Even sugarcane—the most energy-efficient crop for ethanol because of its rapid growth rate and the fact it produces sugar that is ready to be fermented by yeast, unlike starch from corn that requires an additional step—needs some two meters of rainfall a year, which precludes growing it on much of the world's existing arable land. And to replace all of today's gasoline demand with ethanol made from sugarcane would require planting more than 320 million hectares across the tropics—more than half all the land devoted to agriculture presently and multiples of the roughly 20 million hectares of sugarcane planted today. Plus, it takes at least 5.7 liters of water to ferment 3.8 liters of ethanol—even more when the water used to grow corn is counted—an equation that may not work as water becomes a scarce resource. In fact, a 2007 study funded by the Swiss government found that all of today's most significant biofuels—ethanol from corn or sugarcane and biodiesel from soy or palm oil—do more environmental damage overall than do fossil fuels.
Food versus fuel
Perhaps the largest concern about ethanol is illustrated by an oil company's efforts in the U.K.: BP will turn British wheat into ethanol at several facilities in a bid to improve the country's energy security. Of course, wheat is a staple food crop, and using it to make fuel has an impact in global crop markets that results in increasing food prices.
Take corn. The U.S. produces 60 percent of the world's supply of exported corn, and uses that which it keeps for everything from feed for livestock to the sweetener in your beverage of choice. Turning corn into ethanol raises the price of corn, which in turn raises the price of foods such as steak or eggs. Corn now costs more than $7 per bushel, up from $2 per bushel at the turn of the 21st century.
The CBO estimated that ethanol contributes as much as 15 percent to the recent rises in food costs. And that's not just the case in the U.S. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization noted in a 2008 report during the last food crisis that the increase in demand for sugar and corn for biofuels was "one of the leading factors behind the increase in their prices in world markets which, in turn, has led to higher food prices." In fact, the International Food Policy Research Institute has called biofuel subsidies in rich countries the equivalent of a tax on food.
Of course, using homegrown crops—whatever the impact—does reduce the need for the roughly 11 million barrels of foreign oil (and the military entanglements required to secure that foreign oil) the U.S. imports every day; it also improves the livelihoods of rural communities. "We have only just begun to realize the benefits of home-grown fuels," U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said in a February address to the National Ethanol Conference in Phoenix, although he has also expressed skepticism about whether corn is the right crop for fuel.
For the moment, ethanol remains the biofuels king, whether fermented from corn or sugarcane. Oil companies like Shell are investing heavily in sugarcane biofuels, forming a joint venture with Brazilian ethanol company Cosan—dubbed Raizen—to produce 2.2 billion liters of sugarcane ethanol a year. "Of all the alternatives to road-transportation fuels, certainly over the next 20 years, biofuels are the answer," says Shears of Shell, which predicts biofuels will make up some 9 percent of the global transportation fuel market by 2030. "Of all the biofuels options at the moment, Brazilian sugarcane does produce less CO2."
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53 Comments
Add CommentNot to mention the food price increases that result in lower nutrition for much of the world poor. I need a bumper sticker for my car: "Powered by Starving Brown Children"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have to respectfully disagree with the idea that "the environmental reason to pursue a biofuel like ethanol in the first place" was due only to the idea that corn production was renewable. A far more important reason for the corn ethanol industry's growth was the use of ethanol as an octane boosting additive to replace MTBE in recent years, as well as BTX from severe reforming in the 1980s, and tetra-ethyl lead (leaded gasoline) in the 1970s. This issue is still significant and deserves the attention of first-rate science writers like Mr. Biello.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne sided article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpecific points from the article:
Current ethanol 10% of fuel- all corn of 2009 only produces 18% fuel, US exports 60% of world corn. These are the article points, where do my corn chips come from? My question is that the numbers do really not add up.
Also from the article:
I hope ethanol subsidies were more than 19Bill over 20 years (1980-2000). $1 Billion/year isn't a lot of money divided among all the acres. and the total farm subsidy of 7Bill in 2010 (including tax credits, tariffs etc), seems not so big comparatively.(how many billion is the govt defaulting on next Tuesday?) I figure at 10 gal/week, I pay about $5 in taxes on gas. (old numbers but assumed) multiply that by the number of cars, and weeks, and I leave the math to you.
The point is that the cost is notable, but worthwhile. (I am not a farmer) Developing the technology with high starch compounds (corn). Will lead to methods that work with lower concentrations (switch grass). The mentioning of sugar cane was silly as this is a pollution generating crop (burning cane fields). Sugar beets might make sense, but is not economical.
I don't like the tone of the article making farm subsidies and farmers into the bad guy. Sure the big companies are getting the big cut, but they sub contract out the the land owners.
New crop prices were ~$4.5/bushel in the 90's, dropped to <$2.00 at the turn of the century, and have climbed back to ~$6.5 today. this is market fluctuation, not ethanol scandal. If we don't diversify our supply, we become subject to the whims of the sole supplier. It is a cost, but not as bad as your article tone, and I think worth the investment.
Gas prices are a spot commodity, a 10-20% stabilizing influence makes the week to week price fluctuations manageable. The tone of the article was finger pointing, and that solves nothing. While ethanol is more expensive than straight petrol, the real question is what should we change, and what will we do in 10-20 or 50 years if we don't look to alternatives.
Because of the reduced energy and mileage of the 85% blend the cost to use the 85% blend ethanol fuel is more than the lesser blend of 10% and as long as the price difference does not reflect at least equal costs the 85% blend will not be very popular or used. I have recently purchased a FlexiFuel vehicle and am disappointed that the 85% fuel is more costly overall, where is the government subsidy going, it surely is not going to the end consumer, so the program is destined to fail or not provide the desired result unless corrections are made price wise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause of the reduced energy and mileage of the 85% blend the cost to use the 85% blend ethanol fuel is more than the lesser blend of 10% and as long as the price difference does not reflect at least equal costs the 85% blend will not be very popular or used. I have recently purchased a FlexiFuel vehicle and am disappointed that the 85% fuel is more costly overall, where is the government subsidy going, it surely is not going to the end consumer, so the program is destined to fail or not provide the desired result unless corrections are made price wise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for your kind words and you're right. That whole discussion was whittled down to: "After all that trouble, a gallon of ethanol fuel will only drive a car two thirds as far as a gallon of gasoline—it is a less energy-dense fuel—although it does help gasoline to burn without producing suffocating carbon monoxide, the original reason it was blended into the fuel supply." It deserves more discussion for sure but it is also clear that perceived environmental benefits and energy security are the justifications of the day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe most compelling point in the referenced article to me was:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Historical price relationships between corn prices and livestock, poultry, egg, and milk prices show relatively weak correlations. With these low correlations, it is statistically unsupported to suggest that high and/or rising corn prices are the only or even the main reason behind high and rising retail meat, egg and milk product prices."
Which is statistically sound. Basically it boils down to the price of a bushel of corn means very little to the price on your corn flakes. Although the SciAm article refers basically that the cost of using bio-fuels is going to make corn flakes outrageous. (If the author would like to correct this understanding, I'd appreciate feedback)
I have an industry/urban background, but think that a reasonable amount of federal support to farmers is warranted. Without ethanol there would not be reasonable demand for the crop that is being produced (and shipped overseas at a supported discount), and this harvest can be improved without effect to consumer product through bio-engineering (use genetically improved crops for gas). Without the 10% additive from ethanol to fuel the price in gas would move faster.
The energy content argument is based on similar acceleration. The point to ethanol, and why it's used in race cars (as mentioned in the article) is not so that the drivers can make more pit stops, but instead because it releases it's energy faster, and a consumer car can't respond. (so there's a lot of lost energy).
Again, the idea should be how to move forward, and improve. We have enough corn, and are figuring new ways to make more every day. (BTW the algae blooms are from outdated fertilizing tech, modern analyses uses the correct amount in the correct places to prevent runoff, it just takes 20 years to get to the gulf)
If you want to eliminate subsidies, at least have the tax burden reflect the earning potential of the asset. Farmers have long been a backbone of the economy, and reason for the standard of life we enjoy.
Mr. Biello is right when he says that ethanol is the most commercially viable alternative to foreign oil today, but unfortunately he continues to parade some very outdated and inaccurate statements about ethanol as fact. As a representative of the ethanol group, Growth Energy, I would like to address some of these false statements:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, ethanol is not just a short term solution; we can be a long term solution too, if we open the market to higher level blends. In the near term, E15 is a crucial step in giving consumers access to those higher levels. Long term, an investment in infrastructure, like Flex Fuel pumps and Flex Fuel vehicles, will level the playing field and spur the private capital investment move into next generation cellulosic ethanol, a 50-state solution, that studies show reduces greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 100 percent.
Second, the latest crop forecasts indicate that our farmers can produce more than enough grain to satisfy all the demand for food, fuel and feed in this country—all on fewer acres of land. One third of every bushel of corn used in ethanol production goes back into the food supply in the form of a highly nutritious protein called Distillers Grains -- used by livestock and poultry producers as an animal feed.
Third, last year, the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico was estimated to be about 3,000 square miles. At the same time, the U.S. produced 11 billion gallons of ethanol. In 2001, the dead zone was 8,006 square miles, and ethanol production in the U.S. was 1.8 billion gallons. How does Mr. Biello explain how the dead zone shrunk while ethanol production increased by more than 6 times in the U.S.?
As for repeating that disproven “food v. fuel” fiction, I must urge Ms. Biello and the readers of this magazine to look at the series of academic, economic and government studies, including the most recent World Bank study, which have all debunked this myth. Wall Street speculators, high oil prices and the costs of manufacturing, packaging and transportation all have far more impact than ethanol on the grocery prices that everyday Americans pay.
Ethanol is not a someday fuel, it is here today and improving our economy, our environment and our national security. Every day, America’s ethanol producers are developing technological improvements to increase efficiency, reduce water use, and boost energy production.
As the industry develops it will only become more clear that ethanol is worth its weight in gold.
I will probably need a few comments to cover this litany of urban legends and unsupported conclusions in this article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou state that ethanol uses 40% of the corn crop. This is patently false. You only get that number by ignoring the fact that when ethanol is made, all the protein from the corn is recovered and becomes a high protein feed supplement for cattle and pigs. This feed supplement is used IN PLACE OF CORN AND SOYBEAN FEED by farmers. Thus, it reduces the amount of corn and soybeans used for livestock feed . If you do not ignore these coproducts the actual rate of corn demand for ethanol is more like 25% of our corn production.
Regarding the cost of ethanol, for several months now ethanol has been cheaper than gasoline (at the wholesale level - BEFORE the BLENDER'S TAX CREDIT is applied. If gasoline stays above about $3.60 a gallon, retail, ethanol is not more expensive than gasoline.
Regarding the price of gas and subsidies, many have suggested that since we spend quite a bit of money securing middle-East oil fields, that cost should be born by those who consume the benefitting commodity - through taxation which recovers the cost of securing our supply of imported oil. Estimates vary but some have put the cost of securing oil fields at about one fourth the Defense Budget. Using the 2012 Budget for the Defense Dept. that would mean an allocation through an excise tax of about $1.00 per gallon of gasoline. Now, if this appropriate way of recovering this cost were used (instead of getting these revenues through the income tax) Ethanol would most assuredly be cheaper than gas.
Regarding the efficiency of ethanol vs gasoline, E85 ethanol yields about 20% less mpg than gas because IT IS BEING USED IN ENGINES DESIGNED FOR LOW OCTANE GASOLINE. IF ETHANOL WAS USED IN ENGINEs OPTIMIZED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ETHANOL'S HIGH OCTANE PROPERTY (ethanol 85%: 105 vs high test gas: 92-93) YOU WOULD GET ABOUT THE SAME MPG WITH E85 AS WITH GASOLINE.
NOTE THAT HONDA SELLS TWO FFV CARS (in Brazil only) that get comparable mileage on Ethanol as they do with gasoline. Most likely, they used variable valve timing to elevate the compression ratio along with more spark advance to take advantage of ethanol's higher octane.
A study conducted in 2007 by Minnesota State University and the University of North Dakota investigating engine performance at various Ethanol blend percentages, found that a Chevrolet Impala Flex-Fuel vehicle achieved 15% BETTER gas mileage using a 20% Ethanol blend, compared to gas.
(more later)
Continuing with the fuel efficiency issue...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThree MIT scientist designed an Ethanol Direct Injection engine that achieves about 30% BETTER mpg than gasoline in today's cars. The engine costs about $1,000 to $1,500 more to build than the typical ICE. but that's not all. The engine uses only about 5% ethanol and 95% gasoline. To put this in perspective, if all the cars on the road today were using this engine we would achieve a 28% reduction in gasoline consumption with a supply of ethanol equalling 10% of the transportation fuel supply. We are producing a volume of ethanol today that is roughly 10% of the transportation fuel supply. Note: 1/1.3 = .77 ... or a 23% reduction through enhanced fuel efficiency (and using one half of the 10% supply of ethanol - directly injected). You then displace another 5% of the gasoline by blending with the gasoline the remaining ethanol supply (5% of total fuel supply) not directly injected into the combustion chambers. So, -.23 - .05 = -.28 or a 28% reduction in gasoline consumption with the Ethanol Direct Injection engine.
see: http://www.ethanolboost.com/
This should alleviate concerns about the total ethanol production. Also, of course, I don't think we are restricted from importing ethanol made elsewhere. Although Brazilian ethanol this year became more expensive than domestically produced ethanol, it would still be, for environmental purposes, better than burning imported oil. We need to replace as much gasoline as fast as possible if we are to have any chance of slowing down Global Warming.
At a marginal cost of $1,000 to $1,500, it would be much more rapidly accepted by the public (especially in a recession that will be continueing for several years) than Hybrids costing four times as much or plug-in hybrids costing ten to twenty times as much. And since Global Warming is accelerating we really do not have any time too spare. We need hybrids and electric cars, but considering it will take about twenty years to get enough electrics (and plug-ins) on the road to yield, perhaps, a 12% to 17% reduction in GHGs (for the transportation sector) we need to commit to a technology which will give us reductions in GHGs much sooner than that.
You mention the Congressional Budget Office report which computes it costs "$750 in subsidies for ethanol for every ton of CO2 reduction."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have examined this report. They did compute the subsidy costs for ethanol, but what they did not do is compute the additional revenues to the Federal, state and local governments from the increased economic acitivity from producing the ethanol domestically.
Mr. Biello, please see my Excel spreadsheet at the following url for corrections to the CBO report:
https://sites.google.com/site/ethanolinfoscientific/cbo_report_corrected-htp
As anybody who has taken a basic economics course knows, increased economic activity generates more tax revenues for governments at all levels. The CBO chose to IGNORE THESE INCREASES IN REVENUE to the Federal Government(could it actually be because they were asked to compute the 'costs' to reduce CO2 with ethanol and since revenues are not costs, they ignored them??!!).
In the speadsheet at the above url (actually the url is to an html file which has a link to the Excel file). I corrected the CBO report and the 'cost' is actually a negative 'cost' or a GAIN of about $800 for every ton of CO2 reduction achieved. There is a gain because the increased revenues tothe Government from making ethanol exceed the revenues foregone from the Excise Tax Credit. See spreadsheet at above url for all details of my calculations.
But there is another way to look at this issue. You really should compare the cost of reducing GHG emissions using ethanol to some alternative way of reducing GHG emissions. I did that.
in 2010 Ethanol produced roughly, a 4% reduction of GHGs emissions for the light vehicle surface transportation sector. Not so much, right? Well, much better to do it with the Prius hybrid, right? I computed how many Prius hybrids you would need to achieve a 4% GHG emissions reduction for the light vehicle transportation sector. You would need roughly 27 million Priuses at an annualized cost of $8.5 Billion. I am assuming a 36% GHG reduction per Prius and a 14 year useful life. This is about 30% more expensive than the cost of the subsidies for ethanol (which would have only been needed for a couple more years, at which time they would have ended).
An important distinction between ethanol and the Prius alternative is that ethanol is making those GHG reduction right now. How long would it take to sell 27 million Priuses? During that time, ethanol will be making those reductions every year (unless the oil companies ban it).
I forgot to give you the url to the file that links to the Excel file which compares the cost of reducing CO2 using ethanol versus using the Prius hybrid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttps://sites.google.com/site/ethanolinfoscientific/ethanol-cost-benefit-analyis-to-prius
The fact remains: you can replace the fuel faster than you can replace the cars that burn the fuel.
Now regarding the Food vs Fuel debate, I find it somewhat disappointing that a professional journalist would quote a report on the Food Price impact of ethanol from 2008, since there are later studies on the same subject which contradict the conclusions of the study you referred to. In fact, some of the same organizations which railed against ethanol in 2008 reversed their positions, upon examination of the pertinent data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of those organizations is the World Bank which had published a conclusion that biofuels (which is comprised mostly of ethanol) were the major factor in the rapid rise in food prices from 2007 to 2008.
In July 2010, however, the World Bank published their Policy Research Working Paper 5371, "Placing the 2006/08 Commodity Price Boom into Perspective" wherein they state (on Pg. 12):
"...worldwide, biofuels account for only about 1.5 percent of the area under grains/oilseeds (Table 3). This raises serious doubts about claims that biofuels account for a big shift in global demand."
they go on: "Even though widespread perceptions about such a shift played a big role during the recent commodity price boom, it is striking that maize prices hardly moved during the first period of increase in US ethanol production, and oilseed prices dropped when the EU increased impressively its use of biodiesel. On the other hand, prices spiked while ethanol use was slowing down in the US and biodiesel use was stabilizing in the EU."
Here is the url to this document.
http://www.nfpcsp.org/agridrupal/sites/default/files/Baffes_CommodityBoom2006-08.pdf
If anyone has trouble down-loading this document I down-loaded a copy to my web-site and will be happy to make it available to anyone who wants to read it.
The World Bank observed that commodity speculation, recent strong economic growth in developing nations (producing an increase in demand for food and better quality food), adverse weather conditions (drought in the Ukraine and Australia), expansionist monetary policies (U.S.) and national policies of restricting exports of some farm commodities (NOT the U.S.).
You mentioned that the CBO report on ethanol's impact on food prices concluded ethanol contributed about 15% of the rise in food prices. But you neglected to mention that the CBO also concluded that energy prices had about 2.5 times the impact on food prices as did ethanol. This is significant as ethanol is reducing the price of oil approximately 15% (Francisco Blanch, Chief Commodities Strategist, Merrill Lynch, May 2008, Wall Street Journal).
Regarding Indirect Land Use Changes, you provide a good recitation of the hypothosis, but your statement makes this hypothosis sound like accepted fact. Of course, it is not accepted fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"growing more corn in the U.S. means the nation produces less soy, which drives up the price of that bean, thereby causing farmers in Brazil to clear more Amazon rainforest to plant more of the staple. That means massive greenhouse gas emissions, notes agricultural expert Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University. "We can't get to a result with corn ethanol where we can generate greenhouse gas benefits."
I can appreciate why you refer to Tim Searchinger as an "agricultural expert". This is comfortably vague and althogether appropriate as Searchinger is an Attorney who lacks formal training as an economist and perhaps that explains is
Regarding Indirect Land Use Changes, you provide a nice recitation of the hypothosis(that making ethanol from corn in the U.S. causes destruction of rainforests), but you make it sound as if it is accepted fact. It is not. In fact it has yet to be proven with scientific analysis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou state:
"growing more corn in the U.S. means the nation produces less soy, which drives up the price of that bean, thereby causing farmers in Brazil to clear more Amazon rainforest to plant more of the staple. That means massive greenhouse gas emissions, notes agricultural expert Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University. "We can't get to a result with corn ethanol where we can generate greenhouse gas benefits."
While Mr. Searchinger, believes his hypothesis is true, most scientists knowledgeable in this area, don't see the evidence to support such a hypothesis. In fact, the empirical evidence runs completely to the contrary of Mr. Searchinger's hypothesis. Soybean production, in the U.S., over the last 10 years, has increased. The rate of deforestation in Brazilian rainforests over the last 5-6 years has gone down. Why? ...because Brazil has stepped up it's efforts at enforcement of laws prohibiting illegal logging and destruction of the rainforests.
An actual, scientific study of indirect land use impacts of ethanol was recently published which concludes that the indirect impact of biofuels production on land use/changes is "negligible to nonexistent":
"the real impact of U.S. biofuels production on ILUC domestically and internationally is negligible or nonexistent. The study, "Indirect land use change for biofuels: Testing predictions and improving analytical methodologies" was coauthored by Dr. Seungdo Kim and Dr. Bruce E. Dale of Michigan State University. “It is the first evidence-based evaluation of ILUC utilizing actual historic data, employing a 'bottom-up', data-driven, statistical approach based on individual world regions’ land use patterns and commodity grain imports,” stated Dr. Roger Conway, senior partner at Rosslyn Advisors LLC and former director of the United States Department of Agriculture's Office of Energy Policy and New Uses."
see:
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/26/3796298/new-study-finds-us-ethanol-production.html
I'm a geologist who has worked in the energy industry for 32 years...I'm also an environmentalist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing is SILLIER both economically or environmentally that producing fuel from dedicated crops. As a secondary product it makes 'some' sense but as the primary reason for growing these crops it is RIDICULOUS
One more observation on the impact of ethanol on the price of food (I couldn't fit this into my previous comment on this issue):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOver the last twelve months the price of corn has gone up about 100%. During that time the demand for corn to make ethanol increased about 7%. But that's not the statistic we need. What we need to know is how much did the demand for corn to make ethanol increase - AS A PERCENT OF THE CORN SUPPLY. And how much was that? It was 4%. Yes, the demand for corn to make ethanol, as a percent of the total corn supply, was FOUR PERCENT.
So those who claim ethanol is a strong factor in the increased prices for food would have you believe that a demand increase of 4%, as a percent of the corn supply, could drive up the price of corn 100%.
Now, seriously, does that sound sensible to you?
I think a better place to look is the impact on prices of commodity speculators. About half the positions on the CBOT are held, not by busiesses involved in producing, processing or selling food, but by speculators who have no intention of taking delivery of the commodities they are speculating in. They are only interested in betting on and profiting from the price movements in the commodities.
Bill Kovariks posting that mentions that the main reason for having ethanol in gasoline is to raise the octane rating of the fuel. The alternatives are adding toxic things like tetraethyl lead, MBTE and BTX to gasoline that end up in the air we breathe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe second reason as has been mentioned is to raise the O2 content of the fuel in order to reduce CO and NOX emissions.
The third reason that we like it in Canada is that the alcohol allows water in the fuel to mix with the gasoline and go through the fuel system instead of accumulating in lines and freezing in winter.
All these objectives can be met by using <15% alcohol in the fuel.
Using corn or sugar cane as feedstock for ethanol plants is not the only way to produce ethyl alcohol. There are pilot plants producing alcohol from cellulose like wood waste, straw, etc. If these plants are encouraged then ethanol production would no longer compete with human or animal food consumption and prices could return to normal market levels.
The replacement of oil by ethyl alcohol does not currently make sense since it uses a lot of hydrocarbons to run an ethanol distillery, unless the hydrocarbon is natural gas, which when burned does not produce as much CO2 as oil. It remains to be seen if a cellulose based ethanol plant produces a net clean energy output. I don't think that a corn based ethanol plant does.
Biodiesel fuel can be produced from various oilseed crops including canola oil which was not mentioned.
The issue of a secure source of hydrocarbons is the hot button issue for some people. The oil sands of northern Canada are a messy project generating lots of GHGs. The task to clean this source up involves a
major investment in CO2 recovery and reinjection.
When you consider the cost of a military that is necessary to secure overseas oil supplies, perhaps such an investment makes sense.
It might be cheaper to invest that money in more efficient, smaller vehicles, more energy efficient buildings, lighting, efficient rapid transit etc.
As gasoline and diesel fuel get more expensive; we need to get creative.
Sugar Cane ethanol is the champion of biofuels. The CARB full lifecycle analysis for sugarcane ethanol calculates it emits 27.4 gms CO2 per MJ of produced Ethanol vs Gasoline @ 95.9. Much better, but certainly NOT ZERO! However, when you include Indirect Land Use effects the sugarcane ethanol number goes to 73.4, only 23% better than gasoline. See:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILUC
A rational analysis on Biofuels and Sugarcane Ethanol "The Dirty Truth about Biofuels":
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/pf_bio.htm
"...Adding together water remediation, diesel fuel to power plantation equipment, transportation fuel, fertilizer costs, the embodied energy in plantation and refinery machinery, the energy required to hybridize seed, and the energy of herbicides and insecticides, at minimum the energy costs of ethanol production average 70.1 GJ/ha-yr. This does not include the energy of ethanol distillation, which is assumed to come entirely from the bagasse and plant "wastes". Thus, when burned in a 35% efficient Carnot engine, sugarcane ethanol has a negative net energy of -18 GJ/ha-yr..."
"...Sugarcane ethanol production in Brazil is successful only due to large government subsidies. As these subsidies dry up, it is hard to see how the industry could continue. Studies suggesting positive energy returns for sugarcane ethanol are fundamentally incomplete and therefore wrong..."
"...Ethanol distilleries require large settling ponds that contaminate ground and surface water. This damage has gone largely untreated. And there is the problem of vinasse. This is a byproduct of sugarcane distillation that has a high BOD [33] and is very acidic. It is produced in quantities up to 15 times larger than the amount of ethanol. As of yet, there is no easy and economical means of disposing of vinasse..."
Don't sound too renewable or sustainable to me. So the cheapest & best of the Biofuels, Sugarcane Ethanol can produce at best net 70.1GJ/ha-yr. USA Transportation Energy Consumption is 30 billion GJ/yr. Total Arable Land in the entire USA is 1,650,062 sq.km. So that means even the best Biofuel on the best land in the World would require an area 2.5X the TOTAL ARABLE Land in the USA, just to supply the current USA transportation fuel. Ridiculous. This is not a serious Energy Solution.
"Intoxicated on Independence: Is Domestically Produced Ethanol Worth the Cost?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNO.
Cars eat too much food. What a stupid idea.
Remove the subsidy on biofuels. Let the market determine the true price and consumers decide if they want to buy it. Government should subsidize food not biofuel. Scientists should develop other biofuels like algae, jatropha and switchgrass. These can be cultivated in seas, ponds, swamps and grassland.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSdreyer, while I appreciate the fact that you identified yourself as an ethanol rep, it shows that you clearly have an agenda. Ethanol as fuel should be abandoned. At its best it still causes most of the pollution that gasoline does (some say even more than gas once you add in all the processing), and the fact that biofuels increase food prices has been widely documented...as the Economist said in its recent food article entitled Cheap No More "Ethanol is the dominant reason for this year's increase in grain prices." (google it) The billions wasted each year on ethanol subsides should be redirected toward cleaner and better energy, like wind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSdreyer, while I appreciate the fact that you identified yourself as an ethanol rep, it shows that you clearly have an agenda. Ethanol as fuel should be abandoned. At its best it still causes most of the pollution that gasoline does (some say even more than gas once you add in all the processing), and the fact that biofuels increase food prices has been widely documented...as the Economist said in its recent food article entitled Cheap No More "Ethanol is the dominant reason for this year's increase in grain prices." (google it) The billions wasted each year on ethanol subsides should be redirected toward cleaner and better energy, like wind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCheck out this article on the problems with wheat ethanol production in the UK.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.actionaid.org.uk/100621/blog.html?article=1589
Dodgy carbon offsets from animal feed by-products, CO2 output into the atmosphere from fizzy drinks not accounted, emissions from (fertilizer) Nitrous Oxide not properly accounted. When these are taken out, wheat ethanol production cannot be considered to give any Climate Chaneg benfits, just like corn ethanol in the US.
Look, whether you account for the high-protien animal feed that supplants soy / corn and even if you MANDATE that everyone has high-compression engines that decrease fuel consumption 25% or whatever (it's hard to remember the exact figures considering the looooong, multiple posts on the subject), AT BEST, the ENTIRE corn crop of the U.S., one of the highest producers, could only provide for 30% or so of the GASOLINE supply in this country.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we did that, we wouldn't have any corn to eat, now would we? On top of that, world grain markets would get obliterated and many governments could get overturned in food riots. And on top of that, I don't remember any ethanol advocates addressing the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and other places that monocrop industrial agriculture causes AND the water demands it presents to rivers and aquefers. Since water is becoming increasingly scarce and its availability unpredictable, ethanol from industrial food crops seems foolhardy.
The whole issue is compounded by the fact that all energy sources seem to be subsidised in some way, shape or form.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only way we can make correct decisions about energy is to remove all subsidies. Period.
I doubt that the military will abandon it's function as an energy supply insurance broker. So there is little hope that abolition of all energy subsidies will happen.
Other institutions will equally resist any attempt at removing their subsidies be they oil companies or farming organisations or any other entities.
And yet, removing all subsidies would be the best way to diversify our energy economy. How are we to accomplish that???
Using food to make fuel makes no sense at all from a wide variety of standpoints. Using cellulose, on the other hand, means we can turn cornstalks, yard waste and waste paper into fuel. But it needs to have zero subsidy, that is, we use some of the produced ethanol (or other liquid fuel) to power further production.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAdd to this the havoc ethanol raises with small engines. Without an additive to counteract the ethanol you can look at many rebuilds of your small engines especially if you are in a business like lawn care where you use many small engines. There are now companies advertising ethanol free gas to people in the lawn care business. Price is around $8.95 a QUART. That's $32.00 a gallon and guys are paying it because the cost of rebuilding the engines is more than offset by the gas price. What a great day for our government, and they want to up ethanol to 15%!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe article you call "recent" "Cheap No More.."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisis from Dec, 2007. This is not as recent as the July 2010 World Bank report I quoted, which concluded:
"worldwide, biofuels account for only about 1.5 percent of the area under grains/oilseeds (Table 3). This raises serious doubts about claims that biofuels account for a big shift in global demand. Even though widespread perceptions about such a shift played a big role during the recent commodity price boom, it is striking that maize prices hardly moved during the first period of increase in US ethanol production, and oilseed prices dropped when the EU increased impressively its use of biodiesel. On the other hand, prices spiked while ethanol use was slowing down in the US and biodiesel use was stabilizing in the EU."
The Congressional Budget Office report mentioned in the article concluded that energy prices have about 2.5 times the impact on food prices as ethanol.
A report from 2007 was written even before the price rise in commodities was finished (june 2008) and did not have enough data to draw a sound conclusion.
virtually all the ethanol burned in cars in the U.S. is as a 10% blend. (it's avery small fraction that is burned as E85) For E10 the mileage decrement is about 2%, barely noticeable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, about one third the gasoline consumed is reformulated gasoline which was blended with MTBE until it was replaced with ethanol. What is the difference in mileage between gas with MTBE and gas blended with Ethanol 10%... well, that would be about 1%. For the other two thirds of the gasoline the 2% reduction in fuel efficiency (for E10) would apply. So on average, the fuel efficiency difference is about 1.67%.
Note that the estimate of ethanol's fuel efficiency being equivalent to its Heat Value relative to gasoline does not hold up very well when you are talking about lower blends of ethanol. Other factors such as ethanol's higher octane start to confound the Heat Value relationship as a predictor of fuel efficiency.
lets also remove the tax subsidies to oil. It has been estimated that we devote about one fourth the Defense budget to securing middle-East oil fields. If this cost was recovered from the consumers of gas through an addition to the gasoline taxes (rather than recovered through, mostly, income taxes) based on the 2012 Defense Budget, one fourth of that figure would produce about an additional tax on gasoline of about $1.00 per gallon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo excise tax credit for ethanol (which is being terminated this year) would be needed with gasoline bearing all the costs of obtaining it. Ethanol (which, by the way is cheaper now than gasoline) would most certainly be cheaper than gas with this level playing field in effect.
It seems to me it's better to cut the subsidies over a 20 year period, and end the mandates to use ethanol. If they can make the ethanol competitively, more power to them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am afraid this is not correct. The Heat Value relationship of ethanol to gasoline (which gives you the .65 relationship) applies more to higher ethanol blends. Studies of lower blends show the HV relationship does not work so well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisE10 actually does not lower the fuel efficiency as much as the Heat value content would predict. Also, as I pointed out, this Heat value relationship only applies if your engine is not designed to take advantage of ethanol's higher octane.
As I stated before, Honda sells two Flex Fuel Vehicles in Brazil that get comparable fuel efficiency using ethanol as when burning straight gas. And they aren't even using turbo-charging!
The Ethanol Direct Injection Engine designed by three MIT scientists gets 30% BETTER fuel economy than an ICE using straight gasoline. It does this using only 5% ethanol (directly injected) and 95% gasoline.
see: http://www.ethanolboost.com/
or google: "ethanol boosting systems"
You can get just as good as mileage or better with ethanol as with straight gas IF you optimize for ethanol's higher octane property.
In 1998 the Dept. of Energy and GM sponsored a competition among twelve college engineering student teams. The challenge was to see how much fuel efficiency improvement the teams could achieve by optimizing a Chevrolet to use Ethanol. All the teams got better mpg with ethanol than the car got with gasoline. The top three teams achieved 12% - 15% BETTER fuel economy on ethanol than with gasoline.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn case you are interested, the Oak Ridge Laboratory did a study of how much ethanol could be made from available biomass feedstocks: "The Technical Feasibility of a Billion Ton Annual Supply"
see:
http://feedstockreview.ornl.gov/pdf/billion_ton_vision.pdf
They concluded that we could meet about 30% of our fuel supply (in terms of Heating Value) with ethanol from biomass. (note this is assuming making about half of that 30% from cellulosic sources - which is not commercially feasible right now).
But this is based upon Heat Value. Meaning, in terms of volume, biomass could produce 46%, by volume, of the transportation fuel needs (.3/.65 = .46).
Heat Value does not apply if you are considering using the Ethanol Direct Injection Engine designed by MIT scientists ( http://www.ethanolboost.com/ ). THis engine uses 5% ethanol (directly injected) to get a 23% reduction in fuel consumption. If all the cars were using this engine that would leave 41% of the 46% of the fuel supply (in the form of ethanol) for blending with gasoline. In other words 41% of the gasoline would be replaced with the blended ethanol.
So, adding the 23% fuel consumption reduction to the 41% of the gas replaced with blended ethanol, gives you a gasoline consumption reduction of 74%(23% + 41%).
the author referred to a statement from the USDA that ethanol..."cannot be justified on economic grounds". At least you did note that this was from 1986, 16 years ago(!!!).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 1986 gasoline was selling for about $1.00 a gallon as opposed to $3.00 to $4.00 today. Also, ethanol production is vastly more efficient today than it was in 1986.
A more recent report from the USDA http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/2008Ethanol_June_final.pdf states that ethanol producers our achieving energy output to energy inputs of 1.9 : 1 to 2.3 : 1.
And today, ethanol, wholesale (before any Blenders Tax Credit is applied) is cheaper than gasoline.
the only good that I can see from gov't subsidies of the corn (or any) crops is that they are likely raised with chemical fertilizers and insecticides and they might even be geneticaly modified...so at least we don't have to eat that junk if it is used as fuel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ethanol debate has been politicized and it gives me hope that SA is actually writing about it. Maybe they're past the PC phase.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have no idea where dwdb gets his crazy ideas about sugar cane. The only reason sugarcane is not grown on farm land in the United States is because of Federal Law. The crazy economics of growing sugar cane in swampland do not apply to farmland. Standard machinery used for tall grasses such as corn are used on farmland. Such are used in Brazil. Many American farmers would grow it if it were legal. Cut out your stupid nonsense about what it would cost. Make it legal to grow sugar cane on the farmland of the south and let the market decide if it is profitable to grow and compete with corn as a source of alcohol. Let the Federal Government repeal a few million pages of regulations and let the market work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI showed you the links, you have none - my calculations are impeccable. I have no problem with growing sugarcane - more power to you, just remove all subsidies and DON'T DELUDE the gullible public that sugarcane is going to be anymore than a tidbit in the BIG PICTURE of solving - Energy Independence, Oil Wars, Peak Oil Economic Catastrophe, Runaway Global Warming Catastrophe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, but a leaked World Bank report concluded that Biofuels accounted for a 75% increase in Food Prices. And the Biofuel Subsidies don't even enrich farmers, almost all of the huge $7B per yr Ethanol subsidy goes to Agro-business giants like Cargill & ADM. Ethanol uses as much fossil fuel inputs as it replaces in its output. Win-Win for Big Oil and Big Agro-business. And destroys farmland, rapes the soil, causes pollution (the Ocean dead zones) and depletes precious fresh water. Average of 980 gals of fresh water consumed for every gal of Ethanol Produced. It takes 11 acres of Corn to supply the avg SUV with fuel(E100) for one year and about 1/2 acre of farmland to feed one person. see Peak Soil: Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=1
Your "Oak Ridge study" is actually a USDA/NREL schlock piece of garbage with Oak Ridge Lab tagged to make it appear legitimate. It is easy to make those grandiose claims - "...there's enough tidal energy to power the entire world three times over..." - "...there's enough wind in North Dakota to power the entire USA..." - "...there's enough Solar in New Mexico to power all of North America..." - "...there's enough Biomass in the USA to supply all of our Transportation needs..." - unfortunately that's not how economics work. You want to understand economics - let me explain it to you. A subsistence farmer relies on harvesting wood for his family's energy needs and the local forest he relies upon for wood has been depleted. So maybe 20 miles away there is a large forest with LOADS of Wood. But the time and physical energy it takes him to transport the Wood that distance, leaves him insufficient energy & time to produce sufficient food & other necessities for survival. And so he & his family may perish. That's Economics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTad Patzek Rips that USDA study to shreds here:
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/patzek/MythsAndTruths.pdf
Biofuel is a RIPOFF and is only viable due to HUGE SUBSIDIES and TOTAL NEGLECT of the Environmental & Social (i.e. starvation & high food prices) effects. It is trivially easy to supply the energy we need for transportation. The only issue is Big Oil ensures viable alternatives are not utilized. In China (not under Big Oil's thumb) they are using Methanol/DME from Coal & NG for fuel. The DOE built an IGCC Coal Power plant that co-produced Methanol for 13 cents per liter. Like buying gasoline for 26 cents per liter or 98 cents per gallon, except Methanol burns much cleaner than gasoline and at double the efficiency of gasoline in a converted (high compression) engine. So more like gasoline at 50 cents per gallon with virtually unlimited supply. It costs 3.2 cents per liter to convert NG into Methanol. There are large reserves of NG that are too remote to transport by pipeline (like Canadian Arctic). And Methanol is an easy fuel to transport. Spills are environmentally benign. And Methanol can also be converted cheaply into synthetic diesel, although for most applications DME (two joined Methanol molecules) is the best substitute for diesel.. It burns much cleaner than diesel in a diesel engine and more efficiently with the highest Cetane Number of any fuel. Big Oil considers Methanol its #2 enemy, its #1 enemy is of course Nuclear Power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe most efficient use of WASTE Biomass is to convert it to Methanol/DME/synthetic Diesel by Fischer-Tropsh, using Nuclear Hydrogen & Nuclear Electricity. This results in true ZERO CARBON liquid fuels, that are MUCH cheaper than Biofuels, in MUCH higher volumes because it results in the 100% transfer of Biomass Carbon to Liquid Fuel Carbon (not 20% as in Sugarcane Ethanol). The value of Biomass is in its ability to trap atmospheric carbon. You want ALL of that valuable Carbon transferred to your liquid fuels. Biomass is a PATHETIC source of Energy, typically it traps 0.1 of Solar Input Energy, compared with a Solar PV Panel which traps 10-20%, and only has to be installed once – no annual planting, no fertilizer, no water, no harvesting, no processing.
And of course, ideally we would use Nuclear Electricity to supply our Transportation energy with batteries and Electrificied Rail & Quick Charging for long distance transport – and Nuclear Powered Shipping. Aircraft probably would need Nuclear Synthetic Fuels. Note the cheapest Large Format, Long Life Batteries are NiMH ($225 per kwh), which Chevron stole the patent for and refuses to release for transportation & storage applications.
American Ethanol is absolutley worth the cost. In 2010, American Ethanol used only 3% of the worlds grain which displaced the need for 445 million barrels of imported gasoline in the United States. The ethanol industry directly and indirectly employs over 400,000 people. The article fails mention ethanol's co-product, distillers grain, a high protein feed source which can be fed to all livestock. 1/3 of the corn used for ethanol will come back as distillers grain. Ethanol is lessening our countries dependence on foreign oil and enhancing our domestic energy security.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks Bill H and S Dreyer for correcting the inaccuracies in this piece and addressing the info. gaps. A couple additiona misleading statements I see are:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-"ethanol remains more expensive than...gas. That means subsidies.......a significant portion of the profits made by Poet, ADM, Valero...can be attributed to this government largess with taxpayer dollars".
That connection is a stretch. The VEETC tax credit goes to blenders, not farmers, and not ethanol producers. It goes to those blending ethanol into gasoline. And since it apparently is set to expire end of year with no legislative action, this is a mute point now anyway. The industry will be fine without it.
As for this point:
"Expanding corn-based ethanol to significantly promote U.S. energy security is likely to be infeasible."
The RFS does not call for significant expansion of corn-ethanol going forward, the bulk of new fuel is supposed to be supplied by cellulosic and advanced biofuels. Furthermore, how can you miss the fact that if we replace the oil our military is protecting overseas, less of our family members will die, and less of our taxes will go to wars and military expenses. Why is this consistently overlooked and left out in the "cost" equation of fuel?!?
As for the soy issue, the IEA released a report which stated, "The amount of DDGs obtained from growing 1 hectare of corn for ethanol can replace the equivalent of 1.2 hectares of soy for feed. Thus the ethanol production for 1G saves more land than what is needed to produce the corn."
Now onto water. 87% of corn crops grown for ethanol are not irrigated.
And about CO2 - the statement that claims that corn ethanol does not contribute to C02 reductions is just plain wrong. With today's advanced manufacturing technologies, corn-based ethanol can reduce CO2 by up to 60%.
Why rely on an ancient study from Switzerland when there are more recent studies (some even done in the U.S.) to refute this myth?
As for the food vs. fuel debate - Bill H. covered that nicely, so I won't go there.
All I can say is for those who want to hear the facts from a truly independent view - go see the movie 'FREEDOM' due out in limited screening starting next week. You can see the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71HAHe3_2dk
re the Oak Ridge National Laboratory report, if you had looked at it you would have seen on page three that the study was performed by:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRobert Perlack, Bioenergy Resource and Engineering Systems Group
Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
. check the url, he has a Ph.D. in Resource Economics, 1978, University of Massachusetts
see:
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/people/perlack/index.shtml
Anthony Turhollow, Ph.D, Agricultural Economics, Iowa State University
Lynn Wright, M.S. Zoology/Ecology, Ohio State University
Bryce Stokes, USDA,
National Program Leader
Forest Operations & Biomass Research
USDA Forest Service, R&D
Washington, DC
Bryce Stokes, Ph.D. in
Forestry from Auburn University,
M.S. in Forest Engineering and a
B.S. in Biological Engineering from Mississippi State University.
see: http://www.forestprod.org/smallwood08abs.pdf
Donald Ehrbah, Ph. D. From 1999 until his retirement in 2006, Dr. Erbach was Agricultural Research Service (ARS) National Program Leader for Engineering and Energy. During that time he served as team leader of the Agency’s Bioenergy and Energy Alternatives national research program and as co-leader of the Crop Production national program.
Dr. Erbach is a 40-year member and Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) and served as ASABE President for 2007-2008. He is a life member of the Asian Association for Agricultural Engineers, a member of the International Soil Tillage Research Organization, and a member of the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems. He has served as a consultant for projects in Australia, Argentina, China, Austria, Germany, England, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.
Dr. Erbach grew up in New Holstein, Wisconsin and attended the University of Wisconsin where he received BS degrees in Agriculture and in Mechanical Engineering in 1964 and 1965 respectively, and a MS degree in Agricultural Engineering. He earned his Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from Iowa State University in 1974.
... the study was done by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with support from experts from the USDA. I think anybody can see the individuals who worked on the report were very qualified for the job.
Tad Patzek, as I said before was formerly employed by Shell Oil co. Patzek's stuff has been exposed as fraudulent in methodology and nonsensical in conclusions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe very well known meta-analysis by Farrell etal, Univ. Calif, Berkeley, Science, Jan 2006, "Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals" said of Patzek, and Pimentel's copy:
"Two of the studies stand out from the others
because they report negative net energy values
and imply relatively high GHG emissions and
petroleum inputs (11, 12). The close evaluation
required to replicate the net energy results showed
that these two studies also stand apart from the
others by incorrectly assuming that ethanol
coproducts (materials inevitably generated when
ethanol is made, such as dried distiller grains with
solubles, corn gluten feed, and corn oil) should
not be credited with any of the input energy and
by including some input data that are old and
unrepresentative of current processes, or so
poorly documented that their quality cannot be
evaluated."
NOte that they say that, of the studies evaluated, the ones by Patzek and Pimentel, were THE ONLY ONES to NOT get a positive "net energy value" (gain) for ethanol.
Here is some more from the Farrell etal study:
"these two studies also stand apart from the
others by incorrectly assuming that ethanol
coproducts (materials inevitably generated when
ethanol is made, such as dried distiller grains with
solubles, corn gluten feed, and corn oil) should
not be credited with any of the input energy."
NOTE THE WORDS 'BY INCORRECTLY ASSUMING THAT ETHANOL COPRODUCTS SHOULD NOT BE CREDITED WITH ANY OF THE INPUT ENERGY."
This quote, above, refers to these studies by the notes 11 and 12. Here are notes 11 and 12. From the study here are notes 11 and 12:
"11. T. Patzek, Crit. Rev. Plant Sci. 23, 519 (2004).
12. D. Pimentel, T. Patzek, Nat. Resour. Res. 14, 65 (2005)."
for those who are interested here is the url to the report I refer to:
http://rael.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/EBAMM/FarrellEthanolScience012706.pdf
I forgot to mention in the Farrell etal, meta analysis of several "high profile" studies, one of the several studies that did get a positive net energy gain for ethanol production was that of Shappouri, of the United States dept of Agriculture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisagain, for those interested in legitimate studies, here is the url for the Farrell meta-analysis: http://rael.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/EBAMM/FarrellEthanolScience012706.pdf
your comment is one avalanche on total nonsense, 980 gal of water for each gallon of ethanol? ROFL, try about 3 gallons per gallon of ethanol. Of course this is recycled back into the environment. the water doesn't disappear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEthanol production uses about one sixteenth as much fossil fuel to make as it replaces. See the study at:
http://rael.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/EBAMM/FarrellEthanolScience012706.pdf
THE WORLD BANK PAPER YOU REFER TO WAS RELEASED IN 2008. THE PAPER i REFERED TO WAS RELEASD LAST YEAR, 2010 AND WAS A CORRECTION OF THEIR ADMITTED ERROR IN THE FORMER PAPER YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.
Everything you have said is utter nonsense. Really, I shouldn't even respond to it...980 gallons of water, ROFL.
Regarding the Excise tax credit, production of ethanol in the U.S. generates more tax revenues than the cost of the VEECP. We actually come out making more tax revenues than we lose to the VEECP.
Ethanaol reduces gas prices at least 15% (Francisco Blanch, Merrill Lynch, 2008 - Wall Street Journal).. so when you apply that savings to the cost of all the gas we use, we actually SAVE IN LOWER GAS PRICES, ABOUT 12 TIMES THE COST OF THE EXCISE TAX CREDIT!!
I will make one more comment regarding ethanol. We really should compare ethanol to one of the alternatives. (I say 'one' as there IS ONLY ONE RIGHT NOW. AND THAT IS HYBRID CARS).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, how many hybrids, let's use a Prius for the calculations: How many Priuses would it take to replace the gasoline that ethanol is replacing right now? Ethanol is replacing/reducing about 4% of our total gasoline consumption. Priuses reduce fuel consumption compared to a similar weight and payload car, about 36%. Pretty good.
So how many Priuses would we need to reduce our gasoline consumption 4%...ABOUT 26 MILLION.
NOW HOW MANY YEARS WILL IT TAKE TO SELL 26 MILLION PRIUSES??? MEANWHILE EVERY YEAR UNTIL YOU GET 26 MILLION PRIUSES ON THE ROAD, ETHANOL WILL BE REDUCING GASOLINE CONSUMPTION BY AN AMOUNT EQUAL TO WHAT 26 MILLION PRIUSES COULD ACCOMPLISH (that is of course, if the oil companies don't have ethanol banned in the mean time).
Hi Bill - do you by chance have a twitter feed?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes sugarcane ethanol is good. Americans are obese because of eating too much sugar. Let's put the sugar in our gas tank not in our mouth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about the damage and destruction of many of the 300 million US open cycle engines caused by ethanol? (personal experience)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe auto industry found half the cars running on E15 were damaged. What about the waste of throwing usable cars away or the destruction of their catalytic converters which are supposed to reduce pollution?
What about the increased safety risk of E15 accelerating chainsaw clutches to engage during idling?
What about the stranded boaters, and ATV riders, and stranded motorcyclists?
Where are THOSE costs in the calculations?
I've had a car fuel line embrittle and break; a HomeLite tool fuel line dissolve from ethanol; a boat motor that had to be repaired; a brush hog that runs poorly on E10; a chainsaw clutch that engages during idling; and more.
Ethanol is an economic DISASTER!!!
Maybe those engines are not designed for E15. I have no problem with E10. Engines can run with 100% ethanol. It has higher octane rating than regular gasoline. What's in ethanol that's causing engine damage?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this