Tech Stuff: Ethanol Promises. Farm-raising our own energy independence: Could it happen?

Car And Driver ^ | July 2006 | PATRICK BEDARD

[newgeezer]

Tech Stuff: Ethanol Promises	1   2   3   4   5   6   7
Farm-raising our own energy independence: Could it happen? BY PATRICK BEDARD July 2006

You will be hosing ethanol into your gas tank. You will. It’s the law.

The 551-page Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed last August, includes many sops to a blur of special interests, but one single provision rang the bell for automakers, greenies, and farmers, and for a broad coalition of ordinary motorists who were hoping for something, anything, to bring down gasoline prices; starting in 2006, the average gallon of “gas” will contain 2.78-percent ethanol.

Congress has made to the petroleum industry an offer it can’t refuse. It’s called a mandate.

And it’s a mandate that keeps on giving, at least to the farm states, as it ratchets up the ethanol quota, nearly doubling it over the next six years — from 4.0-billion gallons in 2006 to 7.5-billion in 2012.

The idea is simple: Use ethanol as the gasoline equivalent of Hamburger Helper. The nation will stretch more miles out of every barrel we import from, as the President says, “unstable parts of the world.” It’s hardly the “energy independence” we’ve been promised for 30 years, but it’s a baby step in that direction.

Or is it? We’ll measure ethanol’s benefits against the promises made for it down the page, but first, a few basics.

Unlike other alternative fuels, no vehicle modifications will be needed for the mandated ethanol content, which increases to about five percent by 2012. It should burn just fine in all the gasoline burners already on the road. Gasohol, a mixture of up to 10-percent ethanol with gasoline, has been in wide use in farm states for 30 years, and all new cars are engineered for this fuel.

Before we go further, one clarification: There’s no requirement for every gallon of gas to contain ethanol. Instead, an annual ethanol quota must be met. So gasohol and E85 (85-percent ethanol, 15-percent gasoline) will still be sold where there’s availability and demand, which reduces the amount of ethanol that must be mixed in elsewhere.

The intent here is to guarantee a market for ethanol. Now producers can invest in factories with confidence of a payback.

With a bare-faced mandate for ethanol in place, the previous sham, the oxygenate requirement, is hereby deleted. This was a scheme dating back to the carburetor era that mandated gasoline contain two-percent oxygen by weight, so as to trick the fuel system into serving up leaner mixtures. It applied in localities with air-quality problems according to the Environmental Protection Agency — parts of 14 states and the District of Columbia. MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) was the first choice of oxygenates, but since it contributed to ground-water contamination, ethanol became the fallback. However, feedback-fuel-metering systems, which self-adjust to operate at a fixed mixture regardless of fuel composition, became the norm roughly 20 years ago. As a result, the benefits of the oxygenate rule have decreased as newer vehicles’ fuel systems have replaced the older, more primitive ones. Today, as any engine engineer will testify, the rule has virtually no pollution benefit and has become nothing more than a backdoor mandate for the ethanol industry and corn farmers.

Now, with gasoline prices high and more people concerned about global warming, Congress has gotten brave enough to bring ethanol in the front door, in broad daylight, with mandates. Farm-raising our own energy independence is a seductive idea, better yet if it comes with a clean-burning fuel. But will it work? Let’s examine the various promises for ethanol one by one, to see if it can deliver.

Promises vs. Benefits Ethanol will reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. Ethanol will cut our dependence on foreign oil. Ethanol will protect us from gasprice shocks. Ethanol will clean up the air. Ethanol will save us from global warming.

Things to Consider About Ethanol What's ahead for Ethanol? What is Ethanol? Can We Get More? Ethanol Economics No Surprise: E85 Is a Bummer In Fuel Economy. Flex Fuel's Big Pay-off.

<< E85 and Fuel Economy		Ethanol and Dependence on Fossil Fuel >>
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[newgeezer]

Level-headed commentary from Car And Driver's Pat Bedard.

By the way, the mandate has caused the price of ethanol to go through the roof. Last year, it was about $1.50/gallon. This year, it's around $4.00.

Here in Iowa, thanks to favorable tax treatment for ethanol, E10 has been priced lower than straight gasoline for many years. But now, with the high price of ethanol, E10 is priced the same or higher. Therefore, I'm burning straight gasoline again.

[RightWhale]

We might be pumping ethanol, but gasoline is and will be cheaper for a long time to come.

[Red Badger]

Bio-diesel and SVO diesel will be the future.........

[Ben Mugged]

Have you taken a look at how much fresh water is consumed in the production of Ethanol?

[Abathar]

ere is a great Link to the UNH biodiesel site, using algae. This truly looks like the way to go if you want to make biodiesel.

[Iowa Granny]

We're seeing the same high prices for E-85 here in Southern Iowa, ng. The West Coast is buying up all the ethanol for blending in their markets, which causes intense competition for the product.

These price spikes are only temporary, as more and more plants will be going online within the next year.

I confess I didn't read the entire 7 pages of your initial post. So I don't know if the potential for facilies currently being built being obsolete before they become operational was discussed. This is my biggest concern.

A new generation of manufacturing is right around the corner, using celulose. What a pity to have invested all that money and have a plant be obsolete when it comes online.

[Abathar]

You can use the water to make biodiesel and solve a lot of other waste problems at the same time:

"Micro algaes present the best option for producing biodiesel in quantities sufficient to completely replace petroleum. While traditional crops have yields of around 50-150 gallons of biodiesel per acre per year, algaes can yield 5,000-20,000 gallons per acre per year. Algaes grow best off of waste streams . agricultural, animal, or human. Some other studies have looked into designing raceway algae ponds to be fed by agricultural or animal waste."

[thoughtomator]

Ultimately biofuels will come up short, for the simple reason that they can't be produced in the quantities needed to run an economy the size of the USA's.

[conservativecorner]

Look no further than Brazil for a great example of energy Independence.

[newgeezer]

Interesting graph from the article:

[Ben Mugged]

Ethanol Production May Put Pinch on Water Resources Monday, June 19, 2006

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — City officials in Champaign and Urbana took notice when they heard that an ethanol plant proposed nearby would use about 2 million gallons of water per day, most likely from the aquifer that also supplies both cities.

"There was concern about impacting a pretty valuable resource," said Matt Wempe, a city planner for Urbana. "It should raise red flags."

The proposal for a 100 million gallon-per-year ethanol plant is just one of many that have popped up in the past several months across Illinois, which already has seven operating plants and is the nation's No. 2 ethanol producer after Iowa.

High oil prices and support from Washington have inspired such interest in the corn-based gasoline additive that the Illinois Corn Growers Association now says at least 30 plants are in various stages of planning across the state.

All will use a lot of water.

It would take about 300 million gallons of water for processing the product and cooling equipment to make 100 million gallons of ethanol each year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200158,00.html?sPage=business.foxnews/personalfinance/energy

[.cnI redruM]

It's a good backup. I think we should think of ethanol as that and have it ready to mass produce and mass market in case the Iranians or the Venezuelans do something totally crazy.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Look no further than Brazil for a great example of energy Independence.

If only we had land on the equator......and an economy 95% smaller, we could do the same.

[B Knotts]

See above regarding algae-produced biodiesel. It is possible, using algae, to replace all of our transportation fuel and then some. Whether it is feasible or economical is another question.

[Abathar]

Se the link on post #5, actually we can do it, with a cost far cheaper than people think.

[newgeezer]

Here is why E85 needs to be 30% cheaper than gasoline before I'll try it:

We did a comparison test of two fuels, regular gasoline (87 octane) and E85 (100 to 105 octane). Our test vehicle was a flex-fuel 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe 4WD LT powered by a 5.3-liter V-8 hooked to a four-speed automatic transmission.

...the fuel economy on E85 was diminished more than 30 percent in two of the three tests, about what we expected. The EPA’s numbers suggest that fuel economy worsens by 28 percent on E85 compared with regular gas.

[Abathar]

Thats ethanol, not biodiesel. There is a link of post #5 that can really change a lot of the ways people look at alternative fuels.

[massgopguy]

Look for Corn to go up to $3 a can. The EPA and DOE will then regulate corn. Mexicans will riot. "No Blood for Tortias!"

[soccer_maniac]

Great chart.

Renewable energy should be much higher. Windmills, solar, etc.

[Jeff Chandler]

Cellulosic ethanol is the future of ethanol.

[SamAdams76]

Not only will the production of ethanol (on the scale to make it a worthwhile endeavor) use a lot of water but it will consume almost as much fuel as is ultimately produced. So bascially when you deduct the amount of fuel required to run those tractors, grain elevators, center-pivot irrigators, transportation, etc., etc., you end up with very little surplus fuel to actually put on the market. Certainly not enough to make a sizeable dent in our need to import.

[thackney]

There’s no requirement for every gallon of gas to contain ethanol. Instead, an annual ethanol quota must be met.

There is also some fuzzy math in how that quota is measured.

The Committee Print of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, TITLE XV—ETHANOL AND MOTOR FUELS

(5) EQUIVALENCY.—For the purpose of paragraph (2), 1 gallon of either cellulosic biomass ethanol or waste derived ethanol— ‘‘(A) shall be considered to be the equivalent of 1.5 gallon of renewable fuel; or ‘‘(B) if the cellulostic biomass ethanol or waste derived ethanol is derived from agricultural residue or is an agricultural byproduct (as that term is used in section 919 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005), shall be considered to be the equivalent of 2.5 gallons of renewable fuel.

[TRY ONE]

Biofuels will be an important piece of our energy future, but they cannot come close to replacing current US or world oil consumption. The U.S. used almost 140 billion gallons of gasoline and 62.3 billion gallons of distillate fuel (diesel fuel for highway transportation; add around 3 billion gallons of diesel for agricultural use) in CY 2004. Usage was about the same in 2005.

Ethanol is being billed as the leading supplement/alternate for gasoline. The U.S. produced approximately 4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2005, which equals about 2.9% of gasoline consumption. With current technology, a bushel of corn will yield 2.8 gallons of ethanol in a dry mill. Therefore, the total amount of ethanol that could be produced by converting the entire 2005 U.S. corn crop into ethanol would be about 31.1 billion gallon, which equals only 22% of U.S. gasoline consumption in 2005.

Also, energy potential of ethanol is misleading as a large amount of oil and natural gas is required to produce ethanol from corn. Several researchers have investigated the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of corn-based ethanol and the consensus is that it probably is between 1:1 and 1.5:1 – i.e., it has a small net energy yield at best.

[thackney]

Look no further than Brazil for a great example of energy Independence.

Yes, Brazil gained energy independence by producing their domestic resources. Their oil exploration and production made great improvements over the last couple decades. Ethanol provides about 15% of the countries transportation fuel.

Brazil Sugar Ethanol Update – February 2006, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service

[preacher]

Many studies show that it takes more petroleum based energy to produce alcohol than you get from the alcohol. All the subdiies do is tax everyone to subsize ADM & corn producers. Any search engine will give lots of references

[quantfive]

"Gasohol, a mixture of up to 10-percent ethanol with gasoline, has been in wide use in farm states for 30 years, and all new cars are engineered for this fuel."

I filled up in Maine and to my delight and glee saw 10% Ethanol on the pump. There will be a day when it is 85% Ethanol and then I will really be excited. We need Ethanol, Bio-Diesel, Coal to Synth Oil & Nuclear Power to really wean ourselves away from petroleum in the next decade. We have taken the right steps forward but energy independance should be our number one national priority and then fighting terrorism number two. After all much of terrorism is funded from oil revenues from Iran to princes in Saudi Arabia.

[Leifur]

The situation in Brazil is very interesting and could become an example for us all. Actually am I though more interested in ideas of using bacteria and such to turn EVERY waste product in farming (not just the optimal as today) into biofuel.

If that will become possible in the future, and I beliewe that, or something close to that, is more likely than an adequate storage solution for hydrogen, much of our energy problems will be solved.

But then, the question is, where is the biofuel going to come from? Are we going to use government money to help our western farmers to create it for us, or are we going to allow the poor nations of the earth to finally use their potential and lift themselves out of powerty? And thus ease the pressure of poor people on your borders!

There should not be any restrictions, tarifs or anything like that on importing biofuels, and certeinly not additional government funding for its creation here in the West, enough of money go down that (farming) drain today.

Sadly for my country, wich is betting on hydrogen as the future, I beliewe that technical process is going to make biofuel the future.

[maine-iac7]

Brazil is total energy independent - on own produced ethanol...

[from occupied ga]

to my delight and glee saw 10% Ethanol on the pump. There will be a day when it is 85% Ethanol and then I will really be excited

Clueless - read Pimental before you make the mistaken claim that ethanol reduces dependence on foreign oil

[cmet]

Never mentioned to my knowledge is any thought of what the increased demand for corn for fuel will do to the food market.

I would think the cost of cattle feed would increase which would of course raise your grocery bill.

[quantfive]

"Ethanol is being billed as the leading supplement/alternate for gasoline. The U.S. produced approximately 4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2005, which equals about 2.9% of gasoline consumption. With current technology, a bushel of corn will yield 2.8 gallons of ethanol in a dry mill. Therefore, the total amount of ethanol that could be produced by converting the entire 2005 U.S. corn crop into ethanol would be about 31.1 billion gallon, which equals only 22% of U.S. gasoline consumption in 2005.

Also, energy potential of ethanol is misleading as a large amount of oil and natural gas is required to produce ethanol from corn. Several researchers have investigated the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of corn-based ethanol and the consensus is that it probably is between 1:1 and 1.5:1 – i.e., it has a small net energy yield at best."

Good statistics and your assumption of using corn for the ethanol product is correct. Switchgrass which grows in plenty over millions of acres in the mid-west can also add another estimated 20% of gasoline production and is much cheaper to produce. I think the biggest challenges are shipping, storage and building nuclear plants to power the conversion of raw materials so we dont use oil or nat gas.

[annelizly]

as much as i'm in favor of being independent from foreign oil my biggest concern in NOT that or global warming....my biggest concern is the price! Maybe that makes me short sighted and selfish but I can't raise my family if the price of fuel rises and so does the price of groceries.

Keep things cheap! I need to live people!

[thackney]

Brazil is total energy independent - on own produced ethanol...

See post #24

Brazil gets about 15% of their transporation fuel from ethanol.

[boris]

Look up methane clathrates or methane hydrates on google. There is more energy stored on the continental shelves than all of the proven oil, gas, and coal reserves in the world. When separated from water, you get essentially pure methane. All we need to do is figure out how to get it.

--Boris

[bicyclerepair]

A friend of mine lives in Brazil and he said all the hype in our lame-stream media is just that - hype. Once everyone got on the veggie fuel bandwagon, they just raised the price of that and now it's not cheaper anymore.

[kittymyrib]

"Ultimately biofuels will come up short, for the simple reason that they can't be produced in the quantities needed to run an economy the size of the USA's."
You must not have seen the biofuel report that was on CNBC in which it was reported that manure from 600 cows could produce enough fuel to power 900 households...a rather stunning idea.
It would be terrific to have every feed lot in the Texas Panhandle pouring energy onto the Texas power grid. I'm all for these win-win solutions to our energy problem.

[from occupied ga]

You must not have seen the biofuel report that was on CNBC in which it was reported that manure from 600 cows could produce enough fuel to power 900 households...

Sounds like Bull Sh!t to me.

[spintreebob]

Use ethanol as the gasoline equivalent of Hamburger Helper.

Lousy analogy. Hamburger Helper is much cheaper than ground beef.

Ethanol is much more expensive than gasoline. Even here in cornland where ethanol is a sacrament, the ethanol supporters agree that the current 10% ethanol fuel we buy increases the price by 40 or 50 cents per gallon over what 100% gasoline would cost.

And that is just calculating the cost at the pump. It is not calculating the billions of our tax money that go to the Illinois welfare queen D'Andreas.

[chuckles]

It will get cheaper, but outside forces are fighting tooth and nail to defeat it. There is no difference in imported ethanol made from sugar cane than domestic made from corn. The farmers are getting a monopoly right at the moment with corn. It can be made from rice( Texas & La.), Potatoes( Idaho), Sugar beets, sorghum, etc. The corn farmers have everyone believing ethanol comes from corn. Africa could produce these crops cheaply and have an export, The same for Central America, and the Dominican Rep. and Hatti. Brazil has a surplus to export right now.

The high price is artificial caused by a handful of farm states in the mid west. It can also be made from coal. It might take a year or so to make commercial quantities to scale because it's a little harder than making a backyard still. We have 200 years of coal.

Within the next 5-10 years, we should have comercial quanities of celulose made ethanol.( grass, pine needles, wood chips, trash, you name it). You may even have people pay you for your grass clippings. In short, ethanol is high because of politics, not supply.

[griswold3]

Is that a "what the market will bear" pricing feature?

[norraad]

Not only is it a tremendous waste of water to produce ethanol, Ethanol is at least 5% water when you by it!

If you listen while your pumpin'$3 water into your tank, you can hear big oil laughin' their a$$es off.

[griswold3]

We could all be "bio-towns"!!
www.in.gov/biotown_Sourcebook_040306.pdf
I heard a report about a British company building 4 methane plants in the US using chicken manure.. Sorry, can't find a reference.

[from occupied ga]

Here's one for you: ethanol

[TKDietz]

"Ethanol provides about 15% of the countries transportation fuel."


Your link says, "Ethanol use has now expanded to account for thirty-seven percent (by volume) of fuel used by passenger cars." That's pretty impressive, and since that data was published I've read where government sources in Brazil are now claiming that ethanol satisfies better than 40% of Brazil's automotive fuel needs.

Maybe I'm just not reading carefully enough, but I cannot find in the page you linked us to where it says that ethanol only provides 15% of their transportation fuel. I did see where they said that it accounted for 37% of the fuel used in passenger cars, and I believe that was as of 2005. Below that was a fuel consumption chart showing how many liters of diesel, gasoline and ethanol where sold, and if you do the math for 2005 ethanol accounted for better than 18% of sales, and one would think a lot of that diesel and some of that gasoline was burned in other applications besides for transportation purposes. I'd like to know how you came up with your 15% figure.

[Leifur]

You hit the nail on its head. The problem is artificial trade barriers between individuals of different countries, imposed by those countries. And the use of such important issue as energy diversication from mineral oil as pork by politicians and special interest groups.

It is enough that they get the food production, the energy production is to important to be messed by tarifs and subsidises.

[thackney]

from the link,

In 2005 the fuel consumed was:
Diesel 35.821 Billion Liters
Gasoline 15.878 Billion Liters
Ethanol 9.376 Billion Liters

Ethanol was 15% of the total volume of fuel used. Since ethanol has a lower energy content it provides even less than 15% for the energy needed for the transportation sector.

Passenger cars is not the only fuel used. Commerical made be fewer vehicles, but consumes a lot of fuel. I suspect passenger car figure also discludes personal light trucks.

If you want to see how Brazil gained their energy independence, I suggest the following links:

Total Oil Supply, All Countries
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableg2.xls

Projected International Oil Production Capacity
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/ieooil.pdf

International Petroleum (Oil) Reserves
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/crudeoilreserves.xls

[thackney]

Please also note

Despite the overwhelming success of flex cars, they still represent only a very small portion of the {Brazil} national automotive fleet. The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers (ANFAVEA) estimates that flex cars accounted for 7.7% of the national fleet at the end of 2005.

Even with their distribution system and cheap source of sugar cane, the ethanol is still subsidized in Brazil.

In addition to this legacy from the Proalcool program the Government of Brazil (GoB) maintains several programs designed to boost consumption of ethanol. As noted earlier, most ethanol is sold under the GoB’s requirement for a 25% admixture of ethanol to gasoline. In addition, taxes on flex cars are lower than taxes on gasoline powered cars.

The biggest incentives for ethanol, however, are the result of favorable tax treatment at the pump. The GoB assesses significantly higher levies for gasoline than for ethanol under its CIDES and PIS/COFINS programs. The differential in these assessments was estimated by industry contacts at approximately R$ 0.30/liter in October 2005. Moreover, differential treatment under state tax regimes may be even greater. In October of last year, it was estimated that ethanol enjoyed an advantage of approximately R$ 0.50/liter on state assessments in Sao Paulo. As a result, while pump prices were R$1.14/liter for ethanol and R$ 2.22/liter for gasoline, these prices included a differential of R$ 0.80 in taxation rates.

[qam1]

Renewable energy should be much higher. Windmills, solar, etc.

NO!

Solar & Wind are way too little to show up in that chart. With all the gazillions of dollars in tax breaks, subsidies and grants giving to solar and wind, solar only makes up 0.02% of our electricity generation and wind power makes up 0.38%

Source

Solar and wind are only good for powering Liberal fantasies

Most of the renewable energy % in that chart comes from hydroelectric power.

[newgeezer]

Lousy analogy. Hamburger Helper is much cheaper than ground beef.

It's a decent analogy, as far as he takes it.

Main Entry: anal·o·gy
Pronunciation: &-'na-l&-jE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -gies
1 : inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others [not all others]
2 a : resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : SIMILARITY

Ethanol is much more expensive than gasoline.

That may not have been the case when the article was written.

Regardless, expensive ethanol is a fairly recent and ultimately temporary phenomenon. Just last year, ethanol was going for $1.48 on the open market.

[newgeezer]

Never mentioned to my knowledge is any thought of what the increased demand for corn for fuel will do to the food market.

That may be because the price of common field corn historically has had little if any discernable effect on the price of our food (whether it be corn-fed beef or corn flakes).

If the price of corn goes up a even a little, less of it will be left to rot in makeshift storage facilities (e.g. on the ground), and farmers here and abroad will be all too happy to grow more of it. The increase in supply will soon bring the price back down.