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Can the US Be Weaned Off Ethanol?
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Matthew Wald reports in the NYT the the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed reducing the amount of ethanol that is required to be mixed with the gasoline supply, the first time it has taken steps to slow down the drive to replace fossil fuels with renewable forms of energy. The move drew bitter complaints from advocates of ethanol, including some environmentalists, who see the corn-based fuel blend as a weapon to fight climate change and was also unwelcome news to farmers, coming at a time when a record corn crop is expected, and the price of a bushel has fallen almost to the cost of production. "Boy, my goodness, are the oil companies going to benefit from this," says Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association. "We're all just sort of scratching our heads here wondering why this administration is telling us to produce less of a clean-burning American fuel." But the EPA says that a big part of the problem was that automobile fuel systems and service stations were not set up to absorb more than about 10 percent ethanol. Most cars on the road are limited to the current mixture, called E10, and there has been little demand by consumers for more. Reasons for the turnaround are many: The boom in domestic oil drilling has dimmed the urgency to find other alternatives to Mideast petroleum. Demand for gasoline has slumped. And criticism of the environmental impacts of corn ethanol has dimmed its luster nationally. The chill on ethanol will certainly affect the industry's powerhouse, corn ethanol. But the risk is far greater for smaller sectors of the industry still struggling to get out of the gate — those aimed at producing next-generation biofuels like "cellulosic" ethanol, made from ingredients like switchgrass and corn stalks. "I don't know if the EPA is aiming for uncertainty, but they may inadvertently create it," says Jan Koninckx, the global business director of biorefineries for DuPont. "The impact could be that another country will lead this rather than the U.S.""
complaints from advocates of ethanol, including some environmentalists
There are environmentalists advocating ethanol fuel from corn?
If they are referring to the Renewable Fuels Association they've made a mistake.
Ethanol requirements are corporate welfare for Big Corn.
It has nothing to do with renewable fuels or dependance on imported oil. The second the US has large scale ethanol production not using corn, any requirements for ethanol use will disappear.
There is a lot of debate over weather or not its such a great thing to just give food away to poor countries. It lowers the price of domestic farmed goods, depressing the local economy. Its often argued that its a better idea to support the local farmers as much as possible and only giving away food in famine situations.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Ethanol requirements are corporate welfare for Big Corn.
The corn lobby is a big part of it. There is no algae lobby. But there is much more to it. I remember reading about "fuel from algae" back in the 1970s. There were some major hurdles back then. Four decades hence, we have the exact same hurdles. There are huge problems with "fuel from algae", and these problems are not being solved. It is easy to make ethanol from starch, and much harder to make it from cellulose. Algae contains no starch. Most "algae fuel" schemes focus instead on making bio-diesel from lipids, which some algae do contain in significant amounts. The problem is that when algae is bred to produce more lipids, it is out produced by invasive species, and feasted on by predators such as paramecium and rotifers. This problem can be solved by growing algae in enclosed containers rather than open ponds, but that vastly increases the cost. Even if you manage to grow algae with enough lipids, you still have to separate them from that water, break up the cell walls, and separate the fuel from the other cellular debris. We are not even close to doing this cost effectively.
The cost of the ethanol exceeds the cost of gasoline, especially when you consider the 10% (minimum) milage hit you have to put up with.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
'pure' gas... 'corn crap'... 'good stuff'...
Humbug.
Corn is not a good stock for producing fuel ethanol, that much is true. Not that there is something wrong with the ethanol itself, it is just a rather inefficient way to get there.
'pure' gas and 'good stuff' is just what you'd expect to hear from someone who read a flyer written by a stakeholder to incite the masses. The product coming from the refinery is neither 'pure' - and a good thing that is as your engine would not run that well on 'pure' petrol - nor 'good stuff'.
Ethanol can be a good fuel for internal combustion engines. It burns clean, tolerates high compression ratios without problems and - in contrast to what many sources state - stores well. Its energy content per litre is lower than that of petrol, which in turn has a lower energy content per litre than diesel. This in itself is not a problem but it does lead to higher specific fuel consumption rates and with that more fuel for the petrol lobby.
Modern cars - at least those from Europe and Japan - have no problems with higher ethanol ratios. The real limit is often the maximum capacity for the fuel injection system: as ethanol has a lower energy content per litre, more fuel is needed for the same load. Injection systems in engines tuned for petrol simply can not supply enough fuel per combustion stroke for higher ethanol ratios. This can be adjusted though, eg. by raising the injection pressure. The often-heard problem with ethanol dissolving seals and gaskets might apply to old vehicles but it is unlikely to be a problem when talking about more recent (say, made in the last 20 years) engines. If the car has been running on petrol for many years the ethanol will dissolve the crud left behind so you'll want to change the fuel filter more often in the beginning.
As to my personal experience with this I can state that, other than the ethanol dissolving some coating from the inside of the fuel tank on my soviet-era Ural motorbike - which runs on E85 (85% ethanol) - I have yet to see a single problem caused by ethanol while we use it in various ratios - from 45% to 85%, depending on the application - in many engines, from a '92 B&S lawn mower to a 2003 Skoda. I've used it in 2-strokes as well but this has been less of a success as it is hard to keep the fuel and oil mixed. As soon as I find a good (and inexpensive) lubricant which stays mixed I'll use in the chain saws as the exhaust gases are less noxious than those from petrol.
--frank[at]unternet.org
We are offered the choice here. Half the gas stations in town have big banners advertising "100% Real Gas". There's a difference in price per gallon, but I and several others I know have seen the hit to mileage when using ethanol gas and the small savings for ethanol gas is more than offset by the mileage hit.
Not everybody is so lucky. States have a certain amount of leeway to come up with their own ways of staying within EPA requirements regarding smog in their urban centers. The result is that in most states, 10% ethanol is an absolute requirement, with no gas station anywhere being allowed to sell 100% gasoline.
Fuel stabilizer that keeps the gasoline from separating doesn't prevent the alcohol corrosion.
There are however fuel stabilizers on the market which claim to inhibit the alcohol corrosion. I believe these may be relatively new, since I can't recall ever seeing them before last year. FYI, here and maybe here.
His recommendation is not to use ethanol, but about the only places I can find pure gasoline are boat fuel stations on lakes (where the gas is $5+ per gallon).
Use whatever gas you want to all season. At the end of the season run it dry, put in a gallon of the good stuff, run it dry, repeat.
True, but that doesn't mean that (certain) food isn't more expensive than it otherwise would be, but for so much corn going to ethanol production. For example, as to corn itself, while the commodity price has dropped dramatically over the last year, it's still twice as high as it was in the early 2000's.
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=corn&months=240
Moreover, the cost of corn is the primary cattle feed in the U.S. As a result, the price of beef largely tracks that of corn, and has likewise more than doubled since 2000.
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=beef&months=240
Here in Brazil, most new cars can run on anything from 15% ethanol (the default on mix around here is 85% gasoline, 15% ethanol) to 100% ethanol, usually through sensors in the fuel injection system, and in as much as I know, no changes related to corrosion being necessary.
replace there rubber fuel lines every year
How about replace them once with ethanol-resistant fuel lines. I can't even find rubber fuel lines anymore. Even the OEM parts (1970 Mercedes fuel hose, custom dimensions) aren't available in rubber anymore. I asked. The dealer parts guy said safety regs won't let them sell rubber parts.
Have gnu, will travel.
I understand what you're saying, but the pedant in me wants to point out that there's no such thing as "pure gasoline." Gasoline(tm) is a cocktail of many different hydrocarbon molecules, usually consisting of between 4 and 12 carbon atoms in their chains. And different companies' products contain differing ratios of the common components of petrol.
Corn is only cheap because it is subsidized by my tax dollars. No one ever bothered to make a distinction between food crops and fuel crops, neither did they bother to subsidize nutritionally beneficial crops. This is why manufactured food is cheaper than anything in the produce aisle and why everything has corn syrup or some other corn based derivative in it. Ditch the damn agriculture subsidies and incentivize the actual goals of the public facing message, clean energy consumption and production. Our food supply and thus our health will improve and engineers can work towards solutions with technical rather than artificial merits.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Ethanol can be a big problem with certain modern cars.
Toyota and its luxury devision, Lexus, have this problem with models up to 2008. For example, the 2008 Lexus IS (built during calendar year 2007) is not E10 compatible. In areas where E10 fuel was legally mandated, lexus noticed a high rate of warranty replacements of the fuel injection pump and fuel injector failure, as well as fuel leaks from the fuel injection manifold. This was found to be ethanol induced corrosion of the metal alloys used in the injection pump and manifolds. Oxidation and debris from the corrosion would also clog injectors or cause them to leak.
These cars were recalled in the US, but were not recalled outside of the US. Customers with these cars who are now out of warranty are potentially SOL, if they live in an area where E10 is expected to be mandated shortly.
It's not just recent Japanese cars that have problems with E10. Recent european cars also have major problems with E10. Mercedes-Benz vehicles built between 2002 and 2005 are not E10 compatible, as are numerous post 2000 Fiat vehicles, Audi/Volkswagen/Seat/Skoda vehicles with direct injection systems built before 2006, etc. The list of non-compatible cars is very long.
I live in Iowa. We grow a lot of corn here. But there are other crops, things like soybean and sunflower. You know what happens when the demand for ethanol goes up? The price of corn goes up. And then what? People stop planting as much soybean and sunflower because corn is making them more. And then what? The price of soybean and sunflower goes up because there's a drop in supply.
And that's why a large bag of sunflower seed for my birdfeeder darn near doubled in price a few years ago, everyone was pulling out their sunflower and replacing it with corn. You don't really notice all these effects until they start hitting you.
Farmers will hedge their bets, plant multiple kinds of crops in case one of them tanks due to weather, but the ratio they mix in varies, to balance return and risk. When return on their main crop goes up, they can take bigger risks by pulling more of the less profitable crops out.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
So, by replacing 10% of the gasoline with ethanol, you lose 20% of the energy? Man, ethanol really sucks! Does E85 reduce a flex fuel vehicle's mileage by 170%, then?
Since "anonymous coward" clearly doesn't know the answer, I'll help. People typically report losing about 20% of the mileage with E85 v/s gasoline, assuming no other changes (it's actually closer to 34%, but E85 is only 85% max, and then only in the summer; it's way less in cold weather, so that's probably why people see an average of 20-ish percent). Running E10 costs around 3% of your mileage, which is 1MPG in a 30 MPG car - or about the difference you'd see if you accelerate briskly from a couple more stoplights than usual.
It isn't just that other food can't be grown on farmland, unused land perviously set aside for conservation is being tilled to plant corn, which releases stored CO2 from the soil. Massive amounts of additional fertilizer are being applied -- fertilizer is made from natural gas. This fertilizer is increasing the size of the Gulf Dead Zone.
source: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/11/5902607/the-secret-dirty-cost-of-obamas.html
Corn is not sugar cane. Brazil can get away with ethanol because sugar cane is 6x more productive than corn: favorable corn estimates have an energy return about 1.3x energy expended while cane returns about 8x energy expended. If we were to have a rational ethanol policy, we'd make friends with Cuba and buy rum for our cars.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
The ethanol boosts the octane and improves burning.
From Wikipedia:
Where the octane number is raised by blending in ethanol, energy content per volume is reduced.
Ethanol has a lower energy density than gasoline. It slightly improves the "smoothness of burning" (octane rating) but reduces the energy of combustion. It also, in some cases, reduces the percentage of fuel burned. "Octane rating" is not a measure of fuel efficiency or energy content.
A modern computer-controlled engine using software that adjusts the timing to reduce ping is probably a better and more efficient solution than adding ethanol.
Is that why the republicans voted to stop obamacare which centrally manages 1/5 of the nations economy?
No, that's why they voted to approve it.
The reason why they voted to stop "Obamacare" in particular is because it was suggested by Obama, not because they actually have any ideological stances on economic freedom (Tea Party aside).
"If you fill a car with 100% gasoline and park it for 20 years, it'll start right up."
Bullshit!! You will be cleaning the varnish and other settled crud out of the jets/fuel bowl, injectors/lines, pumps, and the fuel tank. I've got a fifty year old combine out back that's been sitting for twenty years in 2014 with just such a problem along with two cars and a tractor that were in the same boat that had been sitting for even less time.
For anyone too lazy to look at the link provided by shutdown, the link shows that some republicans at some time or another supported the idea of an individual mandate. No references are given and there is no mention of a vote.
The fact is that every republican in the house voted against it with 34 democrats joining in. The senate voted 60-39 for obamacare with the 60 being democrats and independants. Not one democrat voted against.
Shutdown - you are full of crap.
If you've been following the politics of this for years, the republicans have created and supported the same basic thing on a state level, and have proposed it on the national level more than once. The difference is this one was supported by Obama, so of course in their current obstructionist fuck obama at any cost mindset, they are against this one.
This isn't the only time they've declared war on something they had previously supported just because Obama said, hey, that really is a good idea. There have been 3 proposals/bills I know of since Obama won that their authors, republicans, did an about face on the moment Obama voiced support for it.
The republicans opposition towards anything that is supported by Obama has no meaning other than the old white boys thinking,"Not gonna let that darkie do nuthing".
(Or at least I'm assuming that's the main reason behind their lack of reasoning, racism and stupidity, because it's on the whole, completely irrational.)
By the way, my guesses about their thoughts are based both on their actions and statements. (They've done everything except call him by a racial epithet. Correction, some of them have used racial epithets to refer to President Obama. So you can bet that since they are pretty much in lockstep, the others are thinking the same thing the others haven't yet publicly stated.)
I think PBS Frontline is a fairly non-biased source of information:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/interviews/pollan.html
So most people think of a cow as something that's out grazing, and then is taken to the slaughterhouse. ... No, not true. Cows see very little grass nowadays in their lives. They get them on corn as fast as they can, which speeds up their lifespan, gets them really fat, and allows you to slaughter them within 14 months.
The problem with this system, or one of the problems with this system, is that cows are not evolved to digest corn. It creates all sorts of problems for them. The rumen is designed for grass. And corn is just too rich, too starchy. So as soon as you introduce corn, the animal is liable to get sick.
It creates a whole [host] of changes to the animal. So you have to essentially teach them how to eat corn. You teach their bodies to adjust. And this is done in something called the backgrounding pen at the ranch, which is kind of the prep school for the feedlot. Here's where you teach them how to eat corn.
You start giving them antibiotics, because as soon as you give them corn, you've disturbed their digestion, and they're apt to get sick, so you then have to give them drugs. That's how you get in this whole cycle of drugs and meat. By feeding them what they're not equipped to eat well, we then go down this path of technological fixes, and the first is the antibiotics. Once they start eating the [corn], they're more vulnerable. They're stressed, so they're more vulnerable to all the different diseases cows get. But specifically they get bloat, which is just a horrible thing to happen. They stop ruminating.