"Ethanol . . . . what a joke!"

[TexasTimbers]

Boone Pickens has been the brunt of alot of jeering and sneering, not to mention cursing and worse.

I don't know the man at all, but after watching this video, if it was anyone but Boone and his reputation, you might say he has some great ideas.

• He says ethanol is a joke.
• He says there is no single remedy to the oil crisis
• He says solar, wind (investing in it heavily), and natural gas (by coincidence he is long on it) are critical short term solutions.
• He says we should focus on developing resources within our borders. our own oil, natural gas, wind etc.
• He says this country has no leadership to effect the necessary changes "They're not gonna open up ANWR that isn't gonna happen"
• He says there is no plan: "You're talking about reducing taxes on gasoline for the summer? Is that an energy plan? H*ll no it's no energy plan. It's no plan at all!"
• He says "politicians aren't thinking about solving energy problems they are thinking about how to get re-elected"

Wind power a joke? I don't know about that, but ethanol don't seem any better. He made some sense to my simple mind. listen for yourself if you want.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Tex
I remember the first oil scare when I was in college.
(Go Georgia Bulldogs, class of '76 with honors, thank you.)
We were oil dependent then, but far more so how. Now I realize
that we had our "preview," if you will, of what could happen to us. We had
that preview and have proceeded to do absolutely nothing to fix the problem.

As Pickens points out, we will now be sending between $600,000,000,000.00
and $9,000,000,000.00 dollars to other countries for oil.   That many billions
of dollars is hard to even type, much less comprehend.  That money is GONE!
It is being spent each YEAR!  I had to go back and count my zeroes to be sure
I had the right numbers.

Is Pickens going to laugh at the lack of leadership all the way to the bank? You
betcha.  Is he still right? Probably so.   Is he "spinning" a little to make even more
bucks? Definitely.  Is he still right?  Probably so.   Could we go on?   

Nah, better give it a rest for a few.

[WH_Conley]

I remember the fist scare too. The wife's uncle was married to the daughter of the owner of the local oil franchise and a trucking company, also a gas station.

No gas at the station, however at the bulk plant, same property and the trucking  company, same propety everything was full and the company would not let them sell anything.

[DanG]

 listen for yourself if you want.

I want, but I won't due to dial-up.

First off, a man doesn't become a multi-billionaire without having some great ideas.  He also doesn't get there by having a conscience.  I heard a news blurb recently, where Pickens was saying that he had quite enough money to see him through , and he is doing this to "save" America.  Well now, this could very well be true...or false.  What I didn't know before reading the other "joke" thread, was that he is heavily invested in an alternative energy program of his own.  I have been knowing and saying for some time now that the only way we're going to develop alternatives is for the price of petroleum to move beyond the cost of developing those alternative fuels.  Could it be that Pickens, who obviously know's that too, is just forcing the issue intentionally, in a last-gasp effort to get into Heaven, or is he just trying to bilk the public out of a few more billion bucks?  I don't know the answer to that, so I'll have to leave it up to each of you to make up your own minds.

This does however, bring a little story to mind.  There was this little baby bird, you see, that had somehow fallen out of his nest in a barnyard.  The pore little guy had no feathers to keep him warm, and he was in serious jeopardy of succumbing to hypothermia.  As luck would have it, one of the cows who inhabited that yard came along, and dropped a big ol' pile of dookey on the little bird.  Now, this seems like it just add's insult to injury, but the warmth of the poop was just what the little fellow needed to hang on a little bit longer.  Of course, where there is a barnyard, there is a barn, and there are usually a few barn cats around.  Sure enough, one of them found the little birdie and snatched him up for breakfast.  As you might have guessed, this story has a moral:  The one that s**ts on you ain't necessarily your enemy, and the one that pull's you out of the s**t, ain't necessarily your friend.  I don't know if Pickens is the cow or the cat, but I do know that we are in trouble, and the only way out is straight through the middle of it.  The other thing I know is, it is not a joke!

[zopi]

Ethanol is not a joke....Just ask the Captain!

[TexasTimbers]

Phill your assessment of it sounds pretty common sense and rationale to me.

DanG I don't know if he's the cat or the cow either. Maybe he's the baby bird, but we place the wrong emphasis on things with our worldly view and can't consider things that way.  

zopi I don't know much about the feasability of ethanol over a 30 year period, but when the topic started coming up here I read sevral google articles (which means i still don't know a thing) and I was left with the impression from reading alleged "unbiased experts" that it's a pipe dream at best until many more factors come into play.

I shouldn't have used Picken's words for the title perhaps, but I thought it was funny that we had this wind power joke thread and here is Pickens, a wind power propenent, saying that "ethanol is a joke". It was too much for me to resist. 

[Tom]

I don't understand why, with oil drilling technology, we can't drill through the mantle, or at least to a crack in it, and use the heat to make steam to make electricity.

[pineywoods]

I don't understand why, with oil drilling technology, we can't drill through the mantle, or at least to a crack in it, and use the heat to make steam to make electricity.

Got any idea how much a 10 mile long string of drill stem weighs? A drilling rig big enough to handle that kind of weight would be quite a feat. Actually somethin similar has been done most noteably in iceland. Problem is, the steam produced is highly corrosive, it destroys the plumbing and turbines rather quickly.

[DanG]

Kevjay, I didn't realize that the "joke" part was a Pickens quote.  I guess that will tip the scales in folks' judgement of him, eh?

You said it best yourself, over on the "wind joke" thread when you said that the solution will be 50 2% answers rather than 1 100% answer.  If Pickens says that ethanol is a joke, then he is either a fool, or he is playing us for fools.  Everywhere I buy gas, it is labeled as 10% ethanol, so how can it be a joke?  

[LeeB]

Got any idea how much a 10 mile long string of drill stem weighs? A drilling rig big enough to handle that kind of weight would be quite a feat. Actually somethin similar has been done most noteably in iceland. Problem is, the steam produced is highly corrosive, it destroys the plumbing and turbines rather quickly.

Drill stem wieghs anywhere from 13.3 to 30 pounds per foot depending on the size of the pipe. A typical string of 5", nominal 19.5#, drill string including the necessary jewelry on the bottom for drilling with ways about 500,000lbs to drill a well about 3 1/2 miles deep. A csg string for a hole that deep can weigh well over a million pounds.
If I remember correctly, the deepest well on record was drilled in Germany a few years ago to near 50,000 ft. The well was proposed for over 60,000 but they ran out of technology. It wasn't an oil or geothermal well. Strictly for science. The well bore was quite small by the time they reached that depth, I think I remeber it being only 2-3 inches or there about.

[Warbird]

Ethanol gives me gas.

[LeeB]

Gives me a headache and makes me walk like a crab.

[BaldBob]

Ethanol made from corn or biodiesel made from soybeans or other food crop as even a partial solution to our energy problem is worse than a joke.  It is a cruel hoax on the American public that helps no one except for a few farmers, and in the long run even they get less benefit than companies like ADM.

[Gary_C]

TexasTimbers

Now see what you have done. You have invited the "empty retoric" guys to spout off. 

BaldBob, do you have any facts to back up your claims or are you just running for some political office? I can say that one part of your retoric is not true because I am one of many, not just a few farmers that are benefiting from ethanol. And ADM is not a big player or benefiter from ethanol, it is farmer owned coops and other companies rather than ADM that benefit economically from ethanol production. And do you consider it wrong for some one other than people that hate the US and all the people in this country or a large oil company to profit from supplying our energy needs?   

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Tex

I think I suspected the multiple meanings/motivations of your title before I opened the thread to read.
Good thread!

When Pickens says "ethanol is a joke," I believe he means two things, at least:
                  First,  he is saying that ethanol is not the bulk of our answer.
                              That surely is true, even though it is obviously and certainly
                              an incremental part of our answer.  In fact, there have been
                              some negative market side effects in relation to ethanol. Ask
                              any farmer and you will hear of good ones too!
                  More in keeping with his investment strategy, he is saying something
                              different.  I goes like this:  "If I can't use this interview to
                              make some money today, Girlie [in that interview], now why am I taking my
                              time to talk to you?  With my new investment portfolio in the
                              pink now - ready to make bundles on natural gas and on wind,
                              why do I want to seem at all to be supporting DanG ETHANOL !! ??"

By the way,  I would not normally be up at 3:00 in the morning to write on FF, but the last
two ten hour days at full steam on the swinger made my whole body revolt.  I had been on the
piano tuning mode too long this time, and I just wasn't up to jumping on this particular job of 20-footers!

Down in the woods.  No space.   Tough logs.  Tornado damage area.  I can feel it today (tonight?).

OUCH!
                I need a back transplant.

[Kansas]

ADM isnt a major player in ethanol? In 2006, they controlled 26 percent of the ethanol market, or about 1.1 billion gallons. With a 51 cent subsidized rate per gallon  on ethanol, thats 500 million dollars going to ADM. ADM also spent 440,000 dollars lobbying to help pass the 2007 energy bill. That cost consumers to the tune of 54 cents per gallon of ethanol tarriffs from ethanol imported from brazil. It also mandated a huge increase in ethanol from corn from here. You have to admit, thats a pretty good rate of return on 440,000 dollars.
It seems to me if ethanol is such a good idea, it ought to be able to stand on its own. No tarriffs on imported ethanol, and no subsidies on ethanol produced here. Maybe my problem is i dont own any ADM stock.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

You are right, Kansas.  There is money to be made in energy.
The time for the huge subsidies has been terminated by the
huge oil problem.  Cash is ready to flow toward a solution
and to the profits which those solutions will bring.  Big money
is already doing it. (Of course, the subsidies help make the risk
even more worth their while.)

One sure "solution" to anybody griping about any particular energy company's
profits is simple, at least if it is a publicly traded company:
  "Hey, buy the stock.  Make some of that money for yourself. Of course,
    you won't make the money the execs make. (You won't make
    the money Tiger Woods does either.)"

[Faron]

Lots of folks when talking about ethanol and other alternative energy sources remind me of how some people reacted at the dawn of the automobile age. "Get a horse!"  The Rush Limbaughs are not allowing for the fact that these technologies will be tweaked and improved as knowledge increases and money allows.  As far as the tariff on Brazilian ethanol goes, do we really want to swap being dependent on foreign oil to being dependent on foreign bio fuels?  Ethanol isn't the answer to our energy problems, but it is part of the answer.

[Norm]

Did you notice that the folks that actually have a clue what ethanol's about are positive on it while the ones clueless cannot do anything but spout bs. Big oil, Pickens included, would like nothing better than to keep you firmly attached to their teat. Any product that competes against it is derided like what plenty here say. As for the subsidy I would like to see it go away just as soon as the ones for Brazils ethanol go away and the ones for big oil go away.

Think I'm positive because I'm benefiting from high corn prices. Fuel costs have tripled, seed costs doubled and fertilizer costs have tripled in the last three years. I lost half my crop to floods, the other half is stunted so I'll be lucky to make as much as I did when corn was $2.

Tell you what I'll keep growing corn and making ethanol and you can keep supporting Boone and the Sauds.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

I did some sawing for a customer a month ago who farms
about 900 acres of his own family's land.  He pointed out that
the price hike in grain and soybeans (which has been a side effect of
the ethanol situation) had been their salvation.   As Norm points out,
all that has been happening over recent years is a BIG SQUEEZE.   All
the costs for famers have increased, while the prices for their products
as a whole have been hammered.

This has been a good side effect of ethanol:  Decent prices for farmers.
You can't take hits like 70% rise in fertilizer in one year and stay in business,
without better prices for your end product.  Farmers have little say on what
they can get.

BACK TO PICKENS...
You may have noticed in the clip that he clearly thought that natural gas
followed by wind were just the beginning steps in the area of electricity production.
That doesn't immediately get to the issue of personal transportation and trucking, etc.
Neither does it address our other areas of dependency on oil.

Tom
I will bet that geo-thermal power is now also becoming more feasible.  It is always
a matter of cost, after all, not usually a matter of ingenuity. 

As someone said on another thread (maybe the wind-joke thread?), ...

                 "The solution to the oil crisis
                          is the oil crisis."

This is true, due to the trauma the crisis is causing/will cause;         ( hardship, pain, business failures)
                          the shifts it will cause;                                    ( return to old tech: trains, "mill town design", etc.)
                           the increased investment it will cause;              ( personal into solar,wind; big money too)
                            the creative solutions it will cause;                  ( You name it and it will be tried.)
                             the profit it will cause;                                 ( Hey, it's the capitalist way.)
                              the conservation it will cause;                      ( When you can't afford to do anything else....)