The great biofuel fraud

[Tet]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

1 gallon of gasoline = 115,000 BTUs
1 gallon of ethanol = 75,700 BTUs

Assumin $3 gallon for gasoline and $2.2 per gallon ethanol (from http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07...ht-go-up-soon/), you can see that the relative price per BTU of oil is pretty close to that of ethanol.

It's the creation and transportation of Ethanol that uses quite a bit of oil. Growing grain and transporting that grain is a huge energy sink, because of all the oil involved, fertilizer, pesticides, cultivation and transportation all use a lot of crude. Last I looked unleaded gas was wholesaling at about $2.20, I've never seen an ethanol chart, I can't imagine it's any cheaper.

[DemonD]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

Corn ethanol will be an unmitigated disaster for the poor, for the environment, for food prices, for gasoline prices, for topsoil erosion, for water usage, for waking up to the inescapable and increasingly dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and the list goes on.

what if the EROEI of corn ethanol goes up to 2:1 (versus the current estimate of 1.2-1.3:1)?

In any case, I just don't get the absolute enmity against alternative fuels. It appears to me that there are people on both sides of the argument that just want to destroy the argument for biofuels.

Here is how I know the original article is completely 100% biased:
The word "biodiesel" appears once in a very slanted argument against the use of rapeseed in europe. The EROEI of biodiesel is way higher than corn ethanol, and also you don't get the loss of performance that you do from ethanol.

Not only that, but you can make biodiesel from just about anything, making it more diverse than being stuck with corn and sugar cane.

I will concede that ethanol is not a great solution at this point. I also do believe that too much malinvestment is going into corn ethanol through too many government subsidies, but how is that any different from pretty much any agribusiness, tax sheltered insurance company, or hedge fund? None of these are "free" markets and I would not expect ethanol or biofuels to be either.

What I absolutely shake my head against is just the vitriolic overly biased "anti alternative fuel" articles that this one supports.

"The Great Biofuel Fraud" just conjures images of a headline like "Tobacco and Cancer: The Biggest Myth Ever" or "Marijuana: It will make you a psychotic killer"

Of course it should be noted that there are still people who deny science and logic and believe that cigarettes are harmless and that cannabis is the most evil life form ever.

Man I'm on my soapbox tonight.

I just keep thinking, wishing, praying, "Is there any possible way Ron Paul will be elected President?"

[zoog]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

The EROEI of biodiesel is way higher than corn ethanol, and also you don't get the loss of performance that you do from ethanol.

Not only that, but you can make biodiesel from just about anything, making it more diverse than being stuck with corn and sugar cane.

Biodiesel is something I wouldn't complain about subsidizing. If Honda had made a diesel Civic, I'd be using it too.

That said, if the government jumped on the biodiesel bandwagon like they are with ethanol, we'd be reading stories about farmers abandoning food crops in favor of planting rapeseed and sunflowers, harvesting them, dumping the lot into enormous deep fat fryers, and selling the sludge to biodiesel producers.

Unfortunately, none of the alternative energy sources are entirely benign. As far as that goes, just the fact that humans exist seems to have a negative effect on the planet, so I'm not sure where one can draw the line and say "it's bad to do this, but it's ok to do that". I suppose I would draw the line at "what can we do that does not intensify how much we are screwing up the Earth and endangering our survival?". Bonus points if we somehow manage to reduce our collateral damage.

As usual, the geniuses in Washington have latched onto one possible alternative to petroleum (and a poor alternative at that), and thrown lots of money and effort at it, instead of adequately funding a variety of options so as not to overburden any particular one. Over a 100 years or so we have taken a single resource, oil, and invented countless uses and forms for it. Now we are increasingly faced with trying to develop multiple alternative sources to meet various needs because no single alternative can do all that oil can do.

[FRED]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

I'll need to do some digging and/or recollecting, but someone had put together a graph of Oil BTUs (thermal units, or energy equivalent) vs. Corn BTUs. The Corn BTUs recently jumped to similar levels as Oil.

This was probably Mish, but it does say that if energy is the ultimate goal, the market will find ways to meet its goal.

Corn Ethanol while certainly less efficient than gasoline and also not necessarily better for environment, nonetheless the ultimate consideration is price.

Just as with outsourcing jobs, I believe that the ancillary effects of agricultural energy production - that being higher food prices, is irrelevant to the farmers and gas stations, just as the local/national economic effects of job outsourcing are irrelevant to the corporations doing it.

Popular Mechanics: Crunching the Numbers on Alternative Fuels

[jk]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

It is good to see that there are some apparently serious efforts toward copulation control.

copulation control would do it, jim.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

copulation control would do it, jim.

Well, the possibility of such control certainly does not seem to have reached into Arkansas.

Arkansas couple welcomes 17th child.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_on_fe_st/17_kids

Edit: Reminds me of an old -Groucho Marx joke: He was interviewing a fellow on the show and the fellow said he had 21 children, to which Groucho replied, cigar in hand, "I like my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth every so often."

[c1ue]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

Quote:
Originally Posted by jim nickerson
It is good to see that there are some apparently serious efforts toward copulation control.

copulation control would do it, jim.

Copulation control should mean both a carrot and a stick.

Wonder what those would be

I for one volunteer for the copulation subsidy tests

[Guest]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

C1ue -

Found this post by Richard Russel on Ethanol. The EROEI number seems a bit of an eye opener? If Prof. Pimentel of Cornell's numbers are right, this is the most colossal energy scam of the decade?

It's easy enough to have iTulipers buy the notion ethanol is a scam, because many are tuned into the idea that there's a scam at every corner - what's harder is to get them on board for some other issues, where there is no scam theory to orient them into the same familiar scam discovery methodology.

The scam logic always wants to open the left door (the contrarian read) to discover the bottom line, while the right door remains unopened, because it's "too obvious".

Examples might be things like climate change, where we are reading new headlines every day, or dwindling oil, where we are reading new headlines every day, all being developments that might even be real, let alone urgent.

At that point the political stereotypes step in unfortunately, and kick up a lot of dust so people can't see each other any more.

August 1, 2007
By Richard Russell

The idea of using corn to make ethanol is one of the stupidest ideas of the last 50 years. Farmers dropped other crops and turned to corn, which the government subsidized to the tune of over one billion dollars. Corn shot up to its highest price in a decade, but farmers over-planted. Then more recently, the price of corn collapsed. In the meantime, the price of other crops surged, running up the price of food in the US. In all, a new high in government stupidity.

The real problem with ethanol from corn is that it requires fuel to make the corn. David Pimentel a professor from Cornell has done the analysis. An acre of U.S. corn can be processed into about 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel. That is $1.05 per gallon of ethanol before the corn even moves off the farm.

The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps and other treatments are needed to separate the ethanol from the water. All these need energy.

Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTU's are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol which has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. "Put another way," Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU."



News clips from a recent James Dines newsletter.

> 3. The world is facing an oil supply "crunch" within five years that
> will force up prices to record levels and increase the west’s
> dependence on oil cartel Opec. In its starkest warning yet on the
> world’s fuel outlook, the International Energy Agency said "oil
> looks extremely tight in five years’ time" and there are "prospects
> of even tighter natural gas markets at the turn of the decade." The
> IEA said that supply was falling faster than expected in mature
> areas, such as the North Sea or Mexico, while projects in new
> provinces such as the Russian Far East, faced long delays.
> Meanwhile consumption is accelerating on strong economic
> growth in emerging countries.
> Javier Blas, Financial Times (London), 10 Jul 07
>
> 6. Warnings about global warming may not be dire enough,
> according to a climate study that describes a runaway-train
> acceleration of industrial carbon dioxide emissions. Fueled by rapid
> growth in coal-reliant China, rates of carbon dioxide emission from
> industrial sources increased from 2000 to 2004 at a rate that is over
> three times the rate during the 1990s."If you wonder what side of
> global warming’s effects – droughts, warming and others – we are
> going to get, a little or a lot, we are going to get a lot," says Angela
> Anderson of the Washington, DC-based National Environmental
> Trust. Countries are using more energy, and "no region is
> decarbonizing its energy supply," the study says.
> Dan Vergano, USA Today, 22 May 07
>
> 7. Solar power has captured the public imagination. Panels that
> convert sunlight to electricity are winning supporters around the
> world. But even a quarter century from now, says the Energy
> Department official in charge of renewable energy, solar power
> might account for, at best, 2% or 3% of the grid electricity in the
> United States. In the meantime, coal-burning power plants, the
> main source of smokestack emissions linked to global warming, are
> being built around the world at a rate of more than one a week.
> Andrew C Revkin & Matthew L Wald, Front Page,
> New York Times, 16 Jul 07
>
> 11. With the country punished by record heat waves, floods and
> droughts this summer, it is no wonder that Beijing, which has
> long viewed global warming as a problem that rich nations
> should solve, is waking up to the fact that China may be
> especially at risk. The Qinghai-Tibetan plateau is warming up
> faster than anywhere else in the world, Chinese scientists said.
> Threatening to melt glaciers, dry up the 3,395-mile Yellow River
> and cause more droughts, sandstorms and desertification. The
> nationwide economic boom has propelled China into overtaking
> the United States as the world’s No 1 source of greenhouse gas
> emissions. That far outstrips the cutbacks wealthy nations are
> committed to make under the Kyoto Protocol.
> Robert Collier, San Francisco Chronicle, 1 Aug 07
>
>

[c1ue]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

Lukester,

Again, in violent agreement.

However, what you and your sources are pointing out is again irrelevant from a price perspective.

At each stage in the process, each contributor has a well defined set of options.

Farmer:

Plant corn, soybeans in rotation, canola, rapeseed, wheat, cotton, etc.

Corn gets the most money now between subsidies and 'market price' - thus plant corn. This is not just spot price, but that Corn Ethanol means effectively multiplying corn demand many times which greatly decreases risk from supply vs. demand. Farmers know all about S v D.

Ethanol distiller:

This is a business focussed on ethanol. Once you've committed, there is not much else you can do.

Gasoline provider:

Ethanol cost per gallon is lower than gasoline. BTUs are also lower, but fuel is sold by the gallon.

Consumer:

Gas station 1: Regular unleaded = $3.00
Gas station 2: Regular unleaded with 15% ethanol = $2.88 ($3.00 gas * 0.85 + $2.2 ethanol *.15). Of course, station 2 will more likely charge $2.90

The only institutions which could override these individually sensible but collectively wasteful decisions are the government and the media.

Government is actually weighting these decisions via subsidies.

Media is worthless as the corporatization of news results in ever decreasing quality of product in favor of shameless paid shill.

[Guest]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

Your cost analysis sounds exactly right, C1ue.

It is 100% misdguided policy at work. Expensive error, and also kind of like having an insurance policy written by "Fly by Night Insurance Co., Ltd".

Marketing slogan should read "Guaranteed to not be there when you need it".

[c1ue]

Re: The great biofuel fraud

Were I ever to go back to school - and I am somewhat considering it - my doctoral thesis in economics would be an examination of modern day game theory in economic behavior - specifically 'commons' situations.

For corporations outsourcing - the 'commons' is the economic and societal infrastructure which gave rise to the society/culture which spawned them

For insurance - the one who files claims gains more benefit that the ones who do not, even if the claim is spurious

For corporate governance: the corporation which games EPS, PE or other financial measures gains vs. the ones who do not even if actual value creation is lower

For environmentalism - the entities which abuse the environment derive far more benefit than the overall population which does not, etc etc.

The common thread in these is the same: a behavior which from a 'global' or 'overall' perspective which is destructive, but is beneficial in a narrow selfish sense - or put another way an extension of the balance between selfishness vs. communal good.

What is equally interesting is that a decade after communism is considered to have failed (i.e Russia - energy/resource economic hegemony, China - labor economic hegemony), the principal academic failures of communism were not that the economic system itself was bad, but that the decisions made by the leaders under communism were bad and that the principal behavior encouraged under communism was insufficient motivation.

The conclusion has been that there cannot be a small group of national power wielders which can accurately guide a society/nation since there is simply too much to know and to act upon.

However, this conclusion could be said to be equally true under a economic hegemony which is capitalistic - i.e. a small number of money wielders who control the majority of investment capital.

Could it be that John Wayne was right: that the rugged individualist must be the underpinning of a healthy society? :cool: