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

[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.

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.

[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.

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)

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: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