E15 may be on it's way to a gas station near you..

[hootmon]

Here is an article stating that there are plans on bumping the ethanol content in gasoline from up to 10% to 15%..

I'll let all you tech heads talk about all the issues this may cause...

E15 Article

[Jim8208]

This can't be good. I'm just wondering how bad it will be for our bikes? 

[hootmon]

The good news is that Ethanol is good for cleaning varnish out of the carbs.. If you have been running any in the past, then you probably won't have an issue.. Except!:
If you let your bike sit a lot, it can collect water
It will decrease MPG - If they go with the 15% expect your fuel mileage to drop up to 13%.
Also if you let your bike sit a lot, you may get more evaporation - again effecting mileage..

I am not overly opposed to Ethanol, BUT there are a number of gas station that do not buy oil from Arab states, but for those that do.. it reduces the amount imported..
Hess, and Murphy (Walmart brand) do not buy from the Arab's.. Shell and Mobil do..
I try to buy as much gas as I can from Hess.. I don't know if they have stations in Texas or not..
You can check government websites and see who buys Arab oil and who does not..

BTW - what country does the USA import the most Oil from ????


Canada.. Interesting eh?

[Jim8208]

We have alot of Valero stations here in Arkansas. They don't buy from the Arabs either. I try to buy all my gas from them, as much as possible anyway.

[lragan]

I am all for reducing our dependence on foreign oil -- especially from folks who pay idiots to blow up our airplanes and crash them into our buildings.

However, I think the whole ethanol bit has grown way beyond practical.  We are converting our food to fuel, running up the price of corn, (and all its derivatives) starving our poor friends in Latin America, and (according to most reliable studies) consuming more energy producing the stuff than it yields.  If Iowa did not hold the first presidential primary, this "industry" would not even exist.

Just reading the article, one can see how the esteemed general is being used -- to lobby politicians to support this ridiculous endeavor with your tax dollars.

"Corn sqeezins are for drinkin', not burnin' " -- to quote my grandpappy.

[Charles S Otwell]

We need to learn to burn methane gas produced by cows that we could feed the corn and then eat the beef, you know, the circle of life thing  !!

[hootmon]

We need to learn to burn methane gas produced by cows that we could feed the corn and then eat the beef, you know, the circle of life thing  !!

I agree.. And I've been known to create a little methane on my own.. I guess I could count on that as my "reserve" tank..
Waitress, another bowl of beans and some broccoli and a hard boiled egg please.. I've got a long ride home.. 

[MarylandMagnav45]

We need to learn to burn methane gas produced by cows that we could feed the corn and then eat the beef, you know, the circle of life thing  !!

I agree.. And I've been known to create a little methane on my own.. I guess I could count on that as my "reserve" tank..
Waitress, another bowl of beans and some broccoli and a hard boiled egg please.. I've got a long ride home.. 

helps keep you warm on a cold ride!

[MagnaDaddy]

Yeah the money trail on Corn Liquor, woops ethanol, leads right back to "reputable" businessmen like AlGore!  Plus it is a horrible waste of food resources.

[ikkymudd #587]

Here is an article from snopes.com on the email that went around a few years ago about boycotting certain oil companies.  Yes, the article is a few years old but I doubt much has changed.  The bottom line is they all get oil from the middle east whether they are buying directly or from each other.  Thanks to GWB we now have mandated ethanol in our gasoline.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/saudigas.asp

[Charles S Otwell]

No offense but I heard all this when they took lead out of gas, and we,re still here, burning it up as fast as we get it. and as far as wasting a food source, it serves a better purpose than plowing it under to keep the price of corn up and then having the Gov subsidising farmers for their loss.

[guywheatley]

Charles is right. I grew up in farm country, worked on farms in the summer and married a farmer's daughter. More than half of the land farmed around my home town when I was a kid is now fallow.
I also did an article for the Gazette in which I pointed out the huge amount of farm land that has been taken out of production since the 1970s to keep prices up. There is absolutely no validity to the argument that food is being taken off the table for ethanol production. None period.
As I've studied about alternative fuel sources, I've become less of a proponent of ethanol. The reasons for this change are complex and don't lend themselves to a one line "four legs good, two legs bad!" slogan. But I can promise you the "people are starving." argument isn't part of it.

[kwale86]

We need to learn to burn methane gas produced by cows that we could feed the corn and then eat the beef, you know, the circle of life thing  !!

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_bate.html - If this concept had not been "hushed" by the oil industry and the politics surroundin git, it may have become a reality.

[guywheatley]

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_bate.html

OK, Somebody has got to say it so it might as well be me.
That is a Chicken S#!t idea.
Seriously though, I don't know how well it would scale up, but I've always wondered that some independent minded farmer didn't just set up his operation to run on something like this. I think if I owned a farm, I'd at least try it on a small scale.  Say get a little generator and put some C. S. back in the grid.

[kwale86]

I grew up on a dairy farm and back in the 80's there was a company selling a methane capturing device for lagoons, it was a large rubber cover that went over the lagoon and captured the methane that came off the top of the manure.  As a lot of other innovative ideas like this, it never took off.  I also read an article about a farmer who generated his own hydrogen from shocking the water in a well and capturing it with an air compressor.  He ran all of his farm equipment on hydrogen.  As long as the big oil companies keep lobbyists in Washington, these ideas will continue to be hushed when there is a chance of them taking off and reducing oil profits.  IMHO