Corn-based ethanol will go down in history as the Betamax of automobile fuel types.

As the only farmer on TotalFark, I can say that ethanol benefits everybody. As for the environmental cost of raising the corn (or the cane, or the sawgrass or whatever) we've been raising it for a long time. The increased acres of corn was nowhere near what people were expecting, as us farmer types realized that $15 soybeans, were just as profitable as $5 corn.

People hate the farmer subsidies, but those same people seem to hate ethanol. Ethanol is a way out of subsidies, and in the future can even be cracked to create hydrogen, you can even do the same with corn oil, which needs no fermentation process. Most people don't realize that most of our hydrogen comes not from water, but from petroleum.

So in summary, we're screwed no matter where we turn, so we might as well try to use fuel that can be grown from a renewable resource rather than from an extremely unstable part of the world where most people hate the US.

BTW, the Prius isn't even E85 capable.

Fraggler: Corn-based ethanol will go down in history as the Betamax of automobile fuel types.

This!



/Turning food into fuel? Damn stupid idea.

Better to turn it into ethanol than high fructose corn syrup.

Your point being . . .?

Two words:
Legalize it. (new window)

/Just one more reason.

Prius use ethanol?

And yet we still pay farmers not to grow food...

Ethanol sucks. The conversion of ethanol is actually an energy losing proposition. I would post link to sources, but don't care enough right now. And my family owns a farm!

Mercutio879 As the only farmer on TotalFark, I can say that ethanol benefits everybodyMercutio879.

FTFY

For the rest of us, it's bad for the environment, it drives up the cost of food, it drives up the cost of energy, and it takes our money to give to the welfare queens in agribusiness.

pinch_harmonics: Prius Prii use ethanol?

/pet peeve

Give a man a fish...

Mercutio879: Most people don't realize that most of our hydrogen comes not from water, but from petroleum.

I thought most of it came from natural gas, not petroleum.

/yes, there's gas in petroleum fields
//lives in Arizona, land of lots of natural gas fields
///lots of helium comes from natural gas wells in Arizona

Tell 'em [the poor] to stop breeding!

Yeah, PI... but true

leegalizit: Two words:
Legalize it. (new window)

/Just one more reason.

Not that I'm against legalization per se... But I can't believe that some dweeb with an angelfire page as solved the worlds energy problems with that "revolutionary" idea.

In fact, if biofuels were profitable, they would've been fattening coporate CEOs for decades already. I'm concerned about energy, the planet, the future for my kids also, but I'm a realist to. The only way out of our inevitable demise, is conservation first and foremost, and a technological breakthrough.

If growing weed could power anything and processing was cheaper than retrieving oil, like I said, hempmobiles would've been the reality long ago. Same goes for any biofuel.

That might lower the smug factor!

hm.
maybe if we really wanted to help the poor, starving nations of the world, we could offer family planning/birth control education services, plus health and sanitation aid, rather than feeding and helping them to continue overpopulating areas that cannot support them.
Families in destitute conditions try to have as many children as possible to ensure that they'll be taken care of in old age, as chances are that few of their children will live that long. If we can help them to take better care of themselves without adding to overpopulation, I'm pretty sure we'll all be better off.

Mercutio879: As the only farmer on TotalFark, I can say that ethanol benefits everybody. As for the environmental cost of raising the corn (or the cane, or the sawgrass or whatever) we've been raising it for a long time. The increased acres of corn was nowhere near what people were expecting, as us farmer types realized that $15 soybeans, were just as profitable as $5 corn.

People hate the farmer subsidies, but those same people seem to hate ethanol. Ethanol is a way out of subsidies, and in the future can even be cracked to create hydrogen, you can even do the same with corn oil, which needs no fermentation process. Most people don't realize that most of our hydrogen comes not from water, but from petroleum.

So in summary, we're screwed no matter where we turn, so we might as well try to use fuel that can be grown from a renewable resource rather than from an extremely unstable part of the world where most people hate the US.

BTW, the Prius isn't even E85 capable.


The only big problem I know of re: ethanol production is the amount of water it uses up....I can't find reliable figures on this at them moment, but I'm sure you'd have some idea--from what I recall, ethanol production wastes a LOT of water compared to other fuel production....but then, I don't know if that's something that could be improved over time.

but I certainly agree that we cannot keep relying so heavily on foreign oil sources. we've screwed up SO badly in that part of the world, and I think it's time to back the fark off.

I bet lots of them green and so-called well-meaning types are currently caught in the middle of a moral problem

"Africans, or the Earth?"

Although, I wonder if the White Power types will now feel there's a real incentive to use ethanol

jackbooty: Give a man a fish...

...and he will be offended that you didn't give him money.

No, standard Prii don't use ethanol, like Mercutio879 said.

Well, that's not completely true, because all regular gas in the US has SOME percentage of ethanol, but we're talking E85, and there's just none that do. I'm sure someone's made a converted superhybrid one somewhere, but you can't get it that way from Toyota.

I'm not saying E85 is bad, great that it's renewable (if you can eliminate the energy used to produce it, then maybe it's even better) but for the regular consumer who just cheap like me and not concerned about saving the world, it doesn't help. Sure, it's cheaper than regular gas (at least around here), but everyone I know with a flexfuel vehicle says they get about 20-25% LESS mileage when using it, so the cost works out to be about the same.

heypete: Mercutio879: Most people don't realize that most of our hydrogen comes not from water, but from petroleum.

I thought most of it came from natural gas, not petroleum.

/yes, there's gas in petroleum fields
//lives in Arizona, land of lots of natural gas fields
///lots of helium comes from natural gas wells in Arizona

it comes from unnatural gas of the patrons of taco bell

Will_The_Thrill: Ethanol sucks. The conversion of ethanol is actually an energy losing proposition. I would post link to sources, but don't care enough right now. And my family owns a farm!

If Isaac Newton heard about this ethanol bullshiat, he'd be rolling in his grave so hard we could stick some magnets down there and power the West Coast.

/He'd also want some mercury
//The man liked his mercury

Maybe... hey, maybe! Maybe they should MOVE OUT OF THE DESERT!!! AHHH! AHHHHHHHH!!! (screams like Sam Kinison)

Mercutio879: As the only farmer on TotalFark, I can say that ethanol benefits everybody.

TFA:
THE US will drastically reduce emergency food aid to some of the poorest countries this year due to soaring food prices, The Washington Post reports today.

For a given value of "everybody", I guess

Big Oil: ETHANOL KILLS LITTLE BABIES AND NEEDS 150 GALLONS OF OIL TO BE PRODUCED PER SQUARE FEET!

Reality check: Brazil's 29-year-old ethanol fuel program uses cheap sugar cane, mainly bagasse (cane-waste) for process heat and power, and modern equipment, and provides a ~22% ethanol blend used nationwide, plus 100% hydrous ethanol for four million cars. The Brazilian ethanol program provided nearly 700,000 jobs in 2003, and cut 1975-2002 oil imports by a cumulative undiscounted total of US$50 billion.[1] Today, Brazil gets more than 30% of its automobile fuels from sugar cane-based ethanol.[2]

Link (new window)


Pick a side.

I thought poor nations wanted higher agriculture prices so their farmers could make more money for their crops.

So the poor will starve anyways no matter what I put in the tank, Its the way our Govt works.

Yes, because the massive increase in fuel prices has nothing to do with the cost of food. It's all ethanol's fault.

Mercutio879: As the only farmer on TotalFark, I can say that ethanol benefits everybody. As for the environmental cost of raising the corn (or the cane, or the sawgrass or whatever) we've been raising it for a long time. The increased acres of corn was nowhere near what people were expecting, as us farmer types realized that $15 soybeans, were just as profitable as $5 corn.

People hate the farmer subsidies, but those same people seem to hate ethanol. Ethanol is a way out of subsidies, and in the future can even be cracked to create hydrogen, you can even do the same with corn oil, which needs no fermentation process. Most people don't realize that most of our hydrogen comes not from water, but from petroleum.

So in summary, we're screwed no matter where we turn, so we might as well try to use fuel that can be grown from a renewable resource rather than from an extremely unstable part of the world where most people hate the US.

BTW, the Prius isn't even E85 capable.

Yeah, but think of the hatred for "the West" that would ensue once the third world finds out that food is literally going into the tanks of our SUVs.

This one is a bit close to home

Link (new window)

Fraggler


Win.

Mercutio879: As the only farmer on TotalFark

Ahh, TF and a Farmer! Blasphamer! If you were a real farmer you wouldn't have time for fark or the money for TF! Im on to you!

/Raised on a full time family hog farm until I was out of high school, parents still run it today
//Will go back to farming someday, cause Im starting to realize the "chained to a desk" job is the suck!

Mercutio879: .

People hate the farmer subsidies, but those same people seem to hate ethanol. farmers who need subsidies and are incapable of running a business.

Jose628: Big Oil: ETHANOL KILLS LITTLE BABIES AND NEEDS 150 GALLONS OF OIL TO BE PRODUCED PER SQUARE FEET!

Reality check: Brazil's 29-year-old ethanol fuel program uses cheap sugar cane, mainly bagasse (cane-waste) for process heat and power, and modern equipment, and provides a ~22% ethanol blend used nationwide, plus 100% hydrous ethanol for four million cars. The Brazilian ethanol program provided nearly 700,000 jobs in 2003, and cut 1975-2002 oil imports by a cumulative undiscounted total of US$50 billion.[1] Today, Brazil gets more than 30% of its automobile fuels from sugar cane-based ethanol.[2]

Link (new window)


Pick a side.

Yes, but we're using corn for our ethanol production. Which is WAY LESS EFFICIENT. It's a *really* bad way to go about it.

Why?

I have no idea. Possibely the corn lobbies.

"The world's poor will starve because you want ethanol for your Prius: Free US food aid to other countries to be cut back due to 41 percent increase in grain costs"

Well despite there being more in the subby's headline than there is in the article. This is a good thing all round.

All foreign aid should be stopped.

Mercutio879
Ethanol additives make my car and all pre 2004 cars run like shait and also cause your co2 sensor to fail causing costly repairs.It's a scam I tell ya.

I like ethanol, exploding silos and fireworks...

How about this -

If we wanted to help out the world's poor we would stop eating meat.

Animal consumption of grain is ridiculously high. Furthermore, the environmental effects of cattle is producing 10x as much greenhouse gas as cars.

MEAT IS NOT NECESSARY TO SURVIVE.

Atreyou40: In fact, if biofuels were profitable, they would've been fattening coporate CEOs for decades already.

Yeah, but until very recently biofuels weren't profitable. When oil was basically worthless in the mid-90s, there wasn't a whole lot of money to be made in biofuels, because they cost 4 times as much as conventional fuel back in those days. Now, they have the potential to be cheaper.

granted non cellulosic corn ethanol is one of the worst of all the permutations, but if that's the first step towards better ethanols, then I guess it's something we need to be doing. If we're going to replace oil before it becomes to scarce and civilization more or less collapses, we're going to need a bunch of different niche solutions, one of which is likely ethanol

AllMyNutsAreBelongOnYourChin: Maybe... hey, maybe! Maybe they should MOVE OUT OF THE DESERT!!! AHHH! AHHHHHHHH!!! (screams like Sam Kinison)

Well the desert used to be wonderful farming land - and do you really think their governments will allow em to move? Or that other countries will accept em as immigrants?

pinch_harmonics: Prius use ethanol?

No but that doesn't stop subtards from getting greenlit.

The Greatest Nation in the World(R) couldn't possibly do such a thing!

Al Zeimer: and it takes our money to give to the welfare queens in agribusiness.

WOW.

you really think that's how it works, huh?

*sigh*


I don't know why I bother...



Sometimes I wonder if people are just too frightened by the notion of change and progress to give renewable energy a second thought. Nooooo, let's not try to see the bigger picture, let's not worry about how our children will have to feed and shelter their families...sustainable living is fer them dirty librul hippies! This is Amurrica, son, it ain't the place to be thinking of other people!

Besides, if those Hummer commercials say you'll have a bigger dick by destroying the world's resources at twice the rate of everyone else, they MUST be speaking the truth!

Diesel Honda Car that Gets 62.8 mpg? (new window)

UVbLue: How about this -

If we wanted to help out the world's poor we would stop eating meat.

Animal consumption of grain is ridiculously high. Furthermore, the environmental effects of cattle is producing 10x as much greenhouse gas as cars.

MEAT IS NOT NECESSARY TO SURVIVE.

In general, the grain used in animal feed isn't fit for human consumption.

If they could only make gas out of brussel sprouts no one would be complaining due to their foul taste.

UVbLue: MEAT IS NOT NECESSARY TO SURVIVE.

a lot is not necessary to survive...like the computer via which you are spewing, the beer or wine or mixed drink you consume, the TV you watch, the latte you drink, the car or bicycle or bus you drive, etc.