From the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t department”.
More Maize Ethanol May Boost Greenhouse Gas Emissions
From the American Institute of Biological Sciences
Read the full article (PDF)
In the March 2010 issue of BioScience, researchers present a sophisticated new analysis of the effects of boosting use of maize-derived ethanol on greenhouse gas emissions. The study, conducted by Thomas W. Hertel of Purdue University and five co-authors, focuses on how mandated increases in production of the biofuel in the United States will trigger land-use changes domestically and elsewhere. In response to the increased demand for maize, farmers convert additional land to crops, and this conversion can boost carbon dioxide emissions.
The analysis combines ecological data with a global economic commodity and trade model to project the effects of US maize ethanol production on carbon dioxide emissions resulting from land-use changes in 18 regions across the globe. The researchers’ main conclusion is stark: These indirect, market-mediated effects on greenhouse gas emissions “are enough to cancel out the benefits the corn ethanol has on global warming.”
The indirect effects of increasing production of maize ethanol were first addressed in 2008 by Timothy Searchinger and his coauthors, who presented a simpler calculation in Science. Searchinger concluded that burning maize ethanol led to greenhouse gas emissions twice as large as if gasoline had been burned instead. The question assumed global importance because the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act mandates a steep increase in US production of biofuels over the next dozen years, and certifications about life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are needed for some of this increase. In addition, the California Air Resources Board’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard requires including estimates of the effects of indirect land-use change on greenhouse gas emissions. The board’s approach is based on the work reported in BioScience.
Hertel and colleagues’ analysis incorporates some effects that could lessen the impact of land-use conversion, but their bottom line, though only one-quarter as large as the earlier estimate of Searchinger and his coauthors, still indicates that the maize ethanol now being produced in the United States will not significantly reduce total greenhouse gas emissions, compared with burning gasoline. The authors acknowledge that some game-changing technical or economic development could render their estimates moot, but sensitivity analyses undertaken in their study suggest that the findings are quite robust.
Effects of US Maize Ethanol on Global Land Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Estimating Market-mediated Responses
Thomas W. Hertel, Alla A. Golub, Andrew D. Jones, Michael O’Hare, Richard J. Plevin, and Daniel M. Kammen
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A related result. An MIT paper
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/wind-turbines-will-add-up-to-015-c-to.html
just calculated that if you cover 10% of energy needs by wind turbines by 2100, the turbines will reduce the cooling of the surface by decreasing the wind speed etc. As a result, the temperature will jump 1 degrees Celsius locally and 0.15 degrees Celsius globally (global mean temperature) which is actually more than the expected warming caused if the same energy is produced by burning fossil fuels. 😉
1. My 12 yr-old Toyota gets worse mileage on gasahol.
2. Additional CO2 is provably good for plants and not provably bad for anything.
Bottom line:
3. If it biofuels were truly beneficial, we wouldn’t need to subsidize them.
Oh, and about that sooper dooper highly effishunt Brazilian “Cane” Ethanol:
It was selling for $3.26/gal at the port in Brazil a couple of weeks ago.
Our poor ol’ inefficient “Corn” ethanol was selling for $1.90/gal at our port. It’s probably about $1.70, now.
Cane can only be stored a couple of weeks after harvesting before it’s processed. Corn can be stored a long time.
Mike M,
We’ve got over 30 Million acres of pretty good farmland lying fallow right now. All you have to do is go farm it, and send the food to the poor children of the world. Good Luck.
But, John from MN, it’s deeper than that. Right now, about 1/3rd of the American corn crop goes into EtOH production. If the entire US crop were turned to fuel, it would only supply about 2% of the world’s yearly automotive fuel needs. Just to put it in perspective, we could save about 5% of our fuel just by keeping out tires properly inflated.
Corn for fuel does not detract from US food demand, but is obtained by decreasing exports. Total demand for US corn has remained the same since the govt regs intervened, so prices only changed in response to world oil prices, not in response to changing demand. You’d still be making your $3.50/bu with or without poorly thought out govt energy programs.
Frank Brown (12:26:15) : “My lesson learnt here (again) is that knee jerk reactions to a problem poorly understood creates [sic] more problems than the cure.”
In the Democratic Party, knee jerk reactions are our most important product.
Manfred (12:45:45) :
no, this is about land use change.
The land use doesn’t change, only the use of the *crop* changes.
no, energy output minus energy input is positive. only the co2 difference is in this case zero due to he effect of land use change. additionally, part of the energy input is from non-oil sources such as nuclear or coal.
Taking *all* the energy requirements into account, it still takes the expenditure of more energy to make ethanol than you can extract from it, making it economically unsound.
in sum remains a reduction of fossile fuels and money transfer to the middle east and venzuela.
Well, I’ll disagree that it will reduce the use of fossil fuels, but I’m with you 100% on the need to reduce our dependence on crude from the ME and Chavezistan. Matter of fact, I’m still torqued that we have to ship North Slope crude to Japan to have it refined, and then get charged to import it *back*.
Lance (08:24:18) :
“Not to mention the fact that food prices the world over will exlode, and food shortages will kill millions…..”
Or at least cause people to lose unneeded weight since every precessed food has corn in it in some form.
re: Tom Judd (14:52:39) :
The Brazilian experience does not compare to the US. Here we have about one vehicle per person; in Brazil, about 5 to a car, and they drive way less than us.
Indy cars run on methanol. Compression ratios and octane ratings have to do with pre-ignition & knock as well as squeezing out more torque from a gallon. All engineering solutions are compromises among the conflicting factors.
Ethanol is not the solution to our energy problems. It comes from crops, which are grown essentially over two spatial dimensions and detract from the food supply. Bio-deisel from algae is the way to go. It it grown in vats over three dimensions and can use otherwise useless land. We’re running out of good farmland, too, ya know.
Doug (09:37:22) :
Nothing said about the CO2 byproduct released from the fermentation process?
Hey watch it Doug. There is nothing wrong with fermentation. Without it I couldn’t make my moonshine.
There is potential of finding petroleum off the East coast, specifically off the South & North Carolina coast — well beyond the visual horizon (about 13 miles), mostly 25 miles offshore. This geological structure is called appropriately enough the Carolina Trough.
“…it is believed that major accumulations [of petroleum] await discovery in South Carolina’s untested offshore. Present data indicate that the Blake Plateau will be the prime target area although the continental shelf has secondary possibilities. These offshore areas offer the most promise as major petroleum provinces because they have a thick sedimentary section with excellent source beds and trapping possibilities.” (see link below:)
http://search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/C1EA3CAD-16C9-11D7-8645000102C1865D
Of course, there is potential of finding petroleum off the West coast, too, the California offshore has great promise and already pumps oil from multiple underwater fields to one platform (this multiple well to platform set-up is repeated with each platform) . With a safety record in the last 20 years , second to none.
“Abstract: Conventional wisdom holds that offshore oil and gas production harms the surrounding environment. This blanket “wisdom” ignores the fact that the largest source of marine hydrocarbon pollution is offshore natural oil seepage. It also ignores the fact that offshore oil production has lowered the amount of oil released into the ocean by reducing natural oil seepage, especially in areas with active offshore oil seeps, such as California’s Santa Barbara coast [natural oil seeps happen in the Gulf of Mexico, too].” (see link below:)
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/11/How%20Offshore%20Oil%20and%20Gas%20Production%20Benefits%20the%20Economy%20and%20the%20Environment
So, what does this all mean?
Well, the potential for offshore oil & gas discovery is excellent and it can be done in an environmentally safe & responsible manner and be over the visual horizon so the production facilities cause no visual “blight”.
Better for the American economy if America produces more oil and sends less money overseas to pay that foreign oil bill and puts Americans to work producing that oil and American profits instead of foreign oil producers getting the profit.
Not to mention it puts downward pressure on oil prices — more oil — and that’s a good thing, competitive energy prices for the American Economy.
Imagine having low energy prices as a goal for American Economy.
(No, makes too much sense for this crew…)
Gee, might even spur economic growth and job creation.
Considering where the U. S. Economy is now — what are we waiting for?
Did some reading on denatured fuel ethanol.
What is the idea of using ethanol fuel derived from food today when the efficiency of the engines doesn’t even give the same 1:1 milage as a proper petrol (i.e. black gold) fueled vehicle? This crap has been around for years now and still apparently it comes up short on the milage.
And how does the engines really fare in the long run, especially the ones designed for the black fuel/oil to boot.
@Kum Dollison
E85 isn’t really valid yet in US, so it just look good to reference. In Europe people mostly buy the so called E85 vehicles because of less taxation, then just go right ahead and run them on proper fuel because it gives them more milage, because it’s cheaper that way, doh.
Kum Dollison (14:55:24) :
And, yes Kinder Morgan is running ethano, and gasoline through the pipeline from Tampa to Orlando if I’m not mistaken.
After spending $10 million to upgrade the 85-mile pipeline, Kinder Morgan is indeed running ethanol through it.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/an-ethanol-pipeline-begins-service/
As mentioned in the article, the economics of piping it over longer distances are a bit of a tossup.
Wrong on all counts –
E85 has an octane rating of 105. and E85 requires a compression ratio of 14:1!
Straight ethanol requires an even higher ratio.
Racing engines running on E85 rarely go over 13.2:1 compression ratio and most racers stick with compression ratios near 12:1
Conventional cars run just fine on lower compression ratios — it (E85)does not need higher compression ratios, but it will allow higher compression ratios.
I have 3 cars that I run on E85 my Subrau WRX has a base compression ratio of 8:1, and runs very well on E85 even off boost. It is turbocharged and can use boost pressures far above those allowed on even high dollar race gasoline (up to 35 psi) but I normally drive it around at 6 psi max boost unless I am trying to have fun. My other two cars have mechanical compression ratios of about 9:1 and run just fine on E85.
This is the main reason cars which use E85 are not as fuel efficient or as powerful with E85 as they are when burning regular unleaded.
No they are less efficient because the CAFE standards give the same value to a car that runs on E85 regardless of its fuel efficiency. The car manufactures make absolutely no effort to improve fuel efficiency on their flex fuel cars because there is no incentive of any kind to do so. They could be more effecient with higher compression ratios but it is not necessary.
With no mechanical modifications of any kind I got 92% of my gasoline fuel efficiency on straight E85, while making more power, and lower fuel costs, on my WRX and passed Colorado’s IM240 emissions test with flying colors. Most E85 experimenters get fuel mileages substantially better than commercial FFV vehicles on E85 with very little difficulty.
Any guess on why consumers may never have a gas (again, disregarding diesel) engine with a compression ratio greater than 12:1? Most states (such as Colorado) limit the compression ratio of a street legal vehicle at 12:1.
Show me a reference to that, there is no mention of engine compression ratios in Colorado Revised statutes. The state makes no effort to measure compression ratio and has no means to do so. The current emissions test is a simple pass fail test. If you car passes visual and runs the IM240 dyno test with emissions below the limits for the car model/year you pass, regardless what has been done to the engine.
I know of hundreds of cars in Colorado that pass emissions tests and have operational compression ratios well above 12:1 (ie 8:1 mechanical compression ratio and peak boost pressures from 24 – 35 psi). Given our ambient air pressure of approx 11.5 -12.5 psi (due to altitude) that is a boost pressure of 2x to 2.5x atmospheric plus a mechanical compression ratio of 8:1.
With no mechanical changes of any kind most engines gain approx 5% power simply by switching to E85. The fuel is inherently more efficient at producing mechanical energy than gasoline at proper fuel air mixtures. Volumetric fuel energy is a an absolutely idiotic way to compare fuels. Far more relavent to meaningful comparisons, is fuel BTU/mile and cost per mile.
In both cases E85 beats gasoline. Fuel ethanol also stretches gasoline supplies by allowing refiners to use lower octane gasoline feed stock to reach mandated octane levels, netting more gallons of gasoline from each barrel of crude.
That is the net energy ratio for conventional gasoline. E85 yields about 1.35 BTU for each BTU fuel energy input. Current state of the art plants are pushing 1.62:1 ratios as they start using co-generation, burning of crop waste, bio-methane fuel input etc.
As mentioned above the corn used for ethanol production in the U.S. is feed corn (ie the industrial corn) used for animal feed and industrial product production like corn starch and high fructose sweetners. Not Sweet corn that is used as a human food.
There is also a rapid move toward other feed stocks ranging from sweet sorghum, various grains, potatoes, sugar beets etc. The reason the fuel ethanol industry started out on corn in the U.S. is more desirable crops like sugar cane do not grow in most the the continental U.S., so you have to use the most cost effective feed stock in the local area the plant is built in. Right now that is corn but that will not last for long.
Ultimately Corn – ethanol will be a small niche market in areas where that is the most dominant crop, but other feed stocks will rapidly displace corn. In a mature fuel ethanol infrastructure, cellulose and algae based ethanol will eventually dominate with other local crops like potatoes, sugar beets, etc. used where they are the prevailing crop that is suitable to local conditions.
Larry
Bill Tuttle
It Does NOT take more energy to make ethanol than you get out of it.
There are about 5,000 btus of nat gas in the fertilizer
Depending on the refinery, there are between 16,000 and 25,000 btus of nat gas in process energy at the refinery (some refineries, however, are substituting biomass for nat gas)
There are about 5,000 btus of diesel (farming, harvesting, transporting)
That comes out to between 26,000, and 35,000 btus of fossil fuels in a 76,000 btu gal of ethanol.
Oh, and the Indy 500 runs on ethanol, not methanol
It is not that it cannot be shipped by pipe line, it is that the pipe line owners are not willing to ship it by pipeline because they are not willing to properly clean the lines to do so.
It has been successfully shipped by pipe line (several tests were run to prove it), but the ethanol is such a good cleaner that it picks up lots of crud from the pipe line left behind by other oil products.
In Brazil they routinely ship ethanol by pipeline. It can be done, it is simply not in the financial or business interest of an oil pipeline company that ships petroleum, to go out of their way to enable their primary fuel competitor.
There has been talk of building dedicated fuel ethanol pipe lines.
Keep in mind also that in almost all cases the blenders tax credit is NOT paid to the ethanol producers it is paid to the company that blends the ethanol with the gasoline ——– yes you guessed it the oil refiner gets the blenders tax credit not the farmer or the ethanol producer (with a few isolated exceptions where the ethanol producer does their own blending).
Larry
Kum Dollison (14:55:24) :
John Galt – Kum and Go – Ankeny, and Mason City, Iowa
Kum and Go are always super-competitive in price wherever I’ve seen them.
http://e85prices.com/iowa.html
The price given is for E0. You have to run your cursor over the little yellow “note” to get the E10 price.
And, yes Kinder Morgan is running ethano, and gasoline through the pipeline from Tampa to Orlando if I’m not mistaken.
Sounds great! Shape that most cars don’t run on E85, and those that do will end up paying more per mile. Or do you suggest, in this utopian world, that we are all running ethanol cars?
Are you suggesting that we create approximately 10 million+ barrels of ethanol a day? Can the US produce this quantity of ethanol on the land we have? [Insert scratchy head smiley here]
Of course, converting all this land over to a single crop type isn’t going to affect any other part of our economy and environment at all. Is it?
Ethanol is a partial source and always will be. There may be countries which run a higher Ethanol/Gasoline ratio (Brazil) because they simply don’t consume as much (and the simple answer to the “Don’t consume so much” inanity is to reply “You first” and move on to more productive things like reading Garfield in the bathroom).
Show us how *you* can fuel 300 million Americans with Ethanol: one person running their better-than-thou life doesn’t demonstrate that Ethanol is a viable fuel source at all.
Ethanol has two thirds the energy content, by volume, as gasoline. We buy fuel by volume. In Brazil recentlyt, I saw ethenol priced the same as, or more than, gasoline. The buyers of that fuel are being ripped off.
Some car models actually get better fuel mileage on ethanol/gasoline blends. It is purely a function of how the engine management system makes use of ethanol enhanced fuels. E85 has much wider flammability limits than gasoline at normal operating temperatures, allowing the fuel air mixture to run much leaner than on gasoline with out engine damage. E85 burns cooler due to its higher latent heat of evaporation (exhaust gas temps are typically 100 -200 deg F cooler than on gasoline). E85 engines lose less combustion heat to the cooling system due to their slightly cooler burning, and the fact that they recover heat from the engine during the early part of the intake stroke. E85 produces more moles of combustion products that gasoline for a given fuel air mixture, so average cylinder pressures are higher, and due to the high cooling of the intake charge volumetric efficiency of the engine goes up. Both of these effects result in increased power and low speed torque, in some cars/driving situations this improved engine torque characteristic cuts down need for the engine to shift down to a lower gear while pulling hills, and up shifts to higher gears occur at lower throttle openings. This is how a properly designed engine management system can actually get significantly higher themal fuel efficiency on E85 than on gasoline.
On my first conversion to E85 on my WRX these were the BTU/mile figures on gasoline and E85.
As you can see I used only 78.99% of the fuel energy to go a mile on E85 that I did when driving on straight gasoline. In addition the engine made more power under WOT acceleration on the E85.
Larry
John from MN,
I am A-maized that anybody who wanted to pen a creditable article about corn ethanol would be so condescending to pretend that the correct term for the crop was anything besides CORN. Personally, I couldn’t get beyond that little piece of weirdness.
Your post was informative and enlightening in terms of the other useful byproducts of the process and the resources involved, in the immortal words of Johnny Carson “I did not know that”.
Thanks
Sorry forgot to mention, E85 fueled gasoline engines are astonishingly clean after converting to E85 fuel. Folks who tear down their engine often (like racers) report that the E85 actually cleans up and removes carbon build up from the former use of gasoline. Many of the engines I have seen torn down looked like new engines after a few thousand miles on E85.
Larry
Dandy,
E85 is selling in many locations for $1.99 vs $2.77 for straight gasoline.
$0.78/$2.77 = 0.28
That’s a 28% discount vs an on-average 20% less mileage. There are about 2,250 stations in the U.S. that sell E85.
Consumer Reports:
“The fuel economy of the Tahoe dropped 27 percent when running on E85 compared with gasoline, from an already low 14 mpg overall to 10 mpg (rounded to the nearest mpg). This is the lowest fuel mileage we’ve gotten from any vehicle in recent years. ”
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/news/2006/ethanol/overview/index.htm
So … assuming E85 is 85% gasoline.
7.14 gallons of gasoline to travel 100 miles.
10 gallons of E85 to travel 100 miles …. which means 8.5 gallons of gasoline PLUS 1.5 gallons of ethanol to travel 100 miles.
Conclusion: MORONS buy E85. Crooks and morons make you buy E85.
Oceans
Give me 7 miles square in every county (the average county is a little over 1,000 sq miles) and I’ll have us off imported oil in 6 years.
Any other questions?
Those are oats, not corn.
Ethanol is renewable, and cleaner. Far cleaner than MTBE. Ethanol is an energy-storage system. Solar energy is the production in this equation. The C02 released in burning comes from the air in the first place. Since global warming isn’t an issue, and higher C02 levels produce more green plant growth, absorbing more C02, why is that a concern here?
If the land isn’t producing corn for ethanol, it will be producing corn that will end up lying on the ground rotting at the grain terminals. Present ethanol production doesn’t use all of that up as it is. It isn’t burning food. Keep saying that until you get it. Sheesh!
You people who don’t live here believe so many myths about ethanol, corn and agriculture.
John from MN, nice to see a sane, educated person on this topic.
Veronica, the land would still be producing the corn, it would just rot,
that’s all. You see farmers can only sell what is purchased within reasonable hauling distance, and for which they own the equipment to raise and harvest. That happens to be corn and soybeans. Nothing else. Period. And cattle don’t belch the methane. That comes from the other end. Poor rice harvests in the far east have NOTHING to do with ethanol production in the Midwest.
Gary, your source simply lies. In Minnesota, one of the places where the most ethanol is produced from corn, the percentage is 6%, not 25%. As has been noted elsewhere, National Geographic has gotten very political – to the left where they want far fewer people to live.
Rod E. A tax break is not a subsidy paid by you. Read up on American agriculture from WWII to the present so that you don’t look so much like an idiot.
Political power of agricultural interests? You mean like 1-2% of the voter population? Wow, very powerful. . . Believe me real farmers, not the ones in your imagination, feel helpless and have for a long time.
rbateman, and don’t forget the rest of the corn stalk and leaves which still have the C02 sequestered in them.
If you want to argue that regions like Colorado which require tapping the Oglala aquifer shouldn’t be farmed, that is fine, but the arguments made by the ignoramuses here when applied to the Midwest are just lies and propaganda. Every bit as off as Algore’s movie.
It is curious to see the same lies repeated after John from MN cleared them up with actual data from the site. Just like AGW . . .
There is more than enough food produced in this world. The only reason that there is hunger is politics, such as Mugabe’s genocides, same deal in Ethiopia in the past.
JimAsh, John is an actual farmer. He knows what he is talking about. You don’t. You sir, are an ignoramus. You should read what he wrote and learn something. The diesel he needs was invented by Mr. Diesel to be produced by farmers on their own land, from their own soybeans. Natural gas could probably be replaced by the electricity coming from those towers all over farm country, or from solar. Natural gas is just how the equipment is presently designed.