Posted on 08/11/2007 11:50:01 PM PDT by neverdem
Republican presidential candidates flocked to Ames, Iowa, for the Iowa straw poll this weekend, an event that is both an early winnowing process for the GOP presidential field and an object lesson in how one state can hijack the nation's energy policy.
Ethanol is to Iowans what marijuana is to Rastafarians: a substance that is considered quasi-holy, but only because it delivers really good times. Presidential candidates become fanatical supporters of the corn-based fuel as soon as they begin to compete in the Iowa caucuses. Before it's over, Mitt Romney might have to promise to use ethanol as pomade and Mike Huckabee -- in a naked play for the religious right -- to baptize people in the stuff.
We will produce 6 billion gallons of corn ethanol this year, on the way to meeting a mandate of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. The Senate has passed a mandate for 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, although the additional fuel is supposed to come from sources other than corn -- so-called cellulosic ethanol, made from switchback grass and the like. When the agricultural firm Archer Daniels Midland first coaxed ($$$) Congress into subsidizing ethanol a few decades ago, it was just a perversely amusing example of rank corporate welfare. Now, with ethanol distorting markets in America and around the world, it's not so amusing anymore.
Prior to the Civil War, southerners genuflected before King Cotton. Now, we live in an era of King Corn. It is our most heavily subsidized crop.
We will plant 90 million acres of it this year, up 15 percent from last year. Still, the price of a bushel of corn jumped from $2 to $3 in the past year, thanks to the demand for more ethanol. This is increasing the price of corn-based foods...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Negative environmental consequences of fossil fuels and concerns about petroleum supplies have spurred the search for renewable transportation biofuels. To be a viable alternative, a biofuel should provide a net energy gain, have environmental benefits, be economically competitive, and be producible in large quantities without reducing food supplies. We use these criteria to evaluate, through life-cycle accounting, ethanol from corn grain and biodiesel from soybeans. Ethanol yields 25% more energy than the energy invested in its production, whereas biodiesel yields 93% more. Compared with ethanol, biodiesel releases just 1.0%, 8.3%, and 13% of the agricultural nitrogen, phosphorus, and pesticide pollutants, respectively, per net energy gain. Relative to the fossil fuels they displace, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced 12% by the production and combustion of ethanol and 41% by biodiesel. Biodiesel also releases less air pollutants per net energy gain than ethanol. These advantages of biodiesel over ethanol come from lower agricultural inputs and more efficient conversion of feedstocks to fuel. Neither biofuel can replace much petroleum without impacting food supplies. Even dedicating all U.S. corn and soybean production to biofuels would meet only 12% of gasoline demand and 6% of diesel demand. Until recent increases in petroleum prices, high production costs made biofuels unprofitable without subsidies. Biodiesel provides sufficient environmental advantages to merit subsidy. Transportation biofuels such as synfuel hydrocarbons or cellulosic ethanol, if produced from low-input biomass grown on agriculturally marginal land or from waste biomass, could provide much greater supplies and environmental benefits than food-based biofuels.
I'm calling bullshit.
ROTFLMAO!
I'm calling bullshit.
Call it what you will. The author put a real name behind his article. Corn requires petrochemicals for fertilizer, more energy to plant and harvest, then more energy to convert the corn into ethanol, then still more energy to blend it with gasoline.
I'm not an automtive engineer, but I don't believe you can blend ethanol with gasoline unless it's 100 % ethanol first. Then it's hauled to market. That's not free either.
Ethanol production techniques have gotten more efficient, and genetic engineered corn require less energy to breakdown it down to produce ethanol. Cars do not run on ethanol as efficient as gasoline, but that can change if Detroit builds car engines optimized to use ethanol only. All this is possible if and only if oil remains $ 60 or more per barrel. If the Arabs want to derail our alternative energy programs, they just need to pump out more oil and lower the price. That may not be possible with India and China needing the stuff more than us. Ethanol seems to be here to stay.
I think you are agreeing with Comus.
The last season of ‘West Wing’ made the same point as Lowry. In those episodes there was a significant story line that revolved around the pandering that politicans must do in order to please the Iowa (and midwest) farm lobby. With Iowa having such a prominent role in the selection of candidates, the issue does indeed “distort our politics”.
Ask Comus. I cited the abstract of a PNAS article that said ethanol as a biofeul was a loser compared to biodiesel. Comus called a sentence from it BS.
Already beef prices are rising as a result of ethanol use and in South America, the rain forests are being cut to grow more ethanol crops.
Yeah. This sentence:
"Ethanol yields 25% more energy than the energy invested in its production"
And you disagree with Comus? Not me - - I agree with him that ethanol is a scam.
Comus has not replied yet. I posted the abstract to support Lowry's commentary. If cellulosic derived ethanol can be made cheaply, then that's another story. The energy yield from subsidized corn seems marginal, i.e. 25%. I want energy independence. Biodiesel fleets seems to be the way to go, depending on geography and season.
What the yield on energy input? If the yield on the energy input for corn derived bioethanol is 25 % versus 93 % for biodeisel, then the answer seems obvious.
Ethanol contains fewer BTUs than gasoline; therefore, it will forever be less explosive than gas. Consequently, it will always deliver fewer miles per gallon than gas.
Not "quite" as obvious as that. There are lots more IC engines around than diesels, and that isn't going to change much in the near future. Add to that the fact that a corn-soybean rotation is one of the best means of maintaining soil health, and you find that the RIGHT answer is "both".
And one of the real advantages of getting ethanol STARTED using corn, is that the infrastructure gets put in place with an existing crop, but can be supplemented/displaced by things like sawgrass, which has a much lower fossil fuel to ethanol ratio than corn, but which needs more R&D to bring into production.
Finally, the "energy efficiency of corn ethanol" argument is pretty much bogus. Even if the energy ratio was 1:1 fossil fuel to ethanol, it's STILL advantageous, because the energy sources used in ethanol production are ones the US has, and replaces energy sources we import. I certainly prefer to see those dollars flowing to American farmers than to a bunch of ragheads who want to kill us.
Not true. MIT has just developed a new engine based on ethanol injection that drastically increases the efficiency of sparked based engines. Instead of mixing the ethanol with gasoline, it is injected separately, in a precisely controlled fashion. Doing so ELIMINATES KNOCK COMPLETELY, and allows the compression ratio to be tripled.
And even in regular engines, if the engine is designed from the ground up to burn ethanol ONLY (not E-85), the engine can have a far higher compression ratio (and thus a higher efficiency). There are other factors involved besides just the caloric content of the fuel.
We’re all being conned by Archer Daniels Midland ——
None of theis has anything to do with energy independence, or clean fuels, or anything.
The one and only issue that is ethanol is socialism; Ethanol in nothing more than a convenient slight of hand to get you on board and become good little socialists.
Intuitively, burning your nation’s food supply in your car’s engine does not seem like a good idea. What am I missing here?
That’s a really good line and unfortunately partially true.
Cauacus goers are definitely not all ag people. My very unscientific guess would be 1/3 are.
And of that 1/3, those involved in livestock production are seeing the darkside of ethanol as their feed costs have risen dramatically with ethanol.
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