Urging Congress to Cancel the Ethanol Tariff

reporter writes "The Wall Street Journal is urging Washington to discard the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. This tariff is effectively a subsidy for corn-based ethanol produced in the USA. Yet, producing ethanol from corn is highly inefficient and consumes 1 unit of energy for each 1.3 units of energy that burning ethanol provides. By contrast, ethanol derived from sugarcane (which is the sole source of ethanol in Brazil) yields 8.3 units of energy. Sugercane is about 7 times more efficient than corn. Some studies even show that corn yields only 0.8 unit of energy, resulting in a net loss of energy."

Comments

Energy efficiency

[Aglassis]

I'm not too impressed by arguments that say that energy efficiency is the only reason that ethanol or biodiesel can't work. Even if they consume more energy to produce than they make, they are still very useful for one major reason: they are easily transportable. If I can make electricity at $0.07 per KWh at a coal or nuclear plant and make it into a much more valuable transportable energy source via the ethanol or biodiesel route, then I may come out ahead even after the energy losses. Coal and nuclear power are cheap. Gasoline isn't.

Of course, I should mention, you probably shouldn't be running your tractors and other equipment that you use to harvest the corn or other agricultural product with oil or ethanol. That doesn't work. It only works if you have a mostly electrical system. I wonder if there are any major piece of agricultural equipment that can be set up to "run from the grid" in a sense. Like big batteries on tractors that recharge every day?

Re:Energy efficiency

[Yooden_Vranx]

Very good point on the transportability. Beyond that, the "energy deficit" argument is flawed in that we could generate more energy for free that could offset or completely account for the energy cost of producing ethanol. Corn and wind are two things the midwest has in abundance. But beyond that, here's what the Iowa Farm Bureau says: http://www.iowafarmbureau.com/programs/commodity/i nformation/pdf/Trade%20Matters%20column%20050714%2 0Brazilian%20ethanol.pdf (for those not familiar with the geography of the USA, Iowa is famous as a huge corn-producing state, and, according to the link here, produces one quarter of the ethanol produced in the US). They don't specifically advocate repealing the tariff, but they also acknowledge that competition is good and that we use more ethanol than we produce, so we must turn to outside sources.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS41 6-Patzek-Web.pdf

Re:Energy efficiency

[pfdietz]

The 1.3x number comes from Pimentel and coworkers. They make unnecessarily pessimistic assumptions. Properly done, most studies have shown the fossil energy input is less than the energy in the ethanol. (The energy input including the sunlight is of course greater than the energy in the ethanol, but that is irrelevant.)

Even Pimental et al.'s numbers are only for corn-derived ethanol. Ethanol from cellulose, sugar cane, or gasified biomass (via a modified Fischer-Tropsch process) produce many times the energy content of the fossil fuels used to grow, harvest, and process the biomass. For sugarcane, the energy returned is eight times the energy spent.

Re:Energy efficiency

[genrader]

The thing is, this is what consumers should demand. This isn't something the governments of states or the Federal government of the United States has ANY business in.

Re:Energy efficiency

[IAmTheDave]

The thing is, this is what consumers should demand. This isn't something the governments of states or the Federal government of the United States has ANY business in.

Yeah, unfortunately, it does. I'm pretty libretarian in my views, but the American people as a whole care not for things like the environment. They want their SUVs. So, in order to get better fuel economy, one of two things must happen.

1. Govn't raises gas prices (tax?) to the level of true pain - $5, maybe $6/gallon where consumers are FORCED to demand better fuel economy or
2. Govn't raises MPG standards for all vehicles produced moving forward. Closing the SUV hole is a good start.

Consumers only care for themselves in general, and will hardly ever demand something that will inevitably cost them more money for the sake of another - like the environment, or people in third world contries (or any other household for that matter).

So unfortunately, in this case, the govn't does need to step up. I shudder to say it, but I do believe it.

Re:Energy efficiency

[shotfeel]

Many of these studies also leave off the fact that the "byproduct" of producing ethanol from corn is also valuable. If I can find the link to the study, I'll post it (I think it was done by the US Department of Agriculture).

In short, ethanol is produced by converting the sugars/starches in corn to ethanol. That leaves behind a protein rich by-product that is then added to corn and other feed used for raising cattle, replacing more expensive (in every sense of the word) protein supplements.

So based on the merits of EtOH production alone, corn may not be the best source. But you need to consider all the factors involved.

OTOH, if you live in the midwest, you may be hearing a lot about switch grass. Supposedly yields more protein than soy beans and more EtOH than corn. Look for some farmers to turn to that if EtOH becomes a more viable fuel alternative.

Re:Energy efficiency

[dal20402]

brother is an electrical worker. He needs his Silverado. Not want, need. It gets bad mileage, but he hauls stuff around and it is not a company vehicle.

This is true only because we're stuck in the Stone Age of trucks in the U.S., thanks to undemanding consumers and truck makers who'd, logically, rather make fat profits than innovate.

Everywhere else in the world, there are high-cube vans powered by small, extremely torquey turbodiesels that carry considerably more stuff than our vans and pickups.

With their short gearing, those vans are plenty quick at lower speeds. And they get more than twice the mileage of our trucks. The only two things they are missing that our trucks have are the ability to tow very heavy trailers and the 100mph top speeds.

Dodge is selling such a Mercedes van in the U.S. as the Sprinter, but it's only one product -- not a full line -- and it needs European-style gas prices to be fully cost-competitive for most markets.

What about large families that need large vehicles? ... How about someone who owns a boat and needs to tow it to a lake, so he needs a big V-8 or V-10? Should these people "feel the pain" when despite owning gas guzzlers, are driving vehicles they need?

Yes. Those are lifestyle choices. People should pay the costs of their lifestyle choices, not force the rest of us to pay them through artificially low gas prices that don't reflect the costs of maintaining a road network or fixing the environmental damage created by large, fuel-hogging vehicles.

Incidentally, you don't need a big V8 or V10 truck to tow most boats that most people own. Something like a V6 Toyota Tacoma will do just fine with all but the huge-ass, over-the-top showoff-craft.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Once&FutureRocketman]

Pimental may be overly pessimistic, but it really doesn't matter in the final analysis. Whether the EROEI is 0.8:1 or 1.3:1, neither one is a winner relative to our current consumption of energy. The EROEI of oil production ranged from 5:1 to 25:1, so corn-based ethanol falls short by an order of magnitude.

To put it another way, even if the return on corn ethanol was a very optimistic 1.5:1, we would have to increase the total system energy throughput by ~10x our present consumption to effectively displace petroleum as a liquid fuel source. And we simply don't have the means to do that, especially not if we're going to try to avoid a global climate disaster while we're at it.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Total_Wimp]

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS41 6-Patzek-Web.pdf

It's nice to have some numbers, but this doesn't appear to be very scientific. This is from the abstract:

Finally, I estimate that (per year and unit area) the inefficient solar cells produce ~100 times more electricity than corn ethanol. We need to rely more on sunlight, the only source of renewable energy on the Earth.

Scientists gather data. This guy appears to be pushing an agenda. It's kind of like Intelligent Design. Just because you say it's science doesn't make it so.

TW

Re:Energy efficiency

[dal20402]

most boats -- such as mine -- are over 5,000 lbs with trailer and cannot be towed by a compact SUV or pickup since the length will result in a tail wagging the dog situation.

Get two things, coward:

1. a reasonable boat -- if your boat is over 5000 lbs, you have it just to show off how rich you are.
2. some driving skill -- there are lots of safe vehicles with heavy/long trailers on our roads; they're called semis.

Anyway, a giant V8 truck that can't be parked anywhere, drives like a drunken elephant and gets 12 mpg is hardly a "decent vehicle." I'll keep my Acura TSX, thank you.

Re:Energy efficiency

[clare-ents]

For reference, I'm in the UK, petrol currently costs 97.8p /litre at the pump.

That's, £3.70 per US gallon, or $6.89 at the current exchange rate.

I regularly hire cars, having measured the mileage on them they've all done over 10 miles to the litre, that's about 40miles / US gallon.

The idea that 20-30mpg is a fuel efficient vehicle is (to me) laughable.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Best ID Ever!]

Here's a comparison of the USDA study and Pimental study. It outlines the different assumptions and compares the numbers.

Re:Energy efficiency

[budgenator]

For the most part we are big beef eaters, and the farmers already grow a lot of corn for cattle feed, switching the already purchased agricultural infrastructure from corn for cattle feed to corn for ethanol production cost is effective for the farmer; additionaly the ethanol has as a waste product a high protein waste called distiller's dried grain which is a good cattle feed, so the corn that was going to be grown anyways makes ethanol too.
There are basicaly two catagories of corn grown, field corn is a tough starchy veriety which farmers like for cattle field because the lower sugar content makes it less likely to spoil in storage, and the toughness gives the cattle the roughage they need to stay healthy, it tastes like "old" corn and is a bit chewier.
Sweet corn is grown for human consumption, and is sweeter, and doesn't store as well; sweet corn turns starchy if it gets old. I'm not a farmer but grew up a round them, so yes I've really eaten field corn.
When ethanol becomes main-stream you'll see some changes like the big-boys developing verieties specialy adapted for ethanol yield, and remember both corn and sugar cane are grasses so gentic manipulation is highly possible to boast sugar yields.
My area is a big sugar-beet producer I'm sure there will be ethanol plants made that utilize beets effiently.
I also think that emzymes to breakdown cellulose into fermentable sugar will be developed to increase ethanol effiencies pretty soon so even wood chips, saw dust and especial tree bark will turn up as ethanol in our tanks.

Re:Energy efficiency

[dclydew]

*cough* hemp *cough*

That will get you oil (seed), biodeisel (at much greater ratios than corn) and it can be grown at lower cost with greater yield...

but, someone might try to smoke it... so we can't have that.

Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Ending the tariff is a good start, but it's pretty hard for corn farmer's to compete with sugar as an ethanol base material.

The obvious solution is to allow farmers to grow hemp - it's one of the easiest crops on the planet to grow (no spraying for pests, low irrigation, etc). Oil from the seeds can be used to run (unmodified) diesel vehicles, and the leftover material can be made into ethanol has four times the energy density of corn (about 2/3 that of sugar).

Oh - but this is in the land of the free - and we can't let the corn farmers compete, lest they plant a few thc bearing hemp plants in the middle of their crop. After all, a few stoners will mean the end of society as we know it.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

It seems to me that if that is the case, then removing the THC (if possible) would be a good solution.

How about allowing farmers to sell THC rich varieties as well. That way, you can get money from taxes, lower your dependance on foreign weed, reduce funding to criminals and still get the crop benefits listed above.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[/ASCII]

No GM needed, hemp plants without THC have always existed. It's illegal to grow hemp because it is hard to tell 'stoner hemp' and 'non-stoner hemp' apart. And by hard, I mean it's not enough to glance at the shape of the leaves from a distance.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[hankwang]

it is hard to tell 'stoner hemp' and 'non-stoner hemp' apart.

Fiber hemp is cultivated to make long unbranched stems (like 3 meters high). THC Hemp is cultivated to be strongly branched, and lower, since it is the ends of the stems where the THC-rich flowers are.

Moreover, the THC comes from unpollinated female flowers. Putting the hemp in the middle of a field containing pollen-rich male plants is a surefire way to destroy the 'stoner hemp' harvest, as well as any illegal cannabis farm in a radius of several kilometers. :-)

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[tinkerghost]

Would research on that be banned?
It might as well be. When I was in school (87-91), my horticulture prof had a grant from some asian country (S. Korea or Tiawan[sp?]) to do research into getting longer fibers in the hemp plant. In order to grow the hemp, she had 4 bankers boxes of paperwork sitting in her office, and an armed guard at the greenhouse 24/7.
Know what you needed to do to get radioactive material out of the physics storage lab? Say Prof. X needs the canister of ....
By the way, one of the major reasons hemp is illegal in the US is William Randolf Hurst - the newpaper guy. Hemp makes higher quality paper and has 10-20 times the per acre yeald of trees (2 harvests a year vs 1 every 5-10). Mr. Hurst owned vast tracts of forrest in the Pacific NW & felt threatened by that. So money and legality are not new aquaintences.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[rossifer]

Don't forget you're dealing with stoners when any talk of hemp for fuel or clothing comes up. Naturally in their state of being continually high they'll believe any bullshit they read.

I'll bite. Ad hominem (twice).

Hemp also cures cancer in case you haven't checked lately.

Strawman. Hemp has almost no THC or other cannabinoids and would do about as much for getting you high as smoking a ball of twine.

Smoking marijuana, however, can improve the appetite of those on chemotherapy, which does help with recovery times and outcomes. But nobody believes it cures cancer.

Hemp, on the other hand, makes for a fantastic natural fiber that lasts 2-3x longer than cotton in the same yarn thickness and weave. It also makes stronger ropes than sisal, and the oil is an excellent starting point for biodiesel (with an energy fraction of 3.8).

Finally, and this ought to be a huge win for people who don't like marijuana, farming a field of hemp destroys any nearby marijuana plants. The pollen from the hemp field will cross-fertilize the marijuana and cut the next generation's plant's THC production in half. Do that a couple of times, and it's all hemp. But then, modern prohibition makes about as much sense as alcohol prohibition did...

Regards,
Ross

P.S. Pretty good average on the argumentative fallacies per sentence (3:3). A bit wordy if you're looking for a high fallacy per word ratio, however.

P.P.S. I've smoked pot twice in my life. Both times more than 15 years ago. So, I'm not much of a "stoner". I still think that drug prohibition is idiotic and is simply here to justify the ever-growing police forces around this nation.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[TobascoKid]

I'm paying $3.70 out here in Los Angeles

So that's approximatly $1 a litre - which is still almost half of what I (in London) have to pay.

Re:Lower MPG?

[value_added]

Reading in the TDI Club I was surprised to read that Ethanol provides worst MPG than pure gasoline.

Does anyone have information on this topic?

Sure.

worst: (adjective) most bad, severe, or serious.

worse: (adjective) less good, satisfactory, or pleasing. 2 more serious or severe. 3 more ill or unhappy.

wurst: (noun) German or Austrian sausage.

same in the uk

[celardore]

In the UK there are heavy taxes on ethanol too. It's a shame, because those duties are pretty much restricting alternative fuel uses.

For example: It's pretty much cheaper to use a diesel engine than to use biodiesel that you make yourself. (if you're a 'good' citizen and pay all taxes due)

Reeks of inhibiting progress to me.

Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[node 3]

While this is an important issue, I'd like to see corn lose its protection as a sweetener as well. High fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar as the primary sweetener in our (American) diet, and the studies suggest that HFCS is really quite bad for us. Not only is it a sugar (with all the inherent health issues), but your body doesn't seem to count it when it comes to curbing hunger, so HFCS calories don't replace, but add to, the rest of our diet.

Not to mention cane sugar tastes better. If you'd like to compare, next time you see an old-fashioned bottle of soda, check and see if it's from Mexico. They still use sugar (check the label to be sure), and compare it with the flavor of a domestic bottle of the same brand. You might be surprised at how different sugar and corn syrup taste as a sweetener.

Just imagine, there's an action our lawmakers could take that would help curb obesity, diabetes, fuel prices, and pollution!

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[damian cosmas]

Wether it comes from corn or sugar cane, sugar is sugar (AFAIK its the same fructose either way).

Refined sugar is sucrose, which consists of a molecule of glucose covalently bonded to a molecule of fructose. Corn syrup is simply a mixture of glucose and fructose. "High-fructose" simply means that there's more less glucose than fructose. Now at the most basic metabolic level, that makes very little difference, since the one of the first steps in digestion of glucose is conversion into fructose. The difference is in what happens to sugars that aren't converted to energy, which is why:

Is there some reason to think that sugar from cane is associated with fewer health risks that sugar from corn?

Possibly. In rats and monkeys and such, increased fructose consumption has been shown to lead to blood chemistry associated with increased risks of heart disease and diabetes.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[itof500]

Actually this is not the case. Fructose is absorbed from the gut and enters the cells of the muscle and liver where it is trapped by phosphorylation by fructose kinase. One of the fundamental controls of intermediary metabolism is control of the initial phosphorylation of glucose by insulin mediated gluco (liver cells) or hexo (others) kinase. In other words the fructose is absorbed into the cell and there trapped regardless of the hormonal state of the animal. In fact, one animal model of adult onset diabete melitus is to feed a rat large quantities of fructose, wherein they develop the classic insulin tolerance.

Bottom line - sucrose is not especially good for us, and high fructose corn syrup is worse.

duke (M.D., Ph.D.) out

(ref Biochemistry, editor Devlin, 2006, p597)

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[nagora]

I'm paying $3.70 out here in Los Angeles for premium 91 octane (we don't get the good 93 oct out here due to smog

Yes, quite. You don't think that ridiculously low prices like that might be part of the reason you have a smog problem?

TWW

Duh.

[hummassa]

Except that, with oil at current prices, it's Waay cheaper to fill your tank with ethanol than to fill it with gas.

But, seriously, though: the same car, on ethanol, makes 10-20% worse mileage than with gas. Down here we have "flex-power" (ethanol/gasoline flexible fuel system) cars, and if a car gets 12km/l(30mpg, 8l/100km) on gas, it usually will get 10+ km/l (25mpg, 10l/100km) on ethanol. Currently, in my town, the pump price for alcohol is about R$ 2,10/l (US$ 3.85/gallon) and the pump price for gas, R$ 2,50/l (US$ 4.59/gallon), which is a 19% difference.

IOW: renewable and non-renewable fuels break even (with a slight advantage for ethanol) on mileage per dollar.

On the performance side, on ethanol cars tend to have a higher final speed than on gas, but they have some 5-10% less torque.

Re: Who cares?

[Black Parrot]

> Seriously; is anybody thinking that the US will consider any other aspect but "protectionism"?

Depends on whether the alcohol importers' lobbyists have more money than the domestic alcohol producers' lobbists.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[torpor]

While this is cheap compared to the rest of the world, I'm sure that we pay for the low gas prices by other means...

of course, if your city was designed by the same entity/deity that is selling you new pollution-machines every year, i can't imagine this will be easy or feasible advice for you, but another solution might be to cure your own dependence on oil first.

i gave up owning a pollution-machine years ago .. its money i don't have to make and spend, and i feel a lot healthier for not having to live in a wheely box for a major portion of my life.

i conveniently moved closer to work (its a 3-minute walk in this well-designed 700 year old city) and i rarely ever get involved in any situation that requires me to drive anywhere i can't get with a bicycle. its simple. its not so easy for a lot of the consumers out there, but the point is: stop being such a consumer, and watch how much easier life gets.

okay .. i'm not fully cured: i still take the train to places i want to go, a taxi if i really need to (though i dislike doing so), and i use the local bus system (which is excellent) when necessary, and .. yes .. i'm sure there is a lot of oil-abusing infrastructure behind the machines i do maintain (synthesizers) but i sure as hell don't maintain a personal portable pollution-machine just for the apparent advantage it seems to give me.

the majority of the world walks to work: as do i. got no problems with it.

(PS - i also spent 15 years in LA without a car before i moved to europe, and i know for a fact it can be done there too .. its just a matter of social discipline..)

Re:sugarcane may be better...

[mangu]

where do you think the Brazilians get the land to produce that sugarcane? The same place they get the land to produce the beef that goes into McDonalds hamburgers.

Not really. The Amazon forest is being destroyed for growing cattle, that's true, but land in the Amazon region is not suitable for growing sugarcane. Slash and burn agriculture is very unproductive and not profitable enough to justify the rather complex production of sugar and ethanol.

Cattle eats a large variety of grasses and blades, in a tropical climate whatever grows in the land after the forest is cut will do for low-productivity cattle growing. Beef has a high enough price per kilogram to be profitable under such circumstances.

Sugar and ethanol are a different matter. Their price is not high enough to justify transporting the sugarcane long distances. Therefore, it's usually grown in a far more intensive way than cattle is in tropical regions. Check your local supermarket and gas station if you have any doubt, the price per weight of fuel is much lower than the cheapest beef you can buy.

Iowa caucus and Louisiana sugar farmers

[geoffrobinson]

First, anyone who wants to be president (pretty much every senator) doesn't want to mess around with Iowa farmers since they have an early caucus. Reducing tarriffs almost always makes sense, economically. Not politically. For example, steel tarriffs make the steel workers happy. But they increase the price of domestic toasters, cars, etc.

Someone mentioned tarriffs on sugar. The National Review (a conservative magazine) did a front cover article on this a few months ago. Similar political situation but with La. farmers. It costs America a lot of jobs in food industries which require sugar. That's why they use corn syrup. It's cheaper relative to sugar, but only because of the tarriffs.

Re:Lower MPG?

[Sique]

First: Ethanol is less dense than Gasoline. If you compare volumes instead of weight, Ethanol is at a disadvantage. Second, Ethanol already contains some oxygene in the molecules, thus the energy density is lower anyway. Ethanol produces about 29,7 Megajoule per kg if burned, Gasoline about 47 Megajoule per kg. Pure Hydrogene would produce 143 Megajoule per kg, while pure Carbon (Anthracit) gets about 33 Megajoule per kg.
In the end it's always a compromise between ease of transportation (pure Carbon wins), energy density (Hydrogene wins), ease of combustion (again Hydrogene), safety of storage and transportation (Carbon), handling of fuel (any liquid fuel like Ethanol or Gasoline) and other aspects of operation.
Ethanol has the big advantage that it's energy source is free (as in beer) and will be for the next 5 billion years. That might help Ethanol to overcome the other obstacles, as the big area necessary to grow the plants, the complicated processes to refine the plants to Ethanol and the low energy density, which makes the transportation of Ethanol more expensive.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[HighOrbit]

Why does it have to be corn versus cane? Has anybody done a study of the engery density of sugar beets? They grow an a northern clime (like Wisconsin or Idaho or Germany), the tubar yields high surgar content, and the waste (both foilage and mash) can be used for compost or animal fodder. What kind of engery density can you get from that? They would be socially responsible because they are grown in developed countries, produce only reusable waste, and would not be produced by peasants toiling in slave labor. They also would most likely be grown on existing agricultural land instead of slashed-and-burned rain forrest. As part of the US's screwed up agricultural price support system, we pay farmers *not to grow* extra corn and soy. Perhaps we can take all that fallow agricultural land and have them grow sugar beets instead.

No source for 7x number

[RingDev]

I have not been able to find a single peer reviewed source to back up that 7 times as efficient number. I see many references to the widely excepted 1.34 return, but I have found nothing that says 8.1 units returned. I did find one study that claimed SugarCane could hit 3.7 in production in Brazil, but that can't be directly compared to the US.

1) In Brazil manual labor can be had for $3-5/day. At that cost it can be cheaper to use a fleet of farm labor instead of a tractor. the fuel consumption requred by the work force is not included.
2) Brazil has a much larger land mass that is appropriate for growing sugar cane.
3) Ethanol has to be shipped in sealed tanks. Due to its propencity to attract water, piping it with fuel through the exist infrastructure would result in water contaminated fuel at the pump. The extra expences and fuel needed for the new delivery systems really kill the return. This is also the reason why E10 has been a pretty standard fuel in the Mid-West for years, but not on the costs. Brazil uses a much more localized distribution system (many 20k gallon plants as opposed to a centralized 10m gallon plants).
4) Ethanol has less power per volume then gas. That means those flex fuel vehicles are going to lose mileage AND power on E85. A proper E85+ designed engine could improve the power issue (Ethanol's higher octane rating allows for higher compression, which leads to more power and better efficiency).

I'm not saying Ethanol is bad, just that it isn't as great as GM wants you to believe.

Biodiesel is better (IMO) in that it can be added to the US's fuel infrastructure with no modication to the system or vehicles, it's performance is on par with petrol-diesel (ie: better than gas and ethanol).

-Rick

-Rick

Waiting for second generation..

[spectrokid]

Corn-fuel is what we call a first-genearation technology. Biotech companies like Novozymes are working on enzymes which can break down corn-waste (leaves etc.) until the starch is short-chained enough to be fermented in the classical way. None of the first generation plants comes anywhere near making a profit, but once they can start fermenting the leftover crap, this picture could change. Raising fuel prices are obviously helping.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Opportunist]

Try 6-7 bucks a gallon, that's what most of Europe is paying.

How we afford driving? By using cares that don't swallow a gallon per mile. Now, I don't "envy" you for your low gas prices. I don't even have a car. But I'd have to say that I think the low price for gas is one of the reasons for the problems in some towns. Cities are sprawling out, you can't buy anything nearby, if you need to buy groceries, you have to drive to some shopping area. Over here, more often than not there's a supermarket somewhere in the basement of an apartment building. Walk over, buy your stuff and carry it home.

This won't change over night, and it will cost a fortune to change it.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Paradise Pete]

and would not be produced by peasants toiling in slave labor.

So you're saying it would be bad for them to have the extra opportunity of work? You make it sound like if it weren't for the Evil Theoretical Sugar Beet Barons then life would be just fine.

People don't take "slave labor" jobs by force. They take them because it's better than anything else they might do. So the problem is not the work, but the situation. And taking away the work certainly does not make things better. You make it sound like *not* using third world products somehow improves the third world condition.

Re:The last thing we need...

[Valdrax]

The last thing we need is to trade the current Mid-east manipulators of US economy for ones in South America!

I'm going to have to sharply disagree with you there. While energy independence is a goal that we must strive towards, I would rather be dependent (if we had to be) on Brazil than on Saudi Arabia. Brazil hasn't sponsored religious extremism and anti-Americanism worldwide. Brazil is a democracy and respects human rights unlike the Saudis. As a bonus, Brazil is also one of our strongest allies in South America. Plus, money pouring into Brazil might go toward taxes there to preserve the rainforests, and shifting from oil to ethanol would help reduce our impact on global warming. I'm just not seeing much in the way of reasons to say that being dependent on Brazil is the "last thing we need" especially in comparison to our current situation.

The concentration on ethanol production only from corn is due to powerful lobbying and this attitude should be curtailed rather than canceling tariffs!

This attitude is the result of lobbying. Without subsidies to corn production, tariffs on sugar imports, and tariffs on ethanol, we wouldn't have the assumption that corn will be used.

Re:But... but...

[RingDev]

I'm saying GM is not in a great financial position. So for them to invest in a marketing campaign for E85 is a win-win.

They invest a minimum amount in Flex Fuel vehicles (realistically, this is replacing rubber fuel lines and setting up the ECM to switch fuel mappings over a wider range depending on the O2 sensor's readings).

Since this is the 'low tech' way of making a gas engine run on ethanol (some more impressive FF vehicles use dynamic turbos and increase boost pressure when running more Ethanol, but so far as I know, GM's FF vehicles are only changing fuel mappings). It doesn't do anything for efficiency or power, so the vehicle will run significantly worse (power/mileage). But that doesn't matter since you can't really get E85 at any public pumps. I only know of a single E85 pump in all of south central Wisconsin. GM is aiming E85 primarily at fleet vehicles, for everyone else it's just a marketing gimmick. It allows them to look like a golden company in the face of rising gas prices to the public, they get free marketing off anyone talking about E85, and for a minimal investment in R&D and on the assembly line, they get a huge boost in sales.

E85 does have a place in the future of US fuel consumption, but that place is not GM's FlexFuel vehicle line. It's place is in vehicles designed to run on higher compression or those that can increase boost pressure. Vehicles that are designed to take advantage of Ethanol's properties as opposed to a patch kit that allows a gas engine to run on it.

Decreased engine life, shorter duration oil changes, invisible flames (on pure ethanol, not E85), it's amazing what some good marketing and desperate consumers will lead to.

-Rick

Re:Lower MPG?

[jafac]

There's really two issues here (aside from the spelling/grammar nazism):

If you include the costs of the energy required to make the equipment that would be used to increase ethanol production to replace gasoline, yes, ethanol takes more energy to produce than gasoline.
Of course, this calculation does not include the cost of equipment and human lives to secure petroleum resources in the Middle East to produce gasoline.

In other words, this "Ethanol is a net energy sink" argument is utter bullshit.

However, the other issue - "miles per gallon" - of course. A 20 gallon tank of ethanol takes you less far than a 20 gallon tank of gasoline. About 15% less far. So what? A 20 gallon tank of diesel (petro or bio) takes you farther than a 20 gallon tank of gasoline, (plus, producing petrodiesel from crude is a more efficient process than producing gasoline from crude), but you don't see everyone flocking to diesel.

Why? Because diesel (petro) is a horrible polluter. (and doesn't offer the cold-weather flexibility of gasoline).
But compared to Ethanol, gasoline is a horrible polluter. Gasoline puts carbon into the atmosphere. Ethanol extracts carbon from the atmosphere in it's production phase, and puts it back in the combustion phase.

So the gp poster has a point, but it wasn't clear which one he was talking about. With regard to the production issue - that argument is bs. With regard to the energy-density issue - that problem is resolved by using flex-fuel vehicles. Burn ethanol for commuting the 20 miles to and from your daily job. Burn gasoline when you're driving cross country to see the folks in Florida, if you absolutely MUST have that 400-mile-between-fill-ups range.
(or buy a diesel, and get a 600-mile-between-fill-ups range all the time, and run it on biodiesel to eliminate net-carbon dioxide, particulates, and sulfur oxides from the emissions).