End of ethanol subsidy

[darcane]

End of ethanol subsidy will raise the price of gas

I know this has been discussed before, but it has taken effect now, as of sunday.

[Daox]

I had read that the end of the subsity was only for corn based ethanol production. Cellulostic is still getting funding even though they hopefully won't need it in a year or two.

Edit:

It appears that it is all ethanol subsity, not just corn based.

They've also elminated the tarrifs on importing ethanol which means sugarcane produced ethanol will start to be imported from Brazil


I wonder how much crying I'll hear about this at work... I'd get a chuckle out of it because the norm is to bash ethanol because it hurts mileage.

[darcane]

Originally Posted by Daox

I wonder how much crying I'll hear about this at work... I'd get a chuckle out of it because the norm is to bash ethanol because it hurts mileage.

Keep in mind this doesn't eliminate the ethanol requirements in gasoline, it just eliminates the subsidy. So, a little higher cost while the energy content is the same.

If you got complaints about it before, I'd expect that to continue.

[redpoint5]

Good riddance subsidy!

I bash the use of ethanol in fuel not only because it hurts mileage, but also because it could have been consumed by drinking it. We can get a gallon of ethanol for a couple bucks if we want to burn it in an engine, but if we want to burn it in our body a gallon will cost $50? Crazy if you ask me.

Also, I'm generally critical of most any subsidy that is not research related.

[DKaz]

Sigh, would rather have seen "End of ethanol".

[ShadeTreeMech]

I think ethanol wouldn't be a bad thing if produced in such a way that it required no petroleum product and was produced using nonfood plants. Essentially, if produced naturally, ethanol is a method to take solar power and water and convert it to useful energy. Sure it takes more ethanol to go as far as with gas, but with engines designed to run the stuff efficiently and the burning of fossils to create the stuff eliminated, it is truly a enviromentally friendly solution. It is only the current processes in common use at this time that are at fault, not the fuel.

[JasonG]

Originally Posted by ShadeTreeMech

I think ethanol wouldn't be a bad thing if produced in such a way that it required no petroleum product and was produced using nonfood plants. Essentially, if produced naturally, ethanol is a method to take solar power and water and convert it to useful energy. Sure it takes more ethanol to go as far as with gas, but with engines designed to run the stuff efficiently and the burning of fossils to create the stuff eliminated, it is truly a enviromentally friendly solution. It is only the current processes in common use at this time that are at fault, not the fuel.

Well stated. Glad to see a reduction in corn based ethanol and more sugar beet ethanol.
So when do they start subsidies for soy or algea biodiesel ??

Redpoint5, maybe the increased supply will lower the cost of non-denatured ethamol
Now there's a subsidy I can get behind !

[capnbass91]

The price of gas here has gone up about 30 cents in like 2 weeks here in socal! And now it's gonna go up more? Woooo.

Slightly off topic, but found a site that lists gas stations that are ethanol free, too bad there are only 5 listed so far in California, and they're on the other side of the state. Ethanol-free gas stations in the U.S. and Canada

[brucepick]

And hardly any up here in the Northeast either. I looked.

[Allch Chcar]

I'm actually pretty neutral on this, even as an Ethanol fan/supporter. On one hand we're not going to be subsidizing Ethanol Exports which is good/bad depending on how you look at it. Which also means no Ethanol subsidy to Gasoline blenders which is mostly bad since most blenders are Oil refineries not Ethanol plants or even Fueling Stations. As if demand for E85 wasn't already threatening enough, Ethanol supporters were already looking at eliminating E85 pumps for E15-E20 for regular cars.

This is a negative point for blender pumps since they could take advantage of the blending credit and sell Ethanol quite a bit cheaper than a station with a dedicated E85 only pump. But blender pumps are expensive and extremely rare, more so than E85 pumps.

Note that the only subsidy that expired was the VEETC, the 54 cent per gallon of Ethanol tax credit, and the "tariff" on imported Ethanol. This was the biggest single subsidy.