Posted on 11/26/2008 6:37:38 AM PST by IbJensen
The use of ethanol and other renewable fuels supposedly helps gasoline burn cleaner creating less pollution. It also reduces America's reliance upon foreign oil.
Last Monday the Environmental Protection Agency increased the amount of renewable automobile fuels required to be sold in the United States next year from 7.8 percent to 10.2 percent of the 138.5 billion gallons of gasoline projected to be consumed. This mandate mainly directs that higher levels of ethanol be mixed with gasoline.
The higher standard is required by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a law that requires the increased use of renewable fuels each year in order to reach an annual use of 36 billion gallons by 2022. While burning cleaner gas is an admirable goal, the federal government's ethanol mandate has ensured that the American corn industry has consumers and businesses in a stranglehold without producing quantifiable benefits. In fact, some scientists now argue that there are few, if any, environmental benefits to using ethanol.
According to an April Hudson Institute report, "The Case for Ending Ethanol Subsidies," by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, "converting undeveloped land to cropland - in order to grow more corn and facilitate bio-fuel production - releases a massive amount of carbon dioxide. Only if bio-fuels are made from waste products or grown on abandoned agricultural lands does the production process actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
In addition, since ethanol separates from gasoline in the presence of water, the blends of ethanol and gasoline that we put in our cars cannot be transported through traditional petroleum pipelines. Instead, ethanol is shipped by rail, at greater cost than gasoline and mixed with gasoline near the point of distribution. That is why the 10 percent ethanol-gasoline blends are not available all over the country, only in major metropolitan areas.
Meanwhile American taxpayers subsidize the ethanol industry with $3 billion every year. These subsidies are given to corn farmers and ethanol producers no matter what the price of corn is on the market. These are extremely high because of the EPA requirement for biofuel usage. So many corn farmers have become wealthy from this two-tier system of subsidies and federal environmental mandates which inflate the price of corn on the open market.
Food prices around the world have risen dramatically in the last few years because of this system. Corn, beef, milk, butter, tortillas, gasoline and many other basic food commodities have become more expensive than ever because of the artificial government intervention in the market. This increase in food prices has hurt the world's poor more than anyone else but even middle-income American consumers have felt the pinch at the pump and the grocery store.
And then there is the question of energy independence, which is both an economic and a national security issue. Relying upon bio-fuels, predominantly ethanol, to make ourselves independent of foreign oil is a false hope. It has far less energy density than traditional gasoline, meaning nearly twice as much ethanol is required to equal the energy output of gasoline. We simply cannot convert enough of the land required to make ethanol into cornfields. There isn't enough land in America to do so.
Instead of releasing new federal mandates for ethanol consumption, Congress and EPA ought to overturn our artificial dependence on bio-fuels and begin building clean nuclear-energy power and coal plants, drilling for oil and natural gas in Alaska and off our coasts, and building more traditional petroleum refineries. Then we seriously could discuss the possibility of energy independence while working to clean up air pollution.
This is strangling every American household through the higher prices paid at the market. Food is being expensively processed in order to be pumped into the car's fuel tank.
This makes about as much sense as anything else these liberal pansies have ordered us to do.
Air bags, seat belts, extra stop light in the rear, etc. etc.
ping
Ethanol shares sell at bargain prices
Poet LLC says future bright, offers to buy out other producers.
DIRK LAMMERS Associated Press Writer
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Poet LLC, the nation’s top ethanol producer, is in buyout talks with a number of ethanol companies, the company’s founder told The Associated Press on Monday.
“We just feel there is a lot of promise in the future of the ethanol industry,” said Jeff Broin, chief executive of privately held Poet.
He offered no specific timetable and mentioned no company names.
VeraSun Energy Corp., the second largest U.S. ethanol producer, sought bankruptcy protection Oct. 31 after it suffered significant losses in the third quarter due to a dramatic spike in the cost of corn it turns into fuel.
Shares of smaller ethanol players such as Pacific Ethanol Inc., Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings Inc., and Biofuel Energy Corp. are trading at a fraction of what they once were, creating an environment in which it may be cheaper to buy an ethanol company than to build new plants.
Broin said Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Poet is looking to add plants that are in the right location with the right amenities.
“I think, quite honestly, some of the plants out there may be stranded capital. They were built in the wrong locations,” Broin said. “But there are some that we have significant interest in.”
Broin said he is examining “entire company opportunities.”
Many Wall Street analysts remain bearish on biofuels.
JPMorgan analyst Terry Bivens said consolidation could benefit the industry.
He said he expects depressed gasoline prices to lower demand for corn-based ethanol, but the long-term outlook is more favorable.
According to auto club AAA, the national average price for regular fell to about $1.91 a gallon overnight, less than half the cost when fuel hit record highs in July.
“We expect gas prices to eventually rebound and ethanol production capacity to consolidate,” Bivens wrote in JPMorgan’s 2009 alternative energy outlook.
With slim profit margins already weighing on the biofuels industry, VeraSun, which also is based in Sioux Falls, found itself in a liquidity crisis after locking in at higher-than-market corn prices.
Farmers have objected to VeraSun’s ability to reject corn contracts it signed before seeking bankruptcy protection and challenged its ability to do so Friday with the Delaware bankruptcy court.
Broin said Poet’s hedging actually boosted the company’s financial standing, and allowed it to pursue acquisitions in a rough year for the industry.
Poet, which has been making ethanol from corn for more than 20 years, operates 26 plants that collectively can pump out about 1.54 billion gallons of the alternative fuel each year. Broin said the company has brought three plants online in the past 70 days.
Poet has plans to start building at least two new plants in the spring, but an acquisition could trump that timetable if the company’s design and construction division is tied up retrofitting newly added facilities.
Ethanol FUD ping!
It is said that ethanol causes auto engines to wear prematurely. Don’t know how true that is but I have seen it written several times.
Gasoline is food? Whoda thunk it!
Food grains are not used in ethanol production, only seed quality grains. Ethanol production has not affected food prices but the high costs associated with $120.00+ oil for fuel, taxes on transport and sales taxed sure have had their effect. No, I am not pro ethanol as I know it makes a piss poor motor fuel and is very hard on engines.
Down here in Brazil, almost everyone runs 100% ethanol and haven’t anyone complaining. Seems peppy, they all drive like F1.
You know, I have supported the ethanol industry since the early 1970’s after the 1st OPEC oil embargo. But we were given the choice about to use or not to use.
BAck in the 70’s there was a lot of alternative energy talk.
Oil prices went down. We found more foreign supplies to offset the new, hard line EPA restrictions.
Of all those technologys introduced during that period, only ethanol kept in production.
Wind the clock forward to 2004 when oil prices began spiking (and imports were over 60% compared to 30% in the 70’s) and the talk came back about all those wonderful technologies that will deliver the energy we need to our doorstep.
The difference between then and now is that now the government is forcing consumers to make choices on alternate energy, instead of the free market making those choices. We have plenty of domestic oil in North America.
But since government requires, and issues the permission slip to develop those oil fields they have taken away our choices. Free enterprise no longer dominates the energy market (or any other market for that matter).
All energy alternatives require government sponsorship to succeed. Since government lacks success as a viable, fiscal, business operation, how can we depend on their leadership when there is no accountability of the leaders?
Ethanol is good for many people. Not good for many. Let them make that choice. Government is inept at making logical choices for the people.
This article really has nothing to do with the efficacy of ethanol, rather whether agriculture or petroleum has more influence in Washington.
“Food grains are not used in ethanol production, only seed quality grains. Ethanol production has not affected food prices ...”
BS! What do you think beef, chickens, turkeys, etc eat?
Where the hell does corn grow? On rocky outcrops on the side of a mountain, or is it the same farmland used to grow other food crops?
I lose about 5-6 mpg in my hybrid every time I am forced to buy the ethanol blend. With gas prices back down, it doesn’t seem so offensive, but when the price was over $4 a gallon, looking at that mpg gauge brought to mind every stupid decision the Bush administration made in the past eight years.
I hate the myth that ethanol raises food costs. The surplus corn used for ethanol wasn’t going to anyones table anyhow. And the distillers grains are fed to livestock anyhow so very little food value is lost.
For all the reasons to badmouth ethnol, the food to fuel arguement is the lamest. Blame the high cost of diesel fuel instead. Blame congress. Don’t blame the farmers. They are just trying to survive within the means government regulations allow them.
This fits in perfectly with the liberal doctrine, in creating artificial scarcities that result in a huge profit to a few, who may be strictly regulated by the dominant political power, while providing no net benefit to the rest of the population.
Now, part of the planned transition to “new sources” of energy would include natural gas, which we have in plentiful supply here in the US, and there are alternative sources to vastly expand the recovery and use of natural gas, which is primarily methane.
Compressed natural gas, CNG, has a rather low energy density per weight unit, as compared to a commonly used motor fuel, gasoline, and Diesel fuel has an even higher energy density per weight unit. Ethanol, however, is far lower energy density than either gasoline or Diesel fuel. For that reason alone, ethanol as a motor fuel is a failure.
The petrochemical technicians are rather clever lads, and over the years, they have developed several processes to convert very thick, heavy crude oil fractions into much lighter gasoline and Diesel fuel. By a reverse of this same procedure, compounds like methane may be converted to higher energy density hydrocarbons, producing a much cleaner-burning fuel than that produced from petroleum alone.
There shall be no severing ourselves from carbon based fuels, ever. Not even from the form of “fossil” fuel with the highest energy density of all, coal, or its derivative, coke, which is just about pure carbon. Back in the early 20th Century, German scientists had perfected a number of processes to convert coal directly to a liquid fuel, using steam injection into a bed of coke that had been heated to incandescence, resulting in conversion to carbon monoxide and free diatomic hydrogen, both potent and high-energy fuels when burned in the presence of oxygen. Or the free agent hydrogen and carbon monoxide could be forced through a catalyst layer, and reformulated into various hydrocarbons, creating a synthetic fuel mixture that is both more pure and more consistent than that extracted from distillation of petroleum.
But the liberal mindset has expressly prohibited this route to energy independence for this country.
Your comments are excellent!
The nanny-ninny liberal pansies know best for us.
Weyrich must work for the oil cartels.
I'll tell you what is true. Ethanol attracts and holds water. This can cause steel fuel lines and gas tanks to rust. Ethanol is a solvent and will go to work on built up varnish in gas tanks and fuel lines, causing it to break down, release and wind up in the fuel filter and/or in the carby or injector jets. Ethanol is also hard on certain seals in carburettors, dissolving them over time, particularly marine and aviation related engines. Some light aircraft use auto fuel. Auto fuel with ethanol is a no-no in aircraft because of the water attraction. If ethanol in fuel is holding water and the airplane flys at an altitude that is below freezing, hello frozen fuel lines, engine failure and a forced landing.
These are all in addition to lower gas mileage, higher food costs, etc. Ethanol is bad Ju-Ju no matter how you look at it. That's why CONgress mandated it's use.....
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that ethanol production impacts food prices. It is not a myth. Both sides of this issue have made arguments for their side. I am persuaded that ethanol production can have a substantial impact on food prices depending on the economic situation. I agree that there are other reasons to oppose the biofuel subsidies and mandates that are at least as compelling.
Farm states (including farmers) have pushed very hard for ethanol mandates and subsidies. Iowa voted for Obama largely on his support of ethanol mandates and subsidies. The corn farming states obtained enormous leverage when Republicans had control of the Senate. Republican control of the Senate was conditioned on placating the farm states with bloated farm bills. Farm bill subsidies increased substantially starting in 2002. It has been downhill since them with enormous ethanol and biofuel subsidies. Support for these subsidies and mandates was one of the biggest mistakes of Bush's presidency.
I agree that the entire farm subsidy program is badly broken. I only expect the subsidy program to become even worse with the rats in power. Republicans need to attack these subsidies and mandates. It is a good opportunity to turn the table on the farm state lobbying and bad energy and food policy.
Major driver behind food prices is cost of inputs—check out land, fuel, fertilizer, seed, and pesticides. I wonder about your experience in agribusiness? Please enlighten me.
Ethanol is a huge poke in the eye to the oil magnates in the middle east, venezuela, etc. Ethanol is mainly captured sun energy just as oil is but on an annual basis instead of millions of years.
Hear, hear. You are poking out the eyes of the oil magnates. They don’t want to hear about Brazil’s success.
Note that grain prices in the US have dropped by 50% yet food prices remain the same. Go figure.
“All energy alternatives require government sponsorship to succeed.”
- - -
Why do you say that?
The EPA is so stupid that they could hurl themselves at the ground and miss.
Haven’t we already PROVEN ethanol is a failure?
Haven’t we already wasted enough time and effort trying to re-invent or repeal the laws of thermodynamics?
The EPA is way out of control and needs to be held accountable for its actions. Criminally accountable, in most cases like MTBE.
Mythanol (not miss spelled) is an evil farce forced on Americans and those who depend on America for their food.
The Edsel had a lot of promise too until its wheels hit the showrooms.
Many researchers have found that the production of ethanol consumes more energy than it yields. Michael Grunwald, a qualified science journalist, has reported that one person could be fed 365 days "on the corn needed to fill an ethanol-fueled SUV" He further reports that though "hyped as an eco-friendly fuel, ethanol increases global warming, destroys forests and inflates food prices."
Recent articles blame subsidized ethanol production for the nearly 200% increase in milk prices since, since the price of fuel has driven up the costs to cultivate, grow, harvest, ship, refine, bring to market, etc, all commodities including, but not limited to, milk.
Articles also blame the presence of speculators, and the recent growing interest in the commodities market by investors who have been scared away from a falling stock market.
Ethanol production uses the starch portion of corn.
Last time I checked, fertilizer from the COOP had tripled from what I paid a few years ago. As a side note, I haven’t bought any.
I had hoped to try and revitalize this worn out land.
Having not experienced large-scale dirt farming first hand I, like many, refer to legitimate sources for furthering my knowledge on the subject.
I disagree that ethanol is a poke in the eye to OPEC. It is, rather, a poke in the eye and and insult to people who are capable of intelligent thought and discourse, which differs astronomically from our so-called central government nut-cases.
I have to ask, from what school of thought do you represent?
Nice to see Paul catching up. Just think of all that ADM and Cargill and all their minions in the House and Senate have done to assist the other side in this war with this delusional “solution.”
Why not point out that it helps the other side not ours?
At one point President Bush said he could “almost feel us growing out of” our dependence on foreign oil. Yeah, right.
--there is a big difference in cane sugar and corn due to a major ingredient called "sunlight"--
-—should be lauded as best post of the day-—
IF you’ll read through the responses it would appear we have some ADM and Cargill shills on board.
Stop using food crops to produce it. How about the Kudzu which I hear is becoming such a problem in warmer wetter states? Very prolific, no care required. Energy content, that I don’t know.
Which is why I would be more in favor of producing Methanol from say garbage or wood chips rather than corn based Ethanol.
But.. the government and the media will not let that ever to happen
E-85 is more expensive than regular in my hometown. Poor fuel mileage, gov. subsidies and costs more to boot. Isn’t that nice.
BS! What do you think beef, chickens, turkeys, etc eat?
Bump
nonsense. Corn growers were subsidized long before ethanol ever came along to be promoted as alternative fuels through farm subsidy programs, and still are.
The billions in subsidies is simply to build more ethanol infrastructure, modernize older less productive plants, and fund biotech research.
Ethanol is an excellent fuel with excellent potential, except to those who haven't a clue how an engine runs in the first place.
And no, "food" isn't being used to put in gas tanks. Ethanol production uses feed corn, which isn't even digestible to humans. The by-product of ethanol production is -animal feed. Nothing is taken away from the food industry by ethanol production. Again this is myth propagated by those who haven't a clue how ethanol is made, nor how many types of corn is grown and for what reason. Ethanol is also a superior fuel. IF it's burned in an engine designed to burn ethanol.
Stranghe how it is that people wouldn't dare put diesel fuel in a gas engine, and expect it to run, but they will put ethanol in a gas engine and expect it to run.
Sure it will, but it won't run as good as it could had the engine been built to burn ethanol, or at least very high ethanol/gasoline blends.
This requires completely different engine timing, much high compression ratios that gasoline today simply cannot tolerate.
The "Flex fuel" stupidity that came out of detroits auto plants is a bone headed idea. With ethanol available in many states, at a cost of $1.87 pure ethanol engines, and ethanol diesel engines should be powering cars, and would be twice as efficient as crappy gas engines made today.
they eat the byproduct left over from ethanol or corn syrup production, same as they always have.
All increased ethanol production does is increase animal feed production.
Oh, and btw, corn isn't even a good "food" for humans. So quit the "it takes food from people" crap. You'd die if all you had to eat was corn, not that human type of corn is used in ethanol production.
Why? because the starch level is too low, that's why they use a hybrid corn, which isn't even digestible to humans, for ethanol production. The left over protien is then processed for animal feed, as it always has been for the past 100 years.
why, do you have a problem using starch for ethanol production for some reason?
Learn how ethanol is made, from what it’s made before you form an opinion. Passing on BS generated by purely ignorant people isn’t very becoming.
What causes that is bad fuel , when the petroleum based fuel already has water in it. When it's blended with ethanol, it causes that water to precipitate out of the fuel. So if anything, ethanol is a good- "bad gasoline" detector. If the gasoline is good when ethanol is blended, say e10, any water entering the fuel tank will be ABSORBED by the ethanol, PREVENTING fuel line freeze up. That's why you DON'T need gas line antifreeze when using e10. Plus you get an octane boost from e10, giving you BETTER gasoline performance.
HOWEVER, I wouldn't recommend burning e85 unless the engine has been extensively modified to burn alcohol properly, taking advantage of it's properties. otherwise, you will get poor efficiency and miss out on a tremendous power increase. E10-25 is perfectly fine for regular gas cars however.
Pure ethanol itself can absorb 60% it's volume of water and STILL burn, without water precipitating out.
In fact you drink ethanol blended with water in even higher ratio's than that.
have you EVER seen water precipitate out of your whiskey?
Food grains are not used in ethanol production”
There is a direct relationship between corn production for ethanol and our food.
There is less corn to feed to beef cattle, pigs, and chickens.
That affects us in the price of meat and eggs.
The cost of milk has gone waaaay up to the dairy farmer because less acreage is being devoted to HAY production, as the fields are being used for ethanol corn production.
When all is said and done, there is still the pesky little problem of the amount of BTU’s that ethanol produces. It is approximately 2/3 of the amount of BTU’s the same amount of gasoline produces.
Time to take the BS out of this issue and get back to pure science.
I lose about 5-6 mpg in my hybrid every time ‘
I used to live in No Calif, where there is mandatory “winter blend” with 10% ethanol.
I lost at least 1-% mileage with that crap.
Shouldn't be. Ethanol sells at 1.67 a gallon. It only costs more when blended with gasoline, because the gasoline costs more. As for the crappy gas mileage, of course! Tune the car to burn ethanol. It won't run very good tuned to burn gas. Better yet take the engine to the speed shop and have them increase the compression ratio to about 17:1 instead of the 8.5:1 it currently is. Have them reprogram the advance curve to fit alcohol burning properties, as well as generally advancing the initial timing setting 20 degrees more advanced.
Then you'll not only get GREAT gas mileage, you'll be able to lay down some decent rubber too!.
But burning e85 in a gas engine is just plain waste full. No more than e25, which most electronic ignition systems can detect and compensate somewhat for. E10 is best for a regular gas engine.
For high alcohol content blends like E85, you simply MUST have a higher compression engine to get good value and power. If you had that, you would NEVER burn regular gas again.
Ethanol attacks elastomeric sealing devices more aggressively than does carbon-based fuel. This causes premature failure and ultimately the expensive engine overhauls.
The nanny-ninny liberal pansies know best for us.”
Remember when the Liberals changed the formula for deisel?
The change caused the fuel to eat up all the o-rins, seals, in the deisel engines. Large trucks/semi’s were stalled on roads all over the country.
Many of those trucks were owner/operators. Those repair costs came out of their pockets. Even the costs of repairs that the big outfits paid for were passed on to the consumers.
There is hardly a single action that the Feds and the Liberals dream up that does NOT have a negative impact somewhere.
And I have some real news for those of you who are total city slickers:
Milk doesn’t just come from SAFEWAY!!!!!
You are repeating very OLD news. Those warning exist only for those who still might have an old vehicle with natural rubber fuel hoses and gaskets.
Heck, even my old 1935 Minneapolis Moline uses cork because it was MADE to run on alcohol.
And BTW, the same warning exists when using modern fuels with MTBU additive. It attacks rubber as well. MTBU was added in place of lead.
Hay and alfalfa prices are through the roof because those fields have been tilled up to plant more corn and soybeans.
Without a cheap supply of hay for winter feed the beef become damn expensive to feed in the winter.
I raised hogs for years and could feed out a 250# hog for around $65 in feed. It now costs more than double that for the same feed from the same grain mill in just the last 2 years.
If that leftover slop was such great feed the meat prices should be down because the corn production has gone way up.
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