Transterrestrial Musings

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Actually, it's a crticism of the entire U.S. politcal class, of which Republicans are roughly half. It's not exactly like the Democrats have covered themselves in glory on this issue either. Given their commanding lead in numbers of adherents who are ga-ga for alternative fuels, the Dems are, arguably, worse. The only Democrat I can recall ever making negative noises about corn-based ethanol was a fictional character on The West Wing - and even he wimped out because of Iowa Caucus politics and woudn't say such things in public.

Posted by Dick Eagleson at June 23, 2007 06:20 PM

This is simply wrong Rand, or at best grossly exaggerated.

If the US in particular but also the EU starts using some (not all) of their abundant oversupply of farm produce (much of which is in effect destroyed, if nothing else during storage and shipping) the following will happen:
- the US (and much less so the EU) will export less food to the world at large and especially to China
- China will have to look elsewhere for it's substantial imports (chinese farmers will be more than happy to take up some of the slack)
- the real inflation-adjusted price of food will stop going down, hopefully even go up a bit
- African countries will both be able to export more food (a goal they've been working towards for years in the WTO together with latin america and south america) and get a better price for it (that's still the case even if the price just stops from going further down)
- the food prices will stabilize at a new market-determined level

There's been a surplus of food in the world for a long time and it has hurt farmers in less developed countries the most.

To any who disagree please explain the following:

- why is it that Brazil manages to do just fine? Sure sugar cane is way more fit for use as a fuel and much less necessary in large quantities as food but still sugar is cheap enough that the US has massive tariffs on importing it. There's no lack of food in Brazil.

- why is it that just about every single underdeveloped nation has been fighting to be allowed to export more food to the US and EU markets for decades?

And as far as famine is concerned a Nobel Prize in economics went to Professor Amartya Sen in 1998 for, among other subjects, his empirical studies of famine. A small quote:
"Analysis of famine
Sen's best-known work in this area is his book from 1981: Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Here, he challenges the common view that a shortage of food is the most important (sometimes the only) explanation for famine. On the basis of a careful study of a number of such catastrophes in India, Bangladesh, and Saharan countries, from the 1940s onwards, he found other explanatory factors. He argues that several observed phenomena cannot in fact be explained by a shortage of food alone, e.g. that famines have occurred even when the supply of food was not significantly lower than during previous years (without famines), or that faminestricken areas have sometimes exported food."

From the Nobel Prize page.

I just don't get the horror of using some of it for fuel. I don't see why the assumption is that somehow all food will end up as machine fuel rather than human fuel, can someone provide an example of a commodity that has more than one major use where one of them has monopolized it?

Posted by at June 23, 2007 07:12 PM

Mark this date on your calendar: I have to agree with the anonymous person above. There is plenty of food in the world. o much is produced by the highly efficient farms of the western world that farmers in places like africa simply cannot compete; they certainly cannot compete with the essentially free food that is given out by various charitable organizations, and it is ironic that one of the chief causes of famine in Africa is the inability of African farmers to make a profit, since their countries are being flooded with food aid. Far better for American farmers to actually produce sugar (or even better algae) for use as biodiesel rather than dumping and wasting millions of tons of surplus. Does it make any sense at all that America subsidises its farmers and actually pays them to *not* produce crops?

Posted by Ed Minchau at June 23, 2007 08:40 PM

Corn-based ethanol isn't the brightest idea... if that's where things ended.

We have tremendous knowledge on making ethanol from anything remotely starchy-sugary. But... not for _fuel_. For efficiency we want something that decomposes cellulose instead. And not into methanol.

There have been advancements all over the map in this field.

I personally think that somewhere in here genetic engineering is going to make a substantial contribution. The normal route is plant -> sugar -> ferment -> alcohol -> purify. And there's clearly room for things like (not necessarily edible) killer giant potatoes.

But if either the plant's preferred type of energy storage could be tweaked... or an enzymatic route to convert whatever-to-ethanol directly. The separation/purification steps are the current efficiency sinks.

Posted by Al at June 23, 2007 10:16 PM

Oops I see I somehow managed to avoid signing my post above (the second one), sorry about that.

Posted by Habitat Hermit at June 24, 2007 03:39 AM

How do you drive up the price of food that's given away for free? If the food was an automobile or integrated chip, many would call what the US is doing in Africa; illegal trade, dumping.

I'm against mandatory Ethanol requirements. Let the market decide. But let's not confuse the issue with unsound market decisions designed to gain political points.

Posted by Leland at June 24, 2007 05:35 AM

We keep hearing how using corn to make ethanol will drive up the price of corn. But since when did a temporary rise in prices of farm commodities not drive more of that crop to be planted? Not to mention the fact that thousands of acres of tillable land is not being tilled and the USDA is paying farmers to NOT plant corn to keep the price up. Lower the subsidy and see if there isn't more corn planted. All of the figures for removing corn from the food chain and placing it in the fuel chain, are zero sum math problems. There is never an assumption of an ability or a move to grow more corn.

And why just corn? I'm a home brewer. Why not more barley? Malt makes GREAT alcohol. Why not rice? Ever drink Sake? Quit potently alcoholic. Corn is not the be all and end all.

Also swithchgrass seems to be a better source for ethanol than corn There is less fibrous waste and it can be double cropped in some of the southeast. It grows well, if early testing is right, in all of the lower 48 states. Corn and grains are a stop gap for ethanol.

Here is the real problem. Every effing time someone comes up with even a partial solution to our foreign oil problem, our pollution problem , our national transportation problem, some green screaming tree hugging, bunny lover comes yelling and railing against the proposal. Its stupid to think that there is or ever will be a total 100% win for power to run our modern world. Turning corn into fuel isn't going to cause a famine. More people starve in this world everyday because of food being used as a tool to control the population than from an actual LACK of food. The totalitarian, war lord, Islamofascist, nut jobs of the world are the cause of starving the people, not my short drive to the beach or mountains in my Hummer or my hybrid.

Posted by Steve at June 24, 2007 08:24 AM

Personally I don't buy into the biofuel thing. I would rether put my money into using oil to power the seperation of hydrogen from water. The oil is there already, the process won't change. Biofuel is a 'renewable' resource, but only if the weather cooperates, the climate doesn't change, and the prosess can adapt to different crops if something goes wrong.
In short, I am reluctant to place the energy production of this country in the hands of something more unpredictable than foriegn governments; namely the weather.

Posted by Lazlo at June 24, 2007 10:34 AM

Governmental interference in markets usually leads to an overall welfare loss. Subsidizing ethanol production in not likely to be an exception to this generalization. Subsidizing the latest political fashion means less wealth gets created on the margins, which means the poorest people get hurt. And in the short and medium terms unanticipated market disruptions, caused by the subsidies, themselves cause problems for poor people such as those who now must pay twice as much for corn.

Posted by Jonathan at June 24, 2007 11:50 AM

Sure, corn production in the USA is very efficient in terms of yield per acre or per human-hour. But not in terms of energy. In fact, the production of corn has negative energy efficiency; in other words, more energy is used from fossil fuels to grow corn than is available from it. If you are using the corn as food, this makes sense; but if you're making fuel out of it, it makes no sense at all.

The real solution is to buy sugar from places that are good at growing it. However, this means giving money to Brazil (samba dancers) rather than to the Middle East (suicide bombers) and Venezuela/Columbia (drug dealers). Of course, given the fact that the current American president is bought and paid for by the oil barons, this isn't going to change any time soon.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at June 24, 2007 01:16 PM

Anon at 7:12 PM said

To any who disagree please explain the following:
- why is it that Brazil manages to do just fine? Sure sugar cane is way more fit for use as a fuel and much less necessary in large quantities as food but still sugar is cheap enough that the US has massive tariffs on importing it. There's no lack of food in Brazil.

Simple explanation ethanol had almost nothing to do with Brazil's energy independence.

ethanol output in Brazil, the world's biggest producer, is only a small share of its energy consumption.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva didn't celebrate the oil independence milestone out in an Amazon sugar field.

No, he smashed a champagne bottle on the spaceship-like deck of Brazil's vast P-50 oil rig in the Albacora Leste field in the deep blue Atlantic. Why? Brazil's oil independence had virtually nothing to do with its ethanol development. It came from drilling oil.

This is a fact that ethanol boosters never mention.

The fact that we are using tariffs to keep Brazilian ethanol out of the US clearly shows that ethanol policy is designed with only one purpose, to subsidize US farmers and ethanol producers.

Posted by TJIT at June 24, 2007 01:41 PM

"In fact, the production of corn has negative energy efficiency; in other words, more energy is used from fossil fuels to grow corn than is available from it. "

In fact, this is likely not true at all. Ethanol appears to have a positive energy balance. Nothing to write home about but positive. and it also appears only one fifth of the energy necessary to produce and distribute corn ethanol comes from petrol, the rest comes from other sources.

So, at worst, you are trading coal for liquid.

Still, this is hopefully a 'pump priming' bridge technology to promote the E85 vehicles to use and the infrastructure to distribute future non-corn based ethanol product.

Why would anyone devote resources to developing this when there are no way of distributing it?

Read more about the energy balance here:

http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html

Posted by Mike Puckett at June 24, 2007 01:43 PM

Steve said

Here is the real problem. Every effing time someone comes up with even a partial solution to our foreign oil problem, our pollution problem , our national transportation problem, some green screaming tree hugging, bunny lover comes yelling and railing against the proposal

There is another problem, just as damaging , that Steve and others suffer from.

It is the mistaken belief that just because a fuel is not petroleum based it is better then oil and is going to increase US energy independence. The link below shows why this is a dangerous fallacy.

My opposition to ethanol is primarily due to the inefficiency of the process.

To make ethanol, we use petroleum-fueled tractors to plow the fields. We apply petroleum-based herbicides to kill the weeds. We apply petroleum-based pesticides to kill the bugs. We apply petroleum-based fertilizers to feed the plants.
We harvest the corn with petroleum-fueled tractors, and ship the corn to the ethanol plants in petroleum-fueled trucks. The ethanol plants are natural gas hogs, consuming enormous quantities to ferment and purify an ethanol solution that is primarily water.

We then ship the ethanol, often halfway across the country, in petroleum-fueled trucks. The customer on the receiving end pays less than market price for the ethanol, due to the subsidies, which are paid by taxpayers. Then, they suffer a decrease in gas mileage, meaning they have to fuel up more often.

Here is a pretty good rule of thumb for energy sources.

If you have to subsidize a fuel source that fuel source is not capable of replacing a meaningful amount of petroleum.

Posted by TJIT at June 24, 2007 02:20 PM

We've left the red herring of famine but I still don't buy the counter-arguments provided and here is the main reason above all others:

By mandating/subsidising (if needed) a diversification of fuels one opens up at least one new vector to attack the problem with. The case can be made that at least some help is needed if one wants to speed up implementation, particularly in regard to infrastructure issues.

I know politicians are unlikely to act in accordance to me but I don't support anything but temporary subsidies on the actual fuel, they're not needed if a certain level of consumption is mandated. Likewise a mandate ought to be temporary and removed or decreased as the new industry matures.

The new "attack vector" will both spur continued development and potentially ease the way for introducing other additional (hydrocarbon) alternatives later on. Perhaps those will be based on cellulose, human & animal waste, coal, or something completely new, time will tell but there is promising research going on in relation to all the named ones. Introducing ethanol and biofuels will be the first step to help weaken and break what amounts to a energy supply monoculture at least when it comes to automotive fuels.

I think the above argument is strong enough to make macroeconomic sense over the duration of a decade even if ethanol from crops is presently as oil-intensive as TJIT claims, not that I believe that to be true or even if true that it is or will remain unavoidable.

But what if we don't introduce it? What happens then? Do we still sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for that elusive silver bullet? I know the comparison fails on many details but do we want to keep repeating the 70ies "answer" of not actually diversifying?

TJIT: thanks for the great link on Brazil, I don't disagree with it since I don't think ethanol or other biofuels will magically replace everything -it won't be a silver bullet. But if you use the article as an argument against any use of ethanol and biofuels at all then you miss the mark by a mile.

The graph in the article seems to illustrate that ethanol accounts for between a sixth or a seventh of the combined oil and ethanol output in barrels (in '06, the most recent figures). Now let's cut that by a third since ethanol as a fuel provides less energy and we get something like 1/21th. That makes it pretty obvious that the energy independence would have been approximately 4.76% harder to achieve without the ethanol right? It has lessened the amount of drilling and oil needed to achieve energy independence right? I'll excuse IBD for their "virtually nothing" characterization since they're rightfully driving the point home against Clinton's simpleminded populism (and I'm sure there's plenty in any party who would do the same error).

Something doesn't need to be a silver bullet to be worthwhile (the exact point of other posters here). I'll take my additional 4% of energy anywhere I can get it.

In respect to the next decade of time:
- nuclear (fission) can't do it even if we got a massive construction program tomorrow (I'm all for it)
- solar can't do it
- wind can't do it
- hydro-anything can't do it (not even over here in Norway)
- geothermal or aquathermal can't do it (Iceland is special since they're "living in a geyser")
- biofuels can't do it
- clean coal processes can't do it
- all the other minor alternatives can't do it
- energy conservation can't do it
- hell, fusion can't do it even if we got it working tomorrow

But they can all be part of the solution if one thinks increased energy independence and diversification are good goals (for whatever reason). I don't see the point of removing petrolium and coal from the energy equation but I do see the point of decreasing their dominating influence.

Disclaimer: I don't worry too much about global warming and think bunnies are cuter than most animals. I wouldn't mind hugging a tree but try to avoid eco-nuts as they're easy to choke on ^_^

p.s. TJIT petrolium production is substantially subsidized and rightly so, your rule of thumb isn't all that meaningful

Posted by Habitat Hermit at June 24, 2007 05:18 PM

I just don't like ethanol because of how much it kills the mpg and because of all the land it takes to make a small dent in our fuel usage. I'd rather sink the money into increasing domestic oil production.

Posted by Josh Reiter at June 24, 2007 06:18 PM

TJIT, fossil fuel-derived fertilizer is natural gas-based not petroleum-based. Transportation is the biggest dependency on oil.

For me, the real problem is that the US subsidizes the relatively uneconomic process of extracting ethanol from corn while biofuels from sources that make more sense, eg, switchgrass, sugercane, foreign imports, or algae is not so subsidized. This is a pointless redistribution of economic resources.

Also, corn might not get more expensive as more farmers switch over to grow it. But other foods will get more expensive as more farmers switch from growing that to growing corn. And I question the wisdom of encouraging so much of the US to grow a single crop.

Finally, it appears that ADM (arthur Daniels Midler corporation) is making a killing on blatant corporate welfare.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at June 25, 2007 05:23 AM

TJ said,

There is another problem, just as damaging , that Steve and others suffer from.

It is the mistaken belief that just because a fuel is not petroleum based it is better then oil and is going to increase US energy independence. The link below shows why this is a dangerous fallacy.

I have no such belief. As a matter of fact I used to work in the oil fields near Bakersfield, so man are you off base on your assumption of my beliefs. The topic I was addressing was ethanol and famine so I chimed in. Personally I think we need to open up ANWR to get more domestic oil. We also need to build refineries on old military bases that are already on the EPA lists as super fund sites.

I find it odd that you "knew" what I thought about a given topic, I thought that was my wifes job.

Posted by Steve at June 25, 2007 05:46 AM

There are significant problems with many of the studies that show ethanol has positive energy balance.

How Reliable are Those USDA Ethanol Studies?

they only focused on the 9-highest corn producing states. Nebraska again provides a perfect example of how the energy balance tends to get much worse as you move away from the best corn-producing areas. The energy input for Nebraska is almost 20,000 BTU/bushel higher than for the 9-state weighted average, primarily due to their need to irrigate. So, their energy balance will be much worse than the average number that was ultimately calculated. Given the selective accounting employed in the USDA papers (both 2002 and 2004), it is doubtful that it would have passed peer-review without substantial modification. While I have my reservations about the data used by Pimentel, the USDA work is very shoddy in comparison.

Posted by TJIT at June 25, 2007 08:29 AM

Habitati Hermit said,

By mandating/subsidising (if needed) a diversification of fuels one opens up at least one new vector to attack the problem with. The case can be made that at least some help is needed if one wants to speed up implementation, particularly in regard to infrastructure issues.
I know politicians are unlikely to act in accordance to me but I don't support anything but temporary subsidies on the actual fuel, they're not needed if a certain level of consumption is mandated. Likewise a mandate ought to be temporary and removed or decreased as the new industry matures.

The new "attack vector" will both spur continued development and potentially ease the way for introducing other additional (hydrocarbon) alternatives later on. Perhaps those will be based on cellulose, human & animal waste, coal, or something completely new, time will tell but there is promising research going on in relation to all the named ones. Introducing ethanol and biofuels will be the first step to help weaken and break what amounts to a energy supply monoculture at least when it comes to automotive fuels.

I think the above argument is strong enough to make macroeconomic sense over the duration of a decade

Your heart is in the right place but wishful thinking does not make something technically feasible.

I'm trying to be diplomatic here but what you say in block quotes above sounds like much of the hubris from the internet bubble.

Lots of marketing jargon but no technical mechanism to back up what the folks in marketing have promised.

We have already spent billions of dollars and decades of time subsidizing ethanol and it has been and remains a complete and utter bust.

Ethanol Keeps ADM Drunk On Tax Dollars

Over the years, ethanol has benefited from a host of taxpayer supports. The Carter administration provided hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidized loans to a dozen gasohol producers and imposed a tariff on imported ethanol.

Posted by TJIT at June 25, 2007 09:28 AM

Habitat Hermit said

thanks for the great link on Brazil... But if you use the article as an argument against any use of ethanol and biofuels at all then you miss the mark by a mile.
The graph in the article seems to illustrate that ethanol accounts for between a sixth or a seventh of the combined oil and ethanol output in barrels (in '06, the most recent figures). It has lessened the amount of drilling and oil needed to achieve energy independence right?

Honestly the answer is wrong especially since brazil's ethanol situation is radically different then the US situation.

Brazil has a tropical climate that is perfect for growing sugar cane which is a much better feedstock for ethanol production. Given all of those advantages they only manged to displace a small portion of their petroleum usage with ethanol.

The situation for ethanol in the US is going to be much worse.

Posted by TJIT at June 25, 2007 09:40 AM

I appreciate the effort. I don't mind honest disagreement and I'm sure neither of us are likely to change opinon "just because". I guess this reply is sort of in vain since the fundamental difference seems to be that you believe ethanol production would consume more petrolium than it replaces. But even if you believe that do you believe that it must always be so?

If you ran a business you wouldn't want to rely on a sole supplier right? This whole thing is just the same situation only with regard to energy supply. It's not marketing jargon but plain business sense. I don't see ethanol as an end-state, just as a beginning.

Add that energy demands are quite naturally increasing and it makes even less sense not to diversify and enable additional energy to enter the market.

Another addition is that agriculture will continue to get more efficient. One example is that we've already got technology like hydroponics (per 2005 only used on about 768 acres in the US with the biggest farm being 256 acres) that lowers fertilizer use, water use, and runoff problems while increasing output efficiency per area. That's on bare rock if you so prefer, no tillable land required. Aeroponics takes it even further and dramatically so but hasn't yet been implemented on large scales (due to happen if/when biopharming takes off). Currently those technologies are pretty much unneeded but they're there.

Why the focus on corn? It makes zero sense from a technical or agricultural point of view to produce corn if the intended market is ethanol and not food. At least over here in Europe the choice crop for fuel seems to be mustard. Others here have already pointed out switchgrass as a good fuel crop alternative for parts of the US.

Whatever Carter did a generation ago is more or less meaningless, whatever Cato wrote 10 years ago is somewhat more meaningful. However 26 or even 10 years is an awful long time in relation to technology or knowledge and even more importantly the market situation. The technologies we're talking about aren't science fiction, they're working successfully right now and not just in Brazil. The real debate should concern the degree of utilization and details of implementation rather than anything else.

Back to the Cato/ADM issue I can't blame the criticism as it seems more an example of corruption and cronyism than any real effort at energy diversification. Somewhat recent moves that do indicate real efforts are:
- replacing equipment on gas stations and in the delivery infrastructure so that it can better handle ethanol and gas mixes
- most major auto/engine companies aiming for engines that are suited to ethanol and gas mixes and/or other biofuels

Will it be messy? Yes because unfortunately the structural choices are on a political decision-making level.

Your last argument on Brazil doesn't make any sense since I'm making a point about the brazilian path towards energy independence. I guess I should restate the last quoted sentence for clarity:
"It has lessened the amount of drilling and oil needed to achieve brazilian energy independence right?"

As a sidenote I think you should indicate when you break a quote apart, here's the missing sentences before the last sentence of the quote:
"Now let's cut that by a third since ethanol as a fuel provides less energy and we get something like 1/21th. That makes it pretty obvious that the energy independence would have been approximately 4.76% harder to achieve without the ethanol right?"

Nor am I saying that the US will likely be a carbon copy of Brazil, there's no reason to think so. If anything I would think the typical US "can-do" attitude will do much better but it's all besides the point which is that no matter if it's a 1% or 4% or 20% it's still an increase enabling both energy diversification and independence.

Posted by Habitat Hermit at June 25, 2007 12:46 PM

Cellulosic ethanol would be great, but it's going to take even more experience and development to make it truly competitive. I am reasonably optimistic this will happen.

For that reason, ethanol subsidies could be a wonderful idea. They could provide the nuturing environment in which the technologies can mature.

One other note: it's ok from the US point of view if ethanol displaces petroleum use in other countries, not just (or even!) in the US. If we make cellulosic ethanol work in Brazil, that reduces the global demand for gasoline, which reduces the price of gasoline and sends fewer dollars to terrorism supporters.

The last point is the most crucial, I think. We need to choke off the petrodollars going to our adversaries. It worked against the USSR; it can work again.

Posted by Paul Dietz at June 25, 2007 01:27 PM

Habitat Hermit,

Thanks for the courteous reply. We are going to have to agree to disagree.

I clipped the Brazil comment because the original article was more favorable to your position then your comments were. You started at 1/6 with is about 17 percent and then you cut it down to 4.67 percent which was worse for your argument.

Among the many reasons to oppose ethanol are

1. Driven by lobbyist for corn farmers and ethanol producers it has become a huge component of US energy supply. This focus on ethanol is a waste of money and poses a grave threat of starving other workable solutions of the money they need to become successful

Bluntly, if ethanol will not work in the much more favorable area of Brazil it can not and will not work in the US.

The laws of physics and engineering are iron clad and can't be broken no matter how many slogans the politicians throw at them.

2. Ethanol is starting to cause significant damage to other parts of the economy.

Ethanol's Growing List of Enemies

The ethanol movement is sprouting a vocal crop of critics. ... The effort is uniting ranchers and environmentalists, hog farmers and hippies, solar-power idealists and free-market pragmatists.
Their common contentions are that the focus on corn-based ethanol has been too hasty, and the government's active involvement—through subsidies for ethanol refiners and high tariffs to keep out alternatives like ethanol made from sugar—is likely to lead to chaos in other sectors of the economy.

If ethanol was not mandated and subsidized no one would be making it. Ethanol as mandated in the US is a complete engineering, economic, and ecological bust.

All wishful thinking to the contrary the US government will never be able to make up for ethanols many deficits just by throwing lots of money at it.

Posted by TJIT at June 25, 2007 01:54 PM

The laws of physics and engineering are iron clad and can't be broken no matter how many slogans the politicians throw at them.

I am unaware of any "laws of physics and engineering" which say ethanol, particularly cellulosic ethanol, cannot become competitive with, or cheaper than, gasoline on an energy-equivalent basis, particularly at today's gasoline prices. Perhaps you could tell us precisely which laws these are, and precisely how they apply?

Note that the assertion 'corn ethanol is not energy positive' fails to support the claim, even if it were true.

starving other workable solutions of the money

This contention is economically obtuse. Ethanol at low market penetration, particularly limited to just the US, has no significant effect on the potential profitability of other options. And corn ethanol cannot achieve more than a limited market share.

If ethanol is effective at suppressing other options, it's because it's seen as a real, viable, tough competitor. The complaining is then not that it's a fraud, but that it's getting an unfair jumpstart in the race.

Posted by Paul Dietz at June 25, 2007 02:35 PM

Paul Dietz in blockquotes

I am unaware of any "laws of physics and engineering" which say ethanol, particularly cellulosic ethanol, cannot become competitive with, or cheaper than, gasoline on an energy-equivalent basis, particularly at today's gasoline prices. Perhaps you could tell us precisely which laws these are, and precisely how they apply?

Most importantly ethanol violates simple energy balance laws.

If you had bothered to look at the links I provided you would have seen a detailed energy accounting that showed ethanol production is likely a net energy loss.

Note that the assertion 'corn ethanol is not energy positive' fails to support the claim, even if it were true.

Are you seriously arguing that ethanol is a viable fuel even if it requires more energy to make then it produces when it burns?

If you are not and just want to be a stickler on English usage let me amend my statement.

The laws of thermodynamics and heat and mass transfer show that ethanol has small if any positive energy balance. Therefore, laws of physics and engineering clearly show that ethanol is not a viable replacement for petroleum either in an engineering or economic basis.

Posted by TJIT at June 25, 2007 03:18 PM

A look at cellulosic ethanol

Cellulosic Ethanol Reality Check

I firmly believe we should be aggressively researching the potential of cellulosic ethanol. This was after all the topic of my graduate school work at Texas A&M. But I think the hype has gotten way out of touch with reality at this point in time.

That means our 50 million gallon ethanol plant, displacing 0.02% of our annual gasoline demand, would require 714,286/3 = 238,000 acres.
To displace 50% of our current gasoline consumption of 140 billion gallons per year would take 70 billion/0.65 (this is for the lower energy content of ethanol) * 238,000/50 million, for a total acreage requirement of 513 million acres.

This is about 13% of the land area of the United States; land which is presumably being currently used. This is also about 7 times the land area currently utilized for corn production.

Posted by TJIT at June 25, 2007 03:53 PM

Most importantly ethanol violates simple energy balance laws.

But 'TJIT', as I already suggested, an argument like this fails to be responsive to my question, or to justify your claim.

Equating all 'energy' is simpleminded. The point of producing ethanol is not to replace some fictious infinitely fungible 'energy', but to replace gasoline. Other energy sources can be much cheaper than gasoline, but can't be used as liquid fuels; if you can (essentially) convert them to ethanol by means of fermenting biomass, then you can come out ahead.

Specifically, consider coal. At current prices a BTU of heat from coal costs less than $2/GJ in most places.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table4_10_a.html

A gallon of gasoline contains about 131 MJ/gallon; at current wholesale prices it is an order of magnitude more expensive, per unit of heat energy, than coal.

Posted by Paul Dietz at June 26, 2007 04:56 AM

Interesting article on another alternative...

http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4914308.html

Posted by Mac at June 26, 2007 05:28 AM

Paul Dietz,

We will have to agree to disagree.

Please feel free to keep ignoring the numerous links I provided.

The links provide just a sliver of the avalanche of information that shows ethanol is an engineering, economic, ecologic, and market failure as a replacement for gasoline.

The coal link was entertaining but it ignores the fundamental facts of ethanol production.

Ethanol production is a petroleum hog and it reduces fuel economy

To make ethanol, we use petroleum-fueled tractors to plow the fields. We apply petroleum-based herbicides to kill the weeds. We apply petroleum-based pesticides to kill the bugs. We apply petroleum-based fertilizers to feed the plants.
We harvest the corn with petroleum-fueled tractors, and ship the corn to the ethanol plants in petroleum-fueled trucks. The ethanol plants are natural gas hogs, consuming enormous quantities to ferment and purify an ethanol solution that is primarily water.

We then ship the ethanol, often halfway across the country, in petroleum-fueled trucks. The customer on the receiving end pays less than market price for the ethanol, due to the subsidies, which are paid by taxpayers. Then, they suffer a decrease in gas mileage, meaning they have to fuel up more often.

Posted by TJIT at June 26, 2007 10:45 AM

Please feel free to keep ignoring the numerous links I provided.

I'm not. I'm disputing the logic of your argument.

You seem to think that if ethanol is energy negative, then it cannot be practical or useful.

I've pointed out why this is wrong. You have presented no useful rebuttal to my position.

That last quote you present is dishonest, since most of the energy used in growing corn, and converting it to ethanol, is not from petroleum. You are disingenously conflating petroleum inputs and total energy inputs. These are not the same.

Natural gas is currently used in much ethanol manufacture (although switching to coal is occuring, for economic reasons), but this is another example of a fossil energy source that is both cheaper than gasoline and not directly usable as a liquid fuel. Converting it (or coal) to a usable liquid fuel is a fine goal, even if it sticks in your craw.

The links provide just a sliver of the avalanche of information that shows ethanol is an engineering, economic, ecologic, and market failure as a replacement for gasoline.

And yet, you seem to be unable to explain just why this is, facile handwaving about 'laws of physics and engineering' notwithstanding. Gosh, maybe you are reading something into those web sites that just isn't there?

Posted by Paul Dietz at June 26, 2007 11:06 AM

Paul Dietz,

Compressed natural gas is already used directly as a fuel for vehicles.

Wasting natural gas by using it in an energy losing process to produce ethanol instead of burning it directly as an automotive fuel is an appropriate illustration of just how senseless the current ethanol policy is.

Setting aside the energy balance being an ethanol booster requires ignoring.

1. The limited amount of land available to produce biomass for ethanol.

2. The weather risk present in producing biomass for ethanol.

3. The negative financial impact ethanol mandates and subsidies are having on many sectors of the economy.

If ethanol was a feasible replacement for gasoline it would not need subsidies and mandates.

End the ethanol subsidies and I will be glad to support ethanol.

Of course if the mandates and subsidies end ethanol will have to provide a workable solution to US fuel supplies, not merely act as a way of taking taxpayer money and giving it to farmers and ethanol producers.

Cheers,

TJIT

Posted by TJIT at June 26, 2007 06:51 PM

A richer world can afford more food aid. But big distortions in the economy from subsidies (like ethanol) or narrow taxation of only one form of transportation energy (like gasoline) or both cause the world to be poorer too. It was indeed on the Republicans' watch.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at June 27, 2007 11:09 AM

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