Lawmakers Out To Kill the Corn-Based Ethanol Mandate

mdsolar tips this report: "Teams of lawmakers are working hard on bills to cut corn-based ethanol out of the country's biofuel mandate entirely, according to National Journal. It's the latest twist in America's fraught relationship with biofuels, which started in 2005 when Congress first mandated that a certain amount of biofuel be mixed into the country's fuel supply. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was then expanded in 2007, with separate requirements for standard biofuel on the one hand and cellulosic and advanced biofuels on the other. The latter are produced from non-food products like cornstalks, agricultural waste, and timber industry cuttings. The RFS originally called for 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2010, 250 million in 2011, and 500 million in 2012. Instead, the cellulosic industry failed to get off the ground. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was forced to revise the mandate down to 6.5 million in 2010, and all the way down to zero in 2012. The cellulosic mandate has started to slowly creep back up, and 2014 may be the year when domestic production of cellulosic ethanol finally takes off. But then last month EPA did something else for the first time: it cut down the 2014 mandate for standard biofuel, produced mainly from corn. And now Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) have teamed up on legislation that would eliminate the standard biofuel mandate entirely."

Comments

Maybe this corn can be used for food again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this corn used for ethanol can be used for food again?

Or, at the least animal feed, so the price at the grocery store isn't as bad, and farmers/ranchers are not as pinched as before.

Re:Maybe this corn can be used for food again?

[icebike]

Well, I applaud them for trying to end it, but it was never wise to turn over the best food growing land to fuel production.
It was known from the beginning that it took more energy than it produced.

Cellulose is the only way to go. One of the most promising sources is switch grass, which can be grown on much more marginal land, and pretty much re-plants itself (due to deep roots).

Had an equal amount of money been put into cellulosic ethanol we wouldn't be stuck with a corn industry that is driving up food prices, and depleting prime agricultural soils. Nor would be have a bunch of corn processing facilities that will require significant work to convert to anything else.

This has been an expensive failed experiment, about what you would expect when you rush something into production rather than letting the science and the industry develop. The problem was they didn't set it up to allow competition between sources. They went full funding and full legislative mandate for a single solution before they even did much research.

Re:Maybe this corn can be used for food again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lifted from
Sanity, he suggests, is "when a person is adaptable and satiable, capable of realistic planning and empathizing with his fellow beings." In the book, he expands on these traits:
flexibility -- to be able to change your opinion or course of action, if shown clear evidence you were wrong.
satiability -- the ability to feel satisfaction if you actually get what you said you wanted, and to transfer your strivings to other goals.
extrapolation -- an ability to realistically assess the possible consequences of your actions and to empathize, or guess how another person might think or feel.

Re:Maybe this corn can be used for food again?

[93 Escort Wagon]

I applaud them for trying. I also applaud them louder for realizing it didn't work and ending it.

I'm not against government mandates per se - the clean air / clean water acts were hugely necessary. I'm all for minimum fuel efficiency standards. I also believe government has a necessary role in funding stuff which requires a long-enough term investment that the private sector is unlikely to find it worthwhile to get involved.

BUT I don't like it when the government says "here's how you're going to accomplish this goal", because they just about ALWAYS screw that up.

This is a perfect case in point. They certainly identified the problem correctly... but then they had to meddle because there was just too much political hay to be made. Even when this corn ethanol program started, it was already pretty well established that corn was the wrong source material to use for fuel. As I recall, there was already a near consensus among researchers that switchgrass was probably the way to go. But they let some powerful legislators from the midwest shape the program in a manner designed NOT to be good for the country's long-term interests, but good for their short-term political gain. And, predictably, now many people see the whole idea in a negative light - it raised the price of food, it raised the price of fuel, and in the end it didn't work.

If the government is going to do this sort of thing, they should stick to setting broadly-stated targets. If they want to say "XX% of your energy/fuel must come from renewable sources by 2030", that's fine with me. But don't dictate that it has to be ethanol, or wind, or solar, or geothermal, or whatever. Let the private sector figure out how best to get to the goal - but don't relax the standards for them when they whine!

Re:Maybe this corn can be used for food again?

[mrchaotica]

In principle, I agree with the sentiment that trying something out, realizing that it doesn't work and stopping it is good.

However, the underlying problem is that they set themselves up for failure because they didn't just say "we want ethanol fuel, and we'll let industry figure out the most efficient way to produce it," they said "we want ethanol, and we're going to subsidize a stupid way of producing it."

Now the question is, will they understand that they failed at regulation, or will they (mistakenly) think biofuels failed as a solution?

Probably a good thing

[cold fjord]

Probably a good thing. Using corn or other edible crops has been linked to rising food prices that have been painful in the third world, the US, and Europe.

Record Food Prices Linked to Biofuels
How biofuels contribute to the food crisis
Biofuel rule puts turkey farmers in fret over corn costs
EU votes on crucial cap on biofuels made from food crops

There are other ways to do it.

'Biofuel from non-food crops within 15 years'
U.S. to Pay Farmers for Non-Food Crops for Biofuels, Vilsack Says
Quest for cheap, nonfood biofuel starts with a brewery

Of course it may not be popular is some states.

About Time guys....

[bobbied]

This NEVER made sense environmentally, economically or technically.

Technically, we hit the "blend wall" at about 10%. Above that amount, gasoline engines start to have issues with Ethanol. Rubber seals, hoses and plastic parts in fuel systems start having reduced lifespan. Above 10% some engines start having other internal issues. Gas mileage is reduced because Ethanol has a lower energy density. Ethanol is a water magnet, it mixes with water easily and is hard to keep "dry" so rusting and corrosion becomes more common in fuel systems.

Environmentally, the production of ethanol doesn't really reduce emissions of C02 when you count the whole process of growing, harvesting, storing, transporting, processing into ethanol, transporting, blending and transporting the product again. It was at best a wash. Then when you consider how much more fertilizer, pesticides and tilling add to the environmental impact it clearly becomes a negative.

Economically, the case is even worse. The whole process of producing ethanol is both labor and capital expensive. It is obviously more expensive as a motor fuel. Then when you consider what has happened to food prices as corn (a base part of much of what we eat as well as feed for animals we use for food) prices have gone up.

But what about or dependance on foreign Oil imports? It helped, but was it worth it? T Boon Pickens has the answer to that. He thinks that we are stupid to convert food into fuel when we could be using abundant Natural Gas for a motor fuel. Converting gasoline engines to use natural gas is not that hard (albeit harder than 10% Ethanol) it works great with reduced range due to energy density. Refueling times can be comparable to gasoline and a large distribution network already exists in much of the nation.

It's time. Do away with this mistake.

Good... alternatives are better

[BenJeremy]

Switchgrass, Sugar Cane, and Hemp all provide more sustainable, easier-to-convert alternatives to creating ethanol, which, even with the subsidy, was more expensive per mile to operate vehicles with when made using corn.

These alternatives cost about 30% less to convert and are easier to grow.