However as an energy engineer, the larger question for me is: if we're not even sure if its impact is positive or negative, then how much of our time and money is it worth?  If going to all the trouble of making corn-based ethanol yields only a 10% reduction in fossil fuel use (and concommitant environmental, political, and economic risks) then why not throw our weight behind something else? We could be spending our scarce dollars on supply options that payback the fossil energy used to make them many times over, rather than only coming out ahead by a few percent.

Or with the same amount of investment (especially counting the vast subsidies to corn farming) we could be getting (for instance) much more efficient vehicles, reducing carbon emissions, oil imports, etc without using up sizeable portions of our land, water, soil, and other valuable resources.

The most recent studies (e.g. Dan Kammen's work at UC Berkeley) have suggested that yes, using corn-based ethanol in your car emits a wee bit less global warming pollution than just burning gasoline.  Kammen's group then goes on to point out that ethanol can be much more beneficial if made from cellulosic sources.  Again, this points out that with the limited funds we have to spend on improving our energy outlook, we should spend them carefully on the things that get us the most benefit for our buck.  Compared to the other options out there, corn-based ethanol does not fit that description.

I wrote about the merry adventure -- the search for biodiesel -- on cleantechblog.com.  The five-part piece, titled Biodiesel BINGO, describes my trek through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania (where the fuel filter finally clogged), New York and then Maine (where my last 5 gallons of Denver Biodiesel's waste veggie oil coagulated. I didn't want to part with it, so now it's frozen.)

The long journey had a purpose.  It was not a shot across the states in a loaned Flex Fuel vehicle to tout the wonders of biofuels.  I was not burning fuel simply to prove the merits of biodiesel:  I'm an energy consultant and was on my way to Maine to work on a home performance/energy efficiency program created by Maine's Governor Baldacci.

The Friday before Thanksgiving, I dined with a venture capital guy (a friend of my brother) at a fancy Mexican restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side.  He's invested in a few clean energy technologies that are getting lots of recognition and market play.  He condescended about the biodiesel biobus (I had some choice words about the MBA and JDs at one of his investor start-ups, so I had it coming.)

At the end of the evening and the end of one margarita, I proclamed "ethanol is a scam."  He agreed, delighted.  "Yes," he said, "ethanol IS a scam."  We parted, friendly-like, in our mutual disregard for ethanol.

I'm partial to the waste veggie oil that my local guys in Denver made for the Biodiesel Coop. That is a whole other fuel than the Archer Daniel Midland/Cargill biodiesel that I found promoted across the industrial farm belt.  That biodiesel?  Well, it's a scam, too.

Interesting to me is how the Brazilian government's just-released energy plan up to 2030 downplays the role of biofuels, other renewable sources (wind, solar, micro hydro), energy conservation and energy efficiency measures, while stressing expanded nuclear, coal, natural gas and Big Hydro.  This vision differs dramatically from the one put forth by NGOs in Sept.-Oct., sparking a public row with the government's energy planning people.  Details at http://www.temasactuales.com/temasblog/?p=62

Maybe cellulosic ethanol will be better.  But its still a fuel of the future.

I support biodiesel as an alternative fuel. I get "500 miles per acre" in my SVO-converted truck.  By that I mean, an acre of a typical oi-seed crop (canola) produces enough fuel for me to drive 500 miles.  Granted, there is not enough cropland to grow enough to transport the whole country around, but biofuel algea seems a promising solution to this. ( Then I would get about 160,000 miles per acre!)

But here is my real question: Why, since we all peasants/ energy-and-fuel geeks can recognize that ethanol is not the way forward, is it so well promoted, compared to biodiesel?  Auto manufacturers can make Flex fuel cars ( which require  extensive re-engiineering), but can't figure bring themselves to support using any more than B5 in their engines?  (New Holland and Case IH being the exceptions- they recommend B20). Even this Grist series of articles seems to fail to call bull$&!t on ehtanol.

If the people can see that the emperor has no clotes, why can't the leaders? Even the leaders of of the left-leaning media?

In what I said before on Brazil, note I carefully used the word "biofuels," not "ethanol," because the Brazilian energy plan foresees use of several different types of biofuel, not just ethanol (the latter seems to be the fixation of Washington).  These include biodiesel (up to 28 mil. l/d by 2030), diesel made with vegetable oils (H-Bio) (up to 244 mil. l/d by 2030), and "sugarcane products" (i.e., bioethanol and combusting bagasse for power generation).

Laws promoting greater use of biodiesel are already in place in Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Peru, and a bill is pending in Colombia.  

The Grist article noted concern about the palm plantations in Colombia aimed at biofuel production.  The state-owned hydrocarbons company, Ecopetrol, just announced that it's getting into biodiesel production utilizing palm oil.

The sugar giant Südzucker, which runs one of the biggest bioethanol plants in the world in Europe, just announced that it investing in major bioethanol and biodiesel production in Chile using wheat and beetroot -- but is demanding a more favorable regulatory regime and crop guarantees in return for the investment.  These kind of sweeheart deals rarely work out to be a good deal for the host country.

Argentina adopted a biofuel law earlier this year, and comprehensive biofuel bills (covering bioethanol, biodiesel, biomethanol, bio-dimethyl ether, synthetic biofuels, biohydrogen & PVO) are pending in Costa Rica.  A similar bill was proposed last year in Mexico.

These are gas-guzzlers no matter what fuel you put in them, though that doesn't stop the EPA from classifying them as "cars that don't need gasoline". (Who ever said that government agencies don't have a sense of irony?)

The main reason Detroit is manufactoring them, of course, is not because the automakers suddenly developed a "green" conscience, but to exploit the so-called "dual-fuel loophole". Introduced in the 1988 Alternative Motor Fuels Act, and extended for five years in 2005, this loophole gives manufacturers generous credits against their corporate average fuel-economy (CAFE) standards for every FFV they sell, thus enabling them to avoid costly penalties or (heaven forbid) sell more fuel-efficient cars. The crazy thing about this policy is that the automakers earn this credit even if the FFVs they sell never actually consume a drop of ethanol.

Perhaps the most cynical chapter in this long-running story is the the recent announcement by General Motors that, within three years, all versions of its Hummer SUV will be FFVs.

Yes, you read that right: flex-fuel Hummers.

A Hummer H3 4WD would get about the same fuel economy operating on E85 as a GMC Sierra Classic 1500 4WD. Thus, according to U.S. EPA ratings and assumptions (e.g., 15,000 miles driven in a year), even if it ran exclusively on E85 (most probably won't), the H3 would still consume 185 gallons of gasoline (15% of its E85 consumption) in a year -- that's 3/5 as much as the 300 gallons that a Honda Civic Hybrid would consume over 12 months running exclusively on gasoline.

GM doesn't publish fuel consumption ratings for the larger, gas guzzling Hummer H2, as it is in a class by itself. However, unofficial reports on the web (e.g., http://trucks.about.com/cs/suvreviews/a/hummer_fuel04.htm...) suggest its mileage is around 10 miles per gallon running on pure gasoline. With that kind of performance, and assuming the usual 25% fuel-economy penalty one gets when operating a flex-fuel engine on E85, an H2's annual consumption of gasoline as a flex-fuel vehicle would be around 320 gallons -- i.e., more gasoline even than would be consumed by the aforementioned Honda Civic Hybrid. And that is not counting all the petroleum and other energy inputs that would go into making the 2125 gallons of ethanol that it would also consume.

Doesn't sound like much of a fuel savings to me.

Incidentally, the cost to the federal taxpayer associated with the tax credit paid on that ethanol would be $1080 per vehicle, per year, or over $10,000 over the life of the vehicle.

Of course, if you get a kick out of burning up other people's money, an even better choice would be to buy an International Harvester CXT, and keep it filled with biodiesel. With Uncle Sam providing a $1.00/gallon tax credit for every gallon of biodiesel made from virgin vegetable oil (mainly soy), not only will "Crowds gather and camera's flash ... and children look up in awe at the 9-foot high cab" (www.internationaldelivers.com/site_layout/XTFamily/cxt.asp), but you can drive in the knowledge that your tax dollars are hard at work.

These are only my personal opinions.

Actually, lots of people are making it from algae, and we should indeed support them with further funding.  Algae have the additional benefits of remediating of other waste problems such as water and air contamination (see efforts by MIT spinoff greenfuelonline.com).  They even fix their own nitrogen, allowing for the reduction of NOx.  The main hurdle is that the high oil-yielding species aren't robust enough to be grown in open ponds.  Rather, they need to be grown and harvested in a closed system.

I'd like to see permacultures all over the place for both food and non-food uses.  I have the utmost respect for the work of the Land Institute.  It's also good to have some clarity against quick-fix schemes.  Nevertheless, I think butanol from cellulose is really very promising.  It also takes money from major corporations to get things accomplished, so I'm glad that DuPont and BP are at least willing to get their feet wet.  The return on energy invested for any biofuel will max out at around 3:1, which pales in comparison to petroleum's 50:1.  Still, that's a net positive, and we need to look forward with hope rather than despair.

Yes, they weren't content poisoning our bodies with corn syrup and causing obesity, diabetes and heart problems...now they want to put their corn in our cars!  

Yeah, gummy fuel injectors are the future...forget about the six years that George Bush has funded the real next economy, Hydrogen.  Take a giant leap backward with Hillary and send your dollars to ADM.

I invite anyone who thinks ethanol (or any other biofuel)sustainably delivers positive net eMergy on some given scale (and scale does matter!) to put it to the following simple (but admittedly difficult) test:  Develop a system FROM SCRATCH that produces/builds EVERYTHING it needs to operate (machinery, goods, services, etc., etc.)using only what it produces (e.g., the fuel)or the eMergy equivalent thereof(on an equal exchange basis), AND does better than just break even. I say "from scratch" to make sure you take ALL input eMergy into account.

If, as some contend,  ethanol produced from agribusiness corn has a real eMergy yield ratio of 3:1, that ethanol should be a PRIMARY energy source more than capable of "self-subsidy" in the sense above. Let's see it.

 

eMergist

I should also clarify my comment on money. Regardless of what is actually paid out by the system for materials, goods, services, etc., the total eMergy input already gages most of the REAL monetary value.  However, I suspect that there may be cases where significant value-added is not measured DIRECTLY by eMergy.  It would take very careful analysis to find out for sure.

I'd appreciate any insightful feedback as I continue to wrestle with these ideas.

 

eMergist