Why Ethanol Just Can't Work
Inspired by Edwin's recent post, I composed this (originally posted on my Myspace blog and copied here):
I can't say it any better than this guy does. Choice facts:
1. 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.
2. Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline.
3. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States. Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: "In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace". (Note from me: We're already starting to see this happening.)
4. If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.
Even President Bush, who I've criticized on many, many occasions, has started to see the problems with corn ethanol.
"I'm absolutely retarded. Not 100% sure why." - atom
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Corn has actually tripled in price since that was written.
"Also, I have four legs and am covered in wool. Baa!" *Legion* reveals his inner furry.
Yeah, ethanol is horrendously ineffective, especially when made from corn. Sugar is better, and I guess there's room for a bit more improvement in tech and infrastructure, but pushing it as some sort of alternative is bullsh*t of the highest order.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
I had a phone discussion with my East Tennessee dairy farmer the other day and he agrees that this whole ethanol and biodiesel thing is a load of crap, but he's not complaining as long as the government keeps writing the checks. He's actually reduced his cattle count because they are "eating his profits". He makes more on the feed corn he grows than on the milk from the cows now. All thanks to the generous government subsidy.
He states that if it ever made economic sense, farmers would have been using biodiesel instead of farm equipment diesel for years -- and they haven't. As it is, the vast majority of biodiesel he's seen has been Brazillian "splash and dash" crap: Import Brazillian biodiesel, toss in the federal minimum amount of tax free farm equipment diesel, collect a generous federal "blending" subsidy, and sell it to a European broker.
In a time where we're looking at record gas and diesel prices, why the hell are we subsidizing the Brazillians?
There is only an up or down--up to a man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order--or down to the ant heap totalitarianism,... those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
The more ethanol required, the more potash I need to make.
Well, I don't like to toot my own horn, but I'm a pretty good amateur rectal photographer. Would you like to see my portfolio?
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When will lobbyists pass lawyers as that stereotypical most hated group of people. Or have they already in certain areas?
http://www.greenfuels.org/
http://www.greenfuels.org/mythbust.php?id=a71c1033-4328-102b-b3dc-0030488d2a96
Is funny too.
So admit that livestock eats corn in passing but try to deflect the argument with other points.
In the other thread about how Economics is naked I brought up the point of Information and marketing. Markets fail when people are lied to and they swallow it whole and start making decisions they think are rationale but are not.
edit: funny I read this thread before I saw the paper today. "Will the Biofuels craze cause mass starvation?" front page across the national post up here in Canada.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=439710
Scientists are developing ways to produce more ethanol from corn harvesting by-products than they could from corn. I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/electric.html
I don't know what else to say on the subject. Between this and the lack of solar initiatives in this country I just get sick.
"An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war." Twain
My favorites are ocean wave generators and geothermal technology.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
I thought the idea was to use switchgrass as a non-food source of ethanol? That's what all the non-bomb-throwing environmentalists have been talking about for the last few years, for this very reason.
Extremism in the defense of liberty *is* a vice. It has been since the first Crown Loyalist was tarred, feathered and set afire, and it's no better now. It corrupts first the individual, then ultimately the institution it defends.
I'm going to simplify this down to two main groups, but I know that there are quite a few who don't fall squarely in either camp.
Group A: Ecofreaks, people who simultaneously claim that our oil is about to run out in the near future, and simultaneously demand that we adopt alternative fuel "NOW". To me point #1 will eventually (in the near future) force point #2 would it not? So if anything they should encourage the usage and exploration for oil.
Group B: Oil, um, execs? Think there is both unlimited oil and want us to continue to be "addicted" to it for the foreseeable future. The more the sell the better off they are. The problem is that even if oil is somehow renewing the supply in the ground there will still come a time when the rapid growth of the population will outstrip the rate at which oil can be gotten to them.
Ethanol is a crappy substitute right now, the gasoline monopoly didn't happen overnight, and it will take a while for the supply to catch up to any sort of reasonable demand. Just like it took a while (and Ford) to make the automobile a necessity for American Life, it will take a while before anyone sees benefits of ethanol over gasoline.
I have nothing against either Ethanol or BioDiesel, other than the industries are both founded on very poor financial underpinnings. Both products were cheap because they bought what were essentially waste products as their main feedstock. The problem is that now the wastage is no longer enough to satisfy their requirements, and they are creating demand for a limited amount of goods, which in turn causes those "greedy" farmers to raise their prices. Which in turn raises the price you need for it.
In addition the ethanol plants are raising hell on the water table.
"Also, I have four legs and am covered in wool. Baa!" *Legion* reveals his inner furry.
Right but shouldn't we wait until that point before forcing it on the market? The problem I have with this is when people looking for a easy buck start lobbying politicians for this as the solution and its clearly not.
Last time I checked science did not need to be shoved down our throats to advance. The same work could be done without subsidies to farmers and changing the landscape of the food markets.
I don't see anyone shoving anything down anyones' throat, really.
Most of the puff pieces I see about biodiesels are talking about how the car owners are soliciting used cooking oil from local restaurants. (with the obvious side gag of your car smelling like french fries)
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Yes, the idea is to move away from starch-based ethanol (corn, sugar) to cellulosic ethanol (switchgrass). Breaking down celloluse into sugars that can be fermented into alcohol right now costs about twice as much as starch-based, but there is a lot of research going into finding enzymes or bacteria that will break down the cellulose.
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Or creating genetically engineered termites to turn corn husks into sugar =)
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
I for one, welcome our new genetically modified termite overlords..
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I like ethanol.
You know, for drinking.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Turpentine tastes better.
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BTW, Fang, I crossed a street behind one of those biodiesel buses in SF a while back. Very strong smell of french fries.
Extremism in the defense of liberty *is* a vice. It has been since the first Crown Loyalist was tarred, feathered and set afire, and it's no better now. It corrupts first the individual, then ultimately the institution it defends.
from the last link I posted.
Legislating something into the market that is not efficient yet is shoving it down our throats.
Did you miss the "by 2022" part? I believe the thinking is to encourage development. They are not ordering it to happen this year.
Extremism in the defense of liberty *is* a vice. It has been since the first Crown Loyalist was tarred, feathered and set afire, and it's no better now. It corrupts first the individual, then ultimately the institution it defends.
So in the meantime to 2022 they get money to help them on their way. I'm not against them advancing the science that would be obviously moronic on my part. The concept of throwing money at farmers to make sure they grow it before its working efficiently though is pretty huge issue. 500 million is allot of money that could be thrown at real research instead.
I think it's more tied to the traditional energy and agricultural subsidies, frankly. What I was trying to point out was that in terms of the *energy* market, it's a tiny amount. It's not unreasonable.
In terms of the agricultural subsidies, it's bigger, but not gigantic. Over a billion dollars went to people who didn't even grow anything from 2000-2006, for example. Any Congress that will give out that much money for literally nothing won't blink at $500m for ethanol.
Extremism in the defense of liberty *is* a vice. It has been since the first Crown Loyalist was tarred, feathered and set afire, and it's no better now. It corrupts first the individual, then ultimately the institution it defends.
Problem is, apparently a lot of farmers are taking the money to not grow anything on their land, and since corn prices are so high, turning right around and growing corn on that land. Can't blame them; may as well take as big a piece of the pie as possible. When a system is that backwards, you'd be stupid *not* to take advantage.
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For fertilizer production to grow all the corn? or is there some other usage in ethanol production?
As an extra bonus, it's also less energy dense, so you need about 1.3 gallons of ethanol per gallon of gas you're trying to displace.
Anyway, ethanol is just plain silly what with the vast oceans of pure hydrogen just waiting to be pumped to fuel stations globally. What? No? OK, lets cram hundreds of pounds of batteries full of toxic heavy metals into cars and use electricity instead! After all, the electricity for cars is magical and no fossil fuels are burnt nor pollution created to generate it! Woo! Solved!
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Or we can take the genes from the microbes in cows' stomachs and insert them into the corn, so we have corn that breaks down its own cellulose:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn13619-biofuel-corn-makes-cow-bug-enzyme-to-digest-itself.html
However, for a real, near-term solution, I'm for integral fast reactors. For fuel, IFRs can use the waste created by typical light water reactors, and the waste they produce decays to safe levels in less than 500 years (as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years for LWR waste). The reactors can also be used to dispose of pretty much every other type of nuclear waste, such as that from medical technology.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA378.html
Fo' Sho, there's a ruckus here in Mexico because the price of the tortilla is going up (and apparently everything else because of that... We eat a lot of that apparently).
The man wears a bucket of KFC on his head. I wouldn't expect anything less. - Pred
Time just posted their article "The Clean Energy Scam"
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Solar Thermal Electric. That's what we need to power our cars without big Greenhouse impact or huge costs. And it's visually impressive, too.
Extremism in the defense of liberty *is* a vice. It has been since the first Crown Loyalist was tarred, feathered and set afire, and it's no better now. It corrupts first the individual, then ultimately the institution it defends.
I assume you are talking about electric cars... because there is no way to reasonably fit one of those solar arrays on top of a car.
"Also, I have four legs and am covered in wool. Baa!" *Legion* reveals his inner furry.
*ahem*
"I'm absolutely retarded. Not 100% sure why." - atom
"Dhelor + intarwebs = Great ideas." - wordsmythe
"Do I what I do: hate everyone." - Quintin_Stone