Is adding ethanol to gas a positive or negative benefit to our country?

Glad I started this thread so I could see if most of you were getting the same feedback I was getting when I took my boat to get it worked on. I only buy ethanol free gas which is expensive. It may not seem like a big problem that older engines and some motors have trouble with ethanol added to their gas but it might if it were your motor.

It seems special interest groups have once again gotten to politicians to act in their best interest instead of what's best for the country.

The decision to add ethanol to gas should be based on what's best for America as a whole. If it is best, it would have helped if we were better informed so we can all get behind it. I'm hearing way more negative than positive everywhere I go. I did appreciate seeing different viewpoints to try to understand the other side of the argument.

I hope everyone that has posted here will read this post. OK, Soybeans are used to make two things. Soybean meal, and soybean oil. Meal is used in animal feed, oil is used for many things. Cooking oil being one of the big uses. All we have done with corn here is do the exact same thing. The starch in corn goes to Ethanol, and the dried distillers grain is the total protein content that was in the corn to start with. None of it is lost. It is concentrated and is a very good protein source for livestock. We export the stuff too because other countries have found that it is such a good source of protein. Takes less storage to store the same amount of protein in ddgs as it would the same amount of protein in a bushel of corn.

The food verses fuel argument is a farce. We are not loosing the food content of the corn which is the protein. We are just getting more out of a bushel of corn than just feeding it straight to cows. The high price of beef is just what was mentioned earlier. The droughts of 2011 and 2012 dried up pastures in the main cattle areas in the country to the point that the cows would either starve, or they had to be slaughtered. We have the smallest cattle herd in the US right now since the 1960s. THAT IS WHY BEEF PRICES ARE HIGH!!!!!! Corn prices right now are below cost of production. THE PRICE OF CORN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF CATTLE!!!!!!! or vice versa. The price of cattle and corn is decided in two places. The Chicago Board of trade futures market, and the local elevators for corn and auction houses for cattle. The elevators have their own price based off of Chicago Board of Trade Most of the time, they pay under Chicago by 10 to 40 cents. So Farmers don't even get what Chicago is posting. Take moisture charges or drying cost into it and it is lowered even more.

If corn was causing all the prices in the grocery stores to go up, then why haven't they come down since corn has fallen so much? Why don't You ask the grocers manufacturers association that one. They were blaming Ethanol for higher prices in the grocery stores but have all of a sudden gotten real quiet now that farmers have produced enough corn for food, fuel, and have a 2 billion bushel carryover which means we at the beginning of the next corn marketing year will have 2 billion bushels still in the bins at the beginning of the next harvest. That is why corn prices have tanked.

OK, lets talk about Ethanol price. It is also priced on a futures market with regional and local hubs putting their own basis price on it. YES! IT HAS LESS BTU's THAN GAS BUT IS PRICED TO REFLECT THAT!

That talk of that it is cost prohibitive because You burn more fuel making corn than you get ethanol out of it is BS! it is going to get raised anyway and read the first part of this post! It is food and fuel not one or the other.

Some here are saying exactly what the oil industry has put out about Ethanol. Don't buy that load of crap either. They have had a monopoly on the energy market since the beginning. They don't like the fact that they lost 10% of their market share and are bent on putting out misinformation about Ethanol to remove a burgeoning competing energy source.

I have been running E10 in a 1983 international dump truck for 15 years and it has not given me one minutes worth of trouble. No additive, no nothing. I have also run it in my boat for that same length of time. I did run a water separator on my boat a couple years ago but have not had any trouble prior. I only did that because a boat gas tank system is not a sealed system like a car gas tank is. You will not get any water from the air in your car gas tank because it is sealed. That E10 can sit in a car for a long time. But Like someone else said before, even straight gas can go bad. If any of it is a year old, you might want to dump it.

It is Alcohol. it burns hotter than gas so it burns cleaner. Period. Brazil has been burning E100 for years with no problems. They go back and forth on the blends to put the cheapest fuel in their cars. They introduced competition into their gasoline market and it has helped them. If they can do it down there, then why in the heck can't we do it here??? I can't understand for the life of me why some people would rather get their oil from some country that hates our guts and wants to kill us than buy it from right here in the US. I have 3 chainsaws, a weedeater, a leafblower, a hedge trimmer, 2 boats and several other gas engines that have run fine for years off of E10.

I have shot holes in the whole Cattle Price deal, The whole food versus fuel deal, the whole burning corn in the tank deal, have personal success as using it as a fuel and after 15 years of it being around, I just don't see what the big deal is? If you are afraid of it, treat your gas. Thats all. Those guys on Crappiemasters promoting it are just trying to get the word out on it because of the bad PR campaign that the OIL industry, the Grocers manufacturers association, and the National Cattlemen s Beef Association have put out against Ethanol. They have their own political or economical reasons to do away with Ethanol.

Are Farmers getting rich off of Ethanol? No! Current corn prices are below cost of production. This is with roughly a 2 Billion bushel carry over. If You cut Ethanol off of corn right now, You Will dump almost 5 billion more bushels onto corn supplies and decimate the market for years. This will cause a 1980's style farm crisis and we will lose thousands of farmers to bankruptcy. When You only have 3 to 400,000 true commercial farmers left in this country, that is scary. I did not grow corn last year because the price was too low then. It is really bad now.

Here is the choice that the taxpayers have. You can either pay taxes and have that money spent on farm safety nets that bail farmers out with your money, or you can not have to worry about as much of your tax money and buy a product that originated with a farmer and burn it in your gas tank. One way or the other, You are going to pay something that is going to end up in a farmers pocket. Farmers are the only people that get punished for doing a good job. We overproduce so You don't run out. And If You want to gripe about Farmers, DON'T DO IT WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL!!!!!CF

ones opinion of ethanol boils down to their financial or political interests..........Those of us who have no personal interest in ethanol would rather not be forced to use it.

There is one other thing to.........If ethanol was such a good thing for everyone and it out performed gasoline there would be no need for ethanol production to be subsidized

ALL products, services or commodities that are subsidized by the government are because the product cannot compete on it's own merits in a free market.

CrappieFarmer can you give me (us) any input on the Ethanol production being subsidized?

Ethanol was subsidized when it first started via tax credits. Not a subsidy. The oil industry is given more tax breaks than the Ethanol industry ever dreamed about. Ethanol tax credits were allowed to expire over a year ago and the industry is still surviving fine. The Ethanol industry survives on mostly one thing. The free market. The price of corn and the price of crude oil. The corn is its supply, the crude oil price is the measure of its demand and its competing energy. The lifeline Ethanol still has to have is the Renewable Fuels Standard or RFS.

The RFS is a regulation that forces the oil industry to blend Ethanol into gas to get E10, E85 etc... The reason why the RFS is necessary is because the oil industry has a monopoly on gasoline from the wells to the gas pump. What is slowly being pushed is for smart pumps to be put in in every gas pump in the US. These smart pumps will allow you as the consumer to dial in the amount of Ethanol you want in your gas to make sure you get the cheapest fuel in your car that you want whether it is E100 or 100% gasoline or some blend in between. Most of the time Ethanol is cheaper than gas, but when its not, you can dial it out. Giving you the choice will keep gasoline prices and Ethanol prices in check. That is the whole point of Ethanol. To introduce competition.

Any competing source being introduced will at first have to be subsidized in some fashion so it is not crushed by the monopolized competitor. Try to start a new car company right now and see how far you get.

So no the Ethanol industry is not given tax payer money. Never was. It was given tax breaks just like the oil industry does. But not anymore. The only thing now is regulations protecting it from being crushed. Some point in the future, these regs will not be needed as well.CF

What was said earlier about the price of corn driving up cattle prices is false. I explained it some before but want to clarify. The cattle marketis traded on the futures market. That market does not care one tinkers dang about the price of corn. All it cares about is the current and more so, the future supply and demand of cattle.

The two things most important and expensive things to a corn farmer is seed and fertilizer. The corn futures market does not care one tinkers dang on how high the fertilizer and seed prices go. It only looks at supply and demand of corn. The feedstock of either of these commodities in their availabilities or lack of does not matter to either of those markets.

Also most areas if you hunt around will have someone that sales 100% gasoline. If you look in a lot of cases, you will see that this gas is priced $1 higher than regular E10 gas at the regular pumps. That is what Ethanol is doing for you.

As far as my support for Ethanol only being because I economically benefit from it, does this some how nullify my opinion on it? Well I have a pump close by me that sales 100% gasoline. I have bulk storage tanks to have it on my farm but I don't use it. I have a lot of gas motors that I have invested in to use on my farm. If I thought for one second E10 was going to cause me any harm on my investment, I would drop E10 in a heartbeat. I use a stabilizer in all my 2 stroke equipment just as a precaution and generally the gas I use in my 2 stroke motors sit for long periods of time where a stabilizer is needed.

If you use the premise that somehow my opinion does not count on this because I benefit economically from ethanol, then anyone that has a economic benefit from anything should not be trusted because they economically benefit from what they do. So I should not take your advice on anything in your field or profession because you will just be benefitting economically. And that makes your opinion null and void. If we take that mentality, we might as well shut our doors. I don't do that to my Doctor. I know he is going to benefit ecomically from me and he prescribes some drug from a drug company. If I refuse the drug because he and they are economically benefitting, then I might die. Sorry. I won't subscribe to that mentality. No one else should either. The oil companies are blowing smoke on this. If you want to believe them, that is your right. But they will be benefited politically and economically as well.CF

Oh and just to ease anyone's mind. I did not grow corn last year and will not grow corn this year because the price is below my cost of production. I won't grow it at a loss or for nothing. I have to have an economic benefit to grow it. I have to make a living. So for last year and this year, Ethanol has not given me any benefit other than help lower the price of gas.CF

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It may not seem like a big problem that older engines and some motors have trouble with ethanol added to their gas but it might if it were your motor.

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I always wonder when I hear this...I would wager that 99% of the people who have "ethanol" issues with their small engines don't filter their fuel....would you drink unfiltered water? Why should your small engine.

I shot the connecting rod out the side of my snow blower this morning....must be caused by the ethanol blended fuel I run in it rotfl

I didn't say your opinion does not count......... I simply said anyone who has a vested interest in something is going to extol that products perceived benefits......

I am a heating and air guy.......You won't find me running around telling everyone to ditch their A/C and install window fans..............

Doesn't really make a difference weather etho manufacturers get subsidies or tax credits.......It's the same thing, The Government has no money to give anyone they must take it from someone first..............

here is a novel idea..... ya'll pool all your money secure some financing open up ethanol only fuel stations....... and compete head on with gas and see if you prosper.........who knows you might just hit it big..........