Oil Companies Fined for Not Buying Nonexistent Cellulosic Ethanol

[Intense]

Ah, ethanol. What market atrocity hasn't yet been committed in pursuit of the idea that we should power our cars from farmland rather than taking the fossilized stuff out of the ground?

In case you haven't noticed, the 30-year-old program for subsidizing ethanol production through tax credits has expired. Congress let it to happen over the Christmas holidays while hassling over how to fund the federal government for fiscal 2012. Republicans (minus a few farm state members) have long condemned the program while Democrats, who usually hail it as a triumph of the Carter Administration, finally decided it wasn't worth defending anymore. This means the tax credit for ethanol -- which started at 3 cents per gallon and eventually rose to 54 cents -- is now off the books. Also gone is the 46-cents-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol to protect the domestic industry.

Does that mean we're back to reality? Unfortunately, no. Still in place are the mandates adopted when the Bush Administration set phantasmagorical goals for ethanol production, particularly cellulosic ethanol, which brings us to our original subject.

The ethanol that we've been putting in our gas tanks for the last 20 years is made from corn seeds. The sugars and starches in the grain break down under heat and can be easily fermented into alcohol. We've been doing it since Neanderthal days (the Cave Men had a version of beer), so it's not too complicated. The problem is that the seeds make up only 15 percent of the corn plant. The rest is cellulose, the much tougher molecules that give the plant its structure and do not break down so easily. It can be accomplished with chemical enzymes or by evaporating everything and then combining it back to liquid ethanol, but both methods are far too expensive and energy intensive.

So the preferred techniques are biological. There are bacteria in the guts of cows and termites that break down cellulose but they are highly adapted and have trouble living outside their native environment. Only in 2010 did someone genetically engineer a strain of yeast that can do the same thing. But that is getting way ahead of the story.

Drawing on only 15 percent of the plant, we are now processing an incredible 40 percent of the 12 billion bushels grown on 400,000 farms into fuel ethanol. The entire world crop is only 25 billion bushels, which means that one out of five bushels worldwide is going into American automobiles. This has crimped the world food supply and set off riots in places as diverse as Mexico and Southeast Asia. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization regularly condemns ethanol as a "crime against humanity" but no one in this country pays much attention.

Always on the horizon of this effort, however, has been the vision that we will one day be able to process the remaining 85 percent of the plant -- the cellulose -- into a usable fuel as well. Then we wouldn't have to be taking food out of people's mouths.

Unfortunately, while it's been accomplished here and there in the laboratory, no one has ever been able to scale the process up to a commercial level. Nor is there any assurance that anyone ever will. People have been trying to domesticate morel mushrooms for centuries without any success. Somewhere around 2005, however, the environmental movement and its tagalongs in the Bush Administration came upon the perfect solution -- government mandates!

The American Spectator : The Ultimate Individual Mandate

Oh My!!! What Big Teeth You Have Grand Ma!!!

 

[editec]

We know that we are paying at the pump.

Does that mean that you're not interested who is getting the money from this obvious scam?

I mean, not to be too legalistic about it, but don't you CARE who the criminals that are ripping people off really are?

Here's a hint...it isn't those POOR, ENVIOUS middle class or poor people.

 

[Katzndogz]

Comparing the profit oil companies get, which is about 7 cents a gallon, to the taxes charged by both feds and state, you can easily see who gets the lions share of per gallon pump price.

Oil Company Earnings: Reality Over Rhetoric - Forbes.com

At the gas tank integrated oil companies make about 7 cents per gallon. Meanwhile, the government extracts more than 48 cents, on average, per gallon. That's right: Uncle Sam takes nearly seven times more out of drivers' wallets via taxation than "Big Oil."

 

[KissMy]

Ah, ethanol. What market atrocity hasn't yet been committed in pursuit of the idea that we should power our cars from farmland rather than taking the fossilized stuff out of the ground?

In case you haven't noticed, the 30-year-old program for subsidizing ethanol production through tax credits has expired. Congress let it to happen over the Christmas holidays while hassling over how to fund the federal government for fiscal 2012. Republicans (minus a few farm state members) have long condemned the program while Democrats, who usually hail it as a triumph of the Carter Administration, finally decided it wasn't worth defending anymore. This means the tax credit for ethanol -- which started at 3 cents per gallon and eventually rose to 54 cents -- is now off the books. Also gone is the 46-cents-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol to protect the domestic industry.

Does that mean we're back to reality? Unfortunately, no. Still in place are the mandates adopted when the Bush Administration set phantasmagorical goals for ethanol production, particularly cellulosic ethanol, which brings us to our original subject.

The ethanol that we've been putting in our gas tanks for the last 20 years is made from corn seeds. The sugars and starches in the grain break down under heat and can be easily fermented into alcohol. We've been doing it since Neanderthal days (the Cave Men had a version of beer), so it's not too complicated. The problem is that the seeds make up only 15 percent of the corn plant. The rest is cellulose, the much tougher molecules that give the plant its structure and do not break down so easily. It can be accomplished with chemical enzymes or by evaporating everything and then combining it back to liquid ethanol, but both methods are far too expensive and energy intensive.

So the preferred techniques are biological. There are bacteria in the guts of cows and termites that break down cellulose but they are highly adapted and have trouble living outside their native environment. Only in 2010 did someone genetically engineer a strain of yeast that can do the same thing. But that is getting way ahead of the story.

Drawing on only 15 percent of the plant, we are now processing an incredible 40 percent of the 12 billion bushels grown on 400,000 farms into fuel ethanol. The entire world crop is only 25 billion bushels, which means that one out of five bushels worldwide is going into American automobiles. This has crimped the world food supply and set off riots in places as diverse as Mexico and Southeast Asia. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization regularly condemns ethanol as a "crime against humanity" but no one in this country pays much attention.

Always on the horizon of this effort, however, has been the vision that we will one day be able to process the remaining 85 percent of the plant -- the cellulose -- into a usable fuel as well. Then we wouldn't have to be taking food out of people's mouths.

Unfortunately, while it's been accomplished here and there in the laboratory, no one has ever been able to scale the process up to a commercial level. Nor is there any assurance that anyone ever will. People have been trying to domesticate morel mushrooms for centuries without any success. Somewhere around 2005, however, the environmental movement and its tagalongs in the Bush Administration came upon the perfect solution -- government mandates!

The American Spectator : The Ultimate Individual Mandate

Oh My!!! What Big Teeth You Have Grand Ma!!!

There is a lot wrong with that story. Mandates are needed to bring cellulosic ethanol to market & get the oil companies to sell the stuff at their gas stations. Farmers do not own gas stations in the USA so they have no way to sell the ethanol without them.

Even if 100% of the corn grown in the USA was turned into ethanol it would not impact the food supply. All of the protein feed value of the corn remains in the DDG feed that comes out of the ethanol plants. This feed still feeds about the same amount of animals as the corn did prior to ethanol. There is no food shortage. People in the world do not starve because there is a lack of food in the world. They go hungry for political reasons & inflation.

We are exporting ethanol for a profit without any subsidies or mandates. The tax credits subsidies the article speaks of only went to the oil companies for selling the ethanol at their gas stations. By letting this expire simply means the price you pay at the pump jumped up by that much after New Years. Enjoy the rise in price!

 

[KissMy]

Comparing the profit oil companies get, which is about 7 cents a gallon, to the taxes charged by both feds and state, you can easily see who gets the lions share of per gallon pump price.

Oil Company Earnings: Reality Over Rhetoric - Forbes.com

At the gas tank integrated oil companies make about 7 cents per gallon. Meanwhile, the government extracts more than 48 cents, on average, per gallon. That's right: Uncle Sam takes nearly seven times more out of drivers' wallets via taxation than "Big Oil."

Wrong - Big oil got 100% of that that tax credit. That was a tax credit to oil companies that reduced the price you pay at the pump. At a 48 cents that 10% ethanol blend means prior to New Years you were paying 5 cents per gallon at the pump & 40 cents less for E-85. Enjoy the price spike at the pump! I know the price jumped here after New Years.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Ah, ethanol. What market atrocity hasn't yet been committed in pursuit of the idea that we should power our cars from farmland rather than taking the fossilized stuff out of the ground?

In case you haven't noticed, the 30-year-old program for subsidizing ethanol production through tax credits has expired. Congress let it to happen over the Christmas holidays while hassling over how to fund the federal government for fiscal 2012. Republicans (minus a few farm state members) have long condemned the program while Democrats, who usually hail it as a triumph of the Carter Administration, finally decided it wasn't worth defending anymore. This means the tax credit for ethanol -- which started at 3 cents per gallon and eventually rose to 54 cents -- is now off the books. Also gone is the 46-cents-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol to protect the domestic industry.

Does that mean we're back to reality? Unfortunately, no. Still in place are the mandates adopted when the Bush Administration set phantasmagorical goals for ethanol production, particularly cellulosic ethanol, which brings us to our original subject.

The ethanol that we've been putting in our gas tanks for the last 20 years is made from corn seeds. The sugars and starches in the grain break down under heat and can be easily fermented into alcohol. We've been doing it since Neanderthal days (the Cave Men had a version of beer), so it's not too complicated. The problem is that the seeds make up only 15 percent of the corn plant. The rest is cellulose, the much tougher molecules that give the plant its structure and do not break down so easily. It can be accomplished with chemical enzymes or by evaporating everything and then combining it back to liquid ethanol, but both methods are far too expensive and energy intensive.

So the preferred techniques are biological. There are bacteria in the guts of cows and termites that break down cellulose but they are highly adapted and have trouble living outside their native environment. Only in 2010 did someone genetically engineer a strain of yeast that can do the same thing. But that is getting way ahead of the story.

Drawing on only 15 percent of the plant, we are now processing an incredible 40 percent of the 12 billion bushels grown on 400,000 farms into fuel ethanol. The entire world crop is only 25 billion bushels, which means that one out of five bushels worldwide is going into American automobiles. This has crimped the world food supply and set off riots in places as diverse as Mexico and Southeast Asia. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization regularly condemns ethanol as a "crime against humanity" but no one in this country pays much attention.

Always on the horizon of this effort, however, has been the vision that we will one day be able to process the remaining 85 percent of the plant -- the cellulose -- into a usable fuel as well. Then we wouldn't have to be taking food out of people's mouths.

Unfortunately, while it's been accomplished here and there in the laboratory, no one has ever been able to scale the process up to a commercial level. Nor is there any assurance that anyone ever will. People have been trying to domesticate morel mushrooms for centuries without any success. Somewhere around 2005, however, the environmental movement and its tagalongs in the Bush Administration came upon the perfect solution -- government mandates!

The American Spectator : The Ultimate Individual Mandate

Oh My!!! What Big Teeth You Have Grand Ma!!!

There is a lot wrong with that story. Mandates are needed to bring cellulosic ethanol to market & get the oil companies to sell the stuff at their gas stations. Farmers do not own gas stations in the USA so they have no way to sell the ethanol without them.

Even if 100% of the corn grown in the USA was turned into ethanol it would not impact the food supply. All of the protein feed value of the corn remains in the DDG feed that comes out of the ethanol plants. This feed still feeds about the same amount of animals as the corn did prior to ethanol. There is no food shortage. People in the world do not starve because there is a lack of food in the world. They go hungry for political reasons & inflation.

We are exporting ethanol for a profit without any subsidies or mandates. The tax credits subsidies the article speaks of only went to the oil companies for selling the ethanol at their gas stations. By letting this expire simply means the price you pay at the pump jumped up by that much after New Years. Enjoy the rise in price!

Mandates are needed to bring a product that does not exist to market? Can you explain how that works?

 

[Katzndogz]

There seems to be some confusion between the ethanol that we can get from products like corn and sugar, and cellulosic ethanol made from wood, grass and the non-edible parts of plants. I am ready to donate my nibbled on artichoke leaves.

Cellulosic ethanol exists in theory. It does not exist. Just because grain ethanol exists as a way to extend gasoline doesn't mean that cellulosic ethanol exists.

 

[dilloduck]

Can't we just cut to the chase and start eliminating people and establish limits on how many humans are allowed to exist ?

 

[Katzndogz]

Can't we just cut to the chase and start eliminating people and establish limits on how many humans are allowed to exist ?

Liberals are way ahead of you.

VHEMT

VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It’s a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We’re not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.

We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.

Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology.

As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.

Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.

When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature’s “experiments” have done throughout the eons.

It’s going to take all of us going.

 

[Intense]

We know that we are paying at the pump.

Does that mean that you're not interested who is getting the money from this obvious scam?

I mean, not to be too legalistic about it, but don't you CARE who the criminals that are ripping people off really are?

Here's a hint...it isn't those POOR, ENVIOUS middle class or poor people.

Here is a hint, it is a fine placed on Oil Companies, by Big Government, passed on to the Consumer.

We Vote for Idiots, We Vote to Empower them, and We get Exactly what We Pay For.

 

[Intense]

Comparing the profit oil companies get, which is about 7 cents a gallon, to the taxes charged by both feds and state, you can easily see who gets the lions share of per gallon pump price.

Oil Company Earnings: Reality Over Rhetoric - Forbes.com

At the gas tank integrated oil companies make about 7 cents per gallon. Meanwhile, the government extracts more than 48 cents, on average, per gallon. That's right: Uncle Sam takes nearly seven times more out of drivers' wallets via taxation than "Big Oil."

Yep. It's criminal. Pretty good Government scam.

 

[Intense]

Ah, ethanol. What market atrocity hasn't yet been committed in pursuit of the idea that we should power our cars from farmland rather than taking the fossilized stuff out of the ground?

In case you haven't noticed, the 30-year-old program for subsidizing ethanol production through tax credits has expired. Congress let it to happen over the Christmas holidays while hassling over how to fund the federal government for fiscal 2012. Republicans (minus a few farm state members) have long condemned the program while Democrats, who usually hail it as a triumph of the Carter Administration, finally decided it wasn't worth defending anymore. This means the tax credit for ethanol -- which started at 3 cents per gallon and eventually rose to 54 cents -- is now off the books. Also gone is the 46-cents-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol to protect the domestic industry.

Does that mean we're back to reality? Unfortunately, no. Still in place are the mandates adopted when the Bush Administration set phantasmagorical goals for ethanol production, particularly cellulosic ethanol, which brings us to our original subject.

The ethanol that we've been putting in our gas tanks for the last 20 years is made from corn seeds. The sugars and starches in the grain break down under heat and can be easily fermented into alcohol. We've been doing it since Neanderthal days (the Cave Men had a version of beer), so it's not too complicated. The problem is that the seeds make up only 15 percent of the corn plant. The rest is cellulose, the much tougher molecules that give the plant its structure and do not break down so easily. It can be accomplished with chemical enzymes or by evaporating everything and then combining it back to liquid ethanol, but both methods are far too expensive and energy intensive.

So the preferred techniques are biological. There are bacteria in the guts of cows and termites that break down cellulose but they are highly adapted and have trouble living outside their native environment. Only in 2010 did someone genetically engineer a strain of yeast that can do the same thing. But that is getting way ahead of the story.

Drawing on only 15 percent of the plant, we are now processing an incredible 40 percent of the 12 billion bushels grown on 400,000 farms into fuel ethanol. The entire world crop is only 25 billion bushels, which means that one out of five bushels worldwide is going into American automobiles. This has crimped the world food supply and set off riots in places as diverse as Mexico and Southeast Asia. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization regularly condemns ethanol as a "crime against humanity" but no one in this country pays much attention.

Always on the horizon of this effort, however, has been the vision that we will one day be able to process the remaining 85 percent of the plant -- the cellulose -- into a usable fuel as well. Then we wouldn't have to be taking food out of people's mouths.

Unfortunately, while it's been accomplished here and there in the laboratory, no one has ever been able to scale the process up to a commercial level. Nor is there any assurance that anyone ever will. People have been trying to domesticate morel mushrooms for centuries without any success. Somewhere around 2005, however, the environmental movement and its tagalongs in the Bush Administration came upon the perfect solution -- government mandates!

The American Spectator : The Ultimate Individual Mandate

Oh My!!! What Big Teeth You Have Grand Ma!!!

There is a lot wrong with that story. Mandates are needed to bring cellulosic ethanol to market & get the oil companies to sell the stuff at their gas stations. Farmers do not own gas stations in the USA so they have no way to sell the ethanol without them.

Even if 100% of the corn grown in the USA was turned into ethanol it would not impact the food supply. All of the protein feed value of the corn remains in the DDG feed that comes out of the ethanol plants. This feed still feeds about the same amount of animals as the corn did prior to ethanol. There is no food shortage. People in the world do not starve because there is a lack of food in the world. They go hungry for political reasons & inflation.

We are exporting ethanol for a profit without any subsidies or mandates. The tax credits subsidies the article speaks of only went to the oil companies for selling the ethanol at their gas stations. By letting this expire simply means the price you pay at the pump jumped up by that much after New Years. Enjoy the rise in price!

The part that remains total garbage is the fines placed on the companies for not making use of an unavailable product. That's total Bullshit, if you can't see that, there is something wrong with you. The Fines should be waived. That is the honorable solution. You are possibly confusing Government with God. Just saying.

Glad to hear that Ethanol Bi-products are used to feed livestock. That is a plus. Playing "Carrot and the Stick", it makes no sense to fine People or Companies over what they have no control over. It is not within reason. Many actually find it antagonistic. Just a thought.

 

[Intense]

Can't we just cut to the chase and start eliminating people and establish limits on how many humans are allowed to exist ?

Liberals are way ahead of you.

VHEMT

VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It’s a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We’re not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.

We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.

Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology.

As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.

Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.

When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature’s “experiments” have done throughout the eons.

It’s going to take all of us going.

Wow! All of that cheeriness and Good Will leaves me without further response!!!

 

[KissMy]

TFF - Too F&#king Funny that most sheeple in this country thought the Ethanol Tax Credit meant you get taxed more at the pump. Nancy Pelosi was a leading rep who signed the petition to John Boehner to let the tax credit expire. You know she is always for raising taxes & you just got taxes raised on the price you pay for gas at the pump on January 1rst, 2012.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Too funny, you are talking about something other than the topic of the thread.

 

[freedombecki]

Can't we just cut to the chase and start eliminating people and establish limits on how many humans are allowed to exist ?

Liberals are way ahead of you.

VHEMT

VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It’s a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We’re not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.

We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.

Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology.

As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.

Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.

When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature’s “experiments” have done throughout the eons.

It’s going to take all of us going.

Wow! All of that cheeriness and Good Will leaves me without further response!!!

It is a little hard to respond to an attitude that mirrors the Hale-Bopp Comet human extinction project.