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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....

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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 147

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!

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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......

http://www.timesunion.com

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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...... >

http://www.timesunion.com

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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.