Corn and Ethanol.

[James48843]

Ethanol number of statons jumps to 1521 nationwide this month.

http://e85prices.com

That's 1/3rd more than a year ago.

 

[James48843]

If anyone is interested in an interesting E85 long term investment opportunity, shoot me a PM. A large plant under construction is having problems raising enought capital to finish construction due to the credit crunch, and they are looking for investors.

I am thinking about it. This might be the right kind of thing to form an investment club around, if there are others who might be interested in making a smaller investment as a club, rather than me sticking my neck out and putting all of my eggs into one basket, to try to meet their share requirements.

http://www.mlive.com/saginawnews/business/index.ssf/2008/04/ethanol_plant_will_be_built_in.html

It may be higher risk than many would be comfortable with (inlcuding me), but the numbers actually look pretty good, especially with higher gas prices ahead. This is not for anything other than venture capital risk.

 

[James48843]

Paid $2.59 a gallon for E85 this after noon in Princeton, Illinois.

Unleaded gas in Chicago suburbs today is $4.14.

Long Live Corn!

 

[James48843]

An Oracle of Oil Predicts $200-a-Barrel Crude
Wednesday, May 21, 2008The New York Times -- Arjun N. Murti remembers the pain of the oil shocks of the 1970s. But he is bracing for something far worse now: He foresees a “super spike” — a price surge that will soon drive crude oil to $200 a barrel.

Mr. Murti, who has a bit of a green streak, is not bothered much by the prospect of even higher oil prices, figuring it might finally prompt America to become more energy efficient.

An analyst at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Murti has become the talk of the oil market by issuing one sensational forecast after another. A few years ago, rivals scoffed when he predicted oil would breach $100 a barrel. Few are laughing now. Oil shattered yet another record on Tuesday, touching $129.60 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas at $4 a gallon is arriving just in time for those long summer drives.

Visit The New York Times for full article

 

[James48843]

Where on earth did you find that article?

There are errors in fact in that article. The headline, to start with. If you are burning E85, you are not using more "gas".

True, miles per gallon are lower, but that is a gallon of ethanol, NOT a gallon of gas.

By the way- it has been four weeks since I bought any "gas". I've been runnning exclusively on E-85 this month, and driven over 3,000 miles.

For a listing of current prices of a gallon of E85 and locataions of stations, see http://e85prices.com

I'm in Iowa today, driving to Illinois and Indiana this afternoon. Will fill up twice today- and it will all be on E85.

 

[Show-me]

I told ya so! Making food into fuel is stupid cuz now we are paying higher fuel and food prices while giving a tax break to the oil companies that blend ethanol and subsidies to ethanol producers and to corn growers as long as they don't gross more than $1.5 million filing jointly.

We are freak'n doomed!:blink:

 

[Show-me]

Ethanol Vehicles for Post Office Burn More Gas, Get Fewer Miles

By Peter Robison, Alan Ohnsman and Alan Bjerga

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Postal Service purchased more than 30,000 ethanol-capable trucks and minivans from 1999 to 2005, making it the biggest American buyer of alternative-fuel vehicles. Gasoline consumption jumped by more than 1.5 million gallons as a result.
The trucks, derived from Ford Motor Co.'s Explorer sport- utility vehicle, had bigger engines than Jeeps from the former Chrysler Corp. they replaced. A Postal Service study found the new vehicles got as much as 29 percent fewer miles to the gallon. Mail carriers used the corn-based fuel in just 1,000 of them because there weren't enough places to buy it.
``You're getting fewer miles per gallon, and it's costing us more,'' Walt O'Tormey, the Postal Service's Washington-based vice president of engineering, said in an interview. The agency may buy electric vehicles instead, he said.
The experience shows how the U.S. push for crop-based fuels, already contributing to the highest rate of food inflation in 17 years, may not be achieving its goal of reducing gasoline consumption. Lawmakers are seeking caps on the use of biofuels after last year's 40 percent jump in world food prices, calling the U.S. policy flawed.
``Using food for fuel has created some unintended consequences: food shortages, the high price of livestock feed,'' said Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican. ``I think it's leading a lot of people to wonder whether our corn-based ethanol goals need to be adjusted.''
Stimulating Demand
Lost in the debate over the fuel's contribution to food scarcity is the possibility that the ethanol policy itself isn't working, said David Just, an associate professor of economics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. It may stimulate demand by making gas cheaper, he said, an argument supported by at least two U.S. government studies.
The Postal Service bought the ethanol vehicles to meet alternative-fuel requirements. The vehicles' size and ethanol's lower energy content lowered mileage, the agency said. It takes 1.33 gallons of E85 (85 percent ethanol) and 1.03 gallons of E10 (10 percent ethanol) to travel the same distance as with one gallon of pure gasoline, the Department of Energy says.
The Energy Independence and Security Act, passed in December, called for ethanol production to more than double to 15 billion gallons in 2015 from 6.5 billion last year. The U.S. pays oil refiners like Exxon Mobil Corp. 51 cents in tax refunds for each gallon of ethanol they blend into regular gasoline. Automakers get extra credit toward federal fuel-efficiency standards for models that can run on ethanol.
No Federal Requirement
No federal law requires that oil companies make the fuel widely available or that vehicles actually burn it.
About 1,560 of 180,000 U.S. gas stations, or fewer than one in 100, sell E85, according to Ford and the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition in Jefferson City, Missouri. E85 accounted for 1 percent of ethanol sold in 2006. The rest was blended into regular gasoline at lower concentrations, the Energy Information Administrationsays.
``Whether it was intended this way or not, the U.S. policy helps gasoline companies,'' said Cornell's Just. He and colleague Harry de Gorter estimated in a February paper that the credit may increase gasoline consumption by 628 million gallons to 156.6 billion gallons by 2015, compared with 155.9 billion without it.
Findings `Questionable'
``The findings of these professors are questionable,'' said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, a nonprofit group in Washington representing ethanol producers including Archer Daniels Midland Co. of Decatur, Illinois. The Energy Department's estimates show that ethanol will contribute to a reduction in U.S. petroleum demand in 2008, he said.
A limited number of stations selling ethanol and the scarcity of vehicles burning it diminish the fuel's appeal, according to a June 2007 report by the Government Accountability Office, the research arm of Congress. Three of the 26 ethanol- capable vehicles offered in 2007 were compact or mid-size cars, and the rest were large autos, pickups, SUVs or vans.
The big vehicles help automakers meet fuel-economy standards. General Motors Corp.'s ``dual-fuel'' 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe SUV was rated at 33.8 miles per gallon for city-highway driving, while a gasoline-burning model was at 20.5 mpg. A study by three government agencies in March 2002 found that the U.S. would consume 17 million gallons of additional gasoline through 2008 if the flex-fuel vehicles ran on E85 1 percent of the time.
``Not only does this credit do nothing to improve fuel efficiency,'' said Daniel Becker, an environmental lawyer and former head of Sierra Club's global-warming program. ``It's also ensuring that we're going to use more gasoline.''
Spurring Sales
Federal credits over time will spur more stations to sell ethanol, said Greg Martin, a spokesman for Detroit-based GM. The three largest U.S. carmakers pledged to make half their vehicles capable of using alternative fuels by 2012.
``There is a caveat: providing that the infrastructure and the proper incentives are in place,'' said Jennifer Moore, a spokeswoman for Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford.
As for the Postal Service, the agency delayed a $4 billion investment in as many as 150,000 delivery vehicles until around 2015, O'Tormey said. Until then, it will experiment with Ford Escape hybrid-electric SUVs, an Azure Dynamics Corp. electric vehicle and a GM hydrogen fuel-cell model, to be introduced in Los Angeles in July, he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Peter Robison in Seattle at robison@bloomberg.net; Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles at aohnsman@bloomberg.net; Alan Bjerga in Washington at abjerga@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: May 21, 2008 00:01 EDT

 

[FUTURESTRADER]

From what I know, if we could put up with having new coal refineries built (a very NIMBY issue) under the regulations in place for new facilities, we would have plants that are much better at scrubbing out acid rain. Not sure whether the carbon effects long term would be sustainable. But coal is a major source of energy in the U.S. even now. Anyone have more on this issue?

Carbon Sequestration after gasification of coal looks to have some potential. Pumping the CO2 back underground.

 

[Silverbird]

From what I know, if we could put up with having new coal refineries built (a very NIMBY issue) under the regulations in place for new facilities, we would have plants that are much better at scrubbing out acid rain. Not sure whether the carbon effects long term would be sustainable. But coal is a major source of energy in the U.S. even now. Anyone have more on this issue?

 

[Guest2]

Last Year, I seem to recall a push for coal to fuel. It appears that
(just like in the 70's) interest dies quicky in this country. Especially
when gas prices at the pump go down. After this summer is over,
we'll be happy campers paying way to much for gas because it'll
be no so much less then the 4.169 per gallon we are likely to be
paying. Thats how they do it ! Thats how they've always done it!
:notrust::worried::suspicious:

 

[Buster]

I know making Ethanol out of food products is costing us more for Milk and Bread..but putting my selfish needs aside..I'm glad the farmers who have been sucking wind for years with third and forth mortgages on farms that has been in their families for generations, are finally seeing a break in their struggle to survive...I support the Bio-fuel alternative right now for the sake of Farmers of this country.

 

[FUTURESTRADER]

Country boy, I agree that ethanol is not the solution. T. Boone Pickens was on C-SPAN the other day and had some interesting points to say about the energy situation. His idea was that, in addition to increasing exploration for new oil sources, we should increase our reliance on nuclear, coal, wind, and solar to generate electricity, thus freeing up much more of our natural gas supplies to be converted to "oil" for transportation. By his estimation, we could meet approximately 30% of our transportation needs by converting natural gas to oil, rather than consuming so much of it to heat our homes and produce electricity.

I have always thought that we needed to rely more on nuclear plants to produce our electricity. Nothing is without some negatives, but this seems to have the least negatives compared with the alternatives.

T. Boone is looking into creating a huge wind farm from Saskatchewan to Texas. Enough to power a million homes or equal to two nuclear power plants. He also said "Save the NG for vehicles"

 

[alevin]

And then again, why stick with gas/petroleum-based for transportation at all? Just be patient for a couple more years and save your rebate checks and other savings towards a non-petroleum based vehicle-there'll be a variety of options by 2010-2011.
If you're an optimist, that is.

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1557/69/

 

[CountryBoy]

.... thus freeing up much more of our natural gas supplies to be converted to "oil" for transportation. By his estimation, we could meet approximately 30% of our transportation needs by converting natural gas to oil, rather than consuming so much of it to heat our homes and produce electricity.

Press,

It's not exactly changing nat gas to oil, but it looks like the folks in Utah have the right idea. Maybe if we'd get those knuckle heads in DC outta the way, private enterprise and just plain old capitalism will come up with the answer, w/o millions of our tax dollars going towards subsidies to burn our food.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/24325475/for/cnbc

There's gotta be a market play in there somewhere. If there is a buck to be made our Capitalistic economy will find it, w/o help from the pols. The pols didn't subsidize viagra. lol

CB

 

[Wrngway]

I just finished attending an energy conference that was very interesting. Speakers were talking about next generation renewable fuels. The one I thought was most promising was synthetic fuels manufacutured from engineered bacteria or through catalysis. The base material can be a variety of plant material as well as waste garbage. There have been recent advances in technology that make these methods viable. Better yet, these methods can produce carbon chains of specific links leading to crude that can be refined in current facilities. This also means fuel that essentially matches or exceeds the performance of current gasoline with no modification to vehicles and can be delivered using current infrastructure.

Other alternatives discussed were hydrogen fuel cells and even space based solar plants.

 

[presskh]

Country boy, I agree that ethanol is not the solution. T. Boone Pickens was on C-SPAN the other day and had some interesting points to say about the energy situation. His idea was that, in addition to increasing exploration for new oil sources, we should increase our reliance on nuclear, coal, wind, and solar to generate electricity, thus freeing up much more of our natural gas supplies to be converted to "oil" for transportation. By his estimation, we could meet approximately 30% of our transportation needs by converting natural gas to oil, rather than consuming so much of it to heat our homes and produce electricity.

I have always thought that we needed to rely more on nuclear plants to produce our electricity. Nothing is without some negatives, but this seems to have the least negatives compared with the alternatives.

 

[CountryBoy]

While looking to invest last summer in alternative energy stocks, I researched ethanol production, manufacturing energy requirements, emissions from burning ethanol, infrastructure required, plus land and fertilizer requirements. I came to the conclusion, that ethanol produced from corn/wheat, is not the answer for several reasons. The big one is you don’t burn your food or feedstock. We can already see the increase in food prices across the board. Other drawbacks, include polluting our waters by the drastic increase in fertilizer required, emissions from engine exhaust (NO I believe), depending on what study you look at, it requires as much energy to produce as it would deliver and the massive investment in infrastructure.

I’m keeping my eye on cellulose ethanol. Right now that can’t be produce economically, but it would greatly reduce the burden on burning our food, since any green matter can be used, except ALgore.

I could be wrong, but I believe if we’re going to be energy dependent, we need to drill what sources we have and simultaneously put a Manhattan Project type effort in to developing a feasible alternative energy source, whether it is fuel cell, batteries or coal to fuel. Wind and solar are decades away from supply energy in the amount we need, if ever, if we are going to keep our economy going. There is no quick fix.

Our politicians dropped the ball in the late 70’s during the oil embargo, but what can we expect from those short sighted dimwits. :laugh:

I've wallerd this subject to death and even the far left greenie weenie in our office concurs, except for the drilling part, but he won't do his part, he still uses AC in the summer time, so it's kinda hard to figger how dedicated he is, since that would also reduce global warming if you believe that sort of thing.

Just my $.02.

CB

 

[James48843]

Ethanol this week in NYMEX exchange trading at $2.61 a gallon, the highest point in a year, and last closed at $2.59.

Brazillian ethanol, on the docks in Brazil, is still just $1.56 a gallon.

U.S. Production in December 2007 hit 17 million gallons a month- up from just 13 million in December 2006, an just 10 million in 2005. Ethanol production is hitting new highs each month- helping slow the jump in the price of oil.

 

[Silverbird]

Hrrm.. There is more to this Rice shortage than just Corn/ethanol. Sorry that this article is New York Times - which I think means you have to pay for it. But here are a couple things going on affecting rice production that isn't getting into a lot of the press.

A Drought in Australia, a Global Shortage of Rice
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: April 17, 2008

"...The Deniliquin mill [in Australia], the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia’s rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December....

....With rice, which is not used to make biofuel, the problem is availability. Even in normal times, little of the world’s rice is actually exported — more than 90 percent is consumed in the countries where it is grown. In the last quarter-century, rice consumption has outpaced production, with global reserves plunging by half just since 2000. A plant disease is hurting harvests in Vietnam, reducing supply. And economic uncertainty has led producers to hoard rice and speculators and investors to see it as a lucrative or at least safe bet.

All these factors have made countries that buy rice on the global market vulnerable to extreme price swings.

Senegal and Haiti each import four-fifths of their rice, and both have faced mounting unrest as prices have increased....

....Australia’s total rice capacity has declined by about a third because many farmers have permanently sold water rights, mostly for grape production.....

“Rice is a staple food,” said Graeme J. Haley, the general manager of the town of Deniliquin. “Chardonnay is not.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/business/worldbusiness/17warm.html?th&emc=th

 

[Silverbird]

MMMmmmm, Food riots eh! Sounds like something out of a Si-Fi novel.

But then again, so does turning food stocks into ethanol when people are starving.

So does cutting down rain forests to plant palms for palm oil, and huge mudslides...or maybe that's more like a disaster movie?