
End the Ethanol Rip-Off - zzzeek
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/opinion/end-the-ethanol-rip-off.html
======
guscost
I'm surprised and happy to see this in the Times. It's a good idea to avoid
ethanol gas, on principle if for no other reason. Processing edible food to
burn in your car (with all the implied market consequences) is kinda crazy.
Here's a good resource if you're looking for ethanol-free gas in the US and
Canada: [http://pure-gas.org](http://pure-gas.org)

~~~
lutorm
The majority of corn produced in the United States is used for cattle feed
(and the rest for things like HFCS.) If you think it's crazy to burn edible
food in a car, it's about as crazy to use it to fuel cow metabolism. You could
feed way more people if you ate the corn, but as it turns out, U.S. industrial
corn production is pretty much for anything but eating.

~~~
maratd
> You could feed way more people if you ate the corn

We're already eating too much corn, no thank you. If you check the label on
the packaged goods you buy, corn is pretty much in all of them in one form or
another.

We should grow less corn, let the cows eat grass, and have people eat people
food (which might occasionally include a corn on the cob).

~~~
hueving
There isn't enough grass to 'let the cows eat' while sustaining affordability
for lower income people. That's why they switched to corn, much better density
of calories.

~~~
curun1r
And, as a result, we've created the nightmare situation where we fill the
animals we eat with antibiotics since we feed them foods that they're not
adapted to eat. Not only are we helping to create antibiotic-resistant
superbugs but the antibiotics in food also reduce the beneficial gut bacteria
that we need to be healthy.

There was a time when people didn't eat meat with every meal...many people
believe it's actually healthier. If people can't afford to eat grass-fed meat
with every meal, the simple answer is to not eat meat with every meal...poor
people can eat vegetables too and will probably be healthier for it.

~~~
Kalium
> There was a time when people didn't eat meat with every meal.

Yeah. There was also a time when 8-year-olds did a full day's work in the
mines and malnourishment was the norm.

You should think about the complexity involved in eating a healthy vegetarian
diet before you start being dismissive of it. Meat is easier in some
significant ways.

~~~
developer1
You're putting words in his mouth. He never said to not eat meat. He said not
to eat it at every meal. You don't need to eat sausage and bacon at breakfast,
a rack of ribs and half a chicken at lunch, and a 1/2 lb steak at supper to
get your daily intake of meat-provided nutrients. The sad truth is that far
too many people eat meat at every single meal, and it's just not natural for
us. Balance.

~~~
parasubvert
Don't confuse availability with what is "natural". Eating (lean) meat at every
meal is quite natural and has been common in some societies where it was
plentiful.

------
mrbabbage
Further reading for the interested:

\- "All studies indicated that current corn ethanol technologies are much less
petroleum-intensive than gasoline but have greenhouse gas emissions similar to
those of gasoline. However, many important environmental effects of biofuel
production are poorly understood. New metrics that measure specific resource
inputs are developed, but further research into environmental metrics is
needed. Nonetheless, it is already clear that large-scale use of ethanol for
fuel will almost certainly require cellulosic technology. "
[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5760/506](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5760/506)

\- "[Prior] analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as
farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to
new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. By using
a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we
found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly
doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for
167 years. "
[http://www.whrc.org/resources/publications/pdf/Searchingeret...](http://www.whrc.org/resources/publications/pdf/SearchingeretalScience08.pdf)

This second citation is key. Most of my friends who aren't studying this stuff
all the time aren't aware of the critical role land use changes (e.g.
deforestation) plays in global carbon emissions, and biofuel's perturbation of
international food markets tends to accelerate these deleterious trends.

~~~
minthd
It looks like there's a company, prottero that makes sucrose by
bacterias,using a special bioreactor, at less than half the cost, much smaller
area and probably much less environmental harm. So it might be that ethanol
will be green, or at least greener.

[http://www.proterro.com/](http://www.proterro.com/)

Another nice benefit is that sugar is a very useful input in many bio
manufacturing industries.And many of those products are much more controlled
than what nature offers(like healthy dairy fats for the food industry by
solazyme), so if available at the right price, they could be quite important,
and low cost sugar could be helpful here.

------
IgorPartola
This article directly contradicts my understanding of some key points. For
example, does the production of corn ethanol really increase food prices? I
was under the impression that the US overproduces so much corn that the
farmers were specifically getting tax credits to produce less of it.

Also, is growing and harvesting this corn (taking out the final burning of
ethanol out of it for a moment) a net positive or negative in terms of carbon
emissions? Is the fact that the corn is growing and absorbing carbon dioxide
enough to offset the planting, fertilization, and harvesting? What about all
that + conversion to ethanol + disposal of the conversion byproducts?

The real question is this: what is greater?

(a) CO2 emissions from planting, harvesting, transporting, converting,
disposing of corn + CO2 emissions from burning the ethanol + CO2 and other
emissions from having to recycle/downcycle/dispose of engines that die earlier
because ethanol is bad for them.

or (b) CO2 emissions from drilling/fracking for oil, transport, refining,
disposal of byproducts + CO2 emissions from burning gasoline.

If I accounted for all the factors, the questions of whether a > b or b > a
should determine the policy.

There is of course a (c) CO2 emissions from mining and transporting
coal/oil/natural gas to the power plant * loss factor for transporting the
electricity + losses in charging systems + CO2 and other emissions from mining
and processing lithium and manufacturing, transport, and recycling of lithium
ion batteries.

~~~
snowwrestler
From the perspective of global warming, all that matters is the net
contribution of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels to the atmosphere.

The reason oil companies object to the Renewable Fuel Standard is that it
results in lower net usage of oil. If it resulted in higher net oil usage,
they wouldn't oppose it. So that answers your question.

~~~
IgorPartola
No, that isn't all that matters. I outlined the other factors that matter in
my original comment. Wouldn't you agree that fracking also contributes to
global warming? Or that fermenting corn does? What matters is the net total.
If all that mattered was CO2 from oil, it would be an easy problem: get rid of
oil, use ethanol. Thing is CO2 is the same, whether it comes from oil,
ethanol, coal burning power plants, or cow manure. What matters is the net
emissions.

~~~
joshuapants
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if for example we only used pure ethanol as fuel,
carbon would still be emitted, but it would also be offset by the carbon
absorbed by growing the next round of fuel crops. It seems like such a
situation would be either carbon-neutral or close to it.

Especially if we develop (through GMOs or ordinary selective breeding) crops
specifically for fuel purposes to make the whole process more efficient.

~~~
IgorPartola
That's not correct. In a pure-ethanol economy, the total emissions will be CO2
from:

\- Deforestation for the creation of corn fields. This includes the process of
cutting down trees (gas powered machines, transport, etc.) and loss of trees
that will no longer produce O2/absorb CO2

\- Planting

\- Fertilizers. This one is huge as creation of fertilizers is nasty business
and fairly energy intensive.

\- Harvesting

\- Transport

\- Fermentation

\- Disposal of byproducts

\- Transport again to the pump

\- Combustion

\- Other effects, such as having to manufacture more engines as they would
wear out quicker and recycling of more worn out engines.

This would _partially_ offset by the fact that the corn is absorbing CO2.

As I mentioned above (twice), fossil fuels have similarly complex sources of
emissions (drilling/fracking, transport, refining, transport again,
combustion).

The question to answer is this: if you sum up the totals for both methods,
which is more efficient. I guarantee you, both still will produce net positive
CO2 emissions. The only question is which will produce less net CO2 from all
the sources.

Lastly, I should mention that theoretically, there is also a benefit of
reducing other nasty emissions from fossil fuels such as sulfur. We could
probably produce cleaner ethanol than gasoline. But none of that will matter
if we spew so much CO2 into the air that we suffocate before we can measure
these secondary pollutants properly.

~~~
joshuapants
I'm still kind of confused on this. In all the examples of energy expenditure,
we assume that the energy comes from ethanol in the first place. The plants
aren't magically creating more carbon, so if you grow the same amount as you
burn, that carbon should be absorbed back.

That leaves deforestation for planting, which is a problem since human energy
use isn't the only source of CO2. But if deforestation is avoided (this is
where GMO crops would come in, grow more fuel in a given amount of space) or
we implement other methods of CO2 sequestration (impractical now, but perhaps
not in the future) we could still minimize that risk.

------
jmspring
Vaguely unrelated, but petroleum politics, especially between the US And
Europe are weird. I've got a diesel VW, I get roughly 40MPG, and my car has 3
catalytic converters in it. I live in California.

Last year, my wife and I rented a diesel 7 series while in Europe (a minor
upgrade to the car we had reserved). 70% of our driving was non-Autobahn, but
still a lot in the 120kph range, with some traffic. 30% Autobahn, having fun.
A larger car, a larger engine, comparable mix of driving to what I do at home,
yet still roughly got 37MPH. Smaller diesel cars, we've started way north of
what I get in my Jetta for even faster driving.

Europe seems to have cleaner diesel (and air) yet fewer contraptions in their
cars (compared to CA) and comparable or even larger cars there meet or exceed
lesser cars here.

~~~
maxerickson
The EU generally does not have cleaner air than the US, despite more stringent
regulations. Population density is a major factor.

Diesel regulations are roughly equal (Europe got there earlier though):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-low-
sulfur_diesel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-low-sulfur_diesel)

------
molecule
End subsidized food burning:

 _> Corn is the top crop for subsidy payments. The Energy Policy Act of 2005
mandates that billions of gallons of ethanol be blended into vehicle fuel each
year, guaranteeing demand, but US corn ethanol subsidies are between $5.5
billion and $7.3 billion per year._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_States)

------
jschwartzi
Does anyone know what the relative cost of MTBE is vs. ethanol? One of the
reasons ethanol is added to gasoline is to increase the octane rating. We used
to use MTBE instead. I'm curious if the argument against ethanol continues to
bear out when considering alternative octane boosters.

~~~
Spooky23
Depends on how you define cost. MTBE infiltrates groundwater very easily, and
cleaning up contaminated sites is ridiculously expensive.

------
PythonicAlpha
The whole ethanol story is a weird one. In the EU ethanol was (and still is)
promoted as "environment friendly".

Facts are against it. There are plenty of studies, that ethanol is doing more
harm to environment than it helps. The reason is, that conventional thinking
that "corn growing reduces CO2" is just to simple. You must take into account
all factors and also damages that are made by the ethanol production. And it
is a fact, that rain forests and other natural plants are displaced by corn
farms for ethanol. So conventional thinking "great we have more plants and CO2
is reduced" is just plainly wrong. This thinking was misguiding and misused by
the ethanol lobbies.

It would be better to stay on normal gasoline and at the same time reduce the
gasoline usage of cars and factories in mid-term. In long term, we should go
for better energy sources (preferably solar and wind energy).

So, the environment is no valid reason for the ethanol promotion. What is the
only (valid) reason to do so?: To get less dependent from the oil-countries.
(so politics again)

But the best way would be to get rid of this environment-costly energy source
for real environment-friendly ones.

~~~
troubled5
Ethanol is "environment friendly" when compared to gasoline, the latter having
no good environmental aspects making it a bit of a low standard to beat.

The fact that rain forests are destroyed for corn plantations is probably
independent of ethanol consumption, the ethanol driven investment mostly just
increasing the existing rate at which deforestation happens. Corn is not only
used for ethanol after all.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
We can argue right and left here. Fact is, that there are multiple studies
(somebody also cited some here) come to the result that ethanol when every
effect is taken into account is worse than mineral oil for the environment --
and who says different, is most likely paid by the ethanol lobbies.

And to your "rain forests are destroyed anyway"-argument: You argue without
any proof just by guessing. (BTW: rain forests where only one example, in
fact, I don't know what areas are destroyed by fuel plants, but fact is, that
there are areas destroyed and they are mono-cultures that grossly harm
nature).

------
imsofuture
Plus, ethanol is bad in cold weather climates. As I understand it, it can
phase separate and put a bunch of water in your tank (basically).

~~~
pbreit
The opposite: ethanol serves as a gas-line antifreeze.

~~~
hueving
Ethonal free gasoline doesn't freeze easily either so that isn't relevant.

~~~
upofadown
The ethanol absorbs any water and stops it from separating out. If the water
separates out it can freeze in the fuel line and cause a blockage.

In my part of Canada people were actually somewhat happy when the 10% ethanol
showed up as it meant that you didn't have to add any fuel line antifreeze
over the winter.

------
ck2
Congress only passes about 200 bills per year and declining.

This kickback is never going to end and if it got close, someone would just
put an anonymous hold on the bill until it died.

But if you want to waste taxpayer money by renaming post offices after dead
presidents, they are all for that.

------
pbreit
Sounds like the perfect tax: driving is discouraged, cash flows to production
instead of the government and it's (slightly) environmentally-friendly.

And if we're getting into the details, how do we allocate the trillions of
dollars spent on the Middle East?

~~~
eru
Why is cash flowing to people who can afford lawyers a good thing?

~~~
pbreit
I think in general cash flowing to people/businesess who are working for it is
better than it going to the government. In this case, the "subsidy" is exactly
proportional to work performed.

~~~
eru
If you agree at all on having a government, then it needs some funding. And
now, why should the government touch and move around more flows of money than
are strictly necessary to fund it?

More money touched and redirected just leads to more corruption and rent-
seeking.

If you want the government to have less money, let's just reduce eg the `sin
tax on honest work' aka the income tax.

------
tim333
The corn ethanol rip off is kind of ridiculous. I still have hopes though that
algae produced ethanol may be cost effective. There's a company called Algenol
that's been trying for a while with genetically modified algae and projecting
cheaper than oil ethanol next year for quite a few years now but you never
know - they may get there one day.

( [http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2015/01/26/worlds-
larg...](http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2015/01/26/worlds-largest-oil-
refinery-adds-algae-demonstration-project/) for example of their stuff)

------
analog31
A chemist told me that ethanol is actually cheaper to produce directly from
petroleum, than via corn. I'm not sure he meant oil or natural gas. The
ethanol subsidies are strictly for corn based.

~~~
Qwertious
I've heard that ethanol production actually uses more fuel than it produces,
so you'd be better off just not producing it and using the fuel directly.

On the other hand, it allows oil companies to pretend they're doing something
about climate change (without changing any of their infrastructure) and it
gives farmers more money, so you'd have to take on the oil lobby AND the
farming lobby to get rid of it.

~~~
lutorm
The "uses more fuel than it produces" argument is a bit of a red herring.
Gasoline _also_ "uses more fuel than it produces", because it takes a
substantial amount of fuel to bring one gallon of gas out of the ground,
refine it, and truck it out to the pump.

~~~
VLM
The best way to explain it is by analogy.

Diesel engines originally were developed to burn peanut oil. So lets run the
peanut farm on locally grown peanut oil.

Lets say the tractors and trucks take 100 barrels of peanut oil per year to
run. Oh fertilizers and poisons and all that petroleum derived stuff take oil
too, but whatever, we'll imagine the total energy cost of running a farm is
100 barrel equivalent of peanut oil. Sure some of the 100 barrels equivalent
is the UPS dude pumping diesel into his brown truck to drive out and drop off
your herbicide or seed or whatever. And the power plant is shoveling some
energy in the form of coal to make the electricity to run the irrigation
pumps. Still, ignore the details and stick with me on the big pix, "doing
farmin for a year" takes 100 barrels of energy.

If your farm averages 101 or more barrels of peanut oil production, you win,
and get to sell at least 1 barrel a year (or more) for profit, or more likely
debt service and taxes, whatever. At least next year on average you'll have a
stockpile of 100 barrels needed to run the farm next year. You have a magic
perpetual motion machine that turns sunlight into a trickle of peanut oil as
long as the soil doesn't wash away and the sun keeps on shining. Cool.

If your farm averages 99 or fewer barrels of peanut oil production per year,
then aside from massive government intervention you'll never get to sell any
peanut oil on the open market, and even worse, you'll have to buy at least 1
barrel per year of crude oil to continue to operate your farm. This farm eats
oil well pumped crude oil and outputs, well, nothing at all, at least without
massive central government control and regulation and subsidy, like having the
.gov take my money at gunpoint to give you 50 barrels of crude oil in exchange
for votes so you can sell 40 barrels of peanut oil to greenwash the market.

Guess which scenario describes actual ethanol operations? We would net
conserve crude petroleum if we shut down ethanol production today. This would
eliminate uncountable government provided socialized jobs, so you can guess
the likelihood of that ever happening.

~~~
lutorm
_We would net conserve crude petroleum if we shut down ethanol production
today._

Correct, this is the real question, whose answer is debated and depends
severely on the production mechanism.

------
post_break
As someone who runs E85 because it's essentially race gas for about $1.25 a
gallon, I'm conflicted.

~~~
TylerE
E85 is SO far from "essentially race gas". It has much LOWER energy density
than non-ethanol gas.

It takes 1.39 gallons of E85 to have the same energy as 1 gallon of
conventional dino juice.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent)

The only way to get more power with E85 is to have some sort of extreme engine
running INSANE amounts of turbo boost, like the Koenesegg CCXR. In a normal
street car any level of octane high enough to keep the engine from pre-
detonating is more than sufficient - there is no boost in power.

~~~
lutorm
"Race gas" is commonly understood to refer to octane number. E85 is 94-96
octane, according to wikipedia, which enables you to run higher compression or
higher boost.

The fact that it has lower energy density just means you burn more of it, so
your tank runs out faster. It has nothing to do with the power you can get out
of the engine.

~~~
modoc
If E85 has ~40% less energy in it per volume/weight, then you'd need to be
pushing ~40% MORE fuel in the same timeframe to break even on power, right? So
you'd need the octane jump from 91/93 to to 94-96 to allow you to run enough
extra boost to burn 40% more fuel per cycle. Assuming your turbo/supercharger
can deliver 40% more pressure without a big drop in efficiency. And you need
your fuel injectors and fuel pump to be able to push 40% more than previous
peak numbers. Just to break even. Right? I don't see a 1-5 octane jump buying
you enough extra boost to even break even... Maybe with aftermarket turbos,
FP, injectors, etc...?

I've done a lot of work with turbo charged cars, but I'm not an expert, so i
could be wrong here... I'd rather just buy real race gas or mix toluene than
mess with E85...

~~~
lutorm
You don't add 40% more fuel/air mixture, you make the mixture 40% richer. Fuel
is such a small part of the fuel/air mixture that 40% more fuel volume has
virtually no effect on the compression stroke.

Timing out the injectors is an issue if they are marginally sized, and the ECU
can throw a fit because it thinks the injector timing can't possibly be as off
as the lambda sensor tells it.

On my old VW Passat, you could program an offset into the ECU to account for
the latter problem. I test-ran it on up to about E85 without any other
changes, and got noticeably less knock retard until the injector time
saturated somewhere around E60.

------
zobzu
Not to mention that ethanol means using food supplies - which, you know, a lot
of people could use. (world hunger still being a problem)

------
jrs235
I'm surprised no one has commented on the amount of fresh water we use to
produce ethanol, particularly ethanol derived from corn.

Water is needed to grow the corn and also in processing it.

"The amount of water it takes to produce ethanol varies according to how much
irrigation is needed for the corn, particularly since row crop agriculture for
corn is the most water consuming stage of ethanol production. In Ohio, because
of sufficient rainfall, only 1% of the corn is irrigated while in Nebraska 72%
of the crop is irrigated. It takes 19 gallons of water to produce a bushel of
corn in Region 5, 38 gallons in Region 6, and 865 gallons in Region 7. The
Baker Institute estimates that producing the corn to meet the ethanol mandate
for 2015 will require 2.9 trillion gallons of water.

Most of this irrigation water is drawn from groundwater aquifers in a region
that is already water stressed. Conflicts over water allotments have occurred
in Kansas and Nebraska, and the Ogallala Aquifer, which lies under the Great
Plains and supplies 30% of the nation’s groundwater for irrigation, is in
danger of running dry.

Growing corn also requires a great deal of fertilizer, and extensive use of
nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides is having severe impacts on water quality
now. Fertilizer laden runoff into streams in the Midwest makes its way to the
Mississippi River, and eventually contributes to the eutrophication (when
algae bloom, then die, depleting the area of oxygen and suffocating plants and
animals) in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2010, this dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico
was estimated to be almost 8000 square miles and it continues to grow. 2.39
million additional tons of nitrogen fertilizer will be needed to meet the 2015
mandate.

Easily erodible and less productive land set aside by the conservation reserve
program, that paid farmers to retire inferior land, is now being pressed back
into service due to the lure of high corn prices. This land will likely need
additional fertilizer and irrigation to be productive, which will result in
more polluted runoff and water consumption.

Although biofuels are promoted because they are said to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, some scientists argue that when the life cycle of ethanol
production is compared to that of conventional gasoline, there may be no
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at all. More corn is being planted on
more land fertilized with nitrogen, resulting in additional air and water
pollution from nitrous oxide, a chemical 300 times more potent than carbon
dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Processing corn to make ethanol requires substantial amounts of water for the
grinding, liquefaction, fermentation, separation and drying procedures. Over
the last ten years, however, some of the nation’s 200 biorefineries have been
able to reduce water use from 6.8 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol to 3
gallons by boosting the efficiency of their equipment. South Dakota based
Poet,the world’s largest ethanol producer is aiming to cut its overall water
intake by 22% by 2014, and use only 2.33 gallons of water per gallon of
ethanol produced. This would reduce its annual water use by 1 billion
gallons."

[http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/03/21/ethanol%E2%80%99s-im...](http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/03/21/ethanol%E2%80%99s-impacts-
on-our-water-resources/)

------
bcg1
The food vs. fuel argument is total propaganda anyhow. As mentioned above,
most US corn is used for cattle feed ... and incidentally is only DIVERTED for
ethanol production. Even if it wasn't, over 90% of the corn produced in the US
is GMO corn that is probably unfit for human consumption anyhow (I suspect
GMOs are the tobacco of the 21st century, but only time will tell).

The by-product of large-scale ethanol production is large amounts of dried
distillers grains (DDGS). The starch that is consumed during distillation is
not nutritional for the cows anyhow, and the DDGS are sold as a HIGH QUALITY
feed
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains)).

That said, large scale ethanol production is not the best way to produce fuel,
especially when it could be quite easily distilled on site where it is
harvested to greatly decrease the energy input for producing the fuel. It is
not a coincidence that many large ethanol plants are owned by oil companies...
this would be like Microsoft buying Red Hat, adding dependencies on ActiveX to
the kernel, and then claiming that their studies show that Linux is total
shit.

Also, whether or not you have a law, they'll still add ethanol to the gas to
increase the octane and act as an oxygenator, so I agree that tax subsidies
and mandates need to end... also wars, political corruption, the income tax,
and mass surveillance, but you have to start somewhere I guess.

