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Once-Darling Ethanol Losing Friends In High Places
theodp writes "It's now conceivable, says BusinessWeek's Ed Wallace, that the myth of ethanol as the salvation for America's energy problem is coming to an end. Curiously, the alternative fuel may be done in by an unlikely collection of foes. Fervidly pro-ethanol in the last decade of his political career, former VP Al Gore reversed course in late November and apologized for supporting ethanol, which apparently was more about ingratiating himself to farmers. A week later, Energy Secretary Steven Chu piled on, saying: 'The future of transportation fuels shouldn't involve ethanol.' And in December, a group of small-engine manufacturers, automakers, and boat manufacturers filed suit in the US Court of Appeals to vacate the EPA's October ruling that using a 15% blend of ethanol in fuel supplies would not harm 2007 and newer vehicles. Despite all of this, the newly-elected Congress has extended the 45 cent-per-gallon ethanol blending tax credit that was due to expire, a move that is expected to reduce revenue by $6.25 billion in 2011. 'The ethanol insanity,' longtime-critic Wallace laments, 'will continue until so many cars and motors are damaged by this fuel additive that the public outcry can no longer be ignored.'"
...and so it ends up everywhere, from our stomachs to our gas tanks. High-fructose corn syrup anyone?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
The "newly-elected" Congress hasn't been seated yet.
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
Alcohol: the cause of, and the solution to, all of life's problems.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Corn ethanol: bad
Switchgrass ethanol: good
There's nothing inherently wrong with ethanol (unless you're under 21 - shame on you majority of populace!) but how we get our current stock is a terrible deal. Corn and farm policies are troublesome, and current ethanol mandates are indeed another subsidy for a growing and yet still ailing production force, but it need not be. Convert some fields into sugarcane or switchgrass, which is vastly more effective for creating biofuels, and that's without all the genetic advances corn has had. We'll get more efficient energy production, another crop will become incredibly profitable, and the corn cycle of "grow more causing prices to drop so grow more" - that's a win-win-win situation.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Here's a great article about what is happening today with ethanol:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/too-much-alcohol
"He explains that the legal limit is 10% but that all the fuel distributors cheat and mix in some extra alcohol so they can make a buck. When the mix gets to 15% it’s toxic for two cycle engines. And that is what killed my machines."
Kiss your chainsaw or gas boat motor goodbye. And your car engine, if the EPA gets their way of increasing the "limit" to 15%.
Corn-derived ethanol has always been either of culinary/recreational interest(which is a fine and salubrious use of corn...) or an artefact of the fact that you will run into serious issues getting anything done in the senate without throwing Senator Cornfed, R/D, Flyover Country a bone... The fact that there are some relatively early presidential primaries in corn country doesn't help either.
Pollution shift allows pollution control and avoids depending on the owners of autos to maintain them. Central powerplant upgrades cost less than dispersed vehicle fleet replacement.
"Smaller (lighter) cars are the only solution."
Their is no "only solution", there are a vast number of partial, complementary solutions. The "central solution" idea is both stupid and a distraction from intelligent comprehension of the systems that need changing.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If ETOH were actually worth anything (i.e., didn't harm engines, was *really* energy balance positive, didn't put aldehydes into the atmosphere, cause food prices to go up, could be produced from cellulose, etc.) it could survive without a government subsidy. The only reason it's still lurching along, taking up 40% of the corn produced in the USA, is because the lobbyists, farmers and ETOH producers can continue to suck $$ from the US gummint.
I have stumbled on "real 100% gasoline" three times in a 2008 Honda Element. Each time, my mileage increased for that tankful from 265 miles to 300 miles.
Honda: 10% Ethanol, 13 gallon tank mileage to fill up (about 12.25 gallons).
265 miles. About 21.6 miles per gallon.
Honda: Gasoline, 13 gallon tank mileage to fill up (about 12.25 gallons).
300 miles. About 24.4 miles per gallon.
12% more miles with gasoline than with 10% Ethanol.
You see the problem, right?
When using 10% ethanol, I actually burn MORE GASOLINE to travel the same number of miles.
So ethanol is worse than useless.
I keep putting this out there so hopefully someone who can reliably get 100% gasoline can perform a formal study.
This is increasing the amount of gasoline we use, not reducing it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Have you ever actually tried to eat the grade of corn used for corn ethanol? I thought not, but believe me, don't try it, you won't be able to, it's a grade lower than that used for silage/cattle feed. It's grown on land too marginal for real human crops and tastes.
Ah, No. Not true.
Ethanol has taken over prime farm corn land.
Ethanol has actually driven up the price of silage corn, and beef.
It is most often the exact same corn as silage, because there is no point in switching to a lower grade. The seed, planting, and harvesting costs the same, and you cut your market options by growing anything other than cattle grade corn.
We don't directly eat silage either, so just because it does not taste good to humans when eaten directly is a hollow argument. It tastes pretty good when you eat the cow/pig.
I'm sure this is where the vegans jump in and pontificate about eating animals, but thats not what this thread is about.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The issue with Ethanol is really 2 fronts.
1, corn has a low output per crop for food or for fuel.
2, Ethanol is hard on an engine, even an engine designed to handle it.
We are propping up the corn industry claiming that we are saving farmers. The subsidies that keep those farmers on corn is also keeping the from switching to a more appropriate crop.
Ethanol really tears up engine components such as gaskets and seals. As these items wear at a faster pace with Ethanol, they become less efficient and less reliable.
I understand the draw for ethanol, it acts sort-of like gasoline which keeps the many millions of cars on our roads compatible with the 'next-gen' fuel. The problem is that it is from a low yiel crop and has an intense and expensive manufacturing process.
We could product a diesel-compatible biofuel much more easily and out of crops with significantly higher yield. A significant percent of fuel used in America is diesel through trucks and tractors and a push for a more sustainable fuel in a diesel form would change the focus of automakers selling cars in the US.
It is easier and cheaper to make diesel from corn rather than ethanol, but still not efficient.
Rapeseed can be be broken down by simply crushing the seed which is ~40% oil. This crop produces about ~127 Gallons per acre. The US in 2009 used about 137Billion gallons of gasoline.
with some math 137B/127Gallons = 1.07Billion acres. The US is 2.428Billion acres. There are only 922Million acres of farmland.
hmmmm, so we dont have enough land to grown a renewable fuel unless we both a, stop eating AND b, come up with something that has a ~50% oil content.
You dont have to be a rocket scientist to do the math from numbers freely available at usda.gov. I would think that any person pushing to eliminate our need for foreign oil or oil in general and actually expecting some level of success would have done a tiny bit of research. We can't grow our fuel, or at the very least we cant grow all of it. We are going to have to use technology to handle this issue, not brute force.
And on that subject, only ~27% of our energy usage is in transporation. petrolium is about 38% of our energy sources.
So the real question is, should we really be looking at changing the fuel source for cars right now? Shouldn't we continue to improve out technology for electric and/or hybrid systems, batteries, and more efficient engines while targeting industrial and commercial power uses? This way in the future we can make a much better change in cars when the technology is ready? We could reduce our need on oil by a massive amount with nuclear power and converting many fuel burners to electical heating and cooling. With nuclear power alone we could see as much fuel energy savings as completely replacing the fuel in our cars. We already have nuclear power technology and building more plants will push that technology further ahead. btw, nuclear is just 8 1/2% of out power source.
I am not saying that we should ignore oil use in cars, just that it is not the best place to start. Batteries and power production, probably nuclear, is what I think is the best route. if we try, we might actually be doing nuclear fusion this century, but fission is proven and reliable and safe.
Alright, who's in charge of deciding who gets to live and who gets to die? Population explosions are usually a survival mechanism. Past a certain level of prosperity and education, you have bigger problems with population decline. If you want to 'control populations', give them liberty and education. There are more than enough resources left on earth to reach that goal but our great civilized cultures would rather see the starving masses die off than elevated to our own level if one is to believe people like you.
Mind the frickin' laser...
The senators representing America's corn-belt states are actually a pretty even split between republicans and democrats, hence "R/D". Is that illogical? While their positions on god, guns, and gays may differ along party lines, their positions on corn ethanol tend to be homogeneous across them(the cynic might remark that, on that issue, those senators can basically be treated as "Senator Cornfed, ConAgra/ADM"...)
I hope your little ignorant ass is replaced by an agricultural robot.
I thought not, but believe me, don't try it, you won't be able to, it's a grade lower than that used for silage/cattle feed.
You are more full of shit that feeder cattle you pretend to know about. The exact same corn can and does go to an ethanol plant or to a feed lot or even human food consumption processing. The by-product of ethanol is distillers grain and is also fed to livestock among other uses. I was raised on a farm and now have a few cattle of my own on an acreage.
You can eat and digest normal field corn just fine(GMO arguments aside), although it's not the sweet corn variety which what most people are used to.
FWIW, most small farmer don't get much or any subsidies for corn production and we nearly all have recognized for years that the ethanol pitch is bullshit. If you want to rage about farmers getting too much unwarranted subsidies, make sure you focus the anger on the big corporate farms because they're the one's that have Congress's ear. About the only benefit small farmer's have seen is the relatively recent sustained rise in corn prices due to the OP's point. The small farmer subsidy era largely went away during the Reagan Administration and has never returned. If you want to check your "fax", look at how many family farms went under in the 80's and the farm bill provisions before, during, and after that time.
You may also want to consider the reasoning behind subsidies as well. It's essentially a safeguard so that American food supply will be adequate on a yearly basis. If you let market forces run it entirely, there would be large swings in price and availability. Some might say fine, that's the way it should. The problem with is when a core need like food supply become volatile then so does everything dependent on the supply. The society we live in today would not be possible without subsidies to encourage farmers to plant even when there is excess. The argument "There shouldn't be subsidies" is completely different than "We have too many subsidies".
brandelf -t FreeBSD
I'm so fucked, man.
First the jury has been in for a long time that in terms of Energy per dollar Corn or sugar based ethanol are never going to be a good idea in the US for feedstocks that come from the food chain. However cellolosic ethanol (switch grass, poplar tree, cellulosic waste, etc...) may be quite a good idea. There are strong arguments for them that have yet to be defeated. They need less irrigation and can be grown on lands or seasons otherwise unsuited for crops.
The big bug-a-boo with these is that they are waiting for a scientific breaktrhough for a process to change cellulose into simple sugars or directly to ethanol or gasoline. There's lots of ways to approach this but all of them are not at the efficiency needed yet. It's not an easy proposal: if digesting cellulose was super easy then more bugs would do it already. It's actually not the cellulose that's the biggest problem, it's the lignose which is about 30%+ of the plant thats slightly harder to deal with biochemically.
It's likely that some breakthroughs will occur. Theres lots of irons in the fire. Some of them may scale. But if you had to do it tommorrow chances are you'd bet on the wrong pony if you went with one particular approach.
Thus the primary role that starch and sugar based ethanol plays now is that it seeds the pipeline with ethanol now, so the infrastructure will be in place when cellulosic ethanol comes on line.
Now why ethanol and not something else more energy efficient. Butanol for example. Or other liquid fuels. THe problem is that when you ad up the cost of replacing our fleet of existing internal combustion engines and fuel infrastructure it's a huge huge huge sum. You can't just pick the "optimal" fuel purely from an maximal energy standpoint. You have to have a way there that does not start with a non-starter like chucking out all the existing engines. Hence Ethanol looks like the common denominator. It's not bad. It's easier to produce ethanol from grains now than it is butanol or gasoline. and it works in the cars we have up to a point.
As long as we are comminting to cellulosic ethanol, some use of food crops to produce grain-based ethanol now is justifiable. It just can't continue in the long run.
Another route is commit to bio-diesel from algae. This too has some issues to solve to make it scalable. It can use lower quality water. it can use low grade lands. it is easier to "dry" than ethanol because it is not water soluble so there's less energy waste in turning it into fuels. And you might be able to think of some byproduct for the waste stream from algae (maybe animal feed or fertilizer). SOme of the challenges here are very simple sounding, though no one has entirely solved them yet: how do we quadruple the lipid yield, and how to we get enough CO2 into the water (without burning fuel to create it and pump it.).
There is enough bad land to fuel the entire nation if we can solve those scaling products.
It has a path forward through the trucking system (diesel) and through aviation fuels and military fuels. The latter can pay premium prices to subsidize the product effectively since those fuels are more expensive than consume fuels.
Eventually however that path requires replacing the automobile fleet. But given the path forward in the near term this may not be a non-starter.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Empirical fact remains that all in all, from one generation to the next, our individual quality of life has been improving since as far as our capacity to understand what historical conditions where like and there is no basis of fact to suggest that imminent change is looming in the next couple of generations. In fact there are plenty of signs to the contrary: world fertility is stabilizing, our relationship with the environment is steadily improving on a number of fronts over the past 30 years; etc etc.
Yes innovations frequently provide unwanted and unintended consequences; anti-biotics has spawned us the problem of super-viruses, but we are still overall better off. You say "get us out of the mess that the intelligence and resourcefulness of mankind got us into.". So does this mean you shun all technology and innovation (including your computer and your Internet); if so that is your personal wish but it is in my view a sub-optimal position.
In additional to this, our capacity to weather calamities has improved too. Inspite of this, as far back as our history allows us to perceive, there has never ceased to be a parade of people who insist that the worst is just around the corner, or an appreciable audience for such doom-sayers.
Yes - the big one may come; an asteroid impact, a zombie virus apocalypse, or some other biblical end-time event. The closest credible threat in living memory, and what I consider to be a real threat was the threat of nuclear annihilation that pervaded from the 60s to the 90s
I minimize 'alarmists', such as what you admit to be, and with respect, because I once perceived the world as I believe you now currently perceived it. I minimize them because although the alarm bells they ring resonates deep in all of us and trigger deep seated fears, including myself, their position has no empirical support and as such their instance that their concerns require broader community mindshare without basis; and as such are deservedly minimalised. Should an issue materialize where there is no reasonable, rational doubt that it is a real and significant problem, we may indeed find ourselves in a position we cannot do anything about it, but you can be personally assured that everyone around you, including myself, all 7 billion of us, will be thinking very very hard about the problem. Of course, to this I can always count on people with your mindset to point out - too little! too late! You need to starting thinking about these things now! This is what this meme demands of us in order for the meme to continue to thrive and propagate.
1. The infrastructure to deliver it is already in place and is far less complicated than say what is needed for a hydrogen system.
2. The conversion costs are small and will work with most vehicles. Pickup trucks being the easiest to convert. (Cool trucks, no gay hybrids required.)
3. It's readily availabe just about everywhere. You can drill a hole in the ground to get it. You can make it with crop and animal waste on the farm. You can make it from sewage waste in the city. You can collect it as a by product from the petrolium industry. You could make your own fuel in your backyard if you were so inclined and had the space.
4. It is environment friendly. No bad polutants when you burn it and can come from "carbon neutral" sources if you still buy into such things.
5. We can make it in our own country and stop funding the overseas assholes. Let them try to eat their oil after we stop buying and see how far that gets them.
Win, win, win, win, win.
I work in the marine engine trade. (western U.S.) Ethanol has been a boon to the gasoline engine repair and maritime rescue business. It is estimated by marine trade originations that gasoline and ethanol mixed fuels currently cause about 70-85% of engine failures. Not really a type of additional work we want.These engines (and outboards) and fuel tanks were never designed for this fuel. Unlike modern autos, marine fuel tanks are vented and absorb moisture rich air. Water related corrosion adds to the alcohol damage. I do not think anyone has worked out just the cost in lives lost at sea, lost boats, and the damage to the marine trades has resulted from this fuel. We only get to work on the boats that made it back.