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The only signal they send up by not promoting it is that they don't see a high enough profit in it. And contrary to many peoples beliefs, the only reason any company is in business is to make money. Ford doesn't make cars, they make money. IBM doesn't make computers, they make money. The big 'oil' companies could care less if they are selling you oil, hydrogen, or used air. They are only interested in making money. The local, small business that says they are there to help the community, are there to make money. If they weren't, they would be a charity.

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They could care less about selling you oil, if hydrogen were more profitable. And the only way it will be profitable is with a huge user base.

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And it won't be as long as they're making money selling oil.

Maybe there is some hope. Al Gore no longer believes in ethanol as the benefits are "trivial."

Below is an editorial opinion that I copied from the Novemeber 27, 2010 edition of the Wall Street Journal.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572404575634753486416076.html?mod=WSJ_comments_MoreIn_Opinion

The Wall Street Journal
NOVEMBER 27, 2010

Al Gore's Ethanol Epiphany
He concedes the industry he promoted serves no useful purpose

Anyone who opposes ethanol subsidies, as these columns have for decades, comes to appreciate the wisdom of St. Jude. But now that a modern-day patron saint--St. Al of Green--has come out against the fuel made from corn and your tax dollars, maybe this isn't such a lost cause.

Welcome to the college of converts, Mr. Vice President. "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Al Gore told a gathering of clean energy financiers in Greece this week. The benefits of ethanol are "trivial," he added, but "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."

No kidding, and Mr. Gore said he knows from experience: "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President."

Mr. Gore's mea culpa underscores the degree to which ethanol has become a purely political machine: It serves no purpose other than re-electing incumbents and transferring wealth to farm states and ethanol producers. Nothing proves this better than the coincident trajectories of ethanol and Mr. Gore's career.

Ethanol's claim on the Treasury was first made amid the 1970s energy crisis, with Jimmy Carter and a Democratic Congress subsidizing anything that claimed to be a substitute for foreign oil. Mr. Gore, freshman House class of 1976, was an early proponent of what was then called "gasahol."

The subsidies continued through the 1990s, with the ethanol lobby finding a sympathetic ear in Clinton EPA chief and Gore protege Carol Browner, who in 1994 banned the gasoline additive MTBE and left ethanol as the only option under clean air laws. When the Senate split 50-50 on repealing this de facto mandate, then Vice President Gore cast the deciding vote for . . . ethanol. That served him well in the 2000 Democratic primaries against ethanol critic Bill Bradley.

During the George W. Bush years, Big Ethanol adapted again, attaching itself to the global warming panic that Mr. Gore did as much as anyone to foment. Republicans in Congress formalized the mandate and increased subsidies in the 2005 and 2007 energy bills.

Meanwhile, the greens have slowly turned against corn ethanol, thanks to the growing scientific evidence that biofuels increase carbon emissions more than fossil fuels do. But the boondoggle lives on in dreams for so-called advanced fuels like cellulosic ethanol. Note Mr. Gore's objection only to "first generation," though we've been hearing that advanced ethanol is just a year or two away from viability for two decades.

At least on corn subsidies, we now have the makings of a left-right anti-boondoggle coalition. Major corn energy subsidies such as the 54-cent-per-gallon blenders credit expire at the end of the year, and Republican Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn are encouraging the new Congress to prove its fiscal bona fides by letting them die. Chuck Grassley (R., Ethanol) responded this week on Twitter: "WashPost reports 2 of my colleagues want sunset ethanol tax credit R they ready sunset tax subsidies oilANDgas enjoys?"

Messrs. DeMint and Coburn replied, essentially, make our day--and rightly so. Regardless of government intervention, the economy will continue to demand oil and gas, because they are useful. No one could plausibly say the same about ethanol, and maybe now that he's had his epiphany Mr. Gore will join the fight against the subsidized industry he did so much to promote.

I think that Al Gore will not come to the fore and proclaim he was fullocrap from the beginning. And we don't need him. We DO need the current legislators to stand up straight and shut down this boondoggle. Write your congressmen and Senators and state the case factually and coolly. That's the only way we will rid ourselves of this particular albatross.
And we should thank the WSJ for their efforts to shine light on this.

Over the past 4-5 years I have travelled through the corn belt and my guess is that you Americans are going to have a tough battle eliminating this ethanol boondoggle. There seems to be ethanol refineries in every other town in the Midwest Corn Belt(admittedly an exaggeration but it is amazing how many there are). I am sure it is a big income source for farmers and they will be very reluctant to give it up as it probably beats raising corn to fatten cows for McDonalds Big Macs.

Corn as a source may diminish but not entirely go away, but I don't think ethanol will either. There are lots of high profile companies working to develop others--algae, biomass (or farm waste here), some kind of prairie grass elsewhere. At least one if not two of the companies in this area have retired or voted out politician types on their board or own the companies. You know they won't be slowed any by political will and feed trough rewards will still keep coming.

Randy Berger wrote:
And we should thank the WSJ for their efforts to shine light on this.

Yes, this is one of the reasons I read the Wall Street Journal - fact based reporting.

Soon the government will be mandating 15% ethanol in our fuel supply. Al Gore's admission that that ethanol's benefits are "trivial" and solely based on his listening only to special interest groups are eye-opening.

Maybe this can be overturned now that Al has confessed.

Meanwhile, look at all the subsidy money that has been thrown around and all the effort used to force this scheme on the tax paying public.

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Interesting observation. The History Channel had a documentary on Moonshiners and commented that in the early days of American westward development with primitive transportation networks, distilling corn into whiskey was the most efficient means of getting the corn crop to the Eastern cash markets.

Perhaps ethanol is the modern day moonshine, complete with the govt subsidies.

Has anyone researched the industrial proccess used to make Ethanol???? I havn't.

I'm no expert on making whiskey nor fermentation. But here is what i do know:
*("corn" herein = ANY grain, fruit or vegetable even honey).

PRoduction of a DRINKABLE alcoholic beverage relies solely on the process of fermentation. Wine(S) is a fermentation process ONLY. Liquor(s) is FIRST a fermentation process followed by distillation. Distialltion is a kind of cooking/pressure cooker type process to drive off the alcohol from the PREVIOUSLY fermented slurry.
So concievably, wine could be converted to a liquor if the wine were further distilled AFTER the fermentation process has completed.

But fermentation is solely the process of yeast (wheteher added to and/or already NATURALLY occuring in the corn*.

Wine(s) or liquor production is extremely wasteful of the corn used. The corn is more or less only a flavouring ingredient of the finished product. THis is because the fermentation process is strictly the NATURAL process of YEAST EATING SUGAR which causes the yeast to grow and in turn the yeast shits out alcohol and CO2.

So effectively one can produce alcohol with no corn whatsoever. Only yeast and sugar and water are needed. THe corn only provides flavouring and other drink enhancing properties and perhaps some or all of the yeast required for the fermentation.

After the distillation process is completed the previously fermented corn slurry is dumped into the creek as waste.

I was very young at the time. What i do not remeber is if yeast was actualy added to the slurry or if corn itself actually containes enuf natural yeast to derive fermentation with out the addition of store bought yeast.

Onee damn thing is for sure. It takes a LOT of sugar (pound wise) as it takes corn to produce a good fermentation and the entire process is extremely labour intensive. 100#'s of sugar to about 200#'s of corn or there abouts. I just can't remeber the yeast requirement.