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?
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.
This is one of those topics where there are a lot of conflicting studies on the exact numbers (on how much energy you get compared to what you put in), but it seems that everyone agrees that corn ethanol is particularly bad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_energy_balance.
Brazil doesn't make ethanol from maize- they make it from sugar cane.
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.
Since WW2 Brazil has been using home grown ethanol as a fuel because they either couldn't get oil (I'm told this is what diesel is made from) or didn't want to pay high prices for it.
Brazil AFAIK made ethanol from sugar cane. Sugar cane is an excellent choice for ethanol production; it is one of the most efficient plants when it comes to photosynthesis and it produces lots of sugar which is easy to turn into ethanol. Ethanol from sugar cane should have no problem producing more energy than is consumed.
Corn is just fairly crap all around when it comes to ethanol production.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
neither should our vehicles.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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