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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


EPA never did ethanol studies required by law

The law is such an inconvenient thing: Despite a legal mandate from Congress to conduct studies on the use of ethanol in vehicles the EPA has admitted that it simply ignored the law and never did any.

The Obama administration has failed to study as legally required the impact of requiring ethanol in gasoline and ensuring that new regulations intended to address one problem do not actually make other problems worse, the Environmental Protection Agency inspector general said Thursday. The conclusion in the new audit confirmed findings of an Associated Press investigation in November 2013. The AP said the administration never conducted studies to determine whether air and water quality benefits from adding corn-based ethanol to gasoline. Such reports to Congress were required every three years under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

Instead, they have been pushing to increase the amount of ethanol used in gasoline, even though they have no idea whether this helps or hurts the environment, and have been told by practically every automotive industry expert that increased ethanol will damage car engines.

But then, who cares what the law says? Who cares what other experts say? The EPA is made up of righteous perfect liberal individuals who simply know better. How dare Congress, or anyone for that matter, tell them what to do!

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

9 comments

  • BSJ

    Ethanol is in gasoline to subsidize corn farmers.

  • PeterF

    Empirical anecdotal evidence:
    When I built the engine in my ’57 chevy, I set it up for high altitude fuel efficiency to be my daily driver. If I drove carefully, I could get as much as 24 MPG. (love that overdrive!) Now that I am forced to use gasoline with ethanol in it, My performance has gone into the crapper and no matter what I do I can only get 18 MPG

  • Joe

    Another one of those corn husker kickbacks! The EPA niether cares weather ethanol hurts or helps, they don’t care about intent or outcome, all they care about is amassing and wielding a great amount of power. The EPA is one the most corrupt institutions in our government.

  • Mitch S.

    Al Gore admitted ethanol doesn’t help the environment and he pushed it for political reasons:
    (BTW lets remember that Republicans didn’t fight to roll back the mandates even after Gore’s admission):

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethanol-gore-idUSTRE6AL3CN20101122

  • Chops

    Cars in Brazil can run on 100% ethanol perfectly well. That we can’t in the US is a choice the manufacturers and government have made. With the proper (easy and cheap) materials and software there is simply no damage to an automobile engine by ethanol.

    Why favor oil and the Saudis over American farmers? Do you want those who want to destroy us to get more money?

  • Localfluff

    Bio fuel is the by far most environmentally destructive energy source. Burning down the forests and slaughtering all wild animals. Replacing it with the agrochemical monotonic plantations of our synthetic crops which cannot survive without constant fertilization and pesticides. If human kind suddenly ceased to exist, wheat would also be extinct in just 100 years, geneticists have calculated. It cannot survive the competition against natural grass without our constant mechanical and chemical help. This is not natural, nor environmentally friendly. Farming is the most environmentally destructive of all industries. Thank God that our CO2 emissions from burning dead mineral fossil fuel from the underground helps increase the harvests so efficiently that the farmland acres of the world are decreasing while producing more food to more people!

    And gasoline mixed with ethanol is not storable. It decomposes and will destroy your engine if used after some years in storage.

  • Chops-
    “Cars in Brazil can run on 100% ethanol perfectly well. ” yeah, right…
    just so long as you don’t expect power or performance…
    “With the proper (easy and cheap) materials and software there is simply no damage to an automobile engine by ethanol.”
    Mad Max would be overjoyed to know this beyond thunder dome…
    “Why favor oil and the Saudis over American farmers?”
    The US could be energy independent within a year if the current administration wasn’t working to the benefit of certain donors to maintain the status quo…
    (the railroad tankers involved in the MANY recent disasters? They are owned by Warren Buffet. They have been carrying the “tar sands oil” from Canada. We are repeating the history of the early 20th century when pipelines and rail tankers competed for the profitable trade of shipping oil. This time, the (more expensive) railroad is winning. (To the detriment of ALL US citizens) for the benefit of the railroad stock holders and their government creatures.

  • pzatchok

    Chops

    Even if we doubled the efficiency of solar cells we wouldn’t have enough acreage to provide all the energy the US needs.
    Its the same with ethanol. We do not have enough acreage to supply all the power needs of the US.

    Using Brazil as an example is wrong, just wrong. The nation is starving because they are ordered to produce sugar beets to turn into ethanol instead of growing food.
    They are also destroying the rain forest do to this.
    All so that the government can sell ALL of its oil overseas for a profit. the tax base is so low that this is the only way Brazil can get enough money to even function in a general sense.
    By the way they use most of the oil money to subsidize everything the people cannot afford, like food.

    The increased use of ethanol in the US is already driving the cost of corn based products up. I remember a few years ago the Mexican protests that happened because US corn prices were going up to fast and to high.

    Add in the increased use of petroleum based insecticides and fertilizers.

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