Ethanol, good or bad idea? - Print Topic

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SCHENECTADY
Corn-based ethanol push puts toll on dairy prices
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter

   Most pizza lovers are not in the habit of ordering corn as a topping, but corn is driving up the cost of every slice nonetheless.
   Fireside Pizzeria manager Eli Nahass said he’s been in the business of pizza for 29 years. He said this past year has seen the most rapid surge in cheese prices of his career.
   “It’s gone up and down before, but never like this,” he said. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the local wholesale cheese price in June was $1.85 per pound, up more than 50 percent from last year, when it was $1.21 per pound.
   Nahass said he blames cheese costs on the federal government’s push for greater ethanol fuel production. Ethanol fuel in the United States is primarily made from corn, which is also the major source of dairy cattle feed. The USDA expects corn use for ethanol to double in 2007 over 2005 levels. More than 4 billion bushels — nearly a third of the total U.S. corn harvest — could be going toward ethanol production by 2009.
   “I would assume that greater use of corn for ethanol is increasing the costs for corn and grains and that raises costs for dairy farmers and that gets passed onto us,” Nahass said. “We basically just have to deal with it because you can’t keep raising prices [but] at some point down the line, [pizza] prices may have to be adjusted again.”
   Corn futures prices have been trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange at more than $3 a bushel the last several months, up from the $2 range this time last year. Paul Lichorat, the owner of Geppetto’s Restaurant, said he has been forced to spend more time at his restaurant as a full-time cook to mitigate rising overhead from increases in cheese and gasoline prices that have been eating away at his profit margins.
   “We’ve been just biting the bullet on this,” Lichorat said. “You don’t want to raise prices or mix [cheese] blends. People remember when you do that.”
   Milk prices also continue to rise. The federally regulated milk price per hundred weight for the Boston area, which includes the New York Capitol Region, is $24.16, up from $21.09 in June and $19.17 in May. USDA statistician Kathleen Kelly said part of the increase in dairy prices is because of slower growth in production. She said last year production levels rose at 5 or 6 percent some months, but have slowed to 1 to 2 percent in 2007 despite rising demand.
   “Cow feed is expensive in part because there is less corn available because of increased ethanol production, also regional concerns about growth hormones in milk have discouraged production,” she said.
   Kelly said consumer concerns about synthetic recombinant bovine growth hormone, which stimulates greater milk production, have led many farmers to stop using it. The push for purely organic milk production has roots in possible links between the synthetic growth hormone and obesity and cancer rates in people. There are also fewer dairy farmers, according the New York Farm Bureau, a lobbying organization for farmers, which estimates that between 2005 and 2006, New York lost 460 dairy farms, a 7.2 percent decline. Christopher Galen, National Milk Producers Federation vice president of communications, said both supply-side costs and increasing demand-side pressure have led to rising dairy prices.
   “A lot of [the increased prices] are because of the global bull market for milk,” he said.
   The NMPF estimates that U.S. export of dairy products has increased 75 percent in the last five years, to now account for 9.3 percent of total dairy production. Galen attributed the gains to Asian consumers westernizing their diets and a persistent drought in Australia, which has hurt agricultural production for that traditional supplier of dairy to Asia. He said normally, increased demand would stimulate greater production, but the cost of cow feed has taken away much of the gain for dairy farmers from higher prices.
   “We’ve got to have a more rational approach to renewable fuels than just focusing on corn-based ethanol,” Galen said.
   Galen said the NMPF, which lobbies Congress, favors more cellulosebased ethanol production to reduce demand for feed commodities like soy beans and corn. He said milk prices will likely taper off after August, according to the predictions made by dairy futures traders.

Now this is what we've been saying all along! We are not ready nor are we equiped to produce more ethanol. And unfortunatly, we know that and so do the Saudi's! Whether it be oil or ethanol...we're gonna be paying through the nose!

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Kelly said consumer concerns about synthetic recombinant bovine growth hormone, which stimulates greater milk production, have led many farmers to stop using it. The push for purely organic milk production has roots in possible links between the synthetic growth hormone and obesity and cancer rates in people.

Would you give the hormone(something like it,,,the human version) to breast feeding mother??? Essentially that is what milk from a cow is-----breast milk...only we call them teets.......

Many pediatricians are saying that these growth hormones are causing 'little girls' to 'develop sooner than they normally would. Now, I don't call that something I'd want to give my kids. And organic, can be just as bad. It's a buyer beware thing!

Maybe Mr. Nahass over at the Fireside Pizzeria should reinvest all the money he's making selling video crack (A.K.A. QuickDraw) into cheese. Just roll it up. My wife and I used to enjoy going there the couple times that we did years ago. Think we went twice, looking to have a nice meal. First time was great. Second time, they had the video crack in every corner of the store and we decided that we wouldn't go back. My wife couldn't stand it being there, and it was right in the corner of my eye where I just couldn't ignore it. Too bad. It was really good food and from what I remember, there were OK prices, but I don't have to worry about that anymore.

That video crack pervades everywhere in NYS.....the taxpayers must be duped somehow.....we think we are getting something for our hard earned $$ being poured down the belly of "the beast"......yet we complain about our taxes.....BTW...where does all that 'extra' cash go??????

Gee...the government is so concerned about lack of farmers...well what the hell...they allow other countries to sell them to this country. The government outsourced our farmers!!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070720/lf_nm/brazil_cane_cutter_dc

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Ethanol boom transforms work in Brazil cane fields
By Inae Riveras

PRADOPOLIS, Brazil (Reuters) - Melquiades Soares, with a sixth grade education, became a cane cutter in Brazil's center-south at age 16, following in the footsteps of his mother, a 40 year veteran of Sao Paulo's cane fields.

Cane cutting, an exhausting job once done by slaves, has been among the only means for survival for young Brazilians with little education. But Soares' prospects changed a few years ago, when he was trained to operate a mechanized harvester.

"I get a little more money and am more comfortable now," said Soares, 35.

Experts say turnarounds like his are becoming more common, as demand for sugar cane from the booming ethanol industry is forcing Brazil's cane sector to abandon outdated practices.

World demand for ethanol as a fossil fuel substitute has brought the biggest expansion in Brazil's cane production since the beginning of its ethanol program in the 1970s.

With the boom in cane planting, environmental and health concerns have come into focus, pressuring the industry to stop the practice of burning cane fields to clear foliage and pests for manual cutting.

"I don't have a crystal ball but the reduction in manual cutting is the trend given the move toward mechanization," said Remigio Todeschini, president of Fundacentro, a Labor Ministry foundation that oversees working conditions.

UNEMPLOYMENT FEARS

The impact of mechanized harvesting on labor was a big obstacle to phasing out manual cutting, as it could lead to massive unemployment in certain regions. One machine can do the work of 87 cutters, according to Unica, the Sugar Cane Industry Union.

In the main center-south cane region, with about 85 percent of the national crop, 70 percent of the harvest remains manual. There are 260,000 cane cutters in the region, about 160,000 in Sao Paulo state alone.

Poor education complicates the problem. Workers spend only 4.2 years on average in the public education system, well below the national average. State governments are pushing for change.

In Sao Paulo, which concentrates more than 65 percent of the national cane crop, the government and mills signed an accord last month that will move up the end of cane burning by seven years to 2013 for flat areas, and by 14 years to 2017 for fields on hillsides.

NEW HOPE

The sector's growth could make the process smoother. The industry, which expects to receive investments of $12 billion by 2013 in new mills and expansions, has a growing need for workers in other areas.

"You have to always look at those two aspects when talking about cane cutters' prospects: the sector's growth and mechanization," Unica consultant Iza Barbosa said.

"It's not only cutting the cane and selling ethanol and sugar. There are many simple tasks that can be taken by cane cutters if they are properly trained," she added.

Barbosa said mills have started to see the scarcity of workers as a future threat, and in the last few years they have shown more interest in investing to train employees.

Unica estimates 300,000 jobs will be created in the next five years, ranging from truck drivers to managers.

"The new posts are always offered first to the mill's employees. They normally are the best prepared people to take them," said Carlos Rene do Amaral, human resources manager of Sao Martinho mill.

EXPERIENCED WORKERS NEEDED

Sao Martinho group was among the first to begin a regular training program, about 10 years ago, and since then has promoted about 250 cane cutters. Most now work as operators of agricultural machines and industrial equipment.

The need for experienced workers is even greater in frontier regions of Brazil's cane expansion. Amaral said the group, which is building a mill in Goias in central Brazil, took 20 employees from Sao Paulo to work there.

Although Soares' story is still an exception, it has fueled hopes for the future.

"I always tell my two boys to study, so they do not become cane cutters as I used to be. Undeniably, it's a hard job."

Still, from the air-conditioned cab where he spends eight hours a day, he worries about his mother.

"She continues working because her colleagues are like a family to her. But she was very glad when I stopped... working under the sun, rain, cold. She knows well how hard it is."

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Farmers growing more corn, outpacing storage capacity
Trying to meet ethanol demand
BY SHELLY BANJO The Wall Street Journal

   NEVADA, Iowa — Farmers are up to their ears in corn and scrambling for places to store it.
   With demand for ethanol soaring, farmers around the country have planted more acres of corn this year than at any time since World War II. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts the fall harvest will yield 12 to 13 billion bushels of the grain, enough to fill 183,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools — a far greater quantity than currently available storage capacity.
   It’s a worrisome situation for farmers, who typically choose among selling their grain right away, paying elevators to store it or storing it in silos on their farms. Stashing it gives farmers more fl exibility to play the market to their advantage. Last year, some farmers who sold their grain early came to regret it as rising demand for ethanol pushed the price of corn from $2.25 or so a bushel to well past $3.
   But the cloud over the farmers has a silver lining for those in the storage business. Storage facilities have more business than they can handle, and manufacturers of silos and storage equipment are stepping up production.
   Silos are more than just cylindrical towers that hold grain. Walk-in doors, zinc-coated walls and axial fans and heaters are just some possible add-on features. In recent years, silos have increased up to seven times in size from the old standard of the 100,000-bushel bin to silos that can hold 700,000 bushels of grain. To keep up with the pace of growers, silos now require stirring machines to speed-dry the grain or sweep-away systems to quickly empty the bins. Silos can cost as much as $2 a bushel of capacity, with an expected 30-year life span.
   Since 2000, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded farmers across the country $485 million in loans to build on-farm storage. But Roger Fray, executive vice president of the West Central Cooperative in Ralston, Iowa, says storage remains a problem. “There has been an industrywide need [for storage] since the 2004 crop, and we are trying to catch up,” he says.
DEMAND FOR SILOS
   A recent visit to the Heart of Iowa cooperative here in Nevada (the town pronounces it Nah-VAYDah), showed the catch-up in action. Nestled in the heart of corn country where eight-foot-tall corn stalks stretch along highways, the co-op began last month to unload five shiny semitrucks full of steel bin, roof and leg parts to build 700,000 additional bushels of much-needed storage space. The seven-location, 8.9-million-bushel operation serves 800 farmers and supplies 100 percent of the grain needed to fuel Lincolnway Energy, the neighboring ethanol plant.
   “With prices for concrete and steel rising, we are doing what we can afford right now . . . but we have plans of doubling the entire size of the cooperative,” says Scott Stabbe, Heart of Iowa grain division manager, while checking his computer every few minutes for flashing corn prices displayed by the Chicago Board of Trade. Story County, where Nevada is located, alone looks to produce 32 million bushels of corn and farmers predict a five-million bushel shortage in storage capacity.
   At Scafco Corp., a silo maker in Spokane, Wash., sales manager Dennis Queen says sales are up 20 percent in the past year. Brock Grain Systems in Milford, Ind., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Co., has added extra weekly shifts and is now running 24 hours a day, says district manager John Tuttle. Demand for silos is so high that months-long backlogs have developed. Farmer Sam Spellman of Woodward, Iowa, just witnessed the completion of a silo he ordered last December.
   His supplier, Menz Construction Co. in Perry, Iowa, doubled its production last year but stopped taking orders in December. John Copple, district sales manager for the agriculture/industrial division of Chief Industries in Grand Isle, Neb., tripled his work crews this year.
   “This business is either feast or famine,” he says. “In the past we could hardly give a grain bin away and now we have a 25 million bushel backlog.”
   Howard Shepard, program coordinator at the Iowa Grain Quality Initiative, says bin manufacturers as a whole are running about three years behind the demand. The companies that erect the silos are also in huge demand, and there aren’t enough workers to provide the labor needed.
   Farmers within 50 miles of ethanol facilities are particularly concerned. That’s because many ethanol plants want to buy corn directly from nearby farmers to guarantee necessary speed and quality. “Ethanol factories only hold about 10 days’ worth of corn but need enough corn to run 24 hours a day, every day,” says David Zimmerman, commodities manager at Lincolnway Energy.
   About 40 miles away from Lincolnway Energy, Dewayne Berg eagerly anticipates the completion of his new silo. Monitoring the progress of his bin builders, he wipes away “bees-knees” — what farmers call corn residue that falls from the tall bins like snow — from his face. “We realized it was a whole new ball game out there and we needed to keep up and add more storage. It’s a bit scary,” he says. The 122,000-bushel bin will cost Berg $80,000 to construct. But he predicts that even if a summer drought occurs, he’ll pay off the cost of the bin within two years.

Perhaps we can help them here in Rotterdam, and store some of their corn in the existing and newly proposed storage facility.

All kidding aside...we knew the push for corn would be a-comin' and here it is. And did you notice how it went from$2.25/bushel to over $3.00/bushel? I believe that this will be just the beginning folks!

Maybe we should all plant some corn and sell it right here to Price Chopper.

The price of milk is going up due to the price of feed for the cows going up. And as Bumble said it's just the beginning.

Just like oil.......still no proof it's cleaner......just different....

There is never actual proof with anything. Proof comes with trial and error. It will be years before we really know the economic and environmental impact this ethanol will have on society. During this trial and error period just expect prices to rise considerably!

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E85- fuel is easily found in some cities such as Detroit. - It is about 50 cents a gallon less than regulalr.
There are dozens of different cars that run on the stuff. FFV flexable fuel vehicles have been on the road almost 10 years. ( about 6 million of them).

It needs massive amounts of H2O to make a gallon of the stuff????.....can we learn a lesson from Las Vegas???? We are sheeple.....

I've used E85 fuel in my vehicle when traveling and the only thing I've found is the gas milage isn't as good as when using regular gas.

Fifteen years ago I owned a 1985 Rl Camino 5.0 V8 305.  I was having a rough time financially  working as a painter.

But I discovered that it would run fine on Laquer thinner, acetone, MEK, even denatured alcohol.  I t ran alittle rough on regular thinner.  I mean you could smell it sitting at a stop light.  Sure the solvents were more expensive but I was working Time and material

I drove it like this for 2 or 3 years- then sold it.  I know it still runs today-
Im am the only person I know of that has performed this experiment-

We will have to see theh outcome of the use of ethanol, but in my opinion, it will cost no less to not only drive a vehicle, but also to purchase goods. Corn is in everything! It will end up being a supply and demand thing. The only benefit, if you want to call it one, will be that we will control the economic backlash and not be held hostage to other countries. Especially now with the sanctions place on Iran. Iran is the second leading supplier of oil. We can surely expect oil to go over $100/barrel!

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New ethanol plant is first in the Northeast
BY CAROLYN THOMPSON The Associated Press

   BUFFALO — The Northeast’s first ethanol plant has begun production of what has been strictly a Midwestern commodity.
   Western New York Energy began grinding corn this week at a new $90 million complex in Orleans County that is expected to produce 50 million gallons of the gasoline additive annually.
   The plant’s operators believe their location will give them an opening into an industry built on public demand for renewable fuels. Ethanol is blended with gasoline to increase octane and reduce emissions.
   “We are closer to the ultimate ethanol markets,” said Michael Sawyer, executive vice president of Western New York Energy. “Ethanol’s being consumed here on the East Coast, and the economics of moving ethanol are challenging. We do not have to move our ethanol as far to the ultimate market as the typical Midwestern plant.”
   Sawyer and his father, John Sawyer Jr., both from Geneseo in Livingston County, will employ about 50 people at the facility, which state leaders view as part of a strategy to reduce dependence on foreign energy. New York was the first Northeastern state to join the Governors Ethanol Coalition when then-Gov. George Pataki enlisted in 2005.
   Michael Sawyer said the company has not been deterred by recent drops in ethanol prices and oversupply fears that have led to a slowdown in new plant construction elsewhere.
   “We think the current supply-demand imbalance is really a shortterm phenomena, and we’re very bullish on the industry for long term,” he said.
   The facility will buy as much of the 20 million bushels of corn it will need annually from state farmers as it can, Sawyer said, and ship the rest in by train from the Midwest.
   “It’s another market for our corn, and when you have more markets, you tend to have a better price,” said Steven Van Voorhis, president of the New York Corn Growers Association.
   He said New York farmers have already begun devoting more acres to corn.
   Corn growers were paid about $2.50 a bushel at this time last year as low prices lingered from a record crop in 2004. New York farmers now can get close to $3.80 a bushel due largely to the ethanol demand.
   One other plant is under construction in New York, inside the former Miller Brewing Co. plant in Fulton, Oswego County, while other states outside the traditional Corn Belt, like Arizona and Texas, have also broken ground on facilities, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, the ethanol industry’s trade association.
   The U.S. ethanol industry produced 4.9 billion gallons in 2006 at 110 biorefineries in 19 states, according to the association.

JEN RYNDA/DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE Tim Marcellus takes corn out of a Long Trucking’s truck at the Western New York Energy Plant in Medina on Wednesday.

There goes the high fructose corn syrup.....

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There goes the high fructose corn syrup.....

and the cow feed, and the price of every single thing that you use / buy that includes corn products and or fresh beef.

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Corn boom threatens to expand ‘dead zone’Environmentalists worried about Gulf of Mexico waters
BY HENRY C. JACKSON The Associated Press

    JEFFERSON, Iowa — Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since World War II. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price.
    The nation’s corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen runs off fields in Corn Belt states, it makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually pours into the Gulf, where it contributes to a growing “dead zone” — a 7,900-square-mile patch so depleted of oxygen that fish, crabs and shrimp suffocate.
    The dead zone was discovered in 1985 and has grown fairly steadily since then, forcing fishermen to venture farther and farther out to sea to find their catch. For decades, fertilizer has been considered the prime cause of the lifeless spot.
    With demand for corn booming, some researchers fear the dead zone will expand rapidly, with devastating consequences.
    “We might be coming close to a tipping point,” said Matt Rota, director of the water resources program for the New Orleansbased Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group. “The ecosystem might change or collapse as opposed to being just impacted.”
    Environmentalists had hoped to cut nitrogen runoff by encouraging farmers to apply less fertilizer and establish buffers along waterways. But the demand for the corn-based fuel additive ethanol has driven up the price for the crop, which is selling for about $4 per bushel, up from a little more than $2 in 2002.
    That enticed American farmers — mostly in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota — to plant more than 93 million acres of corn in 2007, the most since 1944. They substituted corn for other crops, or made use of land not previously in cultivation.
    Corn is more “leaky” than crops such as soybean and alfalfa — that is, it absorbs less nitrogen per acre. The prime reasons are the drainage systems used in corn fields and the timing of when the fertilizer is applied.
    The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that up to 210 million pounds of nitrogen fertilizer enter the Gulf of Mexico each year. Scientists had no immediate estimate for 2007, but said they expect the amount of fertilizer going into streams to increase with more acres of corn planted.
    “Corn agriculture practices release a lot of nitrogen,” said Donald Scavia, a University of Michigan professor who has studied corn fertilizer’s effect on the dead zone. “More corn equals more nitrogen pollution.”
    Farmers realize the connection between their crop and problems downstream, but with the price of corn soaring, it doesn’t make sense to grow anything else. And growing corn isn’t profitable without nitrogen-based fertilizer.
    “I think you have to try to be a good steward of the land,” said Jerry Peckumn, who farms corn and soybeans on about 2,000 acres he owns or leases near the Iowa community of Jefferson. “But on the other hand, you can’t ignore the price of corn.”
    Peckumn grows alfalfa and natural grass on the 220 or so acres he owns, but said he cannot afford to experiment on the land he rents.
    The dead zone typically begins in the spring and persists into the summer. Its size and location vary each year because of currents, weather and other factors, but it is generally near the mouth of the Mississippi.
    This year, it is the third-biggest on record. It was larger in 2002 and 2001, when it covered 8,500 and 8,006 square miles, respectively.
    Soil erosion, sewage and industrial pollution also contribute to the dead zone, but fertilizer is believed to be the chief factor.
    Fertilizer causes explosive growth of algae, which then dies and sinks to the bottom, where it sucks up oxygen as it decays. This creates a deep layer of oxygendepleted ocean where creatures either escape or die.
    Bottom-dwelling species such as crabs and oysters are most at risk, said Michelle Perez, an analyst with the Washington-based Environmental Working Group. “They struggle to survive,” Perez said. “They can’t swim away.”
    Crabbers complained at a meeting in Louisiana earlier this year that they pulled up bucket upon bucket of dead crabs.
    Rota warned that if the corn boom continues, the Gulf of Mexico could see an “ecological regime change.” The fear is that the zone will grow so big that most sea life won’t be able to escape it, leading to an even bigger die-off.

Why aren't the green weenies complaining about the damage to the ocean due to increased corn production. I think that it's Newton's Law that states for every action there's an equal but opposite reaction and this could be one.

Oh Shadow, there will be plenty of adverse reactions with the progression of ethanol. And as far as the 'tree huggers', they apparently don't care about this adverse reaction, but God forbid, don't drill for oil in Alaska or any other of the tree huggers sacred grounds! :-/

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CAPITAL REGION
Ethanol arriving at local pumps
Trade out of Albany boosting availability of fuel blend in area
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter

    Thanks to easy access to corn-based ethanol from Logibio Albany Terminal at the port of Albany, the Capital Region is quickly becoming fueled with E10 blend.
    Stewart’s Shops President Gary Dake said converting gas pumps to E10 was costly but subsidies reducing the price of ethanol and an increase in local supply have made the transition worth it in the Capital Region.
    “We have to do this for pollution control down in some of the southern counties near New York City,” Dake said. “Now it’s become available in the Albany terminals and we’ve learned how to convert the tanks, so we’ve started to expand its use a little bit more.”
    E10 blend pumps have been spotted popping up at convenience stores throughout the Capital Region, including at some Cumberland Farms locations.
    Nathalie de Vos Burchart, the vice president of logistics for Houston-based ethanol trader BioUrja Trading, said ethanol trade out of Albany has increased since her company purchased the former Cibro Petroleum Products Albany terminal for $10.125 million at bankruptcy court auction in March and created Logibio Albany Terminal in July.
    “We barge ethanol out to New York harbor, to Boston, to Philadelphia, to pretty much the end-user terminals. We also truck it out to the local Albany market,” she said. “There’s several stations converting [to E10 ethanol] as we speak.”
    New York Association of Convenience Stores President James Calvin said selling E10 is becoming more popular among his member stores.
    “There is growing interest among ethanol blends among motor fuel retailers, but that is gradual rather than meteoric,” Calvin said. “I think there is increasing supply of ethanol, again gradual, and increasing interest on the part of the consumer.”
    Corn-based ethanol production, although controversial for its possible negative impact on coastal fi shing ‘dead zones’ created by nitrate fertilizer runoff, has steadily grown more popular in Washington D.C.
    The U.S. now produces 7 billion gallons of ethanol, all of it made from corn, thanks in large part to government mandates and subsidies included in the 2005 energy bill. Last week President Bush signed legislation mandating a sixfold increase in U.S. ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. Of that, 21 billion gallons will have to be from feedstock other than corn such as prairie grasses or wood chips.
    Mike Bombard, Stewart’s Shops Corp.’s gasoline manager, said 198 of the approximately 300 Stewart’s Shops stores have converted to offering 10 percent ethanol blends with all gas sold.
    “The vast majority of the marketplace has done this,” Bombard said. “Approximately 20 [of the E10-only Stewart’s Shops] are mandated. That’s in the southern tier.”
    Since 2004, the federal government has required gas sold in and around New York City to contain 10 percent ethanol to replace the gasoline additive MTBE, originally thought to be a pollution reducing oxygenate until it was shown to easily pollute large quantities of groundwater when spilled or leaked at gas stations.
    Ethanol raises the octane level in gas without polluting groundwater when spilled, although Ethanol refineries do produce more toxic emissions than MTBE refineries, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
    Actually using corn-based ethanol for fuel, however, is thought to have a net zero impact on carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming because corn plants absorb as much CO2 as burning the fuel emits Most able to burn E10 fuel with only a slightly negative impact on fuel economy. It’s also relatively cheap to obtain in the Capital Region.
    “Albany is a very large transportation hub for ethanol product, so we’re kind of tapping into local resources that are available,” Bombard said. “The port of Albany is one of the largest ports in the country for ethanol transportation.”
    Since July, CSX Corp. has increased ethanol transportation from the Midwest to Logibio Albany Terminal from 80-car trains to 102-car trains, for an approximate monthly average of 1,000 train cars carrying about 29 million gallons of ethanol, de Vos Burchart said.
    Corn-based ethanol can only be brought to market by trucks or rail car because pipeline technology cannot protect the fuel from being contaminated by water, according to the EIA.
    “The terminal is just generally growing in volume and activity, particularly on the ethanol side,” de Vos Burchart said.
    Logibio Albany Terminal officials call it “pace setting in the ethanol industry” because the port of Albany has no dock congestion and it only takes about a week for ethanol transporting cars to unload in Albany and return to production plants.
    De Vos Burchart said 25 percent of the terminal’s 2 million barrel storage capacity is dedicated to ethanol.
    “That’s what we’re concentrating on. That’s our background,” she said. “BioUrja Trading is a large ethanol trading company. Our lead trader was the U.S. buyer of ethanol for Exxon Mobil. A little over 10 percent of the U.S. ethanol volume, pretty much, went through his hands when he was at Exxon.”
    Dake said he hopes increased use of ethanol will have a positive impact on the region.
    “It should ultimately have a depressing effect on the price of the gasoline,” he said. “But that’s going to depend on the price of ethanol, which has been going up.”

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“It should ultimately have a depressing effect on the price of the gasoline,” he said. “But that’s going to depend on the price of ethanol, which has been going up.”

....Interesting...... :-/

It isn't just the cost that 'we' are concerned about but the 'cleanliness' of the product used and it's process. the cost is just your basic supply and demand and the unjust scales the may be used.

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Schumer blames milk cost on ethanol
The Associated Press

    NEW YORK — Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday that rising demand for the corn-based fuel additive ethanol is contributing to a spike in milk prices and called for lifting the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports.
    Schumer, D-N.Y., said rising milk prices have been caused by, among other factors, a nationwide increase in demand for ethanol. The same corn used for ethanol is used in animal feed.
    He called for the immediate lifting of the tariff on foreign ethanol imports to increase the supply of the federally mandated fuel additive, reduce pressure on the corn market, and bring down milk prices.
    “Reducing the pressure on the corn market is a quick, commonsense way to bring down milk prices across the board without hurting our region’s dairy farmers,” Schumer said. “No family should every have to do without milk but unfortunately, many families are now being forced to make that terrible choice.”
    According to the Consumer Price Index, the cost of dairy and related products rose 14 percent nationally between November 2006 and November 2007, the most recent figures available.
    Speaking in front of a Manhattan supermarket, Schumer said the price of milk increased 35 percent in New York City between January 2006 and January 2007.
    In Manhattan, for example, he said the average price of a gallon of milk is now $4.52, up from $3.52 a year ago.
    Schumer said his plan would not hurt Northeastern dairy farmers because lifting the ethanol tariff would reduce their costs.

Hey, Chucky, how about letting us drill for oil in more areas of this country so we didn't have to import it? How about setting up another refinery or 2. Haven't heard about one opening lately...like since I was born. The lower gas price would help to offset the corn price that they need to buy to feed their cows, and not only reduce your payment for the milk (which I'm sure they're already getting subsidies for production), but also on steaks and anything else coming from the farms.

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Schumer, D-N.Y., said rising milk prices have been caused by, among other factors, a nationwide increase in demand for ethanol. The same corn used for ethanol is used in animal feed.

Why don't you tell us something we don't know? We knew this was coming a long time ago. I guess our elected officials are just flying by the seat of their pants. I mean where is their vision and planning for the future of the people? Clearly they saw this coming and yet made no previsions. Everything is always in a crisis mode. I just don't know why we bother! >:(

http://www.timesunion.com

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Farmers cash in on demand for corn
State's growers expand output to satisfy needs of ethanol producers as wheat, oat and barley crops fall
By ERIC ANDERSON Deputy business editor
First published: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

ALBANY -- New York farmers committed more acreage to corn production last year as ethanol producers drove demand higher.
Output of grain corn surged 13 percent to 69.9 million bushels, as farmers boosted land devoted to grain corn to 550,000 acres, a 15 percent increase from the year before.

Production of silage corn, used to feed cattle, climbed 2 percent to 8.42 million tons, while the acreage devoted to growing it increased 8 percent to 495,000 acres.
Meanwhile, production of wheat, oats and barley all fell, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The impact has been to boost crop prices, with corn in November going for $3.65 a bushel, said Greg Lemmons, an agriculture statistician at the USDA's Albany office. And that likely will increase prices at the supermarket.
"Eventually it's going to trickle down to the stores, but I don't know when or how much," he said Tuesday.
Farmers are benefiting from the increased prices, and so putting as many acres to corn production as they can.
"Right now, it's very lucrative to grow corn," said Todd M. Erling, executive director of Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corp. in Hudson. "It's replaced some of the other crops."
But Erling said the increased demand for corn could be making ethanol less competitive as an alternative to gasoline.
"Ethanol needs $2 to $2.50 a bushel of corn to be competitive with oil," he said. "We're at the point where we're about killing both of them."
The demand for ethanol is one of several factors pushing overall grain prices higher. Another is last summer's weak wheat harvests in Europe and Australia, which drove U.S. wheat exports higher. Much of that wheat flowed through the Port of Albany, heading to France and Spain.
While soybean output fell statewide in 2007, that could change. The crop is used in the production of biodiesel, and the crushed soybeans that remain after the oil is removed can be used for cattle feed.
The USDA reported that soybean prices grew faster than corn prices last year. Meanwhile, corn is considered a nutrient-heavy crop that requires fertilizer, which itself is getting more costly because of the energy needed to produce it. "You have to fertilize every year if you're going to keep planting corn," said the USDA's Lemmons. "If you don't fertilize, yields are going to plummet in a hurry."
The USDA earlier this month predicted that these factors could alter the planting decisions farmers make this year.
"There's very strong competition with soybeans and wheat," said Rick Tolman, chief executive officer of the National Corn Growers Association in St. Louis. "Soybeans and wheat have gone up substantially more" in price.
He expects the land devoted to corn nationwide will drop this year to 87 million acres from a near record of 93 million acres in 2007, a level not seen since 1946, as farmers plant more soybeans and wheat.
Farmers, for a change, are benefiting from all the demand.
"We produced a record crop of corn last year and we still had rising prices," Tolman said. "It's a dynamic farmers haven't seen before." Eric Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.

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"Right now, it's very lucrative to grow corn," said Todd M. Erling, executive director of Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corp. in Hudson. "It's replaced some of the other crops."

And that's where THOSE prices go up, less supply, same demand, higher price.

http://www.dailygazette.com

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EDITORIALS
Ethanol’s downside not limited to milk

    Sen. Chuck Schumer is blaming corn-based ethanol — and the use of so much of it as a fuel additive — for the high cost of milk, but that’s really only part of the trouble this commodity has been causing.
    Ethanol is pushing up prices for a whole slew of products that are made from corn or rely on it. Take livestock — beef, pork and chicken, for example. Those staples of the American diet have also grown more expensive in the past year or so. Take products that contain the ubiquitous sugar substitute, high-fructose corn syrup. (Many of them are junk food, but no matter: They’re an integral part of the American diet.) And don’t forget to take the packaging that’s derived from various parts of the corn plant. With demand for corn higher than ever because of ethanol production, prices of many corn-based products are near record highs.
    The overproduction of corn is also hurting the environment in Corn Belt states (most notably Iowa), where little else is being grown anymore. It has obliterated the concept of crop rotation, which helps keep soil from becoming depleted. And the high concentration of nitrogen and phosphorous from the fertilizers used to maximize corn production is killing aquatic life all the way down into the Gulf of Mexico. A “dead zone” the size of the state of New Jersey has developed at the mouth of the Mississippi River, where runoff from the Corn Belt winds up.
    So when Schumer calls for lifting the 54-centa-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, he’s got a good idea — unless you happen to be a farmer who benefits from what is, in effect, a government price support. As long as imported ethanol remains too expensive to import, the price of domestically produced ethanol will only go so low. It has, in fact, been falling in recent months due to overproduction, but the market would really be flooded (and prices would fall even further) if the tariff were lifted.
    That’s unlikely to happen, in large part due to politics: The candidates that spend so much time in Iowa in advance of the state’s fi rstin-the-nation presidential contests invariably promise farm-friendly policies in exchange for farmers’ votes. Those who won’t kowtow to this influential lobby typically don’t get very far in the presidential derby.
    So while Schumer might have the right idea, he’s probably not going to get very far with it.

Milk cost more than gas-----HEEEELLLLOOOO!!! ::)

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Ethanol less efficient, more expensive in end

    The Feb. 3 article, “Fuel for thought – Some consumers notice decrease in fuel mileage as more stations switch to E10 gasoline,” stated that a hybrid car owner who used to get 50 mpg highway, with 100 percent gasoline, is now getting 40 mpg with fuel that is 10 percent ethanol.
    Let’s see: With 100 percent gasoline, this driver would use four gallons of gas to go 200 miles. Now he has to use 5 gallons of fuel to go that same 200 miles.
    But now 10 percent of that “new “ fuel is ethanol (10 percent times 5 gallons equals 0.5 gallons). That means the driver is now using 4.5 gallons of gasoline and 0.5 gallons of ethanol to go the same distance! Talk about fuzzy numbers! The same trip (200 miles) needs 0.5 gallons more gas — how is this helping the environment?
    Now instead of paying about $13.20 (four gallons times $3.30 per gallon) to make the 200 mile trip, he has to pay about $16.50 (5 gallons times $3.30 per gallon) or an increase of $3.30! Where are the economics of this?
    All this without even considering the costs and fuel used to grow the crops from which ethanol is derived, as well as the cost of producing the ethanol and the water used, the cost to transport ethanol because it can’t be piped! And still more questions than answers: How can the new federally mandated mileage requirements be met if they keep diluting the fuels used to power our vehicles?
    EARL F. SPENCER
    Palatine Bridge

I've filled up with the 10% ethanol blend when traveling from here to Maryland and back and the gas mileage is not as good as with regular gasoline and as Mr Spencer points out it will cost even more to use this type of fuel. This is just another case of rushing to judgement about how to fix a problem without doing the proper research on the subject.

Quoted from senders

Milk cost more than gas-----HEEEELLLLOOOO!!! ::)

Not anymore!

Quoted from Shadow

I've filled up with the 10% ethanol blend when traveling from here to Maryland and back and the gas mileage is not as good as with regular gasoline and as Mr Spencer points out it will cost even more to use this type of fuel. This is just another case of rushing to judgement about how to fix a problem without doing the proper research on the subject.

Funny you should mention gas milage, cause my isn't so great any more either. We are paying more for gas and getting less milage and the prices will be going sky high once this entire ethanol really picks up. Ya know, it just doesn't matter anymore. We will either be paying a fortune for oil or any alternative we come up with.

http://www.dailygazette.com

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CAPITAL REGION
Drivers increase use of E85 fuel
Ethanol mixture available at two local gas stations
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter

    Albany County Comptroller Mike Conners doesn’t drive a fl exfuel car, but he said he loves using E85 fuel anyway.
    The mixture — 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline — is available at two retail gas stations in Albany and two state-owned pumps not available to the public, making Albany the city with the highest concentration of E85 pumps in New York state.
    Conners said he likes using ethanol because it’s made in America, it’s less expensive than gasoline and releases less carbon dioxide — which is linked to global warming — into the atmosphere.
    “I splash mix my own [gas tank],” Conners said. “Since last May I’ve been mixing regular gasoline and E85. [Recently] I put in 17 gallons [of regular unleaded gasoline] and then I put in 11.33 gallons of E85 in, which will give me approximately 7.7 gallons of ethanol. It does two things, it drops the fuel economy but increases the performance of the engine.”
    Ethanol contains less energy than gasoline and will greatly decrease fuel economy in all but flex-fuel engines designed for greater than 10 percent ethanol. The New York State Research and Development Authority estimates there are 200,000 flex-fuel engine vehicles in New York state.
ENTHUSIASTIC RESPONSE
    Christian King, owner and president of Albany-based gas station operating company KNC Holdings Inc., said he discourages motorists from doing what Conners does, but he encourages ethanol use. King’s company owns E85 pumps at gas stations in Albany and Warrensburg, and said he plans to install another one soon on Route 7 in Latham.
    “We’ve been very, very successful with our rollout of E85 at the two locations, to the point where it makes all of the sense in the world economically, as well [as being] the right thing to do, to add it at Latham,” King said.
    Conners and King are not alone in their enthusiasm for the corn-alcohol based fuel. Federal and state officials have supported ethanol production and consumption with subsidies, mandates and incentives for years.
    Until recently, many government offi cials have acted under the assumption, supported by reports from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, that corn plants absorb as much CO2 as burning ethanol emits.
    That assumption led to policies that make King’s ventures possible, such as state waivers allowing his E85 pumps to be sited without Underwriters Laboratory safety approval, and grant money from the NYSERDA to help pay for 50 percent of the cost of putting in the pumps.
    Whether ethanol production is “the right thing to do,” from an environmental standpoint, was called into question earlier this month when a report by Princeton University researchers published in Science Magazine and its online edition, ScienceXpress, said that ethanol production has caused land use changes around the world that actually increase CO2 emissions.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROVERSY
    The report says farmers around the world are plowing forests and grasslands, releasing tons of stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, because they need to increase field crop production to make up for lost U.S. food production as U.S. cropland is diverted to corn sold for ethanol.
    “We basically concluded that the [CO2] emissions from land use changes are very large … and as a result there is a large net increase in global warming gases,” said Tim Searchinger, the lead researcher for the Princeton team.
    Federal officials shot back in a letter to ScienceXpress Feb. 15 arguing the Searchinger report’s conclusions were in error.
    “Production of corn-based ethanol in the U.S. so far results in moderate [green house gas] emissions reductions. There has also been no indication that U.S. corn ethanol production has so far caused indirect land use changes in other countries because U.S. corn exports have been maintained at about 2 billion bushels a year,” wrote federal researchers Michael Wang and Zia Haq. “It remains to be seen whether and how much direct and indirect land use changes will occur as a result of U.S. corn ethanol production.”
    Searchinger b lasted the Wang letter calling it full of “lies and errors.” He said his team will respond with a rebuttal soon.
    NYSERDA President and CEO Paul Tonko said authority officials are aware of the Searchinger report and will factor its conclusions into future decisions regarding ethanol.
    “Our effort here is a work in progress. As we move through the change — and change is not always easy, usually isn’t easy — we want to make sure we deal with facts not fiction. We look at full picture views and we hear everyone’s expression, good or bad, related to the topic,” Tonko said.
GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
    Last year, when the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded there was a 90 percent chance that man-made CO2 emissions are helping to contribute to global warming, ethanol became one of the more popular renewable energy choices championed in Washington.
    In December, President Bush signed the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, which requires gasoline refineries to increase the use of ethanol sixfold, to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, voted for the act. He said he’s hopeful that the bill’s increased support for research into developing cellulosic ethanol, made from corn stalks, wood chips and switch grass, will benefit the economy and the environment more than corn-based ethanol.
    “For corn-based ethanol, for the moment I’m supportive of building [refineries] in New York because the big cost of ethanol is not the production, it’s the transportation. But I don’t think it’s a long-range solution and I don’t think we should put all our eggs in that basket,” he said. “[Corn-based ethanol] is cumbersome, economically ineffi - cient and has been mainly dictated, I would say, by politics. If Iowa weren’t the fi rst [presidential caucus] state, I don’t think we would have done as much for ethanol.”
    The EISA mandates at least 21,000 billion gallons of ethanol production must come from feedstocks other than corn by 2022.
SAFETY STANDARDS
    New York state government has promoted ethanol for the past few years. In July 2006, Gov. George Pataki and the New York State Thruway Authority announced that an E85 pump would soon be built at the New Baltimore Travel Plaza in Greene County, the first part of a plan to put up an E85 pump at all 27 Thruway travel plazas.
    But that program was stymied when Thruway authorities discovered no E85 pump system had yet received the Underwriters Laboratory seal of safety approval, Thruway Authority spokeswoman Sarah Kamp said.
    UL officials first released safety standards for E85 dispensers in October 2007 and have not yet approved any ethanol dispensing system, although UL officials said they anticipate approving one sometime in 2008. Before issuing safety standards, UL officials said they spent a year studying how the corrosive ethanol would affect a dispensing system.
    Kamp said the Thruway Authority is paying for the pumps without any state funding and will not open them to the public until UL approves them. She said the Thruway Authority now only plans to put up just two others, rather than 26.
    “I don’t think anybody’s going to say we aren’t going to have them everywhere in the future, but at this point we don’t have any plans for anything except those three,” Kamp said.
STATE FUNDING
    Each of the E85 pumps now operating in the Capital Region received a state waiver to operate without UL approval, according to a spokesman for the New York State Department of State.
    Tonko said four retail E85 stations in New York state have received $80,000 in grant funding from NYSERDA to help pay for the cost of installing the pumps. He said in 2006, NYSERDA received a $30 million state appropriation to support renewable energy projects, $9 million of which was mandated to promote E85 pumps with grants of up to $50,000.
    “Because it was an initiative from the executive and legislative branches, that we were assigned the responsibility of, that mandate still exists, and our effort here is to assign our experts or deal with subcontracting forces to implement the program charged us,” Tonko said.
    According to NYSERDA officials, an additional 31 E85 pumps have been approved for $472,000 in grant funding, 12 of which will be selling blended biodiesel as well as E85.
    According to performance reports to NYSERDA, required of the E85 stations that received grant money, the four retail pumps have so far sold about 230,000 gallons of ethanol since installation. Sales of E85 are generally equal to or greater than sales of premium unleaded fuel at the stations on a pump-to-pump basis, NYSERDA said. Two of the stations have been in operation for about eight months and the other two stations have only been operational for a few weeks.
ETHANOL ECONOMICS
    Some of the ethanol supplied to E85 pumps in New York state comes from DEB Distribution Inc, owned by Christian King. He said his company gets ethanol for the Capital Region from the major ethanol hub of Logibio Albany Terminal at the port of Albany.
    “E10 in Albany has proliferated to the stations at a much higher level than say Syracuse, where ethanol is not readily available. It’s all about distribution right now. [Ethanol] is hitting here because there is a vast amount of ethanol flowing through Logibio,” King said.
    Corn-based ethanol can be brought to market only by trucks or rail cars, because current pipeline technology cannot protect the fuel from being contaminated by water, according to the U.S. EIA.
    Schumer said the cost to transport ethanol is one of the reason’s he’s dubious of cornbased ethanol. Another is it’s effect on food prices.
    “Dairy prices are way up. Why? Because the cost of [dairy cattle] feed is up,” he said.
    King said he thinks the ethanol industry has been good for the local and national economy.
    “We have to do something to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. [Ethanol] is cleaner burning as far as carbon dioxide emissions, compared directly with gasoline out of a tailpipe. I’m not going to get into land use issues like [those discussed] in Science Magazine. And it helps the economy. It’s American-made,” he said. “Ethanol is just a piece of our solution to reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It’s not a silver bullet, never will be. Biodiesel isn’t, wind farms aren’t, solar isn’t, but all together, in a collaborative effort, we will start to reduce our dependence.”
    Montgomery County corn farmer Leonard Logan disagrees. Logan said he plans to plant about 1,500 acres of corn this year. After corn prices spiked last year he said it was like winning the lottery, but in his opinion the overall influence of ethanol has been bad for agriculture.
    “The people it’s affecting are the people who use [corn feed]. The chicken farmers and the pig farmers, they’re in dire trouble. You notice the price of eggs has gone up from 79 cents a dozen to $2.79 then $3 a dozen,” Logan said. “With ethanol, the best thing they could do is cut all of the government subsidies and put it back in a jar and drink it. It’s a political joke. That’s all it is. It’s tree-hugger food. I don’t like the whole thing because it’s adding to this damned price sum and it shouldn’t be there.”

Maybe we should say thank you and raise our own chickens within city limits and all....this is how people are 'scared' and beat into a 'surviving pulp'.....shame on us.....we wait for our food to be delivered to us no matter what the cost....bitter herbs it is....

http://www.dailygazette.com

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CAPITAL REGION
Wheat shortage pushing prices to record highs Pizza makers, grocers, consumers all feeling effects
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter

    It used to be that flour was the reliably cheap part of making a pizza.
    “I’ve owned the business here for about 15 years and flour has always ranged around $8 to $10 for a 50-pound bag of flour. It’s getting up close to $30 now. It’s gone up about 200 percent,” said Jim Smith, owner of High Bridge Pizzeria in Rotterdam.
Record high wheat prices are squeezing the profit margins of flour wholesalers and retailers in the Capital Region, as well as the wallets of consumers.
Spring wheat for March delivery fell $1.75 Thursday to close at $18.25 a bushel on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. It traded as high as $25 a bushel this week. Wheat historically trades at $3 to $7 a bushel.
    George Walsh, the owner of grocery wholesale company By George in Ballston Lake, said his company sells about 2,000 50-pound bags of flour per week.
    “[The price] really escalated over the last eight weeks. It’s still going up. They’re talking about $50 bags of flour. I had the sales manager for General Mills call me up and [tell me] flour’s probably going to hit $35 your cost. Now it’s costing us $28.50, which is ridiculous. Last month it was $15.80,” Walsh said. “It’s terrible. There is a big shortage of wheat. It’s almost impossible for these guys making a pizza.”
    The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture announced Feb. 8 that the U.S. wheat stockpile was the lowest in 50 years, 272 million bushels.
    Price Chopper spokeswoman Mona Golub said she has not heard rumors of a wheat shortage, but the wheat price spikes have affected pricing at every supermarket and grocery store.
    “This is going to affect any and all products that contain wheat. So certainly fresh bakery and packaged bakery and many, many, many packaged products across the grocery shelves will be affected in months to come,” she said.
    In New York state, 100,000 acres of winter wheat was planted this past fall, down 5,000 acres from 2006, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service New York Field Office.
    For pizza makers, the flour price spike is a double whammy, as cheese prices have also been rising during the past year, in part because of lower-than-normal cheese production and higher demand.
    “You get probably 200 to 300 pizzas out of a bag of flour, compared to cheese when it doubled in price. You don’t get that many pizzas out of a pound of cheese,” Smith said. “Everything has gone up. Delivery trucks, look at gas prices. The whole industry has gone crazy. We really don’t have much of a profi t margin. Our prices are too low as it is. You tell people that and they don’t want to hear it.”
    Some big pizza chains, such as Pizza Hut and Papa John’s International Inc., last year raised the price of their cheese-only pizzas to the same amount as one-topping pizzas at company-owned stores.
    Chris Sternberg, spokesman for Louisville, Ky.-based Papa John’s, said in an e-mail Thursday that the chain last fall locked in the purchase of part of the wheat supply needed for 2008. “Through this strategy, which we have continued in 2008, our restaurants are somewhat insulated from the recent run-up in the cost of wheat during the first half of the year.” He said the company is controlling inventory and working with suppliers to control costs.
    The spike in cheese costs has been partially attributed to the runup in dairy cattle corn feed prices caused by increased federal subsidy of the U.S. ethanol industry. Ethanol is alcohol-fuel, which in the United States is mostly made from corn. Increased corn planting means decreased wheat planting.
    “The government’s got all of the farmers growing corn because of this [ethanol] stuff. You save a nickel a gallon, but you kill the wheat production,” Walsh said.
    In 2007, New York farmers harvested 69.9 million tons of corn from 1.1 million acres of land, up nearly 8 million tons from 2006, when only about 1 million acres was put into corn production, according to the USDA.

PETER R. BARBER/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER
High Bridge Pizza worker Danica Graybo, 18, of Rotterdam, makes a pizza on Thursday.

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ALBANY
Ethanol fire at port worries officials
Money for special foam requested
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter

    If a major ethanol-based fi re were to occur at the Port of Albany today, city fire department officials said they have only 50 gallons of the material necessary to make alcohol-resistant foam needed to fight the blaze.
    Deputy Chief Frank Nerney said fire department officials will be requesting that the city appropriate money for 500 gallons of alcohol-resistant foam concentrate in the next budget in order to meet rising concerns about Albany’s rapidly increasing ethanol trade.
    “We can make probably a little more than 5,000 gallons of that foam now, which is not where we want to be, but in lieu of that we have agreements with surrounding agencies to supplement our foam,” Nerney said. “Certainly we are working on building our stash here. The ethanol gasoline mix is kind of new to everyone, and certainly the quantities in ethanol around here is, so we’re trying to keep up with the change. We’re a little behind the curve.”
    Albany has four ethanol 85 percent fuel pump stations, the highest number of E85 stations of any city in New York state, according to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition. Local ethanol trade increased substantially when Houston-based ethanol trader BioUrja Trading purchased the former Cibro Petroleum Products Port of Albany terminal in March 2007 for $10.125 million at bankruptcy court auction and created the Logibio Albany Terminal.
    As the Capital Region helps lead the nation’s drive toward alternative fuels, local fi re departments face the added burden of preparing for ethanol fires, which are harder to put out than gasoline fi res.
    “It is not unusual to fi nd a fire department that is still just prepared to deal with traditional flammable liquids,” said Ed Plaugher, director of national programs for the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
    The problem is that water doesn’t put out ethanol fires, and the foam that has been used since the 1960s to smother ordinary gasoline blazes doesn’t work well against the grain alcohol fuel.
    Alcohol-resistant foam is able to put out ethanol fi res because it relies on long-chain molecules known as polymers to smother the flames. Industry officials say the special foam costs about 30 percent more than the standard product, at around $90 to $115 for a five-gallon container.
    Wrecks involving ordinary cars and trucks carrying modest amounts of the corn alcohol fuel can be put out using large amounts of conventional foam. The greater danger involves the many tanker trucks and railcars that are rolling out of the Corn Belt with huge quantities of 85 percent or 95 percent ethanol.
    Since July, CSX Corp. has increased ethanol transportation from the Midwest to Logibio Albany Terminal from 80- to 102-car trains, for an approximate monthly average of 1,000 train cars carrying about 29 million gallons of ethanol, said Nathalie de Vos Burchart, BioUrja Trading vice president of logistics.
    William Borger, district fire chief for the Selkirk Fire Department, said fires at the former Cibro Petroleum Products terminal are the responsibility of Selkirk Fire Department, but he was unaware of the increased ethanol activity there.
    “Unfortunately, sometimes the fire departments are like the last to know,” Borger said. “What we have is about 700 to 800 gallons of Universal Gold 3 percent [concentrate] foam. It’s a multipurpose foam.”
    According to firehouseinternational.com, Universal Gold is an alcohol-resistant firefighting foam.
    Scott Blood, fire chief for the Waterford-based Momentive Performance Materials Industrial Fire Brigade, said his unit has mutual aid agreements with Selkirk and Albany to help fight fires at the Port of Albany and elsewhere. He said he would not reveal how much alcohol-resistant foam his company has stocked because of security risks from terrorists, but he said he was not confident the collected units of Albany, Selkirk and Momentive would have enough of the special foam in the event of a major ethanol fi re.
    “We could assist, but it depends on the magnitude of the fire,” Blood said.
    Logibio Albany Terminal General Manager Mike Mayo said his company has some alcohol-resistant foam available on site to help firefighters in the event of a fire at the terminal.
    De Vos Burchart said 25 percent of Logibio’s 2-million-barrel storage capacity is dedicated to ethanol.
    The Exxon Mobil terminal at the Port of Albany should soon have about 4,000 gallons of alcohol-resistant foam, according to terminal manager Darrell Boehlke. Boehlke said he works for Global Companies LLC, which owns and operates the terminal, and he is in the process of preparing his operation to handle ethanol distribution, starting within two months.
    “It’ll be an optional thing here where you’ll be able to get either [ethanol 10 percent blend or pure gasoline],” Boehlke said. “We [need] to have an adequate supply [of foam] for our own facility, all of our storage tanks and loading racks.”
    To help firefighters identify when high concentrations of ethanol are burning, the U.S. Transportation Department has approved a rule requiring signs on tanker trucks hauling fuel that is more than 10 percent ethanol.
    In the last three months of 2007, three major fires pointed up the danger. In western Pennsylvania, nine ethanol tanker cars derailed and triggered a blaze that tied up a busy rail line.
    In Missouri, a tanker truck carrying several thousand gallons of ethanol and gasoline crashed near the state Capitol, killing the driver. The flames spurred the evacuation of two elementary schools and forced the state to rebuild a badly damaged bridge.
    And in Ohio, a train heading through the northeastern part of the state to Buffalo derailed and burned, forcing more than 1,000 people from their homes.

So, let me get this straiight.

Ethanol does bad things to most engines by not burning the same way as gasoline.
Ethanol is less efficient - cutting our MPG.
Ethanol production takes a lot more corn production - thus making it less profitable for farmers to grow wheat. Less wheat makes our food prices skyrocket.

Eliminate the ethanol from our fuel tanks, wheat prices decrease, food prices decrease and we get more MPG ... isn't that the logical conclusion?

Who's big idea was Ethanol anyway?

Quoted from MobileTerminal

So, let me get this straiight.

Ethanol does bad things to most engines by not burning the same way as gasoline.
Ethanol is less efficient - cutting our MPG.
Ethanol production takes a lot more corn production - thus making it less profitable for farmers to grow wheat. Less wheat makes our food prices skyrocket.

Eliminate the ethanol from our fuel tanks, wheat prices decrease, food prices decrease and we get more MPG ... isn't that the logical conclusion?

Who's big idea was Ethanol anyway?

Some numbskull! :'(

http://www.dailygazette.com

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TROY
Troy firm announces deal to supply fuel to ethanol plant
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Jason Subik at 395-3198 or jsubik@dailygazette.net.

    Troy-based commodity trading company Interstate Commodities announced Monday that it will be the exclusive supplier of corn and merchandiser of distillers grains for the soon-to-be completed ethanol plant in Fulton, Oswego County.
    Interstate Commodities President and CEO Greg Oberting said his company has signed a multiyear deal with Northeast Biofuels, the owner of the ethanol plant in Fulton, but would not disclose the length of the contract.
    “[Northeast Biofuels is] planning to start production in late May. We’re responsible for merchandising 325,000 tons of their production each year,” Oberting said. “We’re probably, if not the largest, one of the largest re-sellers of dry distillers grains in the United States.”
    Distillers grains are a by-product of the distillation process that will be used at the Northeast Biofuels plant to make ethanol, an alcohol fuel, from corn. Prior to the development of corn-based ethanol production in the United States, distillers grains, which are usually sold as feed for livestock, were typically made from drying mash created during beer or whiskey production.
    According to its Web site Interstate Commodities was founded in Troy in 1947. In addition to trading commodities the firm is also a grain and feed ingredient merchandising company, a commercial grain handling and storage company with storage facilities in excess of 10 million bushels capacity and a transportation company that operates several thousand privately owned railcars.
    Prior to the Northeast Biofuels deal, Interstate Commodities had not done much business with New York farmers.
    “Our company has been primarily focused on agriculture throughout the Midwest, South and Southeast. We really haven’t worked closely with the New York corn growers,” Oberting said. “We’re really proud to be able to originate corn grain directly from New York corn growers to a demand customer in New York. That’s never happened before.”
    In 2007, New York farmers harvested 69.9 million tons of corn from 1.1 million acres of land, up nearly 8 million tons from 2006, when 100,000 fewer acres were put into corn production, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service New York Field Office.
    Oberting said the Northeast Biofuels ethanol plant will consume about 40 million bushels of corn per year and the Western New York Energy LLC ethanol plant in Shelby, Orleans County, consumes about 20 million bushels of corn annually.
    “I think you’re going to see more corn production in New York. There is no question. Every bushel in New York is not going to go to these plants but we have effectively with two customers [almost] the same amount of demand as all of the corn that’s produced in New York. [That’s] newly created demand,” he said. “We’ve been in business for over 60 years as a New York corporation and to be able help the New York farm community elevate the prices for the commodities that they produce is a big deal for us.”
    A team of representatives from Interstate Commodities will host a farmer-marketing meeting Wednesday in Auburn, at the Aurora Inn to inform the farming community about the marketing opportunities created by the company’s contract with Northeast Biofuels.

Immigrants from other countries will come here and buy land to grow corn and make some money just like the old days.

Quoted from Sombody

Immigrants from other countries will come here and buy land to grow corn and make some money just like the old days.

Why should they when they can just come here and live off the government 'free' programs paid for by the taxpayers.

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Motorists get less bang for their gas buck with ethanol

    In the Feb. 3 Business Section, there was an article (“Fuel for thought — Some consumers notice decrease in fuel mileage as more stations switch to E10 gasoline”) which discussed E10 gasoline in the Capital Region.
    One statement in particular caught my attention: “Most of the gasoline stations, with the exception of the Sunocos and Mobil Marts in our county (Schenectady), have gone to E10.” Prior to the date of the above-mentioned article, I had noticed stickers on gasoline pumps at two Sunoco stations, one in Clifton Park the other in Amsterdam (neither of which, of course, are in Schenectady County), which read “contains up to 10 percent ethanol.”
    On Feb. 25 I purchased some unleaded regular at the station in Amsterdam using a portable container. To test for ethanol, I put 15 milliliters of water into a graduated cylinder, to which I added 150 milliliters of the E10. After mixing the contents, the interface between the gasoline and resulting water-ethanol solution stabilized at 26 millileters, indicating the presence of 7 percent to 8 percent ethanol in the E10. Even if combustion is not adversely affected by the presence of ethanol, purchasing E10 is equivalent to paying an additional 10 cents per gallon based on energy content [which is 30 percent less for ethanol than 100 percent gasoline].
    Incidentally, I have checked regular gasoline purchased in 2008 from two Mobil stations in the Amsterdam area and found it ethanol-free, as the article reports.
    My personal interest in this issue stems far more from avoiding potential harmful effects of ethanol in the older engines I own than in “saving” 10 cents per gallon.
    ROGER JOHNSON
    Hagaman The writer is a retired GE engineer.

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Government’s attitude: ‘Let them eat cake’

    First it was the price of tortillas, a necessary staple for many of the poor in our hemisphere. Then it was dairy products, with the Gazette highlighting the effect on pizza prices of the higher cost of cheese (July 14, 2007).
    Now, a wheat shortage, which further affects the price of pizza, is frontpage news (Feb. 29 Gazette). It’s all because taxpayers are paying farmers to grow corn instead of other crops, and to sell the corn to make ethanol instead of food. Is this a morally acceptable way to address either climate change or dependence on foreign oil?
    The addition of ethanol reduces fuel efficiency, but not the price of gasoline. Food costs more. The Gazette focuses on the price of pizza. When will you focus on the effect of higher food prices on over 12 million children in the United States, who live in households where people already skip meals or eat less to make ends meet? Or on the 10 percent of households in New York that suffer from hunger or risk of hunger?
    Are any of the presidential candidates even talking about how, as a society, we seem to have decided it is acceptable to lower the standard of living of average Americans to enrich big agribusiness and ethanol manufacturers?
    KATHY SANFORD
    Clifton Park

I dont freakin' get it.....there is no shortage of wheat just the effect of control......

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Using corn as fuel taking toll on water and land
First published: Tuesday, March 18, 2008

You don't have to be a biblical prophet to predict the outcome of America's present use of food (corn) as a substitute (ethanol) for oil to drive the economy. Not only does this heinous policy drive up the price of food and fuel itself (through subsidies), it also condemns the overused land and decimates the shrinking water supply.

Rather than live within our energy means -- by driving less and using fuel-efficient vehicles -- we are systematically destroying the environment and subtly starving our citizens.
What is tragic is that Americans subconsciously sense this man-made famine but have no power to prevent it. Look at those old 1930s dust bowl photos from the Great Depression; they could be a mirror of our future.
DAVID CHILD

FARM SUBSIDIES...... >:(

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Ethanol hits local pipeline

First published: Sunday, March 23, 2008

Christian King is a businessman, so he wouldn't be selling ethanol at his Mobil gas stations unless it made him money.

He says he became the first gas station owner in New York state to offer E85 -- the common name for a fuel blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline -- when he started selling it at Campus Mobil on Western Avenue in Albany last May.
His Mobil station in Warrensburg started selling E85 soon after, and he also distributes E85 and the more common blend E10 to other stations statewide.
But beyond the business reasons for getting into the ethanol business, King has a clear passion for the fuel, and he has become one of its biggest proponents in the Capital Region.
"We really need to do something to reduce our dependence on foreign oil," King said. "Somebody's got to go first."
That may sound strange from a man who gets most of his gas supply from one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world.
But King also believes that ethanol will reduce greenhouse gases believed to cause climate change, and he also thinks ethanol is good for the American economy because it's made domestically.
And as the price of oil rises above $100 a barrel with no end in sight, E85, which gets hefty government subsidies, can be a cheaper choice as well.
"It's certainly not the silver bullet," King said on a day when he was selling E85 at $2.75 per gallon compared to $3.43 for regular gas. "But it's one of the best alternatives we've had to combat these high prices."
Of course that price comparison is a little tricky, because ethanol has less energy content than gasoline. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, its energy content is 27 percent lower than gasoline. So you get fewer miles to the gallon.
And not all cars can use E85. Drivers must own what's known as a flex-fuel vehicle, although many drivers probably don't realize they own one.
Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors all make flex-fuel vehicles, most of them trucks or SUVs such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Ford Explorer and the Chevrolet Suburban.
Most vehicles that use E85 experience a 15 to 20 percent drop in fuel economy, according to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition.
King says that because of this, E85 has to be about 50 cents cheaper per gallon to provide savings to consumers, although he notes that the use of E85 also has other benefits such as fewer greenhouse gas emissions and less gasoline consumption.
But King notes that E85 has a 101 octane rating, meaning it is a premium fuel that runs cleaner than regular gas. King says he notices the difference using E85, with faster acceleration and better pickup.
"Personally I see it, but I think the average consumer wouldn't notice," he said.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, a state agency that promotes clean energy technologies and energy conservation, estimates there are 200,000 flex-fuel vehicles in the state capable of using E85. But there are only a handful of E85 fuel pumps open to the public.That is about to change, especially in the Capital Region, which is helped by the ample supply of Midwestern ethanol that comes by rail into the Port of Albany.
In addition to his two existing locations, King is planning to install an E85 pump at his Latham Mobil station.
The Mobil Mart on Wolf Road in Colonie also sells E85. And other Mobil stations in the region, including one in Glenmont and one Glenville, are expected to offer the fuel in the future. Springs-based Stewart's Shops, which has more than 300 stores in New York and Vermont, is also looking into the possibility of E85 at a small number of outlets that also offer gasoline.
"We're definitely looking," said Stewart's gasoline manager Mike Bombard. "But we haven't committed to anything at this point."
Cumberland Farms, which has 1,000 stores in the Northeast and Florida, is planning four E85 pumps at its local stores. The first of them is scheduled to open within a week or two in Queensbury.
That will be Cumberland Farms' first E85 location in the state -- or anywhere else.
Other E85 pumps are also planned at Cumberland Farms' Glenmont, Clifton Park and Rotterdam stores.
Cumberland Farms, a privately held company based in suburban Boston, also owns its own fuel distribution company, Gulf Oil LP.
Gulf Oil CEO Joseph Petrowski said the company targeted New York state because of its aggressive subsidies for retailers who offer E85.
"New York has been clearly at the forefront in this," Petrowski said. "Albany is a great market."
The only two other stations serving E85 in New York state are in Rochester.
One of the reasons for these new E85 pumps is a $9 million NYSERDA program called the Bio-Fuel Station Initiative.
NYSERDA is offering to reimburse gas stations 50 percent of the cost of installing E85 and biodiesel systems, up to $50,000.
NYSERDA officials say that 40 stations have applied for the funding, although the program could fund as many as 300 new stations. That's why the May 2 deadline for the program will likely be extended.
King says that money goes a long way. He said his project in Albany cost $40,000, while the Latham E85 installation will be triple that. Although E85 uses the same type of underground tanks and lines as gasoline, the pump parts used by the consumer such as the nozzle and hose are slightly different than traditional gas pumps. They are nickel-plated to prevent corrosion caused by ethanol and use a special rubber, King said. Traditional pumps are lined with softer metals.
In fact, King says that without the NYSERDA program, the financial risk of installing an E85 pump would likely be too great in what he admits is a highly competitive market. And he says that NYSERDA's technical and moral support has been key.
"That's what it takes to get something like this going," he said. "You have to have passionate people. Without NYSERDA's support, I couldn't get it done."King says he sells about 760 gallons of E85 a day at his Albany location, which means about 76 vehicles are pulling into his station everyday to use the special golden pump nozzle handle. In Warrensburg its about 270 gallons a day.
"Those are phenomenal numbers," he said.
King's fuel distribution company mixes E85 at the Port of Albany where ethanol comes in by rail from Chicago, bound for New York City by barge. The availability of ethanol in the port is one of the major reasons why E85 made its debut in the Capital Region.
"Access to product is why here in the Albany area it's become a big deal," King said. development of new ethanol production facilities in New York could make E85 more prevalent in other areas of the state. The one ethanol plant currently in production is in western New York.
But a much larger facility, Northeast Biofuels, will open in the coming months at the former Miller Brewing plant in Fulton, Oswego County. That facility will make 114 million gallons of ethanol a year from corn, about 25 percent coming from local farmers. That is likely to greatly expand supply in New York state, which would make it easier for gas stations to offer E85.
State government energy policies have also driven E85's growth.
More than half of New York state government's fleet of cars and light trucks use alternative fuels, including more than 3,000 flex-fuel vehicles that can run on E85, says Eileen Redmond, director of the Office of General Services' alternative fuel program. 's programs have been pushed along by state and federal mandates, and eventually all of the state's vehicles will have to use alternative fuels.
OGS operates its own E85 pump in Albany on the Harriman State Office Campus, where OGS also dispenses other alternative fuels, such as hydrogen for the state's only hydrogen-powered fuel-cell car.
Redmond believes that as awareness of E85 grows, people will buy more flex-fuel vehicles, and retailers will offer more ethanol.
"Flex fuel is the next big wave, I believe," Redmond said. "Eventually, E85 will become available if the need is there."
Rulison can be reached at 454-5504 or by e-mail at lrulison@timesunion.com.

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$350M ethanol plant chosen for port site
March 31, 2008
by Eric Anderson, Deputy business editor

The Albany Port District Commission today selected a proposal to build an ethanol production plant at the Port of Albany that eventually could produce as much as 165 million gallons of ethanol a year.

The project would cost as much as $350 million, according to the proposal by Albany Renewable Energy LLC. The company would pay at least $20,000 per acre per year to lease a 20-acre site, with a minimum lease period of 20 years, said Robert Cross, who chairs the commission.

The project is expected to create 300 to 400 construction jobs, and would employ as many as 50 to 60 people full-time at an average annual salary of $60,000.

The project would be a windfall for the port, creating 600,000 tons of cargo to be handled each year, including 500,000 tons of distillers grain, a feedstock for cattle that is a byproduct of the ethanol production process.

Corn would come from regional and Midwest sources, said Ed Stahl, senior project manager for Bio Pro Resources, a North Carolina company that will build the plant.

Financing could be a challenge, Stahl said, given the rising cost of corn. But the price of oil also has climbed, he said, and ethanol prices typically track those of gasoline.

The partners in the project were drawn to Albany because of the presence of multiple rail lines next to a deep-water port. Rather than loading ethanol onto tank cars after it is produced at landlocked plants, the fuel can be loaded directly onto barges for shipment to East Coast fuel terminals, where it can be blended with gasoline.

Permits are expected to take as long as a year to secure before the project can move forward.

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Corn supply, demand, causing food prices to soar
BY MARY CLARE JALONICK The Associated Press

   WASHINGTON — From chicken nuggets to corn flakes, food prices at grocery stores and dinner tables could be headed even higher as farmers cut back on the land they’re planting in corn this spring.
   Corn prices already are high, and a drop in supply should keep them rising. Combine that with the huge demand for corn-based ethanol fuel — and higher energy costs for transporting food — and consumers are likely to see their food bills going up and up.
   Farmers are now expected to plant 86 million acres of corn this year, the Department of Agriculture predicted Monday, down 8 percent from last year, which was the highest since World War II.
   Corn is almost everywhere you look in the U.S. food supply. Poultry, beef and pork companies use it to feed their animals. High fructose corn syrup is used in soft drinks and many other foods, including lunch meats and salad dressings. Corn is often an ingredient in breads, peanut butter, oatmeal and potato chips.
   Corn components are even used in many grocery store items that aren’t edible — including disposable diapers and dry cell batteries.
   When the corn that goes into those products goes up in price, increases eventually are passed along to consumers.
   And corn prices have skyrocketed in recent years, almost tripling since 2005. They have been pushed along by the burgeoning ethanol industry, which turns the crop into fuel, and by rising worldwide demand for food.
   “People who are working families, just barely making it and already paying higher prices for gas and home heating oil are going to be shot in the pocket by higher food prices,” said Carol Tucker-Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America.
   Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council said recent increases in the cost of corn feed have been absorbed by larger chicken companies, such as Pilgrim’s Pride or Tyson Foods, that provide feed to poultry farmers. But that could change.
   “At a certain point we have to readjust and get back to square one,” Lobb said. “The only people who have money ultimately are consumers.”
   Tucker-Forman of the Consumer Federation of America and Scott Faber of the Grocery Manufacturers Association both say rising food prices could be stemmed if Congress would pull back subsidies for the ethanol industry.
   The number of ethanol plants has almost tripled since 1999 and more are being built, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Such plants could gobble up more than a quarter of the country’s corn crop.
   “Food prices being driven by the food-to-fuel mandates will most significantly affect working poor,” Faber said.
   Matt Hartwig of the Renewable Fuels Association said the higher prices can’t be blamed on the ethanol industry.
   There are a host of factors contributing to higher corn prices — surging global demand to feed people and livestock, a weak dollar encouraging exports, and rampant speculation — that have a far greater impact than America’s ethanol industry,” he said.
   According to the Agriculture Department, corn planting is expected to remain at historically high levels but may dip this year because of the high expense of growing corn and favorable prices for other crops, such as soybeans.
   As many farmers have switched, soybean planting is expected to be up 18 percent this year, at almost 75 million acres. Farmers are also expected to plant more wheat this year, which could lower retail prices for pasta and bread.
   The Department of Agriculture report is based on sample surveys of 86,000 farm operators in the first two weeks of March.
   Terry Francl, a senior economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation, predicted Monday that corn prices will continue to rise but says consumers shouldn’t panic just yet.
   Many farmers will take a look at the report and decide to plant corn instead of other crops, he said, and weather conditions could also change things.
   “We’re going to have to wait until we go through the spring planting season,” he said.
   John Hoffman, a soybean grower from Waterloo, Iowa, and president of the American Soybean Association, said farmers will always find ways to grow more crops to stabilize prices. Though high prices are good for the farmers, there’s bound to be a correction, he said.
   “There’s an old saying out on the farm that the cure for high prices is high prices.”

MEL EVANS/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A shopper looks at her receipt as she pushes a cart through a Wal-Mart superstore in Turnersville, N.J., on March 11.

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Well, seems they're hard at work putting in the Ethanol pump at Cumby's now. Who knows if our fire department will be able to fight the fire, if needed.

ooohhh the subsidies.......

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CAPITAL REGION
Engine woes, ethanol linked
Mechanics: Fuel blend harmful to small motors
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter

    Duane Leach, owner of All Seasons Equipment in Glenville, said every year around this time, lawn mowers and other devices with small engines begin showing up at his repair shop because they overheat when fueled by gasoline blended with alcohol.
    “For years we’ve always had problems with people who use winter gas in the spring of the year during hotter weather,” Leach said.
    Gasoline blended for sale during the winter has contained more oxygenates than summer blend gas since 1992, when the federal government mandated oxygen-rich chemicals like MTBE or corn-based ethanol be added to mitigate greater carbon monoxide emissions from car engines made colder by winter weather. Oxygenated gas burns cleaner and it burns hotter than the blend which used to be sold in the summer.
    Now some repair shops for small motor equipment and boats are predicting a greater incidence of equipment breakdown this season because virtually all gasoline sold in the Capital Region this spring and summer will contain 9.5 percent corn-based ethanol, the alcohol fuel blend known as E10, which burns hotter than the old winter blend gasoline.
    “It’s obviously going to happen because ethanol makes [equipment] run hotter. It’s leaner fuel and it will make the little air-cooled engines [heat up more],” Leach said. “A lot of the older engines that were made for higher compression will definitely be affected.”
    The Global Companies LLC terminal at the Port of Albany, which operates that terminal for Exxon Mobil, is the last local gasoline distributor still selling straight gasoline — although many Mobil retail gas stations have already switched to selling E10 purchased from other distributors.
    By May 1, the Exxon Mobil terminal is expected to convert to selling gasoline blended with ethanol, said Global Companies Executive Vice President Ed Faneuil.
    “The Albany facility will be 10 percent ethanol blend on all gasoline products,” Faneuil said.
    After Global Companies completes its switch, Capital Region consumers will have no local options beyond E10.
    Mike DellaRocco, owner of Mike’s Outdoor Power Equipment & Small Engine Repair in Albany, said newer small engine equipment is generally designed to “run hotter” than older engines, but that may not always matter.
    He said consumers sometimes use devices like lawn tractors at less than full speed, hoping to keep them from overheating, but forgetting that the machine’s engine is cooled by air flow.
    “The faster that fly wheel turns the more air is blowing over the hottest part of the engine, which is where the piston goes up and down. It blows the heat off of that,” he said.
    He said it remains to be seen what running E10 in small engines will do, but he’s not optimistic.
    “What will happen is the ethanol will [increase the heat of the engine and] take the alcohol out of the rubber parts and they will crack,” DellaRocco said. “Heat is the worst enemy of your engine … and if people aren’t going to be changing their oil, yeah, there’s probably going to be a lot of problems down the road.”
    David Pimentel, a professor of environmental policy at Cornell University, said he’s been studying biofuels like ethanol for more than 20 years. He said small engines not designed to burn ethanol may experience problems.
    “It rusts them out and some of the plastic pieces are dissolved away, if they’ve got plastic, and some of those are used in the carburetor and so forth. It’s a disaster,” Pimentel said.
    Pimentel also said ethanol poses dangers to boats. Joseph Michalek, president of Cranberry Cove Marina in Mayfield, said some of his customers have expressed concern about running E10 in their boats.
    “The engines aren’t made to run it. When it says right on top of the motor ‘do not run alcohol,’ you’re not supposed to run alcohol and that’s what [ethanol] is,” Michalek said. “There are quite a few boats that have [that warning]. Anything that’s 20 years old has probably got that.”
    Steve Hart, service manager at Yankee Boating Center in Colonie, said last year he started seeing more and more boats come into his shop with damage caused by E10.
    “It damages fuel lines, fuel pumps, issues like that. It can also damage fi - berglass [fuel] tanks, but not too many boats around here have those. They’re mostly toward the coast,” Hart said. “I think [boat owners] are getting more aware of this. Especially when they get a major repair bill because of it.”
    Hart said boat owners should be adding fuel stabilizers to the E10 they use and should consider a fuel separator for their fuel lines.
    Leach said lawn mower owners should consider using premium gasoline because it burns cooler.
    “They should migrate to [premium gasoline]. The best gas they can buy,” he said. “In today’s market … if you’re paying [almost $4 for E10 regular gasoline per] gallon now, you might as well use [premium] because you get better gas mileage and it runs cooler. Premium is a bargain now.”
    Faneuil said even premium gas sold out of the Global Companies terminal will contain 10 percent ethanol by May 1.

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