Yesterday there was an analysis of corn ethanol production in Iowa at the energy blog, The Oil Drum. It discussed production and consumption, as well as the chances for Iowa to be self-sufficient in fuels. Here is an excerpt:
Iowa is a state that by all accounts should be able to satisfy their own liquid fuel needs with ethanol, and still have some left for export. They are perhaps unique in the U.S. in that respect. Instead, petroleum continues to supply over 90% of the motor fuel in Iowa, and virtually all of the fuel used in the farm equipment for growing all of that corn. Something is wrong with this picture.
I highly recommend the whole article.
5 Comments
E85
I’m curious if any Bleeding Heartland readers use E85 on a regular basis, or even if they own an E85-capable vehicle.
corncam Thu 2 Sep 8:33 PM
Corrected link
Sorry that the link didn’t work. Here it is again:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node…
corncam Thu 2 Sep 8:58 PM
I don't use ethanol
because when I tried it my car’s mileage seemed to be dramatically worse.
desmoinesdem Thu 2 Sep 10:58 PM
mileage
Your mileage probably did go down quite a bit, because E85 only has about 75% of the energy content as an equal volume of gasoline.
corncam Fri 3 Sep 7:44 AM
Hemp
I would use E85, but I have an older Ford truck. However, I do use the gas with 10% ethanol for all gas engines I use.
We need to lobby for the use of hemp. Hemp is merely the ditch weed that nobody wants to smoke. its very high in cellulose and is much thriftier to make gas out of than corn. Corn prices rise for food throughout the world when we begin to use corn for ethanol. If we could get the prohibition ban off of hemp, we can grow it on the hills and swampy areas that we cannot use for corn or beans. Brazil, who is now 100% off imported oils, uses a tall plant similar to hemp because it has a lot of cellulose in it. And it uses far less gasoline to make a gallon of gas out of hemp.
Heck, Marijuana for medical reasons is legal now in some places. And I don’t care about that. I would just like to have the regular old ditchweed hemp legalized so we could use it for ethanol.
wahela Mon 6 Sep 11:43 AM