The Movie "pump" -flex-fuel For The Elio??

[satx]

Brazil, big time. They use some sort of grass

it's a grass called sugar cane.

 

[RUCRAYZE]

Brazil, big time. They use some sort of grass, I believe, for the biomass used to produce ethanol. As for corn grown for that purpose, having grown up in Iowa, it is a huge boon for farmers. A crop they are begging you to grow? You'd be a fool to turn it down. That's ideal for the individual farmer but for the country as a whole, it's not so good. Land taken out of production to grow a crop for fuel rather than food. All the fuel and energy it takes to grow it, process it and bring it to market makes it worth questionable at best. Using biomass to create ethanol is a good way to go, but it has to be sustainable (corn just isn't) using some sort of plant that isn't used for food and on land not used for food production.

Aside from sugar beets isn't corn one of the biggest government subsidized farm programs? Isn't most of it raised for animal food? don't we have a "heap" of extra corn we export?? Not all those fields of corn could be for human consumption. Then again I'm a city kid, and at $2.00 for five ears someone's "reaping" big rewards

 

[RUCRAYZE]

it's a grass called sugar cane.

If my (long term) memory serves, isn't Bamboo also a grass?
AND we know Cannabis is grass!!

 

[satx]

Aside from sugar beets isn't corn one of the biggest government subsidized farm programs? Isn't most of it raised for animal food? don't we have a "heap" of extra corn we export?? Not all those fields of corn could be for human consumption. Then again I'm a city kid, and at $2.00 for five ears someone's "reaping" big rewards

before the corn ethanol crap, about 70% of US corn fed to animals.

Cows evolved eating low-carb leaves (of grass), not high-carb seeds (corn). Like Americans, cows appear to eat what crap they're fed, including chicken parts, fowl feathers, fowl poo, and all kinds of animals parts.

Corn, as grass, as the original Americans ate it was nutritious, multi-colored, the colorings now known to be have been key nutrients, grown in fertile, complex soil. Now we have industrial yellow or white corn grown in sterile soil saturated with chemicals.

 

[satx]

If my (long term) memory serves, isn't Bamboo also a grass?
AND we know Cannabis is grass!!

bamboo is a grass

cannabis is not a grass

The genus Cannabis was formerly placed in the Nettle (Urticaceae) or Mulberry (Moraceae) family, and later, along with the Humulus genus (hops), in a separate family, the Hemp family (Cannabaceae sensu stricto).[24] Recent phylogenetic studies based on cpDNArestriction site analysis and gene sequencing strongly suggest that the Cannabaceae sensu stricto arose from within the former Celtidaceae family, and that the two families should be merged to form a single monophyletic family, theCannabaceaesensu lato.[25][26]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis#Taxonomy

 

[RUCRAYZE]

bamboo is a grass

cannabis is not a grass

The genus Cannabis was formerly placed in the Nettle (Urticaceae) or Mulberry (Moraceae) family, and later, along with the Humulus genus (hops), in a separate family, the Hemp family (Cannabaceae sensu stricto).[24] Recent phylogenetic studies based on cpDNArestriction site analysis and gene sequencing strongly suggest that the Cannabaceae sensu stricto arose from within the former Celtidaceae family, and that the two families should be merged to form a single monophyletic family, theCannabaceaesensu lato.[25][26]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis#Taxonomy

re-read my post
"Cannabis is grass" as from the '60's, not as a species (my poor attempt at humor)

 

[pistonboy]

Because of the large usage of gasoline by our nation, there are gasoline pipelines that distribute gasoline over the nation. This is not oil, but refined gasoline. I remember hearing years ago that the seals in these pipelines, which were placed in the ground many years ago, could not withstand alcohol any more than automotive flexible holes could many years ago. Alcohol would break them down. I heard this is why alcohol is not used more in gasoline.

 

[WilliamH]

It makes not much sense for cost saving reasons to use tax payer money to plant corn or similar crops, just to turn them into fuel.

Ethanol can be made from agricultural waste products, for example one common source for ethanol production is bagasse, the leftover sugarcane after the sugar has been extracted. If such a waste product is used, alternative fuels can make a lot of financial sense and are good for the environment, because ethanol burns very clean: carbon dioxide and water are the main tailpipe emissions.

In the European Union there are laws that mandate, starting in 2017, bio ethanol producers must prove that their fuel will result in a net reduction of 50% in greenhouse gas emissions when compared to fuels made from crude oil (60% for industrial plants built after 2011).

Big benefits of using ethanol fuel blends are the possible reduction in harmful additives, such as MTBE (replacements are made from ethanol) and the reduction in carbon monoxide emissions. So, while throwing tax money at big agro companies to produce fuel instead of food is not that great, switching to fuel blends with sustainable production is a win win scenario.

Depends on what you call waste. It used to be plowed back under and fertilized the land as part of crop rotation. Now you would be lucky to grow anything in those fields without artificial fertilizer.
........."Big benefits of using ethanol fuel blends are the possible reduction in harmful additives"...........
Possible reduction?
Let's see. We put tetra ethyl lead in gas to reduce knocking (preignition) then we removed lead for environment then we added catalytic converters which forced us to run rich mixtures (waste fuel) then added MTBE to reduce knocking but replaced it with ethanol which we mandated and which was bad for the engines. And with all of our technology we still have mandated solutions that force us to run engines on the wrong mixtures which wastes fuel.
May not have all of the sequences quite right, but, sounds like our scientific methodology and political solutions have put us in a circular firing squad.

 

[satx]

I might be wrong, but as I recall it was the "environazis" who pushed ethanol on us.
So don't blame the farmers for growing what makes money.

Nothing happens in govt unless somebody gets paid VERY WELL in blatant quid-pro-quo corruption.

"energy independence", not your Godwin environazis nor the environment, was the bullsh!t behind which BigAg hired politicians to spend taxpayer $Bs building corn ethanol plants as a ready, local market (as opposed to export) for BigAg's corn. Millionaire farmers (there's almost no mom-n-pop small farms left) "hate govt" but they sure love taxpayer subsidized crop insurance.

 

[Mike W]

Here's a link to an article on biomass/ethanol, short and sweet!
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe70s/crops_06.html