Joe explains why corn-based ethanol is a dumb source of energy. I’ve been meaning to write about this for months, but Joe’s done it better than I could.
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Open source, procurement, and gov tech.
Joe explains why corn-based ethanol is a dumb source of energy. I’ve been meaning to write about this for months, but Joe’s done it better than I could.
Comments are closed.
Thanks for the link. One thing I didn’t mention: If the grocery-store economics I list come to pass, maybe we’ll start to see a demand to reduce tariffs on imported sugar cane, while simultaneously seeing many foods reduce their usage of high-fructose corn syrup. I doubt it, but silver+lining, non?
Bush is “always” an oil man….that’s why he’s come up with such a dreadful solution to our “energy” crisis…anything that keeps “oil” in the loop.
I don’t think anyone has ever accused Bush of being on the cutting edge of technology….
Good post Waldo….buzz…buzz…
The problems with corn don’t bother me much. Yes, in the long run it would be a bad source of ethanol. But meanwhile it’s prompting the development of a large ethanol production industry and the emergence of a steady market. My hope is that after 10 years or so of ramping up production with corn, the economic problems with using corn will begin to present themselves and at that point we will switch over to other sources. It will be easier to convince farmers to grow switchgrass when they can see a dependable market for their crop. As I understand it, the ethanol production facilities being built right now can be converted to process switchgrass when the time comes.
Jack,
That’s like Steve Jobs saying, “Gosh, I don’t think the market is ready for the IPod, I think we should get a steady market for this other, more crappy player first.”
If we are ever to reach any kind of energy independance, someone needs to bite the bullet now and start producing ethanol in a large wsy from anything other than corn.
I am sure the ‘big corn’ lobby (read ADM, etc) are licking their lips at the prospect of more subsidies to produce corn and corn products.
It isn’t efficient as a fuel source, and we shouldn’t go down that road.
Actually Joe is looking at old data. We have better than 25 years of corn ethanol production in the US, and the empirical production data shows that corn ethanol is a net energy producer. I posted some links on Joe’s site for folks wanting to look at the stoichiometry. As I said there, that doesn’t mean that corn ethanol is a solution, it ends up being trucked and tankered everywhere, increasing the chances of spills and risks of explosion in populated areas. Most modern engines cannot tolerate it, and steel pipelines are corroded by it.
We have been acclimatized to thinking that energy will come from some abundant few single sources – oil and coal. I believe that the future will see a much more diverse energy source spectrum with ethanol, vegetable diesel, biogas, solar, coal, oil, nuclear and fusion – all used in much more appropriately engineered applications.
As I said on my own site, the data Bubby is citing hasn’t been peer reviewed, and was originally commissioned by the Corn Grower’s Association of America. The methodology used to show corn-based ethanol’s net gain of energy is adding in the animal feed by-product of the corn base, while simultaneously neglecting to include the energy cost of shipping both the ethanol as well as the animal feed to their locations.
However, I do agree that what is good for any marketplace is good for our energy supply: Diversity of supply prevents price spikes in any one area from destabilizing the entire market. Our energy future requires both energy producers as well as carriers. My hope is that we’ll see a wide diversity of technologies in both.
Yes, corn ethanol production also produces corn oil and corn gluten food product – and since there is a consumer demand for both, we either let ethanol claim the production energy credit, or we grow/produce them independently with diesel fuel. And the shipping of corn oil and corn gluten food stocks still incur shipping energy, so it is a wash.
I’m not trying to sell an ethanol silver bullet, but it is a good motor fuel additive that makes petroleum fuels burn cleaner, and stretch further. Corn ethanol serves other desired outcomes; it keeps agricultural land in production, farmers on the farm, and gives us a market for all that nitrogen and phosphorus that we need to pull out of our wastewater treatment plants, hog farms, chicken and turkey farms. Time to execute.
I figure the more sources of energy, the better. Monocultures are virtually always bad, and energy is hardly an exception.
I guess my objection to utilizing it as an energy credit is that consumer demand is only so large for it right now because corn itself is so heavily subsidized.
If you look at Iraq’s first year of reconstruction, the Ministry of Industry had a number of unprofitable businesses under state control. However, because Saddam had placed an edict which stated that the Dinar would be artificially held at the rate of ~1:3 USD, the state was providing the difference between the reality (~2,000:1 USD) of the international market and a sanctioned Iraq.
In one particular example, a vegetable oil company was extremely profitable, because it was only paying a couple thousand Dinars for the imported vegetables, as the Ministry paid the rest. However, once that artificial subsidy was removed, the company was in shambles. This same situation applies to all corn-products. The only reason they are so cheap and demand is so high is because we pay for the difference come tax season. The cost is hidden.
Ethanol would provide even further subsidies to corn, which would only perpetuate the cycle. It only looks profitable because the taxpayer is providing money into all points of the cycle.
All good points Joe, but not to the point. Taxpayers subsidize oil lands leasing, exploration and production costs, and maintain a national reserve – all so that we can pull up to the fuel pump with the reasonable expectation that fuel will come out of the pump. It is, after all a national economic priority. Should corn ethanol be held to a different standard?
You’re asking the wrong question. It isn’t whether we should subsidize corn-based ethanol; rather, why are we so heavily subsidizing the oil industry?
This session, the Democrats have already begun to roll back a large number of oil subsidies, and are starting to hand those over to alternative energies. I just ask why give a majority of them to ethanol? There are alternatives that have the possibility of being profitable on their own, after subsidies have given the industry a plank to get established on. I don’t see that happening with mass-scale corn-based ethanol. Perhaps with oil-heavy algae, which would grow from the CO2 of smokestacks, but that is a story for another day.
I agree that trying to pick energy winners is a fools errand. I’m rather fond of putting costs to carbon, and encouraging carbon trading and eventually, elimination through market forces. There was, at one time a growing market for ethanol, until the oil boys decided to make methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) the oxygenator of choice, by law. MTBE being an oil refinery product.
Mark,
I’d say it’s more like if Steve Jobs said 10 years ago that “gosh, I don’t think that the market is ready for the iPod yet, we’d better invent compact audio file formats like the MP3 first so that people will actually want to use them.” Not that Apple invented the MP3 but you get the point.
Farmers are not interested in moving en masse to switchgrass. It ain’t going to happen. It’s too big a risk for them. That is a reality. So if you want to develop a thriving ethanol industry in America then start with making ethanol from corn since that’s something they are already comfortable with growing and it’s something that they have markets for if the ethanol thing doesn’t work. Who the hell in their right mind is going to risk the farm growing a field full of grass that has no use whatsoever except for the production of a totally speculative industry providing fuel for cars that mostly don’t even exist yet? Once the market is well established and they can look at ethanol crops as a steady source of income THEN we can get them to start moving over to switchgrass or other such crops.
You are talking about farmers – not venture capitalists here. They aren’t in a position to take big risks. Most of these guys are mortgaged up to their throats. If they wind up with a crop that they can’t sell then they lose their farms, their homes and everything. They’ll be handing out stickers in Walmart. This is why we have to start with corn.