EPA raises amount of ethanol that must be blended with gas

https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-climate-and-environment-741866342fa94e30370cb6f4b2671e60

by geox • 4 years ago

37 57 4 years ago

apnews.com

amir734jj• 4 years ago

Does the percentage of ethanol have any effect on the engine?

taterbase• 4 years ago

Older car hoses can degrade faster from it. You also get less power per liter with the blend but overall no.

bombcar• 4 years ago

It also doesn’t “keep” as well (which is why you should burn non-oxy premium in small engines if you can’t get normal non oxy; or fully drain/run dry your lawn mower at the end of the season).

pitaj• 4 years ago

It's an octane booster, which helps reduce knock.

RhysU• 4 years ago

Anything past E90 is terrible for motorcycles of all sizes and many small engines.

xtiansimon• 4 years ago

Reading my Suzuki Owner’s Manual it says no more than 10% ethanol, but also under no circumstances more than 5% methanol (wood alcohol). It’s getting so you need a gasoline “nutrition” label to keep your 2-wheel fun machine running well.

hammock2• 4 years ago

Is US corn-based ethanol better or worse for the climate than gasoline?

ip26• 4 years ago

Topical: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/us-corn-based-e...

thinkcontext• 4 years ago

Some parts of the gov say better some say worse. The difference is in how land use effects are calculated.

Everyone agrees it raises food prices.

sieabahlpark• 4 years ago

Fantastic! It's like this administration is trying to kill the poorest people.

rascul2• 4 years ago

It might be worse. There was a discussion a few months ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30343170

formvoltron• 4 years ago

Worse. It loses energy or is energy break even between fertilizing, spraying, reaping, transporting, processing, & transporting again. However it does line some farm state pockets.

coryrc3• 4 years ago

"The fuel consumes more than 40% of the nation’s corn supply"

Good thing we're not approaching global famine.

drewcon5• 4 years ago

Different corn.

gwright• 4 years ago

Still occupies acreage that could be used to grow something else.

formerkrogemp• 4 years ago

I suppose if you tried hard enough you could process ethanol corn into food, but it wouldn't be that healthy I'd imagine. You can't really change crops mid season very easily or cost effectively. I suppose we could lament the opportunity cost of not planting human food instead, but the fields and farms may not be setup in terms of fertilizer and seed to handle that change in crop.

qeternity6• 4 years ago

It's not. We eat the corn, just in different forms. The vast majority of corn is used as feedstock, or to produce HFCS. This is the same corn used to make ethanol.

Also, the inputs (fertilizer, etc) are shared across the entire agri sector.

coryrc3• 4 years ago

Ethanol is edible as calories. I'm sure there are other ways to make human-edible food out of this, like HFCS.

AnonMO• 4 years ago

Global imo not the USA. US is not a net importer of food, but an exporter. Most of the imported food can be grown in the states also three of the top four food imports to the US are used for/are beverages i.e. wine, coffee, and malt beverages. Also the reason why so much money went into ethanol research is because of the massive corn wastage that happens every year. Maybe the US should crank up food export, but demand is for wheat not corn.

coryrc3• 4 years ago

Agreed, we won't face even scarcity, I expect. But it's a bad look (and just bad) to be pouring food into cars while people starve due to conflicts they have no influence over.

Corn is what we got, so I wish we'd plan to help others eat with it.

usrn• 4 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if some games were played so that we're exporting all the food while people here starve similar to the Holodomor in Ukraine.

gedy• 4 years ago

The fuel consumes more than 40% of the nation’s corn supply

I know life's not so simple, but annoys me to hear this along side news blurbs about "massive food shortages coming!".

drewcon5• 4 years ago

“Only 1 percent of all corn grown in this country is eaten by humans. The rest is No. 2 yellow field corn, which is indigestible to humans and used in animal feed, food supplements and ethanol.“

https://www.wired.com/2011/06/five-ethanol-myths-busted-2/

qeternity6• 4 years ago

This is such a naive take. Most corn is used as feedstock. This is hugely important to production of animal protein, which humans eat.

Just because we don't eat the corn directly, doesn't mean we aren't eating the corn.

This would be like saying "only 1% of water is actually consumed by humans, so we don't need to worry about water shortages". The world just isn't that simple.

prpl2• 4 years ago

this is a naive take. All corn is edible, though usually processed like it has been since corn was maize - ground or nixtamalized. And that’s how yellow corn is also used, to make tortilla chips and taco shells. You just aren’t going to grill it and eat it off the cob.

Saying it isn’t edible is like saying cassava isn’t edible.

prpl2• 4 years ago

For a more nuanced take on the indigestible claim:

https://www.livescience.com/why-humans-cannot-digest-corn.ht...

But yes, No. 2 yellow field corn is a food for humans - just not in its rawest form.

tablespoon• 4 years ago

> The fuel consumes more than 40% of the nation’s corn supply
I know life's not so simple, but annoys me to hear this along side news blurbs about "massive food shortages coming!".

Honestly, that's probably part of the process of shifting production. Coordinating lots of people is hard.

perihelions2• 4 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31438659 ("The Coming Food Catastrophe (economist.com)", 597 comments)

- "There is scope for substitution. About 10% of all grains are used to make biofuel; and 18% of vegetable oils go to biodiesel. Finland and Croatia have weakened mandates that require petrol to include fuel from crops. Others should follow their lead."

Filligree• 4 years ago

Yes. The timing of this is… utterly absurd.

azinman2• 4 years ago

Except you can’t eat the corn that goes into ethanol.

bdw5204• 4 years ago

The "blending" of corn with gas is an example of how the government routinely makes policies that are bad for everybody except some politically influential special interest. In this case, corn farmers in Iowa who have excessive political influence because Iowa is always the first state to vote for presidential nominees.

This is yet another reason why we need to get special interest money out of politics and why all presidential primaries should be held on the same day. If Iowa wasn't the first state in the presidential nomination process (and thus able to make or break presidential campaigns), no presidential candidate would need to pander to their corn farmer lobby.

chrisseaton• 4 years ago

The "blending" of corn with gas

It isn't 'corn' - it's ethyl alcohol. It's C2H6O no matter how it was produced. All fossil fuels come from organic matter. You're making it sound silly by calling it corn but not actually making any useful point.

prepend• 4 years ago

It’s created in the US from corn. This policy was made to benefit corn producers. You are correct but your point isn’t relevant.

ck2• 4 years ago

U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biofuels-emissions-id...

The research, which was funded in part by the National Wildlife Federation and U.S. Department of Energy, found that ethanol is likely at least 24% more carbon-intensive than gasoline due to emissions resulting from land use changes to grow corn, along with processing and combustion.

Overtonwindow• 4 years ago

This might be controversial, but I don’t think we should be using food as fuel for our vehicles.

hammock2• 4 years ago

Would make it hard to use a horse, mule or ox in that case

elzbardico• 4 years ago

Producing ethanol fuel with corn instead of sugarcane is really stupid.

beej71• 4 years ago

This map of non-ethanol gas stations has worked well for me.

https://www.pure-gas.org/

cameldrv• 4 years ago

With us heading into a huge global grain shortage this seems like a very bad idea.

jcadam• 4 years ago

This will keep fuel prices high. Corn production is way down this year.

EPA raises amount of ethanol that must be blended with gas

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