Teach me good / bad on Flex Fuel cars

In reply to Curtis :

It also takes big, polluting equipment to prepare the field where the corn is grown, plant the corn, spray the corn with fertilizer/pesticides, and harvest the corn. All of those things have more lax emissions laws than on-road vehicles.

I'm leaving out the transport/refining/transport process that gets the corn into gas station tanks because that's similar for all combustion fuels.

I'm not sure there's a perfect option when the entire picture is considered. Everything has downsides. I do think that it's best to minimize usage and take care of things that are already here rather than consuming and buying new all the time.

In reply to Curtis :

Ok, but the huge amount of NO that the Mercedes puts out is an immediate health risk that is not part of the Prius what so ever.  There's no NOx when making a Prius, and what the engine does produce, it's dealt with in the exhaust.  So the Mercedes is bad for people immediately.  That's what modern cars do that not modern cars don't do.  If you were talking a modern 2018 Mercedes diesel running bio-fuel, that would be very different than an unregulated 1985 version.  Heck, given it's unregulated, the Mercedes is putting out more HC, NOx, and CO all of the time over the Prius, enough so that it would quickly offset what was used to make the prius from scratch.  When you move to Tier1 and LEVI cars, that statement changes, as the emissions are so much reduced.

But the Merc you are talking about had no real standard to deal with.

The "eventually turns into non-yucky stuff"- yea, it all does, but for the Prius, that happens before it exists the tailpipe, and for the most part, where the components are made, it's also controlled while it's being made.  Whereas the harmful gasses that come off the biofueled diesel take a lot of time be less harmful.  Along the way, the HC, NOx, and CO all have more than enough time to harm people.  The prius just puts out CO2, N2, H2O, and so much less HC and NO that it would take a few hundred Prius' to be even close to the Mercedes.  

I totally understand the whole dust to dust part, but you need to use a more modern vehicle than a 1985 diesel.  More like a 1998 diesel, and the math works out better.  

And that still ignores the issue that the world isn't capable of living on used cars alone.  Too many incidents and accidents permanently take vehicles off the road, so new cars will always be made.  And the whole point of the commuter lane in california is to get people to buy cars (when they have to) that are better than others.

STM317 said:

In reply to Curtis :

It also takes big, polluting equipment to prepare the field where the corn is grown, plant the corn, spray the corn with fertilizer/pesticides, and harvest the corn. All of those things have more lax emissions laws than on-road vehicles.

I'm leaving out the transport/refining/transport process that gets the corn into gas station tanks because that's similar for all combustion fuels.

 

I'm not sure there's a perfect option when the entire picture is considered. Everything has downsides. I do think that it's best to minimize usage and take care of things that are already here rather than consuming and buying new all the time.

And most fertilizer and pesticides come from oil....  so, there's that, too.  That's what makes the whole thing about bio fuel so complex.  

The algae promise still has not panned out.  

STM317 said:

In reply to Curtis :

It also takes big, polluting equipment to prepare the field where the corn is grown, plant the corn, spray the corn with fertilizer/pesticides, and harvest the corn. All of those things have more lax emissions laws than on-road vehicles.

I'm leaving out the transport/refining/transport process that gets the corn into gas station tanks because that's similar for all combustion fuels.

 

I'm not sure there's a perfect option when the entire picture is considered. Everything has downsides. I do think that it's best to minimize usage and take care of things that are already here rather than consuming and buying new all the time.

Here in the Midwest where most corn is grown there are processing plants very close to the fields where corn is grown. In fact most of the plants I sold equipment to were surrounded by farms growing corn. 

In addition once the alcohol is extracted the left overs are used in feed for hogs and cattle.  Most plants then send the alcohol in pipelines to refineries. 

Now to be fair some farmers use cooking oil ( used) instead of diesel.  While most farmers prefer to use animal waste as fertilizer.  

No the system is not perfect.  Nothing is. Wind, solar hydro, nuclear, They all have their drawbacks, their advantages.