The reverse of UN's disastrous "oil for food" program: Ethanol uses 40% of US Corn Crop

Poptech: “I want all the government subsidies, mandates and protectionist tariffs removed.”
So do I. It is American and European subsidies and trade barriers that are so badly skewing the global agricultural market for the rest of us. Please, do get rid of them. Then the farmers from around the world who have already had to get efficient to compete with subsidized American products will benefit.
Your counter-arguments, however, do not challenge one whit my main point. Farmers are not fools. We understand economics just fine. We know when planting a field with corn engineered to create ethanol will pay better than planting a field with corn to make high fructose corn syrup. We understand that politicians have created an artificial market by requiring ethanol in gasoline. But, what would any business person do given a similar situation? To use an example that Anthony may recognize, do you not think that Software developers will divert their resources into creating 64-bit compliant programs now that MicroSoft if pushing its 64-bit version of Windows 7? So long as their is a more profitable line for agricultural products, whether it is ethanol, tobacco, cotton, hemp, sod, flowers, etc. etc. resources will be put into growing those things. This will naturally cause scarcity in food items until the price of food rises in relation to demand. Then, when food prices reach parity with the other non-food products, farmers will shift resources back into raising crops for food. You cannot blame the farmers for this. If you want someone to blame, then blame the politicians and the green lobby for creating the ethanol market.
Your comment about “the poor” being unable to afford food is irrelevant. Nobody cries when the “the poor” cannot afford an iPad. Why should food be treated differently? Besides, the way that food prices are kept low is… guess what? Subsidies. Which you have already come out against. Sorry, but you cannot have it both ways.

(1) Even when corn is used for ethanol about half of it becomes high-grade cattle feed. And small parts of it become various parts of human food such as brewer’s yeast, and brewer’s grains which are added to breakfast cereal. (2) If it were not for the ethanol industry, the corn wouldn’t have been planted in the first place. You can’t run the experiment of finding out what would have happened if ethanol weren’t made so you can’t have any certainty what caused the problem. But other grain prices (not used for ethanol) are also up, so the evidence suggests other things than ethanol. (3) The problem is not insufficient food, it’s insufficient money for food. American farmers pay big dollars for fuel needed to farm and this contributes to high food prices a heck of a lot more than the decrease in corn. Look at the Fed and the US budget, this is the start of inflation. (3) Despite fuel conversion, US exports of corn are near record highs. (4) If we sell enough corn overseas to drop the price of it, the result will not be that it is eaten (the corn is not generally a human food), but instead it will be at best fed to cattle and will compete with US meat exports. At worst it will be converted to ethanol by our competitors (every one of which has an active grain to ethanol program) and the result will be that we will have to import yet more $105/barrel oil. (5) The people who used to tell you that corn to ethanol is “inefficient” were green liars who are against all factory farming. They lost the battle over the efficiency of corn ethanol and now are arguing that it is bad because it brings on land use changes which negate its carbon advantage. (6) Whenever you have high oil prices and (relatively) low corn prices, the effect will be that private industry will turn corn into ethanol and cattle feed. This is a very profitable business. It’s done all over the world. If it is suppressed in the US, it will appear that much stronger overseas and US import/export balance will be that much worse and you will pay that much more for the fuel you put in your car.

Tain, “We know when planting a field with corn engineered to create ethanol will pay better than planting a field with corn to make high fructose corn syrup. We understand that politicians have created an artificial market by requiring ethanol in gasoline. But, what would any business person do given a similar situation?”
I never blame anyone for taking advantage of government policies as it is only human nature, my complaints are with those who defend and endorse those policies.
“Your comment about “the poor” being unable to afford food is irrelevant. Nobody cries when the “the poor” cannot afford an iPad. Why should food be treated differently? Besides, the way that food prices are kept low is… guess what? Subsidies. Which you have already come out against. Sorry, but you cannot have it both ways.”
You will find the concern for whether the poor can eat or enjoy an iPad to be drastically different with the majority of people on an ethical level. Subsidies do not keep food prices low, they simply allow inefficient farms to stay in business. What keeps food prices low is free-market competition.

Caleb says:
March 7, 2011 at 5:25 pm
Hotrod,
I recall watching, over twenty years ago, a racer leap from his car and start jumping up and down waving his arms. The pit crew immediately shot what appeared to be a CO2 extinguisher at the car. The man kept leaping about waving his arms, because he himself was on fire. In the bright sunlight the flames were invisible, being ethanol flames. Finally the crew caught on, and spayed the white jets on the driver rather than the car.
I understand hotrods like to use ethanol, Hotrod. However you need to understand that is a totally different world from the world of a hard-working country boy, to whom a chainsaw is a major investment. Such fellows want their saws to last for years, and often used to make their saws last for decades.
If you think ethanol doesn’t screw up small engines, I suggest you go visit someone with a small-engine-repair shop. They will tell you the truth.
Until then, I humbly suggest you live in a world divorced from mine.

I agree with you entirely when I buy tools I expect them to last for years not months. I also get pissed off when the stuff I buy turns out to be crap. My father was a mechanic and I worked in a service station and as a machinist for many years. I have spent a lot of time laying on my back on a gravel driveway fixing cars because I could not afford to have someone else fix them. I have tools that are over 60 years old that my father and grandfather used. I’ve cut down a lot of trees for firewood, both with hand ax and chainsaws, and split them by hand the old fashioned way with a hammer and wedges.
You obviously do not understand my point on this issue though.
I have no doubt you have seen equipment that was damaged, but it was not damaged by the ethanol, —- it was damaged either by poor owner maintenance (no slight to you) or by the brain dead engineer or cost accountant that decided to build a tool without considering how it would be used, or due to some secondary cause like a careless gas station owner that was not bright enough to clean out his fuel tanks properly.
Ethanol added gasoline has been required by law here in Colorado since 1988. In the Denver Metro area it has been impossible to buy “straight gasoline” for 23 years. People around here have no major issues with ethanol added gasoline in small engines and yard equipment. It is the only fuel they can buy. I know folks that are still using chainsaws, portable generators and lawn mowers that they bought 20-30 years ago. They use this gasoline in boats, ATV’s and weed wackers with no corrosion issues or other problems.
I know folks in the midwest that have done the same, and used ethanol added gasoline in small engines for years with no problems. There is guy I know here in Denver that drilled the jets in his lawn mower and runs it on E85 and several people that run pump E85 in motorcycles.
The problems you describe are due to manufactures taking short cuts in design and selling junk equipment, poor maintenance, or repair shops ripping off their customers and blaming ethanol gasoline while they run up a bogus repair bill.
Let me tell you about my experience with ethanol added gasoline when it first came out around here in the 1970’s. When gasohol was first introduced there were issues where people had problems with equipment. The vast majority of it fell into two specific areas.
One was the ethanol cleaning all the crap out of the fuel system left by plain gasoline. Plain gasoline if left a long time unused or in older fuel systems where there has been time to accumulate deposits, builds up varnish and tars on the inside of the fuel system as it partially oxidizes while stored (this is why folks add things like Stabil fuel stabilizer to their fuel). This residue slowly builds up a varnish like coating on the inside of the fuel system, that is quickly dissolved by ethanol when it is first introduced. The result is all that crud ends up plugging fuel filters (or if you don’t run a fuel filter) goes into the carburetor and plugs up the small passages. The solution is to replace the clogged fuel filter ( or clean the carburetor then install the fuel filter that should have been there to begin with).
Occasionally a car will be so crapped up it takes 2 filter changes to get all the goo out of the fuel system. This showed up here shortly after gasohol was introduced as the Denver Police Department had a rash of car stalling problems the first week or so after they switched. Once they replaced the fuel filters the problems went away never to return.
The problem is that a lot of mechanics will use this sort of situation as an excuse to sell carburetor rebuilds, even engine rebuilds, drain and flush fuel tanks, even replace fuel tanks, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, when a $3.00 fuel filter is the problem.
The second is someone leaves a law mower out in the rain and puts it away wet without starting it and getting it dried out. When it rusts in stead of admitting they screwed up they just blame the new gasoline as it is a lot easier on the ego, than admitting it probably would have rusted up with gasoline too.
In the 1970’s Holley carburetors had a cork and rubber gasket between the carburetor body and the float bowel that did not like ethanol, they were phased out 20 years ago. Same goes for some carburetors that had foam plastic floats that would gradually soak up fuel after ethanol was added — they have been phased out for decades. I had a 1969 VW square back that a week after gasohol was introduced had a fuel line let go — it started leaking like a sieve. It was a 20 year old, rubber and fabric fuel line that was on its last legs anyway. I replaced it with new NAPA fuel line and never had another problem with it.
Fuel pump diaphragms failed periodically before ethanol was added to the fuel, gaskets leaked and sometimes you just have bad breaks and bad things happen because you put something away wet or did not follow the manual instructions to run the weed wacker motor dry and left fuel in it for 9 months in a hot garage.
A lot of folks that complain about major fuel mileage problems are really seeing the change in fuel mileage due to cold weather which can change fuel mileage by 10% or more due to thick oil on cold starts long warm ups, and the changes in the fuel blends that the gas companies make every winter to make sure you can start your car when it is -20 F outside and it has 2 ft of snow on it.
In controlled tests (ie lab test that run the cars under controlled conditions on flat ground long enough to really measure changes in fuel mileage) show that the real reduction in fuel mileage due to 10% ethanol added to gasoline ranges from 0%-4% depending on the car. Some modern cars with active tuning in the ECU actually get better fuel mileage on ethanol blends due to the higher octane.
If you are losing more than 4%-5% in fuel mileage (over several tanks of fuel), you need to get your car fixed, the problem is not the fuel but some other issue like a dirty fuel filter.
The other issue is that when ethanol fuels are first introduced a lot of gas station owners do not properly clean their underground storage tanks and the ethanol picks up water that has been in there for years and causes them to pump “bad gas” for a few months until they fix the problem created by their lack of proper maintenance or the ethanol carries all the condensate out.
This is again not the fuels fault, but the station owners fault for being an idiot. When I worked in a gas station one of my jobs was to stick the tanks every day, and once a week or so check them for water, by putting a paste on the end of the stick that would change color if it was exposed to water in the bottom of the tank. Lots of station owners do not do that. As a result someone gets a tank of bad gas that has been contaminated with water that never should have been there in the first place, and have car problems until they go to a different station and buy “straight gasoline”.
They fixed the problem but blame it on the wrong reason. The new station has clean ground tanks and the old one did not, the fact that they pumped different fuel blends is irrelevant other than that the addition of ethanol made the poor maintenance at one station obvious and their lack of care and good practice bite their customers in the ass.
Like I said at the beginning, you should not be having maintenance issues on ethanol blended gasoline. If you are, the issues are caused by other factors than the gas because 100’s of thousands of drivers have been using the stuff for decades with no issues.
You are simply uncovering other issues that need to be addressed.
I know how frustrating it is to have a tool fail to work when you need it and I have been there done that where I had to decide if I was going to eat buy gas or pay the rent any 2 I could do, but not all three. When I was working as a mechanic and a machinist I have saved up for months to buy tools I needed. I’ve been so tight on budget I had to coast down every hill to get home because I could not afford to buy gas.
Ethanol is not the problem. Clean E-10 does not cause problems with well maintained modern equipment.
Larry
By the way the incident you are recalling was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in all likelihood when they were using straight methanol fuel, it does burn with an invisible flame, E85 does not, it has a yellow flame due to the gasoline content.

Eric (skeptic) says:
eyesonu, they are all shills for ethanol. It doesn’t matter in the least whether they are paid or coordinate. What I love the most is their “scientific” claims of mileage. They run their truck on crappy ethanol, it can barely get out of its own way, then they claim the mileage isn’t so bad. Well duh! You would think these farmers and farm help would have a sense of what is practical, but they are all buying into the same circle jerk.
The classic mark of someone unable to intelligently discuss or debate an isue – and wholly unable to support their position.
More importantly one totally and completely uninformed and just plain wrong.
Ethanol is HIGHER OCTANE than gasoline. It offers higher performance and allows higher compression engines. There is a reason the racing community uses ethanol in many racing programs.
Comments like yours show the outright ignorance of the facts, the unwillingness to learn, and the stubborn insistence n plodding along promoting the same flawed agenda.
It is sad to see that mentality at a site like this – with the many clear thinking folks interested in learning about the global warming fiasco
Reply: I fixed your italics ~ ctm

Hey 220, my comment was answered over a day ago by Larry with the racing car examples. I asked him what about your truck (low compression engine). He answered that he didn’t have a truck. Now you gave the same answer. How about your truck? I am not unwilling to learn, just unwilling to listen to talking points about specially tuned high compression racing engines that I could care less about.

let me try this again – tried to be cute with HTML:
Poptech says:
220mph, “I was an ethanol skeptic before I became a proponennt”
So are you also a proponent of government subsidies to corn farmers and the ethanol industry, government mandates and government tariffs that protect inefficient businesses from competition and hurt consumers?
Tell you what – you support your claim here – with facts …. show exactly what the subsidies you refer to are, how they are applied, and explain how you believe they “protect inefficient businesses from competition and hurt consumers and I’ll be happy to answer your question …
Make your case and support it with factual data and I will respond
And to answer your and other “shill” question yet again I will repeat – I am a serious climate skeptic and WAS an ethanol one as well. But like with my personal research and subsequent education on climate science, the same investigation of ethanol claims – looking at the facts and applying the same intelligent review as with climate science – convinced me that ethanol does not deserve the reputation those like you hammer it with … the facts simply do not support the position or claims those like you repeatedly make
I read WUWT virtually daily. I have written as a pure layman extensively about the global warming idiocy. I have mostly been here at WUWT to learn and thus haven’t posted often. Here I had relevant knowledge and felt it worthwhile to share it.
That you and other attack the contribution – make you little better than the climate alarmists in my opinion – you are doing exactly what they do – refusing to address the facts and instead trying to shout down what you disagree with, while ignoring and failing to address your position with facts, data and well reasoned opinion.

David says:
March 7, 2011 at 6:35 am
220mph says:
March 7, 2011 at 1:41 am
“Your claim correctly noted that increased CO2 DOES increase growth – it correctly notes that it increases biomass … what you failed to include from the tudies looking at increased CO2 effet on corn growth is that they found that while biomass increased it was at the expense of the ‘energy’ content (my term) of the corn ….in simple terms there was more plant quanity but less corn quality – and in effect a lower yield …. increased CO2 would be excellent for cellulosic ethanol which uses biomass, but worse for corn based ethanol as the energy in the plant was lower”
Dear 220, you have no idea what studies I looked at. In regard to “energy content” “your term” is not scientific at all. I showed several hundred results from over 50 studies. The result you speak of incidcated a possibility that there is a slight reduction, (about 7%) in protein concentration, but on overall increase of about 35% in bio mass. The end result of a SMALL decrease in concentration, but LARGE
increase of mass is MORE, not lesss, It is simply less concentrated.

The reports I have read, and I admit going from memory, stated that while the “biomass” of corn plants increased the energy content decreased slightly. The biomass referred to was the leaves, stalk etc of the plant as opposed to the ear of corn – which is where the energy and value of the plant comes from.
I believe I noted this in my earlier post – that for purposes of CORN ethanol increased growth from higher CO2 levels was not much benefit but could well be a boon for cellulosic ethanol which relies on the biomass not so much the energy in the ear – in the kernels – of corn
For CORN based ethanol – again – what is important is the amount of energy (and yes that is an intentionally simplistic term) in the kernels and ear or corn – that si where CORN ethanol and related byproducts come from today …

Poptech says:
March 7, 2011 at 9:15 am
jimlion, “When crop prices plummet to extremely low level this program sets a floor price. The government would pay me the difference between the set market price and the floor price. Real life example: there was a period of time in the ’90s when corn prices plummeted to about $1.48/ bu. (dont look that up on CBOT charts you techies–its not there. Program based on cash price which is not CBOT futures price–cash nearly always lower) Floor price is (and still is today) $1.98/bu, so that year I recieved about a $0.50/bu payment on this program. It kept me in business in some very tough,tough times. The reason this program means very little today is pretty obvious, the floor price has not moved, but my costs have–dramatically.”
There should be no such welfare system for farmers. If you cannot make money selling your crop, you should either adapt (sell something else) or go out of business. Keeping inefficient businesses alive only weakens the economy long term by robbing private capital via subsidies from economically viable production to those that are not. Those that can sell at those prices stay in business because they are more efficient and thus lower the cost to the consumer.

Sorry poptech … this just shows how little you understand ….
This was not “welfare” for farmers … it was to protect an industry VITAL to our existence – one where good people toil for long hours – to make virtually nothing.
It was and is to insure that in catastrophic times (you’ll note it has rarely been used – never in recent times) – when many or even all farmers are experiencing catastrophic hardship – that the farmers who feed our country manage to survive
Without them we are quite literally dead.

I would also reply to poptech that I too would be in favor of eliminating subsidies …. if we lived in a perfect world …. which we do not
First, there are legitimate reasons to subsidize – we subsidize many things we “want” – without subsidies in early stages desirable “stuff” often doesn’t have a chance – the goals of ethanol; renewable alternative fuel, domestically produced, and lowering carbon footprint vs fossil fuels are all worthwhile goals.
But with a chicken you can’t have eggs. Without availability of ethanol there will be few vehicles produced that use it. Subsidies and mandates created a finite base level initial demand. That gave the car companies a reason to build flex fuel vehicles. As the number of flex fuel vehicles has increases so to has availability of e85.
As of today the technology is such that ethanol is not the same price as gas. And for some reason Americans are loath to pay a penny more, even if there are significant benefits.
I showed above that using national average prices for e85 and gas (e10) that a 2010 Chev Impala costs appx $216 a year more , just 60 cents a day, using all e85. And in many areas where ethanol is more available that difference drops to essentially zero.
That is including the blenders credit subsidy some want to get rid of. For e85 that amounts to 38 cents per gallon. For the same Impala eliminating the blender credit saves just over $30 a month – put another way it costs the taxpayers just $1 a day for that car to run 100% renewable, domestic e85 (12,000 miles driven/12mpg e85=1000 gals used x 38 cents per gallon subsidy)
For the 25% lower carbon footprint thats a pretty good deal for the government. Add renew-ability, and the other benefits of ethanol and its a pretty good deal overall.
Shortly the blenders credit won’t be important. As number of flex fuel cars increase and ethanol becomes more widely available, ethanol prices will continue to decrease.
For corn ethanol crop yields are predicted to continue to increase – from the appx 170 current to some say as high as 300 bushels per acre in next 15 years. This will drive down cost of corn ethanol further.
But the big gains come with cellulosic, and a little down the road other bio-fuels – cellulosic net energy balance will be at least double current corn values – as these plants come online over next 5 years overall ethanol prices should drop significantly. As they do the subsidies can and should be removed.
The oil companies receive big subsidies – massively higher dollar amounts than the comparatively small $6 billion ethanol receives annually.
Other energy source receive similar subsidies. If you eliminate one you must eliminate them all.
Most nations have an import tariff on fuel ethanol, and comparatively the U.S. tariff is nearly non-existent.
Many claim we should buy Brazilian ethanol because it is cheaper. But is it?
The US has one of the lowest import tariffs – just 2.5% – of any country on ethanol. Imported (including Brazilian) ethanol pays a 45 cent per gallon (for e85) secondary import tax. The reason for that tax however is NOT to make them less competitive with US ethanol. It is to OFFSET the fact that the US Courts ruled that the BLENDERS subsidy, intended for domestic producers, was required to also be paid for imported ethanol.
We PAY Brazilian importers 38 cents a gallon (again assuming e85) for every gallon of ethanol imported. In return the pay a 45 cent per gal (e85) tariff … the net cost to them is just over 6 cents per gallon.
And therein is exposed the – sorry, no other way to say it – stupidity – of the “no subsidy” crowd. If we eliminate all subsidies for ethanol and we eliminate the tariff – Brazilian ethanol is still MORE – 6 cents a gallon more – than US ethanol.
I suggest people review the history of the Brazilian ethanol program as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil
It provides a good roadmap of issues and successes.
An added bonus link – you CAN transport by pipeline:
Brazil ethanol pipeline to cut transport costs 20 pc
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN0114014220110301

220mph, “My experience is a very good ACTUAL example of the real world”
Your “experience” cannot be verified and thus meaningless.
“…and that it reflects an area where ethanol distribution is more enveloped, where ethanol is more used and available, is EXTREMELY relevant. It shows that as ethanol becomes more available it does get used more and the prices fall. They fall to a point where there is, as my experience shows, virtually no difference between ethanol and gas in real world driving. The lower price for more readily available ethanol offsets the lower fuel economy.”
No it doesn’t, it shows basic market fundamentals that the closer you are to production with lower transportation costs, the cheaper the price.
“If you would take the time to actually read what I posted, you’d find I ALSO showed an example using AVERAGE manufacturer reported new car fuel economy, and using national AVERAGE e85 and gas prices as reported on http://www.e85prices.com thus eviscerating your claim of cherry picking.”
But you did not use those average prices to support your argument. Not to mention the prices on e85 are user submitted, while AAA is based on actual credit card transactions. I correctly stated you cherry picked your prices because you did and then used your unverified numbers (23% less) to support your argument.
“The BTU adjusted price is a meaningless exercise when it comes to understanding the real world costs of the difference between e85 and standard gasoline (e10) … it offers no context whatsoever – and shows no relation to the real cost per mile driven difference between e85 and gasoline”
Incorrect, I have supported that the BTU adjusted price is a statistically accurate way to get a good estimate of the expected loss in fuel economy between ethanol blends and regular gasoline,
E85 and fuel efficiency: An empirical analysis of 2007 EPA test data
(Energy Policy, Volume 36, Issue 3, pp. 1233-1235, March 2008)
– Matthew C. Roberts
“This study utilizes 2007 EPA fuel economy test data to arrive at the conclusion that in the currently offered flex fuel vehicle fleet, the average difference in fuel economy from using E85 and gasoline cannot be distinguished from the energy differences between the two fuels. These vehicles, however, exhibit a range of fuel efficiency differentials, however, so that although the average fuel economy differential cannot be statistically distinguished from the energy differential, certain vehicular characteristics are strongly associated with a smaller differential.”
220mph, “If you drive that same car in an area with more readily available ethanol like mine – with a 23% difference in price – and the net difference between e85 and gasoline for the 2010 Impala is ZERO.”
You have not verified your numbers and you are not counting the VEETC subsidy of $0.45 nor the corn subsidies which artificially reduce the price below market rates.
“And according to the http://www.fueleconomy.gov site that same Impala has a 9.3 carbon footprint using gas vs. a 7.1 carbon footprint using e85 – on e85 the carbon foot print is reduced by 23.7% …”
This is incorrect,
Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change
(Science, Volume 319, Number 5867, pp. 1238-1240, February 2008)
– Timothy Searchinger et al.
“Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These 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. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.”
220mph, “I don’t know about you – but I think reducing carbon footprint whether we think it important or not, and more importantly; (a.) reducing reliance on foreign oil, and (b.) using a RENEWABLE fuel source, is well worth $216 per year under the national average Don’t you agree?”
I think reducing our “carbon footprint” is a waste of time feel good measure pushed by economically illiterate environmentalists,
BS – Being Green (Video) (29min)
I have already debunked the nonsense about “energy independence”,
5 Myths About Breaking Our Foreign Oil Habit (The Washington Post)
I suggest reading,
Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence (Robert Bryce, 2008)
and,
Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future (Robert Bryce, 2010)