The Great Ethanol Scam?

[pscot]

Businessweek thinks so. Your mileage may vary.

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/may2009/bw20090514_058678.htm

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....First, the primary job of the Environmental Protection Agency is, dare it be said, to protect our environment. Yet using ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA's own attorneys had to admit that fact in front of the justices presiding over the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 (API v. EPA).

Second, truly independent studies on ethanol, such as those written by Tad Patzek of Berkeley and David Pimentel of Cornell, show that ethanol is a net energy loser. Other studies suggest there is a small net energy gain from it.

Third, all fuels laced with ethanol reduce the vehicle's fuel efficiency, and the E85 blend drops gas mileage between 30% and 40%, depending on whether you use the EPA's fuel mileage standards (fueleconomy.gov) or those of the Dept. of Energy.

Fourth, forget what biofuels have done to the price of foodstuffs worldwide over the past three years; the science seems to suggest that using ethanol increases global warming emissions over the use of straight gasoline. Just these issues should have kept ethanol from being brought back for its fourth run in American history.

Don't let anybody mislead you: The new push to get a 15% ethanol mandate out of Washington is simply to restore profitability to a failed industry. Only this time around those promoting more ethanol in our gas say there's no scientific proof that adding more ethanol will damage vehicles or small gas-powered engines. With that statement they've gone from shilling the public to outright falsehoods, because ethanol-laced gasoline is already destroying engines across the country in ever larger numbers.

Got a Spare $1,000?
Last July was bad enough for motorists on a budget—gasoline prices had shot up to more than $4 a gallon. But for some the pain in the pocketbook was about to get worse. At City Garage in Euless, Tex., for example, the first of numerous future customers brought in an automobile whose fuel pump was shot. A quick diagnosis determined that that particular car had close to 18% ethanol in the fuel. For that unlucky owner, the repairs came to nearly $900. The ethanol fun was just beginning.
(more)

[Deja Q]

1. Which senators, governors, et al, support ethanol?

[sui generis]

2. snork!

Yep. This pair of bell bottoms has been in the closet so long it's come back into fashion TWICE now.

It would really help the world if we got our dickbrained democratic representation to stop nodding their bobble heads 'yes' on every topic they think will keep them in office regardless of consequence.

The consequence: higher feed and food prices, and potential food shortages. Energy investment with no long term payout other than a crop subsidy, and no justifiable environmental short term impact either.

[imdjh]

3. Beautiful- just fucking beautiful

Acidic gasoline can damage the fuel system of an engine while in storage. B&S strongly recommends removing ethanol-blended fuels from engine during storage."

Like motorists, if landscaping tool owners put gasoline with more than 10% ethanol in their small engines, that immediately voids any factory warranties. In the case of the Lexus recall, using just a 10% ethanol blend was found to be destroying many of these engines also

Well that might explain why my weedeater insists on running on a medium choke setting.

And now I'm wondering if my gasoline will take my 2008 Toyota to an early grave.

God damn it, I get tired of this kind of shit. I can't afford these people's mistakes.

[jdlh8894]

4. Get used to it----

the fun has just begun!

[pscot]

7. Have you no feeling at all for agribusiness?

Put aside your selfish concerns, and think what this means to Archer Daniels Midland. Just follow Milo Minderbinders advice and buy a few shares. The logic of all this will become clear to you.

[Laelth]

5. K&R for the truth. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[zipplewrath]

6. Reality and the promise

Ethanol is the promise that never really lives up to the reality. In the limit, ethanol should be the "win-win" for everyone. Carbon neutral, domestic supply, renewable, etc. The reality until now has been that it has been an industry focused on the easy road, not the pursuit of purity. The way ethanol becomes the promise is by using materials that are more waste, or not otherwise involved in the food chain. It works best on paper when it is otherwise "harvested" from relatively naturals sources that don't require alot of harvesting, and plowing, and transport, etc. Think sea weed or algea or something. And the heat to produce it is drawn from waste heat, or solar, or trash combustion. I have now described exactly zero major ethanol production facilities. Instead, the industry has chosen high starch containing plants like corn and sugar cane, and produces it using coal, oil, or natural gas. Ethanol may some day have its day, and I'm not particularly opposed to early days of inefficiency in order to get it going. But some where in all the stimulus, research, and quotas has to be the goal of moving towards the ideal, not just away from oil.

[gulfcoastliberal]

8. K&R the ethanol lobby is destroying engines not designed to run on corrosive alcohols!

[excess_3]

9. better than oil from the middle east .n/t

[kristopher]

10. It doesn't displace oil from the Middle East.

Oil is traded on an open market.

[excess_3]

11. how so?, the energy content of the ethanol ...

the energy content of the ethanol
is that much less liquid energy
we need to get from somewhere,
and the middle east is the
world's swing producer

[kristopher]

12. Two points

1) http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

2) The primary feedstock for ethanol is corn, and the process of farming, transporting and brewing the corn liquor uses nearly as much petroleum (if not more) as the liquid fuel produced.

So, while there is a small *total* energy surplus there is no significant amount of petroleum displaced. Together with the diversity of countries we import from this means that, for all practical purposes, there is no effect on imports "from the middle east".


I'm a strong believer in biofuels as a replacement for diesel in heavy hauling, but the current subsidies for ethanol are nothing but a political boondoggle that we simply can't afford.

[excess_3]

13. the link didn't have that quote

the link (1) didn't have that quote
'uses nearly as much petroleum (if not more) as the liquid fuel produced. '

did you just make it up?



'

[kristopher]

16. That wasn't a quote

That was the second point and it was a statement of the situation that exists. The first point was the list of the top 15 countries from which we import oil - that was at the link.

[excess_3]

14. you would find this link, interesting

from a report to the DoE.
http://www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/RENEW/Biomass/docs/FORUM/EthanolEnergyBalance.pdf

I direct you attention to figure 2 on page 4.


here is a snip from page 2
Figure 2 compares the changes in petroleum energy requirements for the near-term transportation
alternatives. The non petroleum-based alternative fuels – corn ethanol, LPG, and CNG – all
provide a reduction of more than 90 percent in petroleum energy, as do electric vehicles.
Out of.

[kristopher]

15. The key tem for you to note is "net energy gain"

I specified liquid fuel ethanol to replace liquid fuel petroleum; and as I said that portion is about 1:1. The remainder of the total enery yield from ethanol is in other forms such as feed for livestock. The "net gain" figures given at your link are extremely small when we are talking about energy. Ethanol is not a "source" of energy that could effectively power our society. Instead it is better to view it as a means of "energy storage".
The amount of energy it takes to find, recover, process and market the various options for transportation is the much more relevant perspective when judging how we will power our society. When we first started using petroleum each unit of energy input into petroleum yielded about 100 units of energy. It is now at an average of about 1 unit in for 15 or 20 returned, and declining. Coal is about 1:15 and declining; nuclear is about 1:5 and will decline if we increase our use of the technology significantly.
The current generation of wind turbines well sited on land delivers about 1:50 and offshore around 1:80 and it is expected to rise as larger units come online. Solar is between 1:20 and 1:40 depending on the technology and is expected to rise fairly rapidly also.

In contrast ethanol is about 1:1.3 by most accounts and 1:1.6 in the report most favored by agribusiness.
While that is better than batteries, as I said, once you discount the non-auto energy byproducts it is actually about a 1:1 exchange for petroleum. However, lithium auto batteries are above 90% efficient and offer other benefits that complement perfectly the renewable sources of energy we need to rely on to power our society going forward.

[excess_3]

17. ten to one is small?

ethanol's -----> liquid <----- energy gain ratio
is ten to one.

that has the effect of cutting the
middle-east's-energy-dicators
out of the deal

the US has lots of solid and gasous fuel

[kristopher]

23. That is completely false.

I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish, but your own source quotes net energy gains in the realm of 20-40%. That is "per cent". This means that you put one (1) unit of energy in and you get between one point two (1.2) and one point four (1.4) units of energy back. Your citation was dated 2002 and those numbers are out of date now in 2009, so I provided you with the more current numbers of between 1.3 to 1.6. It is therefore untrue to state or imply that the "energy return on investment" (EROI) is 1:10.

What is the benefit of falsifying the situation? If your goal is the elimination of fossil fuels generally (which is the best way to ensure we cut the flow of money to the M.E.) then ethanol simply isn't the tool to do that job with. If your goal is to allow large agribusinesses to pick our pockets when the money is desperately needed elsewhere, then I suppose it doesn't matter if your arguments are true or false, as long as they bring in the money.

With the exception of comparing the efficiency of internal combustion engines (ICE) to electric drive (EV) I've provided you with the most pertinent arguments on the topic. (You can find that ICE-EV comparison at a recent thread in the EE forum titled "More Bang-For-Your-Buck...".) The data behind those arguments is valid, objective and easily verified; whether you choose to accept it or not is your decision and privilege. However, creating false arguments isn't going to solve our energy and national security problems any more than "drill baby drill" will.

[madokie]

18. I don't see a 30 to 40% decrease in mileage when using E85

so I'm not so sure I want to go any further in reading this. I seen a big fat lie early on so...

[MindMatter]

19. Definitely some fact checking needed

I didn't read every word, but I don't think the article actually cites any evidence of "engine damage". Definitely ethanol can hurt fuel pumps and fuel lines if they are not designed for E85. But the same thing could be said for pouring acid in the gas tank or putting water into the oil reservoir. You have to stick with the manufacturer's specs, obviously.

Having said that, ethanol is a big scam. There was some research last week that showed it is about 8 times more efficient to simply burn the corn and convert it into electricity to power electric cars. When you consider what it costs to fertilize and harvest the corn, truck it to an ethanol plant, run the plant, and truck the juice to the gasoline terminals, ethanol just isn't improving anything.

[kristopher]

24. Not the final word but...

Consumer Reports is often a good place to look for practical testing data on things like this.

Their main findings:


* The fuel economy of the Tahoe dropped 27 percent when running on E85 compared with gasoline, from an already low 14 mpg overall to 10 mpg (rounded to the nearest mpg). This is the lowest fuel mileage we’ve gotten from any vehicle in recent years.

* With the retail pump price of E85 averaging $2.91 per gallon in August, according to the Oil Price Information Service, which tracks petroleum and other fuel prices, a 27 percent fuel-economy penalty means drivers would have paid an average of $3.99 for the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline.

* When we calculated the Tahoe’s driving range, we found that it decreased to about 300 miles on a full tank of E85 compared with about 440 on gasoline. So you have to fill up more often with E85.

* The majority of FFVs are large vehicles like the Tahoe that get relatively poor fuel economy even on gasoline. So they will cost you a lot at the pump, no matter which fuel you use.

* Because E85 is primarily sold in the upper Midwest, most drivers in the country have no access to the fuel, even if they want it. For our Tahoe test, for example, we had to blend our own (see The great E85 fuel hunt).

* The FFV surge is being motivated by generous fuel-economy credits that auto-makers get for every FFV they build, even if it never runs on E85. This allows them to pump out more gas-guzzling large SUVs and pickups, which is resulting in the consumption of many times more gallons of gasoline than E85 now replaces.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/news/2006/ethanol-10-06/overview/1006_ethanol_ov1_1.htm

[populistdriven]

20. sorry this article is garbage, corn ethanol is a strawman

cellulose is the future

[seafan]

21. 'The (dirty) secret of the new ethanol craze is that it is, once again, a Bush family business.'

As we learned in 2007 from the Asia Times...



In today's news:



The Great Ethanol Scam, Business Week, May 14, 2009

More than one major transportation-based industry in America besides Detroit is on the ropes. For the fourth time in our history the ethanol industry has come undone and is quickly failing nationally. Of course it's one thing when Detroit collapsed with the economy; after all, that is a truly free-market enterprise and the economy hasn't been good. But the fact that the ethanol industry is going bankrupt, when the only reason we use this additive is a massive government mandate, is outrageous at best.
Then again, the ethanol lobby and refiners have a solution to ethanol's failure in America: Hire retired General Wesley Clark as your point man and lobby the government to increase the amount of ethanol in our fuel to 15%. The problems with that proposition are real—unlike ethanol's benefits.
Where's the Logic?

First, the primary job of the Environmental Protection Agency is, dare it be said, to protect our environment. Yet using ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA's own attorneys had to admit that fact in front of the justices presiding over the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 (API v. EPA).
Second, truly independent studies on ethanol, such as those written by Tad Patzek of Berkeley and David Pimentel of Cornell, show that ethanol is a net energy loser. Other studies suggest there is a small net energy gain from it.

Third, all fuels laced with ethanol reduce the vehicle's fuel efficiency, and the E85 blend drops gas mileage between 30% and 40%, depending on whether you use the EPA's fuel mileage standards (fueleconomy.gov) or those of the Dept. of Energy.
Fourth, forget what biofuels have done to the price of foodstuffs worldwide over the past three years; the science seems to suggest that using ethanol increases global warming emissions over the use of straight gasoline. Just these issues should have kept ethanol from being brought back for its fourth run in American history.

Don't let anybody mislead you: The new push to get a 15% ethanol mandate out of Washington is simply to restore profitability to a failed industry. Only this time around those promoting more ethanol in our gas say there's no scientific proof that adding more ethanol will damage vehicles or small gas-powered engines. With that statement they've gone from shilling the public to outright falsehoods, because ethanol-laced gasoline is already destroying engines across the country in ever larger numbers. ..... On Jan. 16 of this year, Lexus ordered a massive recall of certain 2006 to 2008 models, including the GS Series, IS and LS sedans. According to the recall notice, the problem is that "Ethanol fuels with low moisture content will corrode the internal surface of the fuel rails." In layman's terms, ethanol causes pinpoint leaks in the fuel system; when leaking fuel catches your engine on fire, that's an exciting way to have your insurance company buy your Lexus. Using ethanol will cost Toyota (TM) untold millions.

.....

Pushed into it by the corn growers' and ethanol refiners' lobbying organizations, today the EPA is starting to go through the public comment phase on increasing the level of ethanol in our gasoline from 10% to 15%.

......

Not one mechanic I've spoken with said they would be comfortable with a 15% blend of ethanol in their personal car. However, most suggest that if the government moves the ethanol mandate to 15%, it will be the dawn of a new golden age for auto mechanics' income.
One last thought: Most individuals who have had to repair their fuel systems in recent years never had the gasoline tested to see if the ethanol percentage might be the problem. Today most repair shops and new-car dealers are still not testing for ethanol blends. They're simply repairing the vehicles and sending their unhappy and less wealthy customers on their way. But, where dealer and repair shops are testing the gasoline, ethanol is becoming one of the leading culprits for the damage.

Sadly, when a truly bad idea is exposed today, Washington's answer is to double-down on the bet, mandate more of the same, and make the problem worse. Only this time around motorists will be able to gauge the real cost of ethanol when it comes time to fix their personal cars.

Asia Times: What drives biofuel Bush? (Jeb Bush, in particular), March 13, 2007

What's with Biofuel Bush? The (dirty) secret of the new ethanol craze is that it is, once again, a Bush family business. Brother Jeb is one of the three chairmen of the Miami-based Inter-American Ethanol Commission (set up in December) along with a former agriculture minister in the previous Lula administration, agribusiness tycoon Roberto Rodrigues, and Colombian Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank.
Rodrigues spent Bush's visit to Sao Paulo perfecting his bombastic pitch all over Brazilian corporate media - stressing that "what we are doing here is launching a new civilization" based on biofuels. Jeb's pitch is way more pragmatic. In essence it involves, in the medium term, importing less oil from Chavez (12% of daily US needs) and more biofuel from friendly and/or pliable Brazil, Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean.

.....

And now, popping out of his musty cave defending his torture tactics again and again, he slips this little threat into his crazed ravings:

On Tuesday, May 12, 2009, former vice president Dick Cheney said that he would back former Florida governor Jeb Bush if he decided to run for president in 2012. In an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, Cheney said:

“I like Jeb. I think he's a good man. I'd like to see him continue to stay involved politically. I'd probably support him for president.”

Cheney insisted, however, that he's "not in the business of endorsing anybody at this point", but did note that he's "a big fan of Jeb's."

.....

Bush/Cheney 2012.


The ultimate curse.

[truedelphi]

22. Ethanol woul dnot be such a bad choice if those farming whatever product is used fo rthe

Ethanol used ethanol in their gas tanks. It is very much a loser if the combines that harvest the corn waste are using gasoline.

And of course, it shoul dbe that we need to immediately move out of producing corn or ther food for ethanol, but use the WASTE from the corn for the fuel.