U.S. Ethanol Production Nearing One Million Barrels Per Day

OilPrice.com ^ | 11/15/2010 | Brian Westenhaus

[bananaman22]

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports for August that U.S. ethanol production rose in August to an all-time high, production averaged more than 869,000 barrels per day (b/d). The Renewable Fuels Association who also collects data calculated ethanol demand at all-time high as well at 911,000 b/d in August, up from 734,000 b/d a year ago.

The U.S. is closing in on the million barrel per day milestone. Cheers in some sections, groans in others, but for America, slashing off the equivalent of 750,000 b/d of imported oil is a good thing.

Most groans come from the odd couple of the oil business and the special mis-interests of food vs. fuel. The oil business, god bless’em, are in a quandary – one side is hell bent on doing the business as done for 150 years – another is ready to resist and protect its market and share – another is investing and researching with a realization that every bit of energy in fuel has market and profit potential – and a few have jumped into ethanol grabbing some facility during the ethanol build up bubble for cents on the dollars. Some companies work at some or all of the quandary barriers. Its quite interesting to watch.

The mis-interests meanwhile have a hard time making way, the corn they so love is as a practical matter human inedible – sweet corn its not – while the ultra cheap high fructose corn sweetener of considerable concern in the fattening and obesity of Americans is getting closer to the price of sugar. Factually, sugar whether from corn or sugarcane or sugar beets is still cheap – for food it’s the processing and packaging that costs the big dollars. Full article at: Ethanol production

[The Great RJ]

Aside from the massive government subsidies from seed to pump that make corn ethanol even possible, ethanol is a poor fuel giving about 40% less energy gallon compared to gasoline. Any ethanol blend will thus give less miles per gallon than straight gasoline. My experience in using a 10% ethanol blend gives about 10% less miles per gallon. I fail to see how using ethanol blends reduces dependence on oil. Even 85% ethanol blends make no economic sense. The state of South Dakota has stopped using 85% ethanol in its flex fuel fleet as the lower mileage made it actually more costly per mile despite an average 23 cent per gallon lower price for E85. Note the cost difference is largely due to subsidies and tax abatements.

[Minus_The_Bear]

"Zero. The corn used to produce ethanol is not “food” corn — so the thought that the price of our food is impacted by ethanol production is a myth."

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Sooo... producing less food/corn is good? Agribusiness has been given subsidies to produce ethanol rather than food. There isn't an infinite amount of arable land.

[preacher]

[alancarp]

You're trying to make the connection between food price increases and ethanol production -- my contention is that ethanol making is not a factor: that there are other reasons.

"U.S. corn farmers will be able to meet all demands for food, feed, fuel and exports, the National Corn Growers Association said in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s reduced projection for 2010 corn production, announced this morning. The harvest of 12.7 billion bushels, the third-largest crop in history, will still provide a surplus, or ending stocks, of nearly 1 billion bushels."

(source: http://www.meattradenewsdaily.co.uk/news/211010/usa___corn_shortage_was_a_speculators_myth_.aspx)

[driftdiver]

And just last week there were articles about decreasing supplies and increasing price.

[Chode]

less mileage, costs more... whats not to love???

[BuffaloJack]

> Zero. The corn used to produce ethanol is not “food” corn ...
Just because we don’t eat it does not mean squat.
It is dent corn , used for animal feed, corn meal and lots of other food items.

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>How much food is removed from our pantries to create 1 million gallons of fuel?

Ethanol production completely uses up the corn in the process? Really? I had no idea.... /sarcasm.

Learn the facts before perpetuating falsehoods. The ethanol production process yields several co-products that end up as ingredients in foods for human consumption, and one of those - distillers grains - are used to feed livestock... so to answer your question - very little.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

You are thinking of MTBE. Now banned. After polluting the groundwater wells of the previously pristine Tahoe basin.

[Jumper]

Don't think in such small terms as in "how much food has been removed", but rather in the opportunity to raise food prices across the planet. The US has few exports.

I submitted to the US Dept of State last year a proposal that the US engage in a new political economic policy whereby the USA pegs the price of Corn, Wheat, Beef, etc. to Oil prices. So if today one barrel is 15 bussels of "produce" then as Oil rises, the food prices rise too. Hillary's vetting staff vetoed the idea on the grounds that doing something like this would "hurt the world" and wrote back to the Secretary's email that we should use our strengths as Aemrican to shape the world's diplomacy. So if you are hungry, you need food aid, you can blame the Arabs and OPEC for starving!

[Jumper]

Don't think in such small terms as in "how much food has been removed", but rather in the opportunity to raise food prices across the planet. The US has few exports.

I submitted to the US Dept of State last year a proposal that the US engage in a new political economic policy whereby the USA pegs the price of Corn, Wheat, Beef, etc. to Oil prices. So if today one barrel is 15 bussels of "produce" then as Oil rises, the food prices rise too. Hillary's vetting staff vetoed the idea on the grounds that doing something like this would "hurt the world" and wrote back to the Secretary's email that we should use our strengths as Aemrican to shape the world's diplomacy. So if you are hungry, you need food aid, you can blame the Arabs and OPEC for starving!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks bananaman22.

• The Bum Rap on Biofuels
• Campaign to vilify ethanol revealed

[rmlew]

ethanol is worse than just a waste of energy. It is an environmental nightmare. It raises food prices, and artificially increases the amount of land used to grow corn. Increased fertilizer use pollutes rivers and causes algae plumes that kill littoral waters. And all to waste energy.
This isn't just bad policy, it's ridiculously stupid on the face of it.

[CynicalBear]

>>How much food is removed from our pantries to create 1 million gallons of fuel?<<

None. The feed stuff after the Ethanol is fed to cattle which is actually a very good feed source. The corn that is used for ethanol production would have been fed to cattle or hogs anyway and is not reduced as a feed source by that procedure.

[A CA Guy]

Thank You.

[snowsislander]

In unrelated news, the US ethenol industry announced that due to it’s conservation efforts, it was now only consuming 1.5 million gallons of fossil fuels per day.

It’s still true isn’t it? It takes about 1.5 gallons of fossil fuels to produce 1 gallon of corn ethenol.

Our daily consumption of petroleum has dropped from 20.7 million barrels per day in 2004 to 18.8 million barrels in 2009, a drop of almost 2 million barrels of oil per day. (Source: Department of Energy)

In light of that 2 million barrel drop, it's hard to see how we could be now producing nearly 1 million barrels of ethanol per day if it really took an additional 1.5 million barrels of petroleum per day for that production.

Offhand, I would say that Pimental and Patzek have been proven wrong.

There's a short article Addicted to Bad Data at The New Atlantis about the these two authors' work in the area.

From that piece:

Professors Pimentel and Patzek have published several studies on this subject, and these have been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked in the scientific literature, in government reports from the Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture, in congressional testimony, and elsewhere. (Much of this information is collected on the website of the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center.) Reputable scientists have publicly called the work of Pimentel and Patzek “shoddy,” “unconvincing,” and lacking in basic scientific transparency. The most recent dissection of their claims, appearing in the journal Science in January 2006, found that their results depended upon “some input data that are old and unrepresentative of current [ethanol-production] processes, or so poorly documented that their quality cannot be evaluated.”

One of the most harsh, clear, and forceful critiques of the Pimentel-Patzek studies has come from Bruce E. Dale, a professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University. Among the many errors Dale has identified is that Pimentel’s work uses figures for corn yields that are too low, and figures for the amount of energy required to produce ethanol that are too high, all because they are seriously outdated. Dale also found that Pimentel’s work has wrongly assumed that all corn is irrigated when only about 15 percent of it is (resulting in exaggerated energy costs for the irrigation of ethanol-producing corn), and that Pimentel failed to assign any energy credit for the animal feed produced as a byproduct of ethanol production. Not only does Professor Dale argue that the energy balance for producing ethanol is significantly positive, but he has also pointed out that the balance of liquid fuel is enormously favorable: more than six gallons of ethanol are produced for every gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel expended in the process.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

You are welcome. Happy Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be thankful for and I know who to thank for it.

[JD_UTDallas]

"None. The feed stuff after the Ethanol is fed to cattle which is actually a very good feed source. The corn that is used for ethanol production would have been fed to cattle or hogs anyway and is not reduced as a feed source by that procedure."

The power of thermodynamics compels you...the power of thermodynamics compels you...

You cannot ferment out the starch component of the corn and call it not reduced as a feed source energy has been removed. what is left is DDG with solubles, which is the protein portion of the corn grain plus the cellulose seed coat and yeast cell culture waste. This feed source is devoid of carbohydrates by the nature that the yeast ate it all to make ethanol. To feed animals you need carbohydrates and proteins especially for monogastrics like swine as they cannot process cellulose to ATP like a rumen can. So while yes DDGS is feed it is no where near the caloric quality for rumens as whole dent corn and monogastrics can only eat it in less than 10% or so quantities. Monogastrics need carbohydrates at 2/3 of total energy vs protein content of 10-18% in grow out feeds. Whole dent corn which is mostly starch and 10% or so proteins is used at +50% in monogastric rations with soy making up the remainder of the 9 essential ammio acid profile. Dent corn and soy are the primary feed of swine and fowl DDGS is only a minor ingredient as it is biologically impossible to meet these animals basal requirements with high nitrogen protein rich DDGS renal failure will soon occur if pure DDGS was feed to fowl or swine same for rumens they can only process so much N based proteins relative to cellulose which is just polyglucose so no you are wrong that DDGS is the same as whole dent not even close.

[CynicalBear]

I understand but my point was, without getting technical to the point of losing my point, that Ethenol does not totally remove the corn from the food chain. The protein content is sometimes more important in a ration then the energy if there is adequate forms of energy from a low protein lesser priced feed stuff. If, for instance, the hay quality is poor for a particular year it can still be used for roughage but needs a protein supplement.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Even if ethonol is working, I need to find pure gasoline for my lawn mower. I’m finding rust in the blasted thing’s GAS tank — it ‘aint no stinking bio-fuel tank. It frequently has trouble starting. I’m not the only one. After two trips to the repairman, he’s confided that all kinds of mowers are getting messed up from that slop.