Comments on: Ethanol: Unintended Consequences

By: Ethanol: Dirtier Air, More Pollution, Ruined Engines — So the EPA Wants You To Use More! « American Elephants

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 02:27:28 +0000

[...] corn-ethanol subsidies cost U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion a year. Corn-based ethanol is not supportable on economic, environmental or logistical grounds. It increases air pollution, water pollution, [...]

By: Global Warming Weekly Round-Up, Dec. 10th, 2009 « The Daily Bayonet

Global Warming Weekly Round-Up, Dec. 10th, 2009 « The Daily Bayonet — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:55:43 +0000

[...] Ethanol and its unintended consequences just won’t go away. [...]

By: Jon Boone

Jon Boone — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:33:22 +0000

Although the negative consequences of wide scale ethanol use may not have been intended by such mainline environmental groups as the Sierra Club, they surely were predictable. Indeed, the primary theme of the environmental movement is the story of how intended adverse consequences result from the uninformed decisions of the well intended. As some may know, the Sierra Club is not known for allowing better information to override its ideology.

As always, the devil is in the details. That the soups to nuts process of converting corn to fuel would actually increase carbon emissions (after factoring all the relevant variables involved) while regressively raising the cost of food, in the process increasing world hunger, came as no surprise, years ago, to Audubon’s Ted Williams, who has made a career from debunking get-rich but flawed energy schemes.

Robert Bryce, in his Gusher of Lies, provides an excellent precis of this scam; in a later chapter, he shows how industrial wind projects are now the electricity sector’s version of ethanol, although even he didn’t quite grasp the full extent of the comparison. As Kent Hawkins, and others, are now showing, wind technology will do little about offsetting greenhouse gas emissions–and may actually increase them on some grids–while also increasing a role for flexible fossil-fired plants.

The lost opportunity costs that devolve from investing so much public funds subventing dysfunctional energy technologies like ethanol and wind are breathtakingly enormous. As Bryce shows, however, at least for ethanol, throwing money down these ratholes will likely continue, given the current nature of our electoral system. Winning Iowa, for example, or even doing well there, means bellying up to the ethanol trough, placating all those farmers who now rely upon the government teat. Even John McCain, who endured so much suffering in Vietnam, succumbed to this political reality in order to advance his campaign.

Perhaps he should have continued to tell the truth….

By: Tom Tanton

Tom Tanton — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:28:07 +0000

It is important to distinguish between unintended and unanticipated—many of us were pointing out for a long time the unintended but probable outcomes. Interestingly, that was met with the epitome of hubris and conceit—even though probable, it wouldn’t happen because “that is not the intention.” Especially interesting in California, as ethanol went from hero to (belatedly) zero in the low carbon fuel debate. I have finally found out just what business California is in–building stranded assets: most recently ethanol production facilities, earlier MTBE, methanol, electric vehicles, LOTs of power plant types, etc.

By: Peter Moliterno

Peter Moliterno — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:25:50 +0000

I am an agricultural engineer and have spent my whole career in energy. I tried to buy the closed corn ethanol plant in Mulberry, FL and restart it using citrus molasses and have studied ethanol economics in detail. I wholeheartedly agree that ethanol does not deserve further subsidies and probably should have its subsidies reduced. However, I believe that you are sleeping with the enemy if you cite the work of a bunch of “ecologists” to prevent further ethanol development. I have seen lots of useless studies that claim economically impossible things like using more fossil fuel to make it than it’s worth. You should well know that the market will decide whether there is economic value added.

A free market approach to liquid fuel would be to equalize the road taxes and maybe even eliminate them and fund road construction and maintenance another way. The federal subsidy is not much more than a tax waiver on ethanol when state taxes are included.

The technical side that is usually overlooked is the benefit of removing the low value starch from corn and converting it to ethanol, which has only half the weight but 90% of the fuel value and is in a much more valuable liquid form. It also has an octane value of about 110, so is more valuable than finished gasoline and extends the volume of low octane gasoline that can be used in a blend.

All that said, it can never be more than a supplement to our liquid fuel supply. Cellulosic ethanol is hopeless. It has far more value as a fuel for power generation.