy steam from the power factory just up the road and every thing. They bought about 125 acres of the industrial park. Was all over the local papers and TV. One of the grand poohbahs showed up out here last winter with a Kubota tractor and pulled up a few trees and pushed some brush out of the fields about a week after the county Zone'n board aproved the change. That's it, no news, no dirt work, no noth'n. Sevral counties and the state was toss'n money at them, for the last 8 months nothing has been said or done.

On a side note, does any one know how much potable water an ethanol factory would need? Was said in the paper that they were going to get water from us here, but we are running at capacity now. Same with our waste water plant. With the chicken factory and a few small towns, we don't have room to run any more for them.

Get back to work Donnie!!

Dave

(For those who have read my post in the past, I do not live in the same county I work in. Here where I work they have Zone'n Laws. I live one county south, where your deed is your permit.)
 
We are building a 100,000 millon gallon ethanol plant in Gibson City, IL. It will grind 100,000 bushels of corn a day and use 1 million gallons of water. The ethanol plant will have 3 wells and and their own water treatment plant.

While it is true that the federal government subsidizes ethanol production, the production of ethanol is saving the US consumer about 60 cents a gallon on the cost of gasoline. The subsidy is about 6 cents per gallon of blended fuel.

The University of Nebraska has completed a study that says the cost of food has increased 1% due to higher grain prices. Put another way for every $1 increase in the price of food due to higher grain prices the US consumer saves $6 on the fuel they put in their vehicles.

Ethanol is only part of the puzzle and the use of corn as a feed stock is only a partial answer until we figure out how to efficiently make ethanol from cellulose and other waste material. In the mean time those ethanol plants are also producing a high value livestock corn that can replace some of the corn in livestock diets.

BTW, the contractor for our plant is Fagen.
One Earth Energy.
 
There is a new one being built just south of Fulton KY in Tenn. I do no know the name of the town in TN, I just remember it was south of Fulton KY. Now, how far along they are I have know idea either. Sure wish I had there grain storage bins.
 
Thanks for the numbers. While our waist water plant could take another million, especaly if it was pre treated a little, here at the water factory we would have to expand. We are a 4 million plant and the state says if we run over 3 million 80% of the time we have to expand and we are pushing that now.

While I think that right here were we are with the river, steam, corn, rail, and soon to be interstate hwy (just a re-name and upgrade) this would be a good spot. I just don't realy think much of a few of the names that are spear head'n this out fit.

Dave
 
An ethanol plant was planned at Rogersville, Missouri and local people fought it in court based on what it would do to the water table. Believe they won, at least the plant is not being built.
 
Found this on the web. Wonder if it might have something to do with some of it.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868
 
I have a friend in Brandon, SD who owns a welding business. He says he has built at least three ethanol plants in that area in the last couple of years and none of them ever opened. I think a lot of that has happened. Just watched a show on
TV about corn and ethanol. All I know is that auto's get far less mileage even on 10% ethanol.The price doesnt go down at all Nuff said Henry
 
If we would just drill for more oil we could stop the foolishness of corn ethanol. Corn ethanol is a waste. It is nothing but government susidized waste. We should be like Brazil, drill for more of our own oil and make ethanol not from corn but from other byproducts like cellulose. Food prices would come down and result in a decrease in world starvation. With the high price of corn, the plants will never turn a profit. Get out of business, you would be if you never made a profit.
 
Ethanol and other alternate energy has to be subsidized with tax dollars. The old stand by, oil and coal are taxed and are generating tax to pay for the alternate. Go figure, don't sound fair to me.
 

Borrowing a buddy's prototype, "Brown's Gas" ... maker to try on my grand cherokee this weekend. He has a refined set up in his car now. Says he's seeing up to 5mpg better on his. It seems like a little more maintenance on keeping an eye on the water and soda mix, etc., but the miles I commute, it'll hopefully save me fill-up time anyway. He has a diesel and a generator that are next on the list. I may see what it'll do for the 8N for snowplowing and my own generator. It IS suppose to really help diesel performance and doesn't carbon up the oil so much. there are a lot of U-tube videos on it.
 
Follow the money....
If you can't sell the juice at a profit, no point building a plant to lose more money.

Rod
 
Where are you located? I have done some trucking for that plant in Gibson. I live in rural Fairbury.
 
From what i read you cant do anything in Mich anymore. So how do we sell so much here in IOWA the demand for the byproducts is going crazy and we can raise the corn.We have only been doing it for around 30yrs and it just gets better every day.The export of corn is the highest in history and we still have the largest carryover they are now getting over 3 gal per bushel you should stop reading the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Isnt it about time the farmer gets paid for his efforts and why should food be cheap when they build huge houses and then park a big SUV in the driveway then complain because food prices went up a couple %.
 
I would like to see a test on say your N ford and generator with constant load and RPM. If you sized the Browns Gas generator correctly I think you should need little or no gas.
 
I don't like to argue on this board but get the facts straight please.

Brazil makes ethanol from sugar cane not cellulose.

Food is high cause of oil prices to transport it.

World starvation was high when corn was $2.00.

The plants are still turning a strong profit making ethanol.

And we will still have a carry over in corn supplies at the end of this marketing year.
 
Don't beleive all you read until you try it.

With 10% ethanol you will see little if any reduction in mileage.

Try it and compare for yourself, don't believe all you read that is put out there by the press.
 
True, Brazil is making ethanol from cane. They're also mowing down the jungle and mining that soil out to do it...
What happens to Brazil, and out fertilizer prices when they have no more jungle to cut down?
God help us if they can pay for the N that they will soon realize they need...

Rod
 
NOt believing what I read.!!! My own car has had lots of 10% ethanol in it. Went to
Fla thru Alabama and had to use 10% because thats all they had. Drove over 800 miles and my mileage dropped more than 10%. Up here in the mountains I use pure gas and it gets a lot more mileage than on the flat roads of Alabama Henry
 
Experts say it takes about 3 gal of water to turn a gal of ethanol out of a plant.

Most plants would recycle at least some of this water; while some will disappear as water vapor.

--->Paul
 
Thank you much.

That's one of the lower numbers I have heard.

I think they were say'n this is going to be a 50,000 gal/day joint. If they need 150,000 a day we might could swing that, with more storage room. We could fill'm up on the weekends where we slow down or stop now when the chicken factory shuts down.

Dave
 
i leased a GMC 4X WITH THE E-85 BURNING ENGINE LAST JUNE, 105 OCTANE 60CENTS LESS PER GALLON,
13MPG/AVERAGE; WIFES 2004 DINO BURNER DOES NOT GET ANT BETTER, PLUS MY CORN ALL GOES TO THE ANDERSONS PLANT IN ALBION,FOR TWICE AS MUCHAS IT WAS A FEW YRS AGO;ONLY THING WRONG WITH THIS PIC IS THE BS INPUT COST INCREASE' AND LAST I CHECK THEY DONT USE CORN SQEESONS TO MAKE FERT/ SPRAY
 
Gary I value your friendship, but my 02 4.3 S10 dropped 2 MPG since MO started requiring 10%. I did a complete tune up and saw no change.
 
Can you buy regular still or is it all 10%ethanol?

I have been going back and forth here in Iowa between ethanol and regular gas for 30 years now.

I have never seen any mileage reduction in ethanol in 10 or 12 different cars and trucks.

Switch back to reg. if you can and check it.

I do not like that they are forcing you to use ethanol, they don't here in Iowa.

Gary
 
I was told oil is also subsidized. How much I don't know. I know they get land really cheap from us, us meaning from the government.

My tractor runs better on 100% gasoline than 10% ethanol. My car I don't see a difference but then I can't get 100% gasoline for my car to prove it..
 
"they build huge houses and then park a big SUV in the driveway"
Most farmers I see have the same.
 
Less energy, more work to pull a load. I went on a trip through PA, VA and some of the pumps said 10% but the prices said $3.75-3.90. Less energy, same price = screwjob.
 
The ethanol plant in Ithaca was planning on receiving substantial government funding to help offset the cost of construction. Basically their business plan was to depend on the government $ to help make the plant profitable. The government abruptly ended the program last year and denied funding to any plant that was not presently opperating, thus most plants under construction were brought to a halt. While I don't know for sure, I would say the developers were basing their busines plan on a "get rich quick scheme" and took down a few investors with them after they lost the handout from the government. It's probaly not the only one that shut down before it was built.
 
Was that the whole story or did they just flat not have enough investors? A freind of mine went to two investor meetings and was THIS close to investing. He's SURE glad he didn't.
 
Thing is most of you are ALREADY burning 10% ethanol and don't know it - especially if you're buying anything above 87 octane.
 
From what I heard about the Ithaca plant is that the investors pulled out after the price of ethanol dropped and corn rised the profitability of ethanol has dropped alot. There are also some problems buying that quantity of corn that far north with the already 5 ethanol plants in the state to the south competing for corn, meaning they may have to go to Ohio just to get enough corn and you go 50 to 100 miles north and you are into all forest acreage and very little row crop production.
 
A lot of negative comments are made about corn ethanol. There was a commentary in the local newspaper slamming corn ethanol. Then the article went on to state that we have enough oil for centuries and do not need any form of alternatives until then. People are making all kind of claims against ethanol but seem to have little evidence to back it up. This whole debacle has gotten ridiculous. Maybe when and not if gasoline goes to $8.00 a gallon people will wise up. But I doubt it. They will whine about the cost of gasoline and say we should do something. But we should not use ethanol, not build nuclear power plants, not use coal, not develop shale oil. It might be better to do something rather than nothing. To those who criticize I ask what are you doing to help solve our energy crisis. We are becoming a nation of not doers as opposed to doers. And this my friends will bring America to its knees within the next decade.
 
There are a lot of trucks, trains, and barges hauling corn, ethanol, and distiller grains, around the Pekin, IL area. I don't pretend to know about plant efficiency or how much fossil fuel it takes to make ethanol. All I know is thanks to the ethanol plants there are a lot of $20 to $30 an hour jobs around here even for guys like me who didn't go to college. I know if we didn't have the ethanol plants creating all those jobs you'd see a lot more forclosure signs in front of houses.
 
Donny,
The best thing to do with corn squeezens is to drink it, I swear to God it is. Did you ever sell your boat??
 
Henry,
Not believing that you would post such bs and expect anyone to believe it. Do you know how to figure gas mileage??? Are you driving 20 mph in the mountains and 70 on a real road, or are you only going down hill in the hills???
 
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