Global Food Prices Jump To Record Level Because of Higher Corn Prices – or the alternate title: Cornholing the future
There’s lot of gloom and doom being pushed, trying to link food prices to climate change by the usual howlers. As shown above, food prices surged to record levels in February despite February wheat and rice prices being essentially flat. Yet, February corn prices are up significantly even with 2010 being the 3rd largest U.S. corn crop ever. Why? Well part of the reason is that our cars now have a mandated, growing and voracious appetite for corn based ethanol.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. writes:
When certain information proves challenging to entrenched political or ideological commitments it can be easy for policy makers to ignore, downplay or even dismiss that information. It is a common dynamic and knows no political boundaries. Global Dashboard catches the Obama Administration selectively explaining the causes for increasing world food prices:
“The increase in February mostly reflected further gains in international maize prices, driven by strong demand amid tightening supplies, while prices rose marginally in the case of wheat and fell slightly in the case of rice.”
“In other words, this is mainly about corn. And who’s the biggest corn exporter in the world? The United States…And where is 40% of US corn production going this year? Ethanol, for use in US car engines.”
So here we having wailing and gnashing of teeth by the usual suspects over global food prices, and they are using this as an example of the supposed “climate change drive food prices” link. Of course there isn’t any link in this case. It’s the corn stupid.
The simple solution: stop burning food for fuel, drill for more oil, work on alternate energy system that actually might work, like thorium based nuclear power.
h/t to C3 headlines
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In the area I live they still disk down fields of sweet corn (for canning and freezing), peas, green beans, and even carrots. Why do they do this? — because the value of the crop will go down if the food producers end up canning or freezing too much of it. I used to run a company petroleum and feed dept who hauled fuel to the harvesters, sold fuel to the truckers, and to the farmer/landowners. A tremedous amount of fuel is used (far more than raising/harvesting dryland corn for feed or ethanol) to run these harvesting/ hauling operations. when energy costs go up- one of two things will happen: 1) even less acres will be planted unless supply of food in warehouses strongly call for more crop, OR 2) if energy prices sharply rise- even more of the acreage planted will be passed (disked under). Wisconsin averages # 5 in the USA for this vegetable production which also includes potato (main crop). This acreage has been pretty stable since it is irrigated. The amount of land to be the #5 vegetable producer in the US is small- the strip starts out only about 5 miles wide- swells to 25 miles wide, then back down to 5-10 miles of land on the north edge (with a lot of tree patch interspersed). Total length of this strip of production area is only about 50-55 miles. The rest of the state is pretty much trees, some scrub land from the old 1900 wheat boom left idle, or cropland for dairy or for feed. My point is here that it takes very little land to produce vegetable crop (ave potato yield here is 40,000 lbs/acre) and there is no danger of the USA ever being short of enough land to produce such vegetables such as sweet corn, beans, peas, potatos, lima beans, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, etc- all of which are grown here. Most growers would be happy to raise a whole lot more but they have to make money doing it (and every year so the banks will loan the operating capital). When I was still in the business of serving that group it took over $2000/acre just to start a potato crop- I am sure it is far over 2x that today.
Someone mentioned corn is in many things today- yes- and not all of it particularly good for you. High fructose corn syrup goes into a wide variation of finished products such as ketchup, soft drinks, etc. As far as tortillas- the package on our counter is not made from field corn (YC) – it is made from white corn but perhaps some YC is used at times. In fact one could say that in the USA we are rarely ever carbohydrate deficient (the only portion of corn used for ethanol is starch- the rest goes to feed) and even if we were, swwet corn or potatos are a better choice than manufactured food.
Only two key areas really should be of concern regarding corn use;
1) enough be left over to provide the carbohydrate needs of dairy, swine, beef, and poultry- frankly pet food is a luxury. Understand also that when we choose to eat meat rather than grain we affect the grains market the most of all- because animals require far more grain to create a lb of meat. In most ruminants (cattle, sheep) grain is not required at all- their 4 stomachs are set up to eat cellulose- only in the last 100 years or so did we start feeding them grain to increase growth speed or production. In many cases we even went to far for a while with grain to ruminants. Dairymen here will substitute a fair amount of distillers grain (from ethanol production) for corn and soybean meal. A small amount of starch is still required for maximum rumen flora growth (thus some corn) but any dairyman will tell you too much will kill the rumen flora and milk production falls like a rock. The distillers helps to prevent starch overload but will also by-pass the rumen and provide a better protein / energy balance with out the overload. Poultry are most starch dependent and swine is somewhere in the the middle- but even in those diets distillers can be substituted in place of corn/soy at 10-20% as a rule depending on other dietary sources.
2) we need to recognize the poor of the world eat what we do not- some field (YC) is ground for their food. Not a very good diet considering that corn has some few of the most limiting items- protein is low- the amino acid varietal makeup is also poor. Our govt just plain got tired of keeping farmers overproducing everything so the world could buy cheap grain. I do not have the answer for this problem except to say that our overproductive agriculture and export $ hungry govt dumped so much cheap grain (and meat) on the world for so long- they lost/never developed out the supply chains, storage, knowledge, mills, roads. rail, banking, and most importantly farmers to grow their own climate appropiate foods. Some of this needs to happen- and happen now- but not the way the Saudi’s did. The Saudi’s just stopped their wheat program because they found they really did not have RAIN.
Sorry for the ramble here and rarely coming in to chat.
Larry goes on and on, post after post, page after page, and never once addresses the fact that if it were not mandated, nobody would use that ethanol mixed crap.
Larry, let’s do a little test. Two gas pumps, same price. One has 10% ethanol, the other has no ethanol. Which will you choose?
Good questions, simple answer is politics, if the EPA would get out of the way, and allow blender pumps people could choose to use what ever blend of gasoline/ethanol they want. Where blender pumps are available the most popular fuel blend is 30% ethanol.
Why can’t we buy our ethanol and sugar on the international market? — we could but it would be stupid. One of the primary reasons for fuel ethanol is to provide a local fuel alternative so we are not strategically tied to some foreign supplier for all our energy needs. Buying fuel ethanol from Brazil just trades one sole source supplier of energy for another — seriously stupid move for something as critical as transportation energy. Sugar is essentially a surrogate for fuel, if we import sugar on the world market we break the back of our local sugar industry — Oh wait we already did that and wiped out the sugar beet industry years ago. There are 4 or 5 abandoned sugar beet plants within an hours drive of my home. They used to be the primary income provider for the small towns they were located in but cheap sugar from the Caribbean and south America killed the industry. Now the kids in those small towns move out when they get old enough because there is no local industry to give them work.
As far as subsidies, the blenders tax credit was supposed to expire this year, unfortunately it was renewed at the last minute. The current fuel ethanol industry can now be profitable without it if corn is priced at a fair value (above cost of production so the farmer can afford to grow it, and the oil industry did not try to strangle the fuel ethanol industry at every turn and turn them into a captive industry. The blenders tax credit actually goes to the oil companies not the ethanol industry with rare exceptions and never to the local farmer who grows the corn.
Personally I would like to see a rapid phase out of the blenders tax credit with a 50% to 20% reduction each year until it is gone. It has done its job, and created enough industry skill and infrastructure and investor trust in marketability of the product that it got the industry back on its feet after the government killed it during prohibition (with the encouragement of the oil industry). Fuel ethanol was the dominant fuel source for early automobiles until its production was outlawed by prohibition, and the oil industry flooded the market with cheap gasoline which at the time was a waste product that they burned off to get rid of.
larry
Hotrod (Larry) can you explain this defense of ethanol in the link in your post March 5, 2011 at 5:00 pm :
Jere White, (Executive Director of the Kansas Corn Growers Association and Kansas Grain Sorghum Producers Association) claims that: “The fossil energy input per unit of ethanol is lower—0.74 million Btu fossil energy consumed for each 1 million Btu of ethanol delivered, compared to 1.23 million Btu of fossil energy consumed for each million Btu of gasoline delivered.”
I think this claims that more energy is used to get gasoline to my gas station than is needed to get ethanol to my gas station. Really?
Jeremy says:
March 5, 2011 at 4:25 pm
LET THEM EAT BOURBON!
Now if she had said: “Let them eat Bourbons” that would have been funny.
I see I should have posted under something other than my first name (@6:06pm) since another of the same name appeared tonight.
We let China buy all those T-bonds. It’s unseemly to bellyache when they bid up the price of grains so their population can afford another bite of meat in their rice bowls. The 200 pounds of meat that the average American eats every year must strike the average Asian as a ridiculous luxury. The extra we may need to spend on food will be offset by the less that we spend on diets, diet food, and exercise equipment.
Yes that is correct “in context”, it is saying that for every million btu’s of gasoline delivered to your fuel tank, they had to extract 1.23 million BTU of petroleum to produce it. It takes a lot of energy to pump oil out of the ground, build the infrastructure to store it and ship it half way around the world then to refine a barrel of crude into usable fuels.
In the same context to deliver 1 million BTU of fuel ethanol to your tank you only need to consume 0.74 million BTU of fossil fuels. As a result by adding fuel ethanol to your gasoline it is like a breeder reactor in that you get more total fuel energy available at the fuel pump than you would if you simply delivered straight gasoline only to the pump. The two fuels are better as a combination than either is alone.
Each enhances the other, and as a combined fuel they are almost the ideal fuel for an Otto cycle internal combustion engine.
http://www.ethanolmt.org/images/argonnestudy.pdf
Larry
You know what is really nuts.
We’re arguing about corn for fuel.
Just fire up a few dozen nuke plants and this argument is moot. And at a lower price.
Why is it that the food consumer can’t compete on price with the fuel market, after all and anatomically speaking, food hardly needs a mandate ?
To many of the commentators, please remember that farmers are ‘Price’ takers NOT ‘Price’ makers whom just happen to buy retail (production costs) and sell’s wholesale (produce sales) and pays the freight both ways.
I think that farmers the world over are pretty much tired of being the whipping post of environmentalists, governments and now consumers, with the latter thinking they have some sort of right to food gifted to their table at a minimal cost to their household budget.
Farming and the infrastructure required for modern farming practices is an extremely expensive business and far be it that a farmer should get a fair’s day’s pay for a fair’s day’s work that would, or could, lift the farmer from the bottom of the food chain and make a profit on his/her hard earned equity invested, subject to the norms of droughts, floods, fire, commodity markets and the ever present commodity speculator and hedge fund manager.
If anyone here wants to understand what the price of food (commodities) is doing, do some research on the Chicago Board of Trade and who and what trades there, just to start with?
So much BS being posted here. I am disappointed that the quality of posts here appears to be no different than in the blogs of the global warming alarmists. There are a few posters who are informed and reasonable, most notably “hotrod” (Larry L).
I guess I should not be so surprised that the level of discussion here is no better than at realclimate.
[Reply: Your opinion is posted here. If you attacked realclimate the same way your post would be censored. ~dbs, mod.]
Mooloo,
You’re misconstruing pretty much everything I said. To say the riots in Egypt were not driven by food rioting contradicts the news reports when the rioting first started. The riots were largely over the rapid rise in food prices in a country where a large fraction of the population subsists on less than $2 a day and close to half of their income goes for food alone. Sure, there were incidents that triggered it, but the rapidly increasing cost of food was behind everything. That’s not ‘making up political facts,’ that is just a fact. There were similar riots in Mexico when the price of corn began to affect the cost of tortillas. Remember that?
And who is Beck? Your comments are confusing. Are you saying that only 10% of Egyptians are Muslim?
You’re responding to things I never wrote. I don’t disagree that agribusiness is hooked on government subsidies. So are the people getting unemployment payments for the last couple of years. They are all beholden to the government.
And I never wrote that this began under Obama – but he has made the situation much worse. What I said was that Obama and the Democrat Party is owned and operated by the enviro crowd, which is true. Enviros infest every level of government. Obama’s puppetmaster, George Soros, is hand-in-glove with the green groups and funds literally hundreds of them.
The headline and article say it all. There is a clear pattern here with denying drilling permits even in shallow water, disregarding a federal judges order to issue drilling permits, putting millions more on the government dole, making fuel and energy far more expensive than they should be by deliberately restricting supply, cozying up and bowing down to hostile regimes that know a fool when they see one, pushing a destructive “carbon” tax on the economy, planning a value added tax that will further drain hundreds of billions a year out of the productive sector of the economy, going along with the UN’s plans for a world government, where the world’s countries will be able to vote American and Western wealth into the pockets of the majority, and a hundred other actions that attack the American exceptionalism that made the country great.
I don’t think we really disagree about much, but like Willis says, quote what I said. The strawman arguments go nowhere.
The 10% ethanol blend, it burns cleaner ( I don’t give a crap about CO2 I mean it does not gunk up the fuel system and engine like straight gasoline does.)
It is a naturally dry fuel that will never let enough water collect in your tank that you will have fuel line freeze in subzero weather.
In controlled tests there is no statisically significant mileage difference between the fuels. In some cars the straight gasoline gets about 1.5% more miles per gallon in some other cars the 10% ethanol blend gets more fuel mileage (up to 3% improvement in one model).
The 10% ethanol blend will make slightly more power than the gasoline will and burns a bit cooler.
Given the choice, I would if given the option, buy E85 over straight pump premium if both sold for the same price. Straight gasoline is simply an inferior fuel in almost every regard to high ethanol gasoline blends.
Oh by the way — I have been using 10% ethanol blends for over 20 years, they do not cause problems with your car. They do fix a few problems that gasoline creates, like fuel residue build up in the fuel injectors that requires you to periodically purchase expensive fuel additives to clean up, where 10% ethanol naturally keeps that issue under control.
Larry
Re: Gaylon says:
March 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm
The German consumer rejection of ethanol is funny.
So let me see if I’ve got this straight, these people don’t want cupholders in their cars because, after all, cars are for driving – very fast. But these same folks will somehow be willing to put corn oil in their gas tanks …….
So many uniformed people reciting the same regularly and repeatedly dis-proven facts. Its really sad to see here at WUWT – where the discussions are usually so well thought, educated and informed …
Ethanol is NOT worse for the environment – it is significantly cleaner, reduces emissions and REDUCES greenhouse gases. There are several extremely small individual cases where ethanol has a negative impact – those are always used, as with the warmist’s, without context, to try and and prove a point – ignoring the comparatively massive positive benefits vs the comparatively minuscule negative ones.
Unless you’re an idiot Berkely professor named Pimental (or his sidekick Patzak), whose work has been repeatedly and throughly debunked, you would know and acknowledge that corn ethanol currently generates 1.3 to near 2 units of energy for every unit expended in production.
Food prices were NOT dramatically increased because of ethanol production. Corn prices spiked in 2007 – because of SPECULATORS, not ethanol – and just as quickly collapsed.
As noted by others, corn ethanol does NOT use food corn – it uses feed corn. And once ethanol is produced from this feed corn, one of the MANY beneficial byproducts is distillers dried grain solids – a high value animal feed that largely replaces the feed value of the corn to begin with.
For the last several year US corn production has not only been sufficient to supply 100% of our domestic needs – food and feed – and all of our ethanol needs, but also still have enough to meet the entire foreign export demand. AND STILL have corn left to add to US reserves. We had more supply than total US and worldwide demand. When demand exceeds supply (ie: when you have excess corn added to reserves) and prices still go up it is most certainly NOT ethanol (or any other single user) that is causing price changes. It is speculators, manipulating commodities for profit.
Additionally, as noted above, the production of ethanol creates a number of beneficial byproducts – including bio-fuel (in addition to the ethanol) and very high quality animal feed in distillers dried grains solids.
Ethanol DOES get lower mileage. Straight ethanol has appx 78,000 BTU’s per gal, gasoline appx 125,000 BTU per gal – approximately 37% less energy in a gal of ethanol vs gas. This however, is a perfect example of the disinformation that those with agendas use when trying to dishonestly promote their position.
We do NOT use straight ethanol nor straight gasoline in the US. We use E85 (85% ethanol) for ethanol and E10 (10% ethanol) for our regular gasoline. E10 is appx 120,000 BTU/gal and E85 is appx 85,000 btu/gal … or just 29% difference.
So it is TRUE you get lower MPG with ethanol. But the rest of the facts are that ethanol is SIGNIFICANTLY LESS EXPENSIVE as well.
I recently paid $2.47 for E85 locally vs. $3.22 for E10 gasoline – an appx 23% difference … so the reality is there is a very, very small difference in actual MILES PER FUEL DOLLAR SPENT. My 2003 Tahoe flex-fuel gets appx 14.7mpg normally on E10 gasoline, and 11.9mpg on E85 – a real world difference of just 19%. For me – in heavy stop and go city driving E85 is LESS EXPENSIVE – gets better mileage per dollar spent – than gasoline.
Most importantly ethanol is a RENEWABLE fuel. We can constantly make more. Every gallon of ethanol used is a gallon of fossil fuel not used.
We absolutely should be drilling and using our on reserves of fossil fuels. But it is inarguable that we need alternative energy sources as well.
No one believe corn ethanol is the solution. It will never be more than a small part of an overall solution.
It is highly likely corn use will decrease in near future as the much more efficient cellulosic ethanol plants come online. These plants use grasses, specially grown trees and similar sources – many which can be grown on marginal lands not suitable for crops – as the feedstock. These processes are generating as much as 8 units of energy for every unit expended in production. They, along with algae and other bio-fuel processes are the real future of renewable clean fuels technology
Corn ethanol serves an important purpose. It provides fuel TODAY that encourages vehicles to be produced and distribution systems as well. Both that will use the more efficient ethanol of the very near future. Without a demand and distribution there will be no investment in production – in ethanol plants etc.
And THAT is why ethanol makes sense and why the subsidies do as well. Ethanol subsidies totaled something like $6 billion last year. Oil received something just under $80 billion by comparison.
It should be clearly noted as well that CORN does not receive subsidies for ethanol. Farmers receive corn subsidies to grow corn – regardless of its use.
Every gallon of ethanol used, regardless of the source; reduces emissions, reduces green house gases, gives us cleaner air, and most importantly reduces our dependence of foreign oil. It is not a perfect solution, but it is ONE solution, more importantly a solution AVAILABLE TODAY.
If you are going to attack something, especially here at WUWT, at least make an effort to educate yourself and know the real facts.
hotrod (Larry) makes a number of important and valid points … that are accurate and readily supportable with facts. Not intended as an attack, but the majority of the negative comments towards ethanol are not supported by facts, and can not be … as they simply are not true or correct
hotrod ( Larry L ) says:
March 5, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Not true, fuel mileage does not directly track with fuel energy content. It tracks with engine efficiency at extracting that energy. Ethanol added fuels do not reduce fuel mileage in all cars, some makes and models of cars actually get better fuel mileage on high ethanol blends than they do on straight gasoline.
The high blending octane of fuel ethanol (118) allows blenders to extract more gallons of gasoline out of a bbl of crude oil, increasing the fuel supply and reducing the effective cost of oil by about 35 cents per gallon over what it would cost if ethanol blending did not occur (because the refiners would have to do more expensive processing to get the equivalent gallons of gasoline from the same barrels of crude oil).
Properly designed engines and engine management systems can get significantly higher thermal efficiencies out of high ethanol blend fuels. E85 for example increases the power produced by a typical engine by 5%-15% and with optimized designs can hit thermal efficiencies comparable to diesel engines near 40% thermal efficiency.
Right, oxygenates were originally mandated for carburetted engines because they reduced emissions, Bob Dole did his bit for his constituents by insisting that it be from agricultural sources and got a subsidy put in. MTBE was initially favored because it didn’t have some of the problems associated with blending alcohol, however it’s showing up in ground water killed that off! As I recall there’s no similar advantage in fuel injected engines.
In the southern US, cotton used to be the major cash crop. So much cotton production has been diverted to corn that cotton is commanding high prices not seen in many years. Has anyone seen the little article (probably in the back pages of your favorite birdcage liner) that clothing prices are rising apace?
Besides causing automobile fuel system and engine gook, corngas (even the 10% moonshine grade) is destructive of two-cycle gas-powered home implements such as blowers and weed-whackers. Dealers are advising complete purging of fuel from such tools after every use. Or, try to find some unadulterated gas. Ha!
When will the madness stop?
US agriculture is so far from operating in a free market that it is hard to say what effect subsidies for ethanol are having. It isn’t like the market being distorted is free to begin with. You have farmers paid to leave land fallow, famers subsidised to produce product which nobody wants which is then stockpiled, farmers subsidised to produce product which is dumped on world markets destroying the livelihood of farmers in other countries, and so on. People in the US apparently believe in free markets for everything except agriculture. Agriculture is a socialised mess in the US.
I would recommend to all WUWT readers a careful look at the wonderful piece by Dr. Robert P. Smith available at SPPI. Lest I forget, here is the link:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/toward_rational_energy_planning.pdf
No sane engineer, chemist, botanist or economist would ever recommend ethanol. Depending on whose work you read, you either expend more energy producing a gallon of ethanol than you get out of it, break even or (under the best conditions) get just slightly more energy out. It is a terrible motor fuel. It is hydroscopic. It is corrosive. It takes arable land out of food production. The government has pulled out the stops to feed this monstrous boondoggle. The taxpayers subsidize the ethanol producers and the “blenders” (i.e. “Big Oil”), they have mandated its use and have imposed tariffs to prevent foreign competition. This is a scam only a vote buying politician could love.
Who wins? The corn growers, the ethanol producers and “Big Oil”…and politicians. Who loses? The taxpayer…in the form of reduced mpg, greater wear and tear and engines, we pay for the subsidies in the form of higher taxes and ultimately we pay more for food because feedstock has been diverted into motor fuel. The deal actually sucks.
How about a 2 out of 3 compromise? End the subsidies to produce and blend ethanol and end the mandated use. Keep your anti-free-market tariff. Let’s see what happens to the ethanol industry once it’s stripped of all its “protection”. It should survive to some extent if it’s such an excellent oxygenator for gasoline. In truth the only advantage it has over MTBE is that it doesn’t stink.
The net effect of ethanol on our economy is negative. The net effect on energy utilization is negative. It is much like paying one group to dig ditches and another (much larger) group to follow behind and fill them in. Ethanol is a textbook example of crony capitalism and a how-to guide for buying off politicians.
Here is a non-science forum with many discussions between laymen – that include a lot of sources and information on ethanol:
http://www.trackforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?23
Use the “Search this forum” selection with search word “ethanol” … there are a number of threads discussing ethanol
Not true — you can transport fuel ethanol by pipeline, (you use those same evil fuel burning trucks to get your gasoline to the final destination too).
It has been done. It is not transported by pipeline because the owners of the oil pipelines refuse to share the lines and spend the money to clean all the crap out of the lines that petroleum products leave behind. The Ethanol would also clean out the gunk that is plugging the leaks in the pipelines and they would end up spending a boat load of money on maintenance because the lines were finally clean inside.
Several tests have been done to prove ethanol can be shipped in existing lines, and they had no problems except the ethanol picked up a lot of residue and was not longer clear and bright when it reached the delivery point making it unsuitable for sale without either re-processing it to remove the gasoline/oil residue or run enough ethanol through the pipe to clean it up, fix all the leaks then share the line.
They do ship fuel ethanol by pipeline in Brazil and there has been talk of building an ethanol only line here in the U.S. .
Right now the most cost effective way to move ethanol is by barge or by unit trains on the RR.
That will remain the case until the ethanol fuel lines are actually built, but that won’t happen until sufficient volume of ethanol transport occurs on a regular basis to justify the expense. (chicken and egg problem)
Larry
Eric (skeptic) says:
March 5, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Larry goes on and on, post after post, page after page, and never once addresses the fact that if it were not mandated, nobody would use that ethanol mixed crap.
Larry, let’s do a little test. Two gas pumps, same price. One has 10% ethanol, the other has no ethanol. Which will you choose?
Larry is incorrect in one aspect – ethanol does get lower fuel mileage in all but a few vehicle especially designed to take advantage of ethanol. It is simple math as I noted in post above – ethanol has less BTU per gallon than pure gasoline, less energy – lower MPG.
Larry IS correct generally if you are talking about E10 – the standard blend in regular gas sold. There is less BTU in E10 than 100% gasoline – however it is so small as to have a negligible effect. And it is basically meaningless, as there is almost no availability of non-E10 fuel any longer.
MPG is not the entire story however – in areas of the country with good distribution – where E85 is readily available – E85 prices are generally significantly lower – several web site provide this data – compare regular (E10) prices with E85 … even taking price discount into acct E85 in many cars does offer fractionally lower mileage, however every gallon of E85 used is that much less of the finite supply of fossil fuel and does less harm to the environment when compared with fossil fuels
Dr Dave is right. Eliminate subsidies – all of them, and let the free market sort it out. People will then vote with their dollars. A lot of people feeding at the public trough will be unhappy. But efficiency will skyrocket.
Or keep the subsidies in place, and put up with the inefficient misallocation of resources they cause.
Ethanol from cellulosic feed has failed miserably to provide the promised supply of ethanol as mandated from the EPA. The EPA originally expected a significant supply from cellulosic ethanol and has been forced to drop the expected quantity several times. I guess it is zero now since the most promising producer has shut down after spending quite a few taxpayer bucks.
It is time for the government to stop giving your hard earned dollars to unproven technology that is not ready for commercialization. We are broke!!
Besides ethanol from cellulosic sources, wind, solar and ethanol from corn is little more that a diversion from reality to lead the public to believe there is a viable alternative to our current supply of energy. We have no near term subsitutes except for Nuclear and nothing for liquid fuels.
From Wiki
“Range Fuels produces technology that converts biomass into ethanol without the use of enzymes. The company broke ground on its first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facility in November 2007. The first phase of construction, which was supposed to reach a 20 MMgy production capacity, was expected to be complete in 2009.[1]”
“According to the Washington Examiner of Feb 6, 2011, Range Fuels’ Soperton, GA plant shut down in January 2011 after pocketing a $76 million grant from the US Dept of Energy, plus $6 million from the State of Georgia, plus an $80 million loan guaranteed by the U.S. Biorefinery Assistance Program. [2]”
“The plant will be located near the town of Soperton, Georgia, and will draw on gasification technology to convert wood and wood waste from Georgia’s pine forests and mills into 20 million gallons of ethanol per year. USDOE will provide $50 million in support of the first phase of construction and will provide another $26 million for the first expansion phase, which will increase its capacity to 30 million gallons of ethanol per year. The company plans to eventually expand the plant to an annual capacity of 100 million gallons of ethanol per year.”
“The Soperton plant will be fueled with wood and wood waste to minimize its reliance on fossil fuels. And in a state that’s currently wracked with drought, the Soperton plant is projected to consume one-quarter of the water consumed by today’s corn ethanol plants. Range Fuels estimates that Georgia could produce enough cellulosic biomass to support up to two billion gallons of ethanol production using the company’s technology.”
“US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman noted its importance for advancing cost-competitive ethanol produced from non-food biomass sources, an approach crucial for reducing the nation’s dependence on petroleum. Range Fuels is one of six companies selected by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) for financial support in building commercial cellulosic ethanol plants and is the first to break ground.”
“Range Fuels won the 2008 North American Fuels Technology Innovation Green Excellence of the Year Award. The award is presented to companies that “have demonstrated superior technological advancement in the green energy field, and whose technologies are aligned with sustainable and environmentally conscious objectives”.[1]”
Dr. Dave says:
No sane engineer, chemist, botanist or economist would ever recommend ethanol. Depending on whose work you read, you either expend more energy producing a gallon of ethanol than you get out of it, break even or (under the best conditions) get just slightly more energy out
Sorry, but this is simply false. Pimental & Patzek, from Berkely, are virtually the only ones claiming negative energy balance .. and their work has been thoroughly and soundly refuted and debunked by many reputable scientists, government agencies and organizations.
THere are MANY peer reviewed works that clearly show the current yield for corn based ethanol averages appx 1.6 units of energy produced for every unit of energy expended in production. Some processes are getting well over 2 to 1 for corn.
Cellulosic biomass processes have matured and are starting to come online commercially – with Net energy yields as high as 7 to 8 units produced for each unit of energy expended. Cellulosic biomass can be grown on marginal land with little water or fertilization. In fact cellulosic biomass appears to be a very good rotation crop – helping rehabilitate soils used for row crop production.