rickh

22 Comments

    • ON: Tue Oct 7th 19:36 PM
      Commented on:
      Tesoro Corp. Sues State of California on Ethanol Blending Mandate
      I am more concerned with the US economy than I am with feeding the rest of the world. ethanol beats buying oil from terrorist. It lowers our trade imbalance. It creates jobs in America. It lowers air pollution.
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    • ON: Sun Oct 5th 21:18 PM
      Commented on:
      Tesoro Corp. Sues State of California on Ethanol Blending Mandate
      Corn is selling for $4.50 a bushel and we are making more ethanol than ever. Ethanol did not run up the price of corn. It was the dollar dropping in value.
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    • ON: Tue Sep 16th 01:29 AM
      Commented on:
      Ethanol: Our Answer to Reducing U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil
      262900,

      E30 is as effecient as gasoline, ane you will soon be able to buy it at a station near you. that is what the article was about.

      I never said there was a free lunch. Are you suggesting we stop growing this "non food grade corn?" If we do we have nothing to feed our cows and chickens.
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    • ON: Fri Sep 5th 09:39 AM
      Commented on:
      Ethanol: Our Answer to Reducing U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil
      Dear Sub,

      If I buy E30 I have no reduction in, "how far it can move a vehicle," therefore I use 30% less gasoline.

      This article points out the big breakthrough in ethanol marketing. No wonder the shorts and ethanol bashers came out in mass. If I can buy E30 and get the same mileage, pay 30 cents a gallon less, send less money to the terrorist, and create less pollution, I will do it every time.
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    • ON: Thu Sep 4th 09:50 AM
      Commented on:
      Ethanol: Our Answer to Reducing U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil
      Dear Sub,

      Do you know the difference between potential energy and realized energy?
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    • ON: Sun Aug 31st 19:29 PM
      Commented on:
      Ethanol: Our Answer to Reducing U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil
      Dear Sub-Eye,

      Methanol is a known carcinigen and poisons the ground water. You cannot substitute it for Ethanol without getting your butt kicked in court. MTBE would have made the Asbestos judgments look small if the oil companies had continued using it.
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    • ON: Sun Aug 31st 19:26 PM
      Commented on:
      Ethanol: Our Answer to Reducing U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil
      You can't be concerned about the "Dead Zone" and worry about the food supply! Pick one.
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    • ON: Sun Aug 10th 14:10 PM
      Commented on:
      More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
      Hey sub,

      Yes, Religious extremist hate our movies and music. They see thier followers making decisions that they don't like. when the Chinese and Indians become the major trading partners of the Middle East, their cultures will start rubbing off too. The Religious Extremist will consider that a threat also. Do you think the Muslims want to see people living Hindu lives in their contry? Have you notice China's stand on religion? They will take some of the focus off of us. This is only my opinion.
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    • ON: Fri Aug 8th 09:15 AM
      Commented on:
      More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
      Dear Sub

      I used to work for a company issued Reg D limited partnerships. We raised money for start ups and expansions. Ethanol companies were coming to us to raise money. One of the entreprenuers told me they were producing so much Corn Syrup that the market could not absorb it all and the price was crashing. They were retrofitting several plants to burn corn syrup in lieu of natural gas at times of over supply. I asked why they did not build wind mills to generate the heat they needed. He said they would in states that allowed them to sell extra capacity back into the grid at a fair price, but this state was not one of those.
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    • ON: Fri Aug 8th 09:05 AM
      Commented on:
      EPA Rejects Congress's Ethanol Waiver
      The Governor of Texas, possibly the largest Oil producing state is against the production of Ethanol? What a surprise.

      Cattle ranchers in his state have to pay too much for corn? Everybody in my state is paying too much for gasoline and alot of it comes from Texas. When we mandate how much Texas charges for oil, he can have some input on how much ethanol we make.
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    • ON: Fri Aug 1st 11:49 AM
      Commented on:
      More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
      Dear Subsidy Eye.

      Are you saying the war in Iraq was not about oil? What other reason did we have to invade a country that never attacked us?

      Can you put a price on the safety of our country? Sending billions of dollars a year to countries that support terrorism makes littles sense to me.

      And what is the value of cleaner air?

      Ethanol may not be the long term answer, but it will help get us off Mid East oil until plug in electric cars can be developed and made cost effective. It can help cut our trade imbalance. It lowers the amount of air pollution we breath right now.

      Right now ethanol is subsidizing gasoline not the other way around. Take a look at this comparison. Alcohol is selling at $1.55 on the spot market. And the refiners and blenders get a $.51/gallon fed subsidy. So their cost is $1.04 plus shipping expenses. NYMEX RBOB says gasoline sells for 3.16 plus shipping. so alcohol is $2.12/gallon cheaper than gasoline, yet E85 sells for $.4 less than gasoline. The refiners are making a higher profit on alcohol than they are on gasoline. That is your tax money subsidizing gasoline.

      These are the pump prices in my area yesterday. Your numbers should vary.
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    • ON: Fri Aug 1st 11:27 AM
      Commented on:
      More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
      I am glad you brought up the WTO. The WTO twice has ruled that US agriculture subsidies were undermining agriculture world wide. Farmers in America could dump their corn on the world market at $1.85/bushel and our government would subsidies them to a price of $2.95/bushel. Evan farmers in Argentina and West Africa cant make a profit selling corn at $1.85. Therefore, they had no financial incentive to grow grain.

      I am curiously watching the run up in grain prices to see if the WTO was correct. Market forces pushed the price of grains above the US support levels. Lets see if this has the positive effect on world wide grain production they said it would.

      I would like to restate that I have no illusions of ever getting to 80% ethanol in our liquid fuels. Ethanol has it's best economics at 20-30% of the gasohol mix. Cars with computerized timing and airflow sensors see little drop in miles per gallon when using up to 30% alcohol. So forget your 1-1.5 ration. In Brazil you choose your ethanol to gas ratio based on the price of each and what your car likes.

      Dear subs ethanol which you say has been around for 20 years has really been around for about 100. An honest attempt to go large scale is only a couple of years old. Oil has come close to crushing it several times. They chose to use MTBE because it was a petroleum product. Thanks for the toxic ground water big oil.

      I am in favor of lowering the tariff on imported ethanol over time. 1-5 years. Good luck to Brazil on the WTO taking their side. It has not helped us open China's markets no matter how many times the WTO has sided with America.

      Dear subsidy eye. Allow me to point out. Ethyl Alcohol comes from organic distillation. Ethanol is a fuel made from mixing alcohol and gasoline, it is not blend percentage specific. You use the word Ethanol when referring to alcohol and every blend of alcohol/gasoline. This makes it difficult to fact check or follow what you are saying.
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    • ON: Thu Jul 31st 20:45 PM
      Commented on:
      More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
      Dear Subsidy eye

      Other transfers includes the profit of the corn industry? Would you prefer that money transfer to Middle East oil companies?

      By your definition of transfer, or subsidy, where does military cost to protect the oil suppliers and shipping lanes fall in. I think the cost of the Iraq war has been something like $1.5 trillon. That makes ethanol look cheap.

      Long therm, electric is the goal for consumer transportation. That is years away. if we could get to 80/20 gas ethanol and cut our overall liquid fuel consumption, which $4 gas is making happen, we can drasticly shink the amount of money flowing out of our economy.

      We can cut our trade imbalance if we use all of the clubs in our bag. Parts of the country with corn or switch gras can use ethanol. Places with abundant Natural gas will see fleet owners use Natural gas, think UPS. Coastal regions without corn or NG like the North East could import ethanol from Brazil. Brazil likes us. Hybrid cars followed by plug in hybrids will ease our problem maybe solve it, untill plug in electric can be made cost effective to manufacture.

      Which energy industry does not get a government subsidy? Wind and solar get tax breaks, those are subsidies. Oil and gas get preferential tax treatment on depreciation. That is a subsidy. Home owners get a tax deduction for making their home more fuel efficient. that is a subsidy. Our tax system is a carrot/whip senerio. Ethanol is less harmful than buying oil from countrys that hate us. Oil causes most of our air polution therefore I don't mind it being punitively taxed. I wish it was.

      Why would electric cars be unpopular with Detroit? GM will be making them. Battery technology is the only thing keeping GM from rolling out an electric car today.

      Also, several oil companies are keen of E85? Without the mandates oil compaines would not put alcohol in their fuel. They do not want to let ADM and Monsanto have a piece of their monopoly.

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    • ON: Thu Jul 31st 20:05 PM
      Commented on:
      Updates on Networking Sector: F5, Juniper, Akamai
      Have you read her bio? Silicon valley and a Masters from MIT. I don't care if she studied tic-tac-toe at MIT. I would not be so quick to discredit her.
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    • ON: Wed Jul 30th 10:08 AM
      Commented on:
      More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd
      Subsidy eye.

      Oil is not a monopoly? go put something other than gasoline in your car today. Go to your local car dealer and try to buy a car that runs on something other than gasoline. Try to fill your natural gas car every place you want to go. No single company has a monopoly, but the industry has a monopoly on our motor fuel.

      Last year we used 7 billion gallons of ethanol. Using .51 gallon for the subsidy that is only $3.5 billion in subsidies. Look at the farm subsidies the last year corn did not excede the government floor price of $2.95 bushel. Farm subsidies were over $8 billion dollars.

      I do not understand your comment "Other transfers in the industry" are you making this up as you go along?

      I would do away with the subsidies over the next 5 years and keep the mandates in place. Ethanol is already cheaper than gas, the refiners and mixers need no financial ncentive to use it.
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