Slashdot Mirror
Corn Shortage Hampers US Ethanol Production
drdread66 writes "A nationwide corn shortage brought on by last year's drought has started to curtail ethanol production. While this shouldn't be surprising to anyone, it raises public policy issues regarding ethanol usage requirements in motor fuel. Given that the energy efficiency of ethanol fuel is questionable at best, is it time to lift the mandate for ethanol in our gasoline?"
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: No, it is, in fact, way past time.
Next question?
Least efficient way of making the stuff. The tractors burn more diesel harvesting the stuff than the energy it will produce. Greenwashing at its finest. There are better ways of producing ethanol like from legitimate byproducts with the help of industrial waste heat but that's not what they're doing in the USA. Far too many people on the ethanol subsidy gravy train over there.
Kill the corn subsidies, period. They prop up the house of cards that hold the corth ethanol and HFCS industries that would otherwise not exist because they can't survive in a real capital market.
The sooner these tax-payer-subsidized industries get the rug pulled from under them, the sooner things like cellulosic ethanol and other *real* technological innovations can come to fruition.
It never should have happened in the first place. Ethanol uses absurd amounts of energy to produce because you have to boil water from it
(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050329132436.htm)
This is not something we can tech out of. It's always going to be wasteful and one of the worst possible fuel choices for vehicles.
Corn ethanol is and probably always will be a handout to the farming states. It takes more oil to grow the corn for ethanol than we save from blending ethanol into our engines.
The rest of us are screwed over by this. It would be better for the economy and the environment to just calculate out how much profit the farmers are getting and just hand out yearly checks for that amount. But that would be socialism and we can't have any of that.
The cost to manufacture corn ethanol is approximately equal to that of gasoline, after all of the subsidies given to the growing of corn. Hemp ethanol is significantly cheaper and does not have subsidies. Hemp ethanol manufacture estimates a cost of $.50 per gallon. There are ethanols that are viable replacements for gasoline. Corn ethanol is not one of them.
Actually ethanol burns worse than gasoline and (if you make it our way) takes more energy to make than you get from burning it, but that's ok because of, well, I have to really reach for this one -- JOB CREATION!
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
And that's a BAD thing?
One of the few facts I've seen with almost universal agreement on Slashdot is that HFCS soda tastes worse than sucrose soda. The only reason sucrose is more expensive in the USA is the trade blockade designed to favour the Florida sugar growers.
Other countries manage to survive on foods that are not packed full of HFCS. The corn lobby has given rise to an unnatural spiral of growth in its use in the USA.
What you will notice the most is the increased price of meat. 70% of corn grown in the USA goes to be feed for livestock, and you need 10 times the weight of corn for one weight of meat.
neither should our vehicles.
Burning most fuels will produce water, even lowly methane. I suspect the parent was referring to the lower energy density of ethanol; it's about two thirds that of petrol.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
It doesn't "waste fuel". Ethanol is less energy-dense than gasoline. Your vehicle was extracting the same percentage of energy from the ethanol as it was from gasoline (more or less, and a piss poor fraction it is, too). There's just less energy to be had per gallon. So yes, you get better mileage from pure gasoline. It has better energy density.
It's what cars crave.
I drive one of the most common cars in the U.S., a Honda Accord with with a 2.4 liter 4 cylinder engine. I'm lucky to have a station nearby that sells ethanol-free gasoline, and I originally switched just to test, but over the long term, I'm paying 1-2% more for ethanol-free gas, but have have gotten 5-7% better gas mileage. Adding 10% corn-based ethanol to gas makes it cost more to drive the same distance, and adds to fossil fuel pollution by itself while being used and additionally throughout it's production cycle from corn stalk to your tank....
I'd actually be curious how ethanol does versus gas and oil once BOTH sides have all their subsidies removed.
Subsidies are a pox on the free market.
The article is ignorant or a troll, and most of the comments prove that democracy doesn't work. Most people are lazy and do not find out beyond the talking points what ethanol is even used for. So here, for the lazy masses,
1. ethanol (eg. from corn) as fuel is pretty stupid. E85 gas is stupid.
2. ethanol as gas additive replaces MTBE - a persistent carcinogenic pollutant. You need 5% ethanol to replace MTBE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_tert-butyl_ether
So what do you want? MTBE? Leaded gasoline? Or ethanol which is clean burning??
So yes, I'll support 5% ethanol gasoline. It is the better of two evils. And if some greenies don't like that, then why don't they start protesting to ban fossil fuel cars and only allow electrics on the roads?
70% of corn grown in the USA goes to be feed for livestock
This *includes* the "waste" from ethanol plants, which is full of proteins. Feedlots (where most cheap meat comes from) rely on ethanol plants for their cheap feed.
And no, ethanol does NOT receive subsidies anymore, not for a few years. Ethanol plants use corn because they can sell fermented "waste" as feed. If they used other stuff, they would have to pay for disposal of waste.
So, if you have a problem with ethanol plants from corn, you certainly have a problem with meat in the first place. If you have a problem with ethanol and no problem with meat, then you are quite ignorant of the issues.
HFCS soda tastes worse than sucrose soda.
Well, duh! HFCS is thanks to corn production subsidies and because USA places large import duties on cane sugar. So USA gets shit HFCS while rest of the world gets cheaper cane sugar.
Ethanol has become the biggest boondoggle of our century. I live in a corn production State, and I have to say, the federal subsidy has got to go.
First problem – land prices. High production areas have reached the astounding prices of $15K per acre. That's 3 times higher than just a few years ago. Talk about a balloon waiting to bust.
Second problem – Game production. As a hunter, I can honestly say that wildlife has taken a dramatic turn for the worst. The farmers lust for corn wealth, former wetlands and game production areas have been slashed, burned and turned into field. There is very little cover or nesting area left.
Third problem – as more an more corn goes to produce ethanol, other products that rely on corn also compete for that commodity. Corn sweetener, corn feed, all have skyrocketed. So you and I pay huge prices for milk, cheese and meat... all courtesy of ethanol production.
Forth Problem – Wrecked vehicles. Cars require a minimum of 87 octane for both performance and running correctly. Ethanol is so corrosive, any vehicle not designed to run it will literally have it's internals melt out. The Governor of my state (South Dakota) has APPROVED 85 octane ethanol to increase ethanol consumption and benefit farmers. The problem is that 85 octane voids manufacturer warranties and is not compliant with federal standards. Again, you and I pay higher prices in automotive repair because of ethanol.
It's quite interesting to drive through corn country. New mansions have erupted from the prairies paid for courtesy of you and I. I have no problem with anyone making a living. I have a problem with subsidizing an occulant standard of living way beyond anything previously seen. Corn previously ran from 2-3 dollars per bushel. This year corn sold for $8 dollars per bushel with an average production of 130 bushels per acre. Considering a typical section 640 acres', that’s $600K + per acre in revenue. That explains all the new shiny vehicles and fancy motor homes beached along side these rural estates.
I thought the Republicans were against socialism. I can thing of no greater example of socialism than farm subsidies.
Corn cultivation is intensive agriculture, and destroys soil viability with continued, and persistent cultivation.
This problem is self-resolving, if you are willing to accept the ultimate outcome.
That being, the corn growing states will eventually not be able to grow corn anymore, period. (No, adding chemical fertilizers wont do dick.)
1. Some ethanol (10% or so) makes a lot of sense. It cuts down NOX emissions. But adding more than that doesn't improve that effect.
2. Corn ethanol has pretty poor returns on input, but it is positive, about 1.2:1.
3. The USA has a fine climate for growing sugar. Just not in the form of sugar cane. Sugar beets will grow just fine.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Actually, in my experiece (based on two trials in a 2000 honda element and two trials in a 2008 honda element), fuel with 10% ethanol does literally waste gasoline.
I need 102% to 103% as much gasoline to go the same distance when up to 10% ethanol is added to it.
A tankful of 10% ethanol gets me about 265 miles
A tankful of gasoline gets me about 300 miles.
35 miles difference.
I need to use 1.45 more gallons of 10% ethanol fuel to go 300 miles.
So that's 1.3 more gallons of gasoline to go the same distance when ethanol is added.
The government says it should be 3-7% worse. And they've tested it. But apparently the fuel does much worse in some cars than others. In theory, you should get some mileage out of the ethanol. In practice, a lot of people seem to report a 10% difference in mileage.
Perhaps the government driving wasn't normal driving. Maybe they
a) didn't start and stop as much.
b) started and stopped more.
c) didn't idle as much.
Not sure what the difference but something is off.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
As an Iowan who has worked for agricultural technology companies for most of the last decade, I can assure you that both sides are fudging the numbers as hard as they can. Imagine a debate where both sides used the same tactics as the climate change deniers - not the merely ignorant or skeptical ones mind you, but the industry-funded lie-if-it's-convenient corporate whores.
E10 has no effect on automotive engines except an imperceptable power reduction, and cleaner exhaust emissions. Small engines are more finicky on E10, especially the low compression flat-head designs. It helps to keep fresh fuel in the tank because it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere and wet alcohol can turn into acid, vinegar actually.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Australia does also use ethanol in fuel. None of it comes from crops grown specifically for it.
Most of it is made from the waste material left over from crops like sugar cane.
But if it produces sufficiently less noxious pollutants, it can be a net gain. For example, if you had to burn 3 gallons of ethanol for 2 of gasoline
I think it's more like: You had to burn 1.5 gallon worth of gasoline in order to farm and produce the 2 gallons worth of Ethanol in the first place..... just because you had to burn that other energy separated by time and place, doesn't mean Ethanol is more efficient, even if it physically burns more cleanly -- it only seems that way because you aren't considering what you already had to burn to produce that clean-burning ethanol.
So do you really think it's a case of people freezing their arses off in Antarctica fudging numbers when they could be doing it at home where it's warm? You are obviously not that stupid, it's clear that you've been conned into not thinking about it deeply at all and like many others have just been distracted by the denier PR roadshow.
Suburbs don't get developed where there isn't already good access. (Read about Robert Moses and Long Island.) Developers generally have to put in the roads that are in their development; taxes fund their maintenance.
Most suburbs are areas that were independent towns long before they were considered suburbs. Southwestern Connecticut is considered a suburb of New York City, yet consists of towns dating from about 1640, before there were even bridges out of Manhattan. Better roads, and railroads, made them more economically viable so that they grew: not developers colluding with government to put a highway through farmland.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Ethanol is corrosive and the water it attracts makes it more so. It damages seals, and will actually eat away some metals like the stuff carburetors were made of 50 years ago.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I don't know much about this with Ethanol.
My experience with Biodiesel was that I ran B99 for 5 years. When my supplier folded, I had to switch back to petro-diesel, but commercial suppliers had switched to Ultra-low sulfur diesel, (to decrease sulfur emissions). This caused a reaction with my fuel-pump seals (NOT my fuel filter!). My fuel-pump started leaking, (and this leaked onto the wiring harness, and also ate away a temperature sensor that caused all kinds of weird symptoms for a while before I figured out what was really going on - the temperature sensor controlled injection quantity, and as that flaked out, the engine just started injecting incorrect amounts, intermittently, as the fuel temperature changed.)
Anyway - when it started to leak enough that I SAW the dripping, I rebuilt the pump with new seals, of a different type of rubber (Viton) which can handle ULSD and Biodiesel. (It was the ULSD that was really the problem - though had I not used Bio, it wouldn't have been a problem, according to VW).
The rebuild kit was $99, and it was 8 hours of my time. (a pro could have done the job in 2 hrs). I also had to replace some of the soft fuel lines, but it's hard-lines from the tank to the filter, so this was 2 soft lines from the filter to the pump.
I guess the injectors are supposed to also have some bushings that are going to fail on me as well, but 20k miles later, they seem to still be okay.
Later model VW's void the warranty if you use Biodiesel that comes from sources other than rapeseed oil. (ie. if it comes from corn oil, they say that the acid esters will eat the seals or harm the engine's emissions control equipment somehow - 2005 and later engiens have much more advance emissions control than my 2003).
So the biofuel isssue can be pretty complex. Whether ethanol is going to be any worse for those components than gasoline, I don't know. I think that diesel/biodiesel is chemically much more complex than gasoline and ethanol. And I think that Biodiesel is still difficult to produce, in reiable quantity. I don't know that anyone has a good industrial process for that yet. Not on the scale that regular diesel is produced.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.