More 15% ethanol gasoline on the way

[lawman]

Disclaimer here. I live on a farm and own farmland which raises corn. I am probably the only person on this forum who walked on a cornfield today. We'll be planting in a week or so.

That said, I don't support increasing ethanol production. Many of my neighbors wouldn't like to hear that.

Corn is already $7 a bushel, record territory. The ag economy is on the verge of overheating like it has done many times over history. Input costs are being driven up by competition as well as fertilizer expenses. With corn at $7 the demand for fertilizer is extremely high. The large farmers will expand and squeeze out smaller producers. Demand for farmland is insane, these high prices are intoxicating for both farmers and land owners.

Crop insurance makes in nearly impossible to have a financial loss since you can lock in yield and price guarantees. I'm not against ethanol but this is probably the craziest time I can think of for increasing its use. Current corn prices are very profitable for farmers right now.

If corn isn't used for ethanol it is used to feed livestock such as beef, pork and poultry. Like it should be. Have you priced meat in the stores lately ? A lot has to do with the price of feed, along with increased transportation and processing costs.

This is a personal opinion, I'd rather see our country use fossil fuels in an efficient manner for power, and our crops as a food source. Focus on domestic fuel production to ease our dependence on foreign oil instead of taking a food source.

And I own a corn farm...

Bingo ..You win!

 

[Koolau]

Disclaimer here. I live on a farm and own farmland which raises corn. I am probably the only person on this forum who walked on a cornfield today. We'll be planting in a week or so.

That said, I don't support increasing ethanol production. Many of my neighbors wouldn't like to hear that.

Corn is already $7 a bushel, record territory. The ag economy is on the verge of overheating like it has done many times over history. Input costs are being driven up by competition as well as fertilizer expenses. With corn at $7 the demand for fertilizer is extremely high. The large farmers will expand and squeeze out smaller producers. Demand for farmland is insane, these high prices are intoxicating for both farmers and land owners.

Crop insurance makes in nearly impossible to have a financial loss since you can lock in yield and price guarantees. I'm not against ethanol but this is probably the craziest time I can think of for increasing its use. Current corn prices are very profitable for farmers right now.

If corn isn't used for ethanol it is used to feed livestock such as beef, pork and poultry. Like it should be. Have you priced meat in the stores lately ? A lot has to do with the price of feed, along with increased transportation and processing costs.

This is a personal opinion, I'd rather see our country use fossil fuels in an efficient manner for power, and our crops as a food source. Focus on domestic fuel production to ease our dependence on foreign oil instead of taking a food source.

And I own a corn farm...

Hear, hear!

Blessings on all farmers. I too think the better route to less greenhouse gasses is improved efficiency and not marginal programs like ethanol from corn for cars. Also, just my opinion - not gospel.

If I had my c*reer to do over (and starting today) I'd seek an engineering degree with the goal of energy efficiency. I see so many things that COULD be done to use energy more efficiently, but I have no forum (heh, heh, other than this one) to express them. Without the engineering background, most of my ideas are strictly theoretical and probably have little practical value. Still, I find the subject fascinating. It's the old "doing more with less" concept. (We used to joke at megacorp that we were still waiting for Les to join our w*rk group - but he never showed up.) YMMV

 

[dheb]

Sheets gas stations in my area sell it. It’s quite a bit less expensive than 87 octane. It is marked as 88 octane. I don’t know anyone that uses it. As said above, my Toyota car’s operating manual specifically says “No”.

I use it in my Ford Ranger. I don't notice any difference in mileage, etc.

 

[zippy2020]

Being one of the few who seems to have actually bought E85 fuel on a regular basis for my 2010 Ford Fusion, I can confirm that yes, it's a wash financially. The cost was 20% lower, but the fuel mileage suffered a penalty of around 17%, give or take a couple of percentage points (depending on the mix of driving I did that week).

At the time there were relatively few stations offering it, so that was also a nuisance. I decided it wasn't worth it after about nine months so went back to regular gas.

The corrosive effects worried me as we hang on to our cars for years, so that was another consideration. All of Ford's vehicles were certified as flex-fuel at that point - I remember the E85 intro into CA was a big deal because of the elimination of MTBE, and there were big concerns about air quality deteriorating in the summer if E85 became more popular.

As several people pointed out, E90 became more commonly accepted and no "special sticker" was needed on vehicles.

 

[68bucks]

To me the biggest negative of corn-to-ethanol plants (heavily tax-subsidized) in the USA is the enormous amount of water they use.

They're draining aquifers where that water is needed for residential use.

If the USA wants to add ethanol to gasoline it should be buying it from places like Brazil.

Converting sugar to ethanol has a far lower environmental impact versus corn to ethanol.

And as Turbo29 said there's really no need to add oxygenators for a 'complete' burn anymore since all modern vehicles use fuel-injection with O2 sensors.

I have been in probably 20 or more ethanol plants and almost all of the have a major focus on reducing water consumption. Discharge water is the big problem because they are usually in areas that have little to no municipal water treatment facilities. A lot of plants have zero or near zero water discharge. It's all recycled. Probably the largest water loss is from the spent grain dryers.

Another note I didn't see exactly stated through the thread. E10 will give 3-4% lower milage, E15 about 4-5% less. I'm in the group that says E15 idea is a bad one for all the many reasons that have been stated and I'm not an fuel ethanol fan in general. The government requires refiners to use it and by proxy requires us to use it. At least for all practical purposes. The corn mafia successfully lobbied Bush II administration for the RFS and that was that, no going back. Not a subsidie but a mandate. A lot of money for the mega producers. Seemed like a better idea when there was a massive over supply of corn and prices were terrible.

 

[ivinsfan]

68bucks there are approximately 300k corn producers producers domestically. As one of them I find your term corn mafia pretty repellent.

 

[68bucks]

It's not the corn producers I guess. This was the fuel ethanol industry. The ADM's, Broin's (now Poet I believe) and a few corn belt politicians that they bought to do the pushing. They got a ton of government money in the early going, as I said when corn was laying in huge storage piles because there was no storage. That was for development of the plants. The ethanol boys put up plants all over the place because they were basically guaranteed to be profitable. When the tax payers finally pushed back a lot of those plants went belly up and a lot of farmers lost money. I saw the metamorphosis. In the early going they spent tons of money but when the development money dried up they wouldn't spend a dime. But low and behold along came the RFS. Problem solved. Maybe ethanol mafia would be more accurate. Either way the spent their way to a permanent seat at the money trough. Sorry no offense meant. I live in a rural area with lots of friends and neighbors who are farmers.

 

[ivinsfan]

68bucks , the new thing is pushing windmills and solar panels in rural areas. Probably just as wasteful as ethanol. The farm "industry" has pushed value added for decades and as you mentioned farmers end up losing money in the long run.



There is a family in MN that made untold millions building out ethanol plants. They specialize in wind farms, biomass plants which are a joke and ethanol plants. This is just an example of how our government can be it's own worst enemy ..



We have a national corn promotion fee that is mandatory and goes to the suits pushing things that line their own pockets...


I wish more people knew what really happens instead saying that farmers love E15..I imagine virtually every industry can tell stories like this.

 

[SnowBound]

Kind of on the 30% but in reality it's not one for one. We can't eat field corn. It has to be repurposed into another food. ie beef, pork, eggs, milk etc. Except for crap like high fructose corn syrup corn has to reprocessed through a live animal for human food. You aren't going to get 30% more by not processing E15. And once again it's a supply chain issue raising and processing more food.

You can eat field corn. When you are a teenager, have been in the fields all day, sitting on top of a pile of it in a gravity wagon going down the road at dusk, it is not that bad (in fact).

 

[ivinsfan]

You can eat field corn. When you are a teenager, have been in the fields all day, sitting on top of a pile of it in a gravity wagon going down the road at dusk, it is not that bad (in fact).

LOL

 

[ERD50]

Kind of on the 30% but in reality it's not one for one. We can't eat field corn. It has to be repurposed into another food. ie beef, pork, eggs, milk etc. Except for crap like high fructose corn syrup corn has to reprocessed through a live animal for human food. You aren't going to get 30% more by not processing E15. And once again it's a supply chain issue raising and processing more food.

You can eat field corn. When you are a teenager, have been in the fields all day, sitting on top of a pile of it in a gravity wagon going down the road at dusk, it is not that bad (in fact).

I've boiled it like sweet corn, and if you catch it at *just* the right time, it's not too bad.

Also, 'field corn' (dent corn) *is* used for human consumption.

https://foodprint.org/blog/whats-dent-corn-and-what-is-it-used-for/

Corn kernels can be ground for producing cereal flakes, flour, grits, meal and brewers’ grits used in beer production.

To produce many traditional corn foods, the corn kernels are subjected to the nixtamalization process, a traditional method of processing corn originally developed by the Aztecs and the Maya, where the grain is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, often consisting of lime (calcium hydroxide). This process increases nutrition, improves flavor and produces the corn product hominy. Further processing results in hominy grits, masa flour, tortillas, tortilla chips and a number of other products.

Field Corn vs. Food Corn | Nebraska Corn Board

People don’t eat field corn directly from the field because it’s hard and certainly not sweet. Instead, field corn must go through a mill and be converted to food products and ingredients like corn syrup, corn flakes, yellow corn chips, corn starch or corn flour.

-ERD50

 

[ivinsfan]

Read further down your link to the special corns,these are grown for human consumption usually contracted with a processor by the grower

It's completely different from regular field corn.I don't know how they process corn syrup but I don't consider that food.



Part of the issue is what they call stacked seed corn (GMO) which contains inbred traits such as corn bore repellent and stuff like that.


Also the variety of chemical control and when and what chemical was applied. Now back in the day when corn got machine cultivated and seed was traditional seed you could probably eat a cob if you wanted to. I certainly wouldn't recommend it now.

.
I've been working in this "field" LOL for almost 50 years if you want to argue with me go for it! ....I'm not easily offended.

 

[Koolau]

Also the variety of chemical control and when and what chemical was applied. Now back in the day when corn got machine cultivated and seed was traditional seed you could probably eat a cob if you wanted to. I certainly wouldn't recommend it now.

.

Then again, we do eat all the critters that eat that corn. Bring on the bacon!

 

[CardsFan]

Then again, we do eat all the critters that eat that corn. Bring on the bacon!

Then again, we can also make it into the OTHER kind of ethanol, designed for human consumption.

 

[Koolau]

Then again, we can also make it into the OTHER kind of ethanol, designed for human consumption.

We'll have to check with Ivinsfan if that GMO pig corn can be turned into Bourbon.

 

[ERD50]

Read further down your link to the special corns,these are grown for human consumption usually contracted with a processor by the grower

It's completely different from regular field corn.I don't know how they process corn syrup but I don't consider that food.



Part of the issue is what they call stacked seed corn (GMO) which contains inbred traits such as corn bore repellent and stuff like that.


Also the variety of chemical control and when and what chemical was applied. Now back in the day when corn got machine cultivated and seed was traditional seed you could probably eat a cob if you wanted to. I certainly wouldn't recommend it now.

.
I've been working in this "field" LOL for almost 50 years if you want to argue with me go for it! ....I'm not easily offended.

OK, I don't really know how different the corn grown for "corn flakes" or tortillas or corn meal for corn bread are (I don't have time now to dig through that link), but "completely different" sounds like a stretch. Are you saying it can't be grown in place of the type of dent corn that is grown to produce ethanol? That's what matters here.

I grew up on a corn growing farm in N IL (you have me beat with 50 years!), and that was the day of mechanical cultivators (I spent many hours pulling a four row cultivator behind a John Deere 4010), and we still sprayed our crops for weeds (24d IIRC, but don't hold me to it - whatever Dad put in the tank, also recall some sort of emulsified oil mix?).

We ate that corn, even though it was sprayed. If Genetically Engineered crops reduce the amount of stuff sprayed on the corn, I'm all for it ( I hate the term GMO - everything we grow has been Genetically Modified - selection, F1 hybrids, etc - 'engineered' is different, and in many ways far better).

-ERD50

 

[Koolau]

OK,
and we still sprayed our crops for weeds (24d IIRC, but don't hold me to it - whatever Dad put in the tank, also recall some sort of emulsified oil mix?).

We ate that corn, even though it was sprayed.

-ERD50

That explains a lot.





(Sorry 'bout that!)

 

[ivinsfan]

Then again, we do eat all the critters that eat that corn. Bring on the bacon!

Yes we do, however GMO corn is getting lots of scrutiny as you might notice when you look at your yogurt carton and it says non GMO. It's kind of like the organic issue ie, it is what you say it is. Technically organic meat would not be fed GMO corn. It's complicated



My whole point was people really don't eat field corn..

 

[ivinsfan]

OK, I don't really know how different the corn grown for "corn flakes" or tortillas or corn meal for corn bread are (I don't have time now to dig through that link), but "completely different" sounds like a stretch. Are you saying it can't be grown in place of the type of dent corn that is grown to produce ethanol? That's what matters here.

I grew up on a corn growing farm in N IL (you have me beat with 50 years!), and that was the day of mechanical cultivators (I spent many hours pulling a four row cultivator behind a John Deere 4010), and we still sprayed our crops for weeds (24d IIRC, but don't hold me to it - whatever Dad put in the tank, also recall some sort of emulsified oil mix?).

We ate that corn, even though it was sprayed. If Genetically Engineered crops reduce the amount of stuff sprayed on the corn, I'm all for it ( I hate the term GMO - everything we grow has been Genetically Modified - selection, F1 hybrids, etc - 'engineered' is different, and in many ways far better).

-ERD50

I never said it can't be grown in place of ethanol corn, I said ethanol corn or regular field corn isn't the same as corn grown for human consumption. Yes it could be grown but we'd have to figure out how to expand processing and what food would be produced from it.



When I say completely different I mean corn is corn but say you are growing peas for a canning company, You sign a contact, get the seed from the company and the company tells you exactly what type of weed/pest control you are permitted to use on that crop. They tell what they will pay you in advance. If you breach (say with the wrong type weed control) they can plow it under and pay nothing.



When you plant a field of corn directly for a food producer you know that before you pull out the planter.



It's not the end of the world but I thought some posters might want to know how some of this works.





24D yep like that stuff wasn't toxic as all get out.

 

[ivinsfan]

We'll have to check with Ivinsfan if that GMO pig corn can be turned into Bourbon.

That's above my pay grade but I do know that some distillers have grain ie wheat, rye and barley and such contracts with certain producers. I think they like certain varieties and types for brewing and distilling. And maybe they want it to be organic and non GMO....

 

[ERD50]

That explains a lot.





(Sorry 'bout that!)

I was thinking of throwing in a similar comment to poke fun at myself So it's OK!

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

I never said it can't be grown in place of ethanol corn, I said ethanol corn or regular field corn isn't the same as corn grown for human consumption. Yes it could be grown but we'd have to figure out how to expand processing and what food would be produced from it.

When I say completely different I mean corn is corn but say you are growing peas for a canning company, You sign a contact, get the seed from the company and the company tells you exactly what type of weed/pest control you are permitted to use on that crop. They tell what they will pay you in advance. If you breach (say with the wrong type weed control) they can plow it under and pay nothing.

When you plant a field of corn directly for a food producer you know that before you pull out the planter.

It's not the end of the world but I thought some posters might want to know how some of this works.

24D yep like that stuff wasn't toxic as all get out.

I agree with all that, but it's a short term view (this/next year's crop has been planned) - in the longer run, over several years, it seems that we could move some production from common field corn to a variety for making human food w/o much problem.

-ERD50

 

[ivinsfan]

I agree with all that, but it's a short term view (this/next year's crop has been planned) - in the longer run, over several years, it seems that we could move some production from common field corn to a variety for making human food w/o much problem.

-ERD50

Changes can always be made and talking about them is the first step..Farmers will produce for the market, ATM its ethanol

 

[38Chevy454]

Probably a question for ivinsfan, but around here the crop fields are rotated between corn and soybeans. My limited understanding is that beans help put nitrogen into the soil, and corn depletes it. Hence the rotation of the fields. Would this help offset fertilizer needs? Or is fertilizer still required for other elements?

Also most likely a weather based issue: it seems around here and also Indiana that corn or soybean are all you see growing.

 

[ivinsfan]

Probably a question for ivinsfan, but around here the crop fields are rotated between corn and soybeans. My limited understanding is that beans help put nitrogen into the soil, and corn depletes it. Hence the rotation of the fields. Would this help offset fertilizer needs? Or is fertilizer still required for other elements?

Also most likely a weather based issue: it seems around here and also Indiana that corn or soybean are all you see growing.

Yes however more and more producers are planting continuous corn. This is definitely attributed to ethanol production. We still rotate.