

Is Domestically Produced Ethanol Worth the Cost? - terio
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ethanol-domestic-fuel-supply-or-environmental-boondoggle

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BenSS
A million times yes, there needs to be more awareness of how ridiculous corn
ethanol is.

Corn ethanol is more an indirect way of converting coal to something your car
can run on. There are many other more efficient plant sources that do not
require large doses of fertilizer and herbicides, usually drawn from coal
energy.

~~~
lutorm
I'm not going to defend corn ethanol, but I do think this debate is misguided.
The problem is not the corn _ethanol_ , the problem is the _corn_.

 _Corn_ is an indirect way of converting oil into sugar. It is just as
inefficient at making food as it is at making fuel (though that's less obvious
because the end product doesn't have the same units.) There's a great article
in an old issue of Harper's called "The oil we eat"
(<http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915>).

I find it amazing that people are complaining that diverting corn to make
ethanol raises food prices, when you can make the same argument that diverting
corn to feed cattle raises food prices. Making beef via corn is an extremely
inefficent method that's only viable because of cheap oil.

If the real concern is _feeding_ people, you eat vegetarian. From a food
supply point of view it's pure waste to feed cattle food that humans can eat
directly. (Letting cattle eat grass on land not suited for agriculture is
different.) The _only_ reason it's sustainable to raise cattle the way it's
done in the U.S. is because of an abundance of cheap corn due to cheap oil.

~~~
jcampbell1
> If the real concern is feeding people, you eat vegetarian.

It is counter intuitive, but this statement is not exactly a fact. The
corn->protein process via chickens is actually quite efficient. I'll give some
sample numbers:

1 acre corn -> 150 bushels corn -> 10,000 lbs of corn -> 4000 lbs of chicken
-> 1500 lbs of protein.

1 acre of peanuts -> 3000 pounds of peanuts -> 750 lbs of protein.

So the corn->chicken process is twice as efficient at producing protein as
growing peanuts which are pretty efficient. Sure, a soy protein diet is the
most efficient, but who wants to exclusively eat tofu?

Eating beef is wasteful, but chicken is comparatively efficient to eating
vegetarian. Most vegetarians I know eat lots of tree nuts, avacados, etc,
which from a food supply point of view, is far worse than getting protein from
chicken or pork.

~~~
DougWebb
Interesting analysis. We've bred chickens, cows, and pigs to all produce more
meat for a given diet, but I guess we've done this better with the chickens.
Maybe we need to focus on breeding the cows into creatures that have no legs,
fit within tightly packed rectangular cages, and don't need as much internal
organ space dedicated to processing food, so that the space can be devoted to
tender juicy muscle instead.

~~~
sliverstorm
I don't even see the connection, other than that you're an incredible cynic
perhaps making a reference to _Oryx & Crake_.

It's not about pounds of meat per animal, it's about input energy to output
energy. Chickens are simply better at harvesting energy from their food, and
not because we've "engineered" them to be.

~~~
DougWebb
I have no idea what Oryx & Crake is.

You think chickens aren't engineered? American farm chickens are entirely
different creatures than you'll find in parts of the world where the chickens
are allowed to breed freely. Even on American farms the egg-laying chickens
are very different from the for-meat chickens. The for-meat chickens, in
particular, are bred to be very efficient at turning food into meat.

My tongue-in-cheek proposal was that we need to breed cows to use less energy
in their day-to-day lives, so they can use that energy to produce more meat.
Lots of their energy goes towards creating, fueling, and maintaining their
legs so they can walk around, so that seems like the first thing that can go.
We'd have to selectively breed the shorter cows, and keep going while their
legs get shorter and shorter over the generations until they become too short
for the cow to walk when it grows up. These essentially-legless cows can then
be kept in cages.

The other thing cows spend a lot of energy on is their digestive system, which
is the typical multi-chamber system needed for hard to digest grasses. Most
American cows don't eat wild grass anymore (unfortunately), they eat what we
choose to feed them. If we feed them easier to digest food, they don't need
the complex stomach anymore. This is tougher to breed for, so some genetic
engineering may be necessary to kick-start the process. But eventually we can
get cows with minimal digestive systems that are only able to digest some kind
of highly nutritious and easily digestible paste, which we can pump right into
a tube in their neck since they're cage-bound anyway. So that'll reduce the
energy they need for most of their digestive system, which can be diverted to
producing more meat instead.

Now, at this point, their heads and tails aren't really of much use anymore,
and eliminating most of their senses and higher brain functions would probably
be a blessing...

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ck2
Corn welfare must END (and I am very liberal/progressive if that matters).

But considering it's Iowa we are talking about, most politicians if they want
to be president won't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

Ethanol is destroying small engines (generators, lawn mowers, etc) and most
definitely reduces mpg by 10%

    
    
       a gallon of ethanol costs approximately 17 percent less than that of a gallon of gasoline
    

That is why gas distributors love it - they not only get goverment welfare for
using ethanol, it allows them to dilute the less profitable gasoline (to 'cut'
it).

(and yes, I use "subsidies" and "welfare" interchangeably because it's
corporate welfare)

    
    
       Researchers at U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory 
    

Let's get INDEPENDENT scientists not funded by the oil industry or government
to write an article and I'll trust it.

~~~
younata
> Ethanol is destroying small engines (generators, lawn mowers, etc) and most
> definitely reduces mpg by 10%

Yes it does. I took a trip cross country (florida to california) this past
may. Ethanol infested gas killed MPG by at best 10%, at worst 20%. It wasn't
even that much cheaper, too.

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wccrawford
As much as I'd like to see us move away from oil, everything I've seen has
pointed to corn ethanol not being very good for the task.

~~~
Ronkdar
A very promising technology I've had the chance to work with is called
SwiftFuel. It's based of switchgrass, which is far more sustainable.

The FAA, due to pressure from the EPA, is looking to switch the entire
aviation industry to SwiftFuel from low-lead fuels.

More info: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas#Swift_fuel>

SwiftFuel has the advantage of being able to run, in theory, in most/all
aircraft engines without modification. (Fuel pumps need to be replaced,
however)

~~~
shareme
One problem, land that is ready to grow such crops is finite in supply not
infinite..ie same land that corn was used..which will also impact food
supplies..

~~~
hirenj
Biofuel researcher here: The nice thing about switchgrass is that it's a much
hardier plant, meaning that you can get it to grow on marginal lands, which
means land that wouldn't otherwise be used for crops.

Getting people to grow anything for biofuels is a bit of a double-edged sword,
as you want the feedstock to be as cheap as possible, but you also want it to
be profitable for the farmers to actually produce so that you can get enough
of the biomass. If you improve the yield of viable biomass from the plants
that'll go part of the way to solving this.

~~~
ericd
If the stuff is efficient enough as a source for gasoline replacement
generation to be worth making gasoline from, subsidies shouldn't be necessary
to ensure a sufficient stock. If it requires subsidies, that indicates a big
problem with that plan. Unless the main goal is to reduce foreign oil
independence. But I'm skeptical that that goal is remotely feasible with
biofuels without making serious compromises in food-generating land. We should
be spending this effort and funding on improving battery tech and creating
business models that make electric vehicles appealing (swappable leased
batteries, for example), as well as improving nuclear power tech to feed those
vehicles.

EDIT: Algae seems like it could be promising, assuming we could find a way to
mass farm it without disturbing ocean food cycles.

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NatW
The article and its implications is worth reading in its entirety. Corn-based
ethanol is a farm subsidy, an inefficient energy solution, and it's bad for
the environment (corn is grown as a monoculture) and its growth takes up a lot
of water. Corn just grown for ethanol (with 10% in our gas) takes up 115,800
square miles -- or more than the entire state of Arizona! Imagine other things
we could do with that land. With talk of increasing it from 10% to 15%, that's
another half a state of Arizona dedicated to corn. It increases the cost of
land. Growing corn involves adding nitrogen fertilizer, tractors,
transportation, and the net yield of energy is barely more than the energy put
into growing it. And yet our dysfunctional country can't seem to get enough of
this terrible idea. How do we stop it?

~~~
lutorm
_How do we stop it?_

If oil prices reflected the true cost of using it, it would disappear by
itself. Without cheap oil it's not cost efficient.

~~~
NatW
Minnesota signed into law that cars should require 20% ethanol (I think
federal law requires 10%): Source:
[http://www.mnsu.edu/news/read/?paper=topstories&id=old-1...](http://www.mnsu.edu/news/read/?paper=topstories&id=old-1115755777)

Anyone here good with changing laws? :)

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molecule
american biofuels: subsidized food burning.

~~~
Alex3917
To be fair, most Americans consume way too many corn-derived calories already.

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jasonzemos
Ethanol itself is far superior to petroleum distillates for internal
combustion engines, especially small displacement turbocharged ones. This
point needs to be made /extremely/ clear to everyone before pursuing the
political end of the discussion.

~~~
simonsarris
I don't see why that needs to be extremely clear for this discussion. But
regardless:

Where the octane number is raised by blending in ethanol, energy content per
volume is reduced. Gasoline has an energy density of almost 10,000 Wh/l and
pure Ethanol only 6,000.

Ethanol is inferior compared to basically any combination of gasoline + non-
ethanol octane booster.

~~~
jasonzemos
Volumetric energy density isn't the only consideration for fuels though.
Ethanol burns cooler, faster, and with more stability. When you raise the
octane rating to reduce detonation you also reduce wear on the internals,
allowing the manufacturer to use cheaper components. The same is true for the
lower exhaust gas temperatures with exhaust values and turbo inlets. Current
mileage standards have also caused manufacturers to jack up cruise-area
ignition timing to extract a more complete burn before TDC from gasoline,
which risks increased knock, and isn't as much an issue with ethanol. I also
can't fail to mention the disgusting layer of grease and soot that covers the
inside of engine, gas tank, and exhaust components (and the rear end of your
car) from gasoline. Again, not much of an issue with ethanol.

These strengths are almost never written about or discussed. I agree with many
of the points of the article in terms of the production efficiency issues, and
corn being a weak production candidate, but I can't stand if/when this becomes
an ethanol-substance bashing bonanza.

I also can't stand (in the overall discourse on the matter) when the article's
points are used against the adoption of ethanol over petroleum. These aren't
reasons against ethanol, they're reasons to work towards optimizing the means
of production.

~~~
lutorm
_I also can't stand (in the overall discourse on the matter) when the
article's points are used against the adoption of ethanol over petroleum.
These aren't reasons against ethanol, they're reasons to work towards
optimizing the means of production._

I agree, but I actually thought the article was pretty careful about
specifying that it was ethanol produced from corn and sugarcane that they were
talking about.

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00joe
Some counterpoints to the article

[http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/06/five-ethanol-myths-
bust...](http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/06/five-ethanol-myths-busted-2/)

~~~
gojomo
That reads like an industry press release designed to confidently befuddle.

For example, addressing the concern that ethanol production crowds out food
production, it simply states that a different kind of corn is used... ignoring
that the same land and other inputs _could_ be used for food crops.

Addressing the concern about greenhouse gases, it mainly talks a bunch about
'vehicular gaseous hazardous air pollutants' and carbon monoxide – not the
same as 'greenhouse gases'. The only reference to "life cycle analysis" is a
sentence-fragment quote from an unnamed study with unclear context.

And 'myths' #4 and #5, that ethanol takes more water to produce and results in
lower gas mileage? Well, this 'debunking' actually concedes both those
'myths'.

Not an impressive ethanol defense.

~~~
hirenj
Yeah, I kind of agree on this.

That said, the guy is a mechanical engineer at ANL, so I wouldn't take it as a
sanctioned response from ANL. Claiming that the other corn isn't used in food
production is disingenuous by the guy, since it is being used, but just via
animals.

If you look at the lab biofuels splash page (<http://biofuels.es.anl.gov/>),
you'll see they're working on things like water, nutrients and algal biofuels
to improve the process.

There's a lot of work going into making 2nd generation biofuels actually
viable, using cellulosic biomass and crops that can grow on marginal land.
People are even working on producing fuel molecules that aren't ethanol (e.g.
butanol).

We have a saying at work: Ethanol is for drinking, not for driving.

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jrussbowman
"But even setting subsidies aside—after all, every energy source in use in the
U.S. today continues to receive federal tax benefits, among other
incentives—there's the simple economic cost of building all those corn mills,
stainless steel fermentation tanks and other infrastructure needed to churn
out ethanol on the tremendous scale of transportation fuels."

Maybe the subsidies should go there, to promote job creation in those areas
for the infrastructure buildup.

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sigzero
I don't know. I do know that upping ethanol levels in gas will not make all
the motorcycle riders out there happy.

~~~
lutorm
Because they will require tuning? I guess this is one benefit of the cat
requirement for cars, the lambda sensor takes care of that problem.

~~~
sigzero
A potentially serious problem with ethanol is that it can be incompatible with
older rubber compounds. Also in higher concentrations it can cause corrosion
to steel and aluminum that is a part of older motorcycle fuel systems.

~~~
lutorm
I know that US regulations for cars have required ethanol-resistant materials
for fuel for quite a long time, like several decades IIRC. Do you know if
motorcycles are exempt from those regulations? If not, it seems the issue
should be the same as with (ie no more serious than) old cars.

~~~
sliverstorm
In general, motorcycles trail the automotive world by about 10-20 years in all
respects.

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joev
That reminds me; the saison I've got going in the secondary needs to be
bottled this weekend.

(Didn't read the article)

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WalterSear
I tried the foreign stuff: It also gave me a hangover in the morning.

