Since gas prices have gone over the top I have had many E-mails on ethanol.  Let's talk about some facts first -

Ethanol does not contribute to the price of oil or food.
When you produce ethanol from corn the only thing that you take from the corn is the STARCH.  That's it - only the starch - that starch is converted into sugars that are made into alcohol.  What is left over is "Distillers Grain".  This grain has all the protein, minerals, vitamis, oil - that all other corn has.  The only thing missing is the starch!  There is no shortage in the world of starch - the shortage is of protein and vitamins.  When someone tells you that making ethanol with corn causes a shortage of food - tell them that people don't need starch to survive they need healthy cattle that have protein!  A bushel of corn contains 60 pounds of corn - at $6.00 a bushel of corn that meens that corn is $.10 a pound - why is that box of corn flakes $5.50?  Your dollar does not buy anything anymore.  The box, advertising, the plastic liner and transportation all are to blame.  

Am I effected buy ethanol?  Not totally right now!
When I see cattle here in missouri eating distillers grain I know that I am on the right path.  This the safest feed for are livestock - a feed that has been cleaned with heat and alcohol, NO POSSIBLE WAY OF MAD COW!  Clean Feed!  I am now saving fuel that whent to growing livestock feed - this is where some of the fuel savings comes in!  If your family only ate beef that had eaten distillers grain, you have the safest food source on the planet!

Why is Ethanol better than RACE GAS or PUMP GAS?
When you use diesel fuel that comes from the middle east to grow corn there is an energy advantage of about 1.5 to 1.  This is not a great ratio, but it is a gain.  When you use "Race gas" this fuel is has been taken from the top of the distilling tower and has alot of left over "LUB" - the oil that does not get used.  The ratio of using "Race gas" - no contest.

Why do ethanol motors blow gas motors away?
Simple - POWER, alcohol has not only a higher "octane" rating but it has a higher "latent heat of vaporization"  This means that you can run a much higher chamber pressure than gas - because of the cooling effects of the alcohol.  "WHEN ALCOHOL RUNS THROUGH YOUR MOTOR IT TAKES MUCH HEAT WITH IT OUT THE TAIL PIPE!"  If your timing is not right or your blower is turned up a little high - you will survive better than gas because of the heat that is not there to destroy your motor!  If you take 105 octane race gas and put it up against 105 octane E85 ethanol - THERE IS NO CONTEST!  The ethanol will stomp it into the pavement every time.  Try to buy anything over 93 octane gas accross America and you will have a badd day.  E85 is available in many places in the mid-west and will continue to be here - I don't care if we make it from apples or milo or grass.

Building an alcohol motor that runs on E85 is an option that I think many of us should look at with these rising prices of oil.  I have had much of my life around these motors in circle track - if a person tells you that they know better then ask them how many alcohol motors they have built and what there knowlege is. Thanks             chris  

What miracle occured and made you the messiah of the ethanol cause.

I don't know who or what you're trying to impress or convince...  

Move out of your parent's basement and stop commenting on every blog - their is more to life than the chevyhighperformance web site - you might start with girls -    chris  

If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black...

All you can comment on is the wonderful world of ethanol!

You've made six posts on this board, all being centered around you over-glorifying ethanol because you're scared of those evil middle easterners who all fly planes into buildings.  

First off, making E85 DOES have an effect on the price of food, because once you remove the starch from corn, you pretty much make it useless for most food production. You can look at the rise in corn costs and futures and see a direct corrolation to the increase in the use of E85.

E85 is at best a band aid fix to the fuel situation, and a short sighted one at that. The true fix is still to A) Increase the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, and B) Find a true long term alternate fuel supply like hydrogen.  

The corn used for ethanol is feed corn anyway - it can't be eaten by humans.  After the corn has the starch removed it is fed to animals.  Most corn grown in the United States is grown for animals anyway - only a very small percent is grown for humans.  The price of all commodities has gone up due to a week American dollar - what about bannanas, they aren't even grown in the U.S., why have they gone up.  Why does the government pay farmers not to grow corn - to keep the price up.  The price you pay for corn is so low anyway.  $6.00 dollars a bushel is nothing - .10 cents a pound is cheap that's why we use it for cattle feed.  If we took all of the oil away from making ethanol today and stopped burnning ethanol all together your gasoline would shoot so high because now you would have a to make up millions of gallons of gasoline that we don't have the rifining capacity to handle.  Our gas refining is already at %100 capacity.  We should have built more refinerys years ago but there are so many communities that don't whant it in there back yard that now we have high prices of refined fuels.  Bottom line is the corn used for ethanol is not the corn on the cobb or the corn flakes in your bowl - we are not stopping or slowing planting of human consumption corn to make ethanol - there is a flood of dollar bills around printed by the government and that is making them slowly becoming worthless - that's why you are paying more for corn, gold, oil.  We are alsways looking for a majic bullet that we can just switch to overnight and that won't happen - but to just look at something and say it's too hard give up is not going to get us anywhere.  The technology will continue to grow and eventually we could probbably make the mid-west united states oil independent.  As far as California or New York - I don't know, ethanol might not be their answer.  As far as transporting ethanol by train to the east or west coast from the mid-west is a big enery loser.  They need to find their own answers.  Thanks   chris  

why is more efficient cars and hydrogen the best long term solution.  how about drilling for oil in our borders.  that seems pretty f u c ki ng easy to me and it is long term.  if the bleeding heart liberals would let us drill on the caostl shelf and at anwr we would have 100% independence.  who gives a sh it about the caraboo oil makes my cars run right now and it costs too da mn much.  the fastest solutoin that gives me relief is to drill.  so drill it is thta simple.  

We should have been drilling a long time ago in these off shore deposits and building rifinerys to handle it.  They just found a large deposit of oil in the upper mid-west a few months ago - it will probably get held up because thier is a egret or spotted owl or some other endangered animal.  I don't know about all this global warming that is supposed to be taking place either because it was colder than a witches tit in a brass bra in Missouri this past winter.      chris  

One of my buddie's dads owned a construction company in Alaska. Up there somewhere is an offshore oil rig that in one day of production at 100% capacity can feed enough oil through the Alaskan pipelines to satisfy the US's oil needs for one day. So we could live off this one oil rig for, as anylists say, 200 years. It runs 13-18% daily. Then we have all the oil in the Gulf, and the big find in the midwest... We have ALOT of oil. The news just tries to fool us into believing there is no oil so the big corporations can rape us royaly for it.

Why are we not using our own oil? Were running the world dry. When every producing country drys up (russia, middle east, south america) we will be the only ones left and control the world. Yeah when they finaly run out of oil they will switch to an alternitive route, but thats costs money. Thats why we havent. Yes every ritch doctor in the world can aford a nice hybrid, but can you? Were never going to stop using oil, plain and simple. It's just how long can we outlast the reast of the world...  

This guy is an IDIOT!!!!! I don't know for sure, but I'll bet he's a Democrat.   I don't mean to be partisan, because both parties are to blame. Over the last thirty years I have seen this coming, and that includes both democrats and republicans. The question is, what do I, as an AMERICAN, WANT MY COUNTRY TO DO? The Federal  Government is the largest BUSINESS on the planet, and we, as a country, elect people to run this biggest buisiness in the world, most of whom have NO idea how to do this. That includes both Democrats and Republicans. In fact, most of them have never been there, have never done that, but they want to tell us all how it should be done. So, my question is this:  without regard to party, what should we do to improve the economy and and change our energy dependence on others?  

all this corn talk is putting me to sleep  

If you want to look at some ethanol projects - here is a web site you might want to check out

e85carbs.com  

Jimmy cracked corn and I don't care?  

I <3 96 oct!  

Great info on E85 to bad E85 is not available in the Los Angeles County area. Do you know is there is any plans for LA on getting E85? GM offers flex fuel cars, but you cant flex you fuel with no other options.