rickh

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  • EPA Rejects Congress's Ethanol Waiver
    The Governor of Texas, possibly the largest Oil producing state is against the production of Ethanol? What a surprise.

    Cattle ranchers in his state have to pay too much for corn? Everybody in my state is paying too much for gasoline and alot of it comes from Texas. When we mandate how much Texas charges for oil, he can have some input on how much ethanol we make.
    Aug 08 09:05 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
    Dear Subsidy Eye.

    Are you saying the war in Iraq was not about oil? What other reason did we have to invade a country that never attacked us?

    Can you put a price on the safety of our country? Sending billions of dollars a year to countries that support terrorism makes littles sense to me.

    And what is the value of cleaner air?

    Ethanol may not be the long term answer, but it will help get us off Mid East oil until plug in electric cars can be developed and made cost effective. It can help cut our trade imbalance. It lowers the amount of air pollution we breath right now.

    Right now ethanol is subsidizing gasoline not the other way around. Take a look at this comparison. Alcohol is selling at $1.55 on the spot market. And the refiners and blenders get a $.51/gallon fed subsidy. So their cost is $1.04 plus shipping expenses. NYMEX RBOB says gasoline sells for 3.16 plus shipping. so alcohol is $2.12/gallon cheaper than gasoline, yet E85 sells for $.4 less than gasoline. The refiners are making a higher profit on alcohol than they are on gasoline. That is your tax money subsidizing gasoline.

    These are the pump prices in my area yesterday. Your numbers should vary.
    Aug 01 11:49 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
    I am glad you brought up the WTO. The WTO twice has ruled that US agriculture subsidies were undermining agriculture world wide. Farmers in America could dump their corn on the world market at $1.85/bushel and our government would subsidies them to a price of $2.95/bushel. Evan farmers in Argentina and West Africa cant make a profit selling corn at $1.85. Therefore, they had no financial incentive to grow grain.

    I am curiously watching the run up in grain prices to see if the WTO was correct. Market forces pushed the price of grains above the US support levels. Lets see if this has the positive effect on world wide grain production they said it would.

    I would like to restate that I have no illusions of ever getting to 80% ethanol in our liquid fuels. Ethanol has it's best economics at 20-30% of the gasohol mix. Cars with computerized timing and airflow sensors see little drop in miles per gallon when using up to 30% alcohol. So forget your 1-1.5 ration. In Brazil you choose your ethanol to gas ratio based on the price of each and what your car likes.

    Dear subs ethanol which you say has been around for 20 years has really been around for about 100. An honest attempt to go large scale is only a couple of years old. Oil has come close to crushing it several times. They chose to use MTBE because it was a petroleum product. Thanks for the toxic ground water big oil.

    I am in favor of lowering the tariff on imported ethanol over time. 1-5 years. Good luck to Brazil on the WTO taking their side. It has not helped us open China's markets no matter how many times the WTO has sided with America.

    Dear subsidy eye. Allow me to point out. Ethyl Alcohol comes from organic distillation. Ethanol is a fuel made from mixing alcohol and gasoline, it is not blend percentage specific. You use the word Ethanol when referring to alcohol and every blend of alcohol/gasoline. This makes it difficult to fact check or follow what you are saying.
    Aug 01 11:27 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
    Dear Subsidy eye

    Other transfers includes the profit of the corn industry? Would you prefer that money transfer to Middle East oil companies?

    By your definition of transfer, or subsidy, where does military cost to protect the oil suppliers and shipping lanes fall in. I think the cost of the Iraq war has been something like $1.5 trillon. That makes ethanol look cheap.

    Long therm, electric is the goal for consumer transportation. That is years away. if we could get to 80/20 gas ethanol and cut our overall liquid fuel consumption, which $4 gas is making happen, we can drasticly shink the amount of money flowing out of our economy.

    We can cut our trade imbalance if we use all of the clubs in our bag. Parts of the country with corn or switch gras can use ethanol. Places with abundant Natural gas will see fleet owners use Natural gas, think UPS. Coastal regions without corn or NG like the North East could import ethanol from Brazil. Brazil likes us. Hybrid cars followed by plug in hybrids will ease our problem maybe solve it, untill plug in electric can be made cost effective to manufacture.

    Which energy industry does not get a government subsidy? Wind and solar get tax breaks, those are subsidies. Oil and gas get preferential tax treatment on depreciation. That is a subsidy. Home owners get a tax deduction for making their home more fuel efficient. that is a subsidy. Our tax system is a carrot/whip senerio. Ethanol is less harmful than buying oil from countrys that hate us. Oil causes most of our air polution therefore I don't mind it being punitively taxed. I wish it was.

    Why would electric cars be unpopular with Detroit? GM will be making them. Battery technology is the only thing keeping GM from rolling out an electric car today.

    Also, several oil companies are keen of E85? Without the mandates oil compaines would not put alcohol in their fuel. They do not want to let ADM and Monsanto have a piece of their monopoly.

    Jul 31 20:45 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Updates on Networking Sector: F5, Juniper, Akamai
    Have you read her bio? Silicon valley and a Masters from MIT. I don't care if she studied tic-tac-toe at MIT. I would not be so quick to discredit her.
    Jul 31 20:05 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
    Subsidy eye.

    Oil is not a monopoly? go put something other than gasoline in your car today. Go to your local car dealer and try to buy a car that runs on something other than gasoline. Try to fill your natural gas car every place you want to go. No single company has a monopoly, but the industry has a monopoly on our motor fuel.

    Last year we used 7 billion gallons of ethanol. Using .51 gallon for the subsidy that is only $3.5 billion in subsidies. Look at the farm subsidies the last year corn did not excede the government floor price of $2.95 bushel. Farm subsidies were over $8 billion dollars.

    I do not understand your comment "Other transfers in the industry" are you making this up as you go along?

    I would do away with the subsidies over the next 5 years and keep the mandates in place. Ethanol is already cheaper than gas, the refiners and mixers need no financial ncentive to use it.
    Jul 30 10:08 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Oil Prices Finally Changing Consumer Behavior
    Fireball.

    Should oil be required to stand on it's own without subsidies?
    Jul 30 09:56 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Ethanol Is Oversold: Three Bounce Stocks - Barron's

    Dear Maverick,

    I spent three years as a chemistry major before I decided what I wanted to do for a living. Do you know what the flash point of gasoline is? Do you know what percentage of the gas you put in your car is actualy burned? You only burn approximatly 35% of the potential energy in gasoline because your engine cannot function at the temperature required to burn a higher percentage. The rest comes out of your tailpipe as particulate matter, we call it polution. You burn 98% of the potential enery in alcohol because it has a lower flash point temperature, that is why it burns cleaner. When you mix alcohol with gasoline the mixture has a lower flash point than does pure gasoline. It also helps that my car has very high compression and loves the higher octane. Imagine what the auto manufactures could do it they could count on higher octane at the pump.


    I did get excited in 1988 when the University of Utah said they had success with cold fusion. I no longer believe anything comming out of Utah.
    Jun 10 00:11 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Ethanol Will Become a Fad Without Government Intervention
    Dear Conrad,

    How did you receive enough credibility to get your picture attached to your opinions? Politicians crying 'the sky is falling' is neither news nore prudent energy policy. Ethanol has very little to do with the price of food. Please explain how ethanol made the price of apples go up. Diesel fuel increases made the price of apples go up! Increased health care cost of every company and person that handled that apple made that apple more expensive. Farmers sell corn for 11 cents per pound. that is after the price of everything they use to grow the stuff has gone up in price.

    I would like to know who you work for. If you are just a paid basher, we have the right to know. What are your credentials?
    May 06 09:37 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Ethanol Will Become a Fad Without Government Intervention
    Trader T. you need to do more research. Please qoute sources when making claims. Please compare those claims against the cost and pollution caused by alternative fuels such as oil and coal.

    May 06 09:27 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Ethanol Driving Pump, Narrowing of Refining Margin
    It is causing a rice shortage too.
    Apr 24 09:10 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • China's Non-Grain Ethanol Push Should Benefit Sino-Forest
    Dear User 125195,
    Please explain how using wood waste for fuel will send the price of food to the moon.

    My car gets better mileage when I buy the fuel with 10% ethanol.
    Apr 14 21:49 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Big Oil Once Again Abused by Congress
    Dear Mixter,

    Chavez is pumping 30% as much oil? He is getting four times as much money for it. I guess he is smarter than you.
    Apr 14 21:40 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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