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59 comments on EPA Seeks Comments on 15% Ethanol Blend

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westexas on May 11, 2009 - 4:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

http://www.counterpunch.org/bryce04242009.html
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General
By ROBERT BRYCE
Author of Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence”

The ethanol scammers have no shame. None. And neither does the ethanol industry’s new hired gun, General Wesley Clark.

Last week, the EPA announced that it was considering raising the volume of ethanol that could be blended into gasoline from the current limit of 10% to as much as 15%. The agency is reacting to a petition from the pro-ethanol trade group, Growth Energy, a recently formed group that has hired Clark to be its spokes-general. More on Clark in a moment.

There’s plenty of opposition to Growth Energy’s proposal. Among the biggest opponents are the automakers. The problem is obvious: automobile warranties could be voided and cars could be damaged by the higher ethanol blends. There are about 250 million motor vehicles in the US and of those, fewer than 10 million have been built to handle blends greater than 10% ethanol.

 

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robert2734 on May 11, 2009 - 5:17pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Automobile warrantees are going to be voided by the bankruptcy courts long before E-15 hits the streets. I know, we'll have the treasury will pick up the warrantee costs of everybody's car.

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majorian on May 11, 2009 - 5:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Lie-gushing Robert Bryce is a free-market bullshit artist lately of IER(Institute of Energy Research(2008) and a favorite of Cato. He fronts for Big Fossil,
a climate change denier and attacks anyone supporting any form of energy independence.

http://masterresource.org/?p=1484
http://www.cato.org/weekly/index.php?vid_id=72
http://www.robertbryce.com/homepage?page=5

If he hates ethanol, I know ethanol is absolutely the right way to go.

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mbnewtrain on May 11, 2009 - 6:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

So the enemy of your enemy is your friend?

Your logic does not add up, nor do any of the above links say anything about ethanol. Corn based ethanol still has low EROEI, contributes to water pollution and water depletion, probably is worse than gasoline as far as CO2 production, and is a drain on the federal budget due to subsidies. And you still like it?

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majorian on May 11, 2009 - 8:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

So the enemy of your enemy is your friend?

Naah..more like "it take's one to know one".
Bryce makes his living attacking energy independence which is at odds with his free-market scamming.

Ethanol is hardly a scam. It is $1.615 per gallon or $2.42 per GGE. The cost of straight gasoline is $2.16 in Missouri, which is about 12% more in cost currently.

Ethanol is a substitute for gasoline for roughly the same price. Ethanol reduces smog which is formed when there is a lack of oxygen in the fuel and makes carbon monoxide poison.
The other oxygenate MTBE was banned as it caused serious groundwater contamination. Congress wouldn't give the oil companies liability insurance for MTBE leaks in 2005.

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/rfg.htm

What price do you put on clean air or at least reducing the levels of CO in the air? Zero?

What price do you put on CO2? Zero?
Corn ethanol produces about 84% of the GHG of gasoline in GGEs(including land use issues) according to the Lisa Jackson, head of the USEPA.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/05/tech/main4992574.shtml

Big Oil gets a blender's credit 51 cents to put ethanol in their gasoline but this is up for renewal in 2010. For E10 fuel that amounts to 5 cents per gallon subsidy or about $ 7 billion dollars (based on 140 billion gallons of gasoline). Oil companies also gets subsidies from the government of around $15 billion dollars from 2.2 billion barrels of oil thru production leases, etc.

http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2009/02/26/3

If you want to get rid of all Big Oil's subsidies, that's fine with me but you'll have to guarantee that the urban smog won't come back.

As far as EROEI goes it takes 100 barrels of oil energy to make 85 boe of gasoline whereas it takes 100 boe of fossil fuel to make 134 boe of ethanol.

As far as water use goes it takes 2.5 gallons of water to make a gallon of gasoline while it takes 6 gallons of water to make corn ethanol in Iowa, Minnesota 19 gal. Nebraska and California use a lot more gallons of water per gallon of ethanol. I suggest that to save water those states go to cellulosic ethanol. If 10 gallons of water per gal. ethanol were could produce 100 billion gallons of ethanol, that would be a 1 trillion gallons of water. Lake Meade can hold 9 trillion gallons of water. There's plenty of water, IMO.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/uom-mep041309.php

As far as the Natural Resource Defense Council is concerned
ethanol is worth the energy.

http://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/ethanol/ethanol.pdf

MANY of the opponents of ethanol are big business fronts like
the WSJ and Bryce's Energy Tribune(run by Economides, THE Peak Oil skeptic).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119621238761706021.html
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=979
http://www.robertbryce.com/node/143

"Everybody hates ethanol" [at the WSJ]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123716798764436701.html

That's a clue to what's really going on.

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59 comments on EPA Seeks Comments on 15% Ethanol Blend

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