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

I see Larry has answered my question in advance: methanol is too reactive. Ethanol is preferred being less reactive, but still powerful enough to dissolve some plastics. I think his red herring of MTBE in the groundwater is just that, a red herring to boost ethanol.
It seems to me that stopping knocking and complete burning are two separate issues. There should be technological fixes for both without the need for oxygenators.

hotrod ( Larry L ) says:
March 5, 2011 at 6:28 pm
CNY Roger says:
March 5, 2011 at 6:13 pm
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.
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Even if that were true, Larry, given that Ethanol is a less efficient fuel, you still end up on the negative side of the equation – read your own EPA studies that confirm it. E85 is about 30% less efficient than gasoline. And the EPA and other studies also noted that it pretty much takes as much fuel to produce ethanol as you get from it (some said more, some said less). No surprises there. I used to work in the industry. The only way ethanol can be produced profitably (at least until I retired) was with subsidies for both the ethanol and the cattle feed lots that had to be associated with the ethanol facility to make it viable. Maybe that has changed in the last few years, but I doubt it.

Chad Woodburn says:
March 5, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Curiousgeorge says, “To proclaim that we are taking food out of the mouths of people by producing corn for ethanol is simplistic at best.”
Simplistic? No. The simple truth? Yes. Farmers plant the kind of corn that will sell and make them a profit. If there were no profit in corn grown for ethanol, the farmers would be planting corn that would feed either people directly or indirectly (as is feed corn). The insane and immoral government policy of forcing gasoline to include ethanol does in fact directly and necessarily take food out of the mouths of hungry people. So, Curiousgeorge, you a dead wrong.
Plainly and simply – this is wholly false. The majority of corn is planted as animal feed already. And the corn used for ethanol provides almost as much animal feed – and in a much more beneficial to animals format – through the distillers dried grains by product – which is high energy high quality animal feed
The current US corn crop meets ALL of the domestic demand for feed AND FOOD, meets all of the ethanol demand, meets all of the EXPORT demand and there is STILL corn left to add to our reserves … you can find the info all at USDA
For 2009 the US saw a record corn crop and yields, due to bad weather 2010 was down very slightly
More interesting – despite thise that claim corn is cannibalizing acreage for other crops – acres of CORN PLANTED ARE DOWN – 93.5 million acres in 2007, 88.2million in 2010 …
per USDA:
– U.S. farmers produced the largest corn and soybean crops on record in 2009, according to the Crop Production 2009 Summary released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).
Corn production is 13.2 billion bushels, 1 percent above the previous record of 13 billion bushels set in 2007, and 9 percent higher than 2008. Corn yields reached an all-time high in 2009 at 165.2 bushels per acre, eclipsing the previous record of 160.3 bushels per acre set in 2004. Planted area, at 86.5 million acres, is the second highest since 1949, behind 2007’s 93.5 million acres.
The 2009 soybean crop broke records for planted and harvested area as well as for yield and production. Soybean production totaled 3.36 billion bushels, up 13 percent from 2008 and up 5 percent from the previous record set in 2006. The average yield per acre is 44 bushels, up .9 bushels from the previous record set in 2005. Farmers nationwide planted a total of 77.5 million soybean acres and harvested 76.4 million acres in 2009, both up 2 percent from the previous record set last year.

And the 2010 crop report from USDA …
WASHINGTON, Jan. 12, 2011 – Despite the less than ideal soil conditions and above normal temperatures during the 2010 growing season, U.S. corn growers harvested the third largest crop on record, according to the Crop Production 2010 Summary released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).
Corn production totaled 12.4 billion bushels, down 5 percent from the record high, set last year. Corn yield in 2010 is estimated at 152.8 bushels per acre, 11.9 bushels below last year’s record. Planted area, at 88.2 million acres, is the second largest since 1946, behind the 93.5 million acres record set in 2007.
The 2010 soybean production totaled 3.33 billion bushels, down only one percent from the record production, set in 2009. The average soybean yield in 2010 is estimated at 43.5 bushels per acre, 0.5 bushels below last year’s yield. The area planted for soybeans in 2010, at 77.4 million acres, fell only fractionally short of last year’s record.
All cotton production is up 50 percent from 2009, at 18.3 million 480-pound bales. The U.S. yield is estimated at 821 pounds per acre, up 44 pounds from last year’s yield. Harvested area, at 10.7 million acres, is up 42 percent from last year.
NASS estimates the 2010 all wheat production at 2.21 billion bushels, down less than one percent from 2009. The all wheat yield was a record high 46.4 bushels per acre, 1.9 bushels higher from 2009 and 1.5 bushels above the previous record, set in 2008.
Grain sorghum production in 2010 is estimated at 345 million bushels, 10 percent down from 2009. Sorghum average yield was 71.8 bushels per acre, up 2.4 bushels from last year. Area planted for sorghum, at 5.4 million acres, is down 19 percent from last year and is the lowest planted area on record. Harvested area, at 4.8 million acres, is the lowest since 1939.
The full Crop Production 2010 Summary is available online at http://www.nass.usda.gov. The report contains year-end acreage, yield and production estimates for grains and hay, oilseeds, cotton, tobacco and sugar, dry beans, peas and lentils, and potatoes and miscellaneous crops.

Just a quick note:
My understanding of this issue is that much of the increase in the supply of distilled liquid fuels (i.e. gasoline) that has occured over the last several years can be accounted for by the addition of the ethanol cut. Basically, adding ethanol is just a way of stretching the supply of distilled liquids. It isn’t about reducing greenhouse gasses or improving efficiency or anything else like that. All the proffered reasons are simply red meat designed to satiate the various idealists who care about such things. The real reason for the ethanol cut is to prevent the cost of refined gasoline from rising to economically damaging levels. The government views this as a good deal. It gets to grease the economy by keeping the cost of gasoline lower, simply by subsidizing corn growers and ethanol distillers with taxpayer money. The individual taxpayer will never notice the miniscule increase in his tax bill that the subsidies are costing him, but he will benefit from the lower price of gas (or so the thinking goes).
The real danger here is that this strategy has a natural limit. Once the supply of oil tightens up past a certain point, it will no longer be possible to keep the price of gasoline down by adding any more ethanol. Unfortunately, this is also the very same point at which the the transportation and production prices of everything else will be rising precipitously due to the escalating cost of energy. Then it will be no longer be profitable to subsidize ethanol production, the supply of ethanol will dry up, and the supply of distilled fuel liquids will shrink by 10% (or more) overnight, leading to an unprecedented spike in gasoline prices that will surely cause pain and devastation for many.
When ethanol uncouples from gasoline, know then that the end is nigh. It is only then that we will come to understand the various ways in which the economy has been manipulated to keep the happy-motoring utopia (to borrow James Howard Kunstler’s famous phrase) in good working order. This was all about the maintenance of the post-war, middle class lifestyle. It is a lifestyle that would have changed sooner or later in any case, but one which will probably have to start changing soon due to the impossibility of keeping it up any longer.

Oh gosh, where to begin?
The govt pays farmers to set aside land. True. The farmer sets aside the least productive land, and tills the best. Program has hardly any effect on overall production.
“People” corn, sweet corn, grocery store corn, is a specialty crop that takes extra handling, minuscule in the total crop numbers. Most farmer grow dent corn, and it goes to cattle feed, corn meal for Mexico and the rest of the world, corn syrup for Pepsi, and a zillion industrial products.
Farmers are not ‘diverting’ land to ethanol corn production. Farmers are indifferent to who buys their grain. It goes to the highest bidder, usually someone in the futures market via a broker or the local grain elevator. Basic economics, prices rise and fall at the margin, and if a previously non-existent ethanol plant Needs that last bushel and will pay whatever it takes, prices rise on All the bushels. Farmers will plant accordingly.
The great ethanol push has only one source – ADM lobbying. The greens, et.al. have just hopped aboard, as they did with Dr Hansen’s global warming.

I’d find Larry’s and 220mph’s arguments a lot more convincing if ethanol weren’t subsidized, mandated, and protective tariff’ed. You see, I’m just naturally suspicious of something so wonderfully awesome that our political masters have to force us to buy it (Obamacare also springs to mind).
Just sayin’.

Larry, “It is biologically natural and benign easily decomposing if spilled. There is no other readily available chemical that can do what it does for the cost.”
It has it’s own problems if the spill catches on fire,
Ethanol Fuels Fire Concerns (Fox News)
“Over the past several years, ethanol accidents on highways, along railroads and in storehouses and refineries have triggered evacuations and fires from Texas to Minnesota, injuring several people and killing at least one person.
Water is not used against gasoline fires, because it can spread the blaze and cause the flames to run down into drains and sewers. Instead, foam is used to form a blanket on top of the burning gasoline and snuff out of the flames. But ethanol _ a type of grain alcohol often distilled from corn _ eats through that foam and continues to burn.
Such fires require a special alcohol-resistant foam that relies on long-chain molecules known as polymers to smother the flames. Industry officials say the special foam costs about 30 percent more than the standard product, at around $90 to $115 for a five-gallon container.”
The Trouble With Ethanol (Industrial Fire World)
“At 10 percent, ethanol is still combustible. That means that if you had a spill involving a 100,000 gallon tanker you could dilute it with as much as 900,000 gallons of water and still have a fire hazard. Good luck finding that kind of water. Other than a small spill on the highway, diluting ethanol is out. Picking up that small spill with absorbent materials designed for hydrocarbon is likely to be difficult too. The ethanol may be left behind as if it were water.
Dealing with ethanol on fire involves using an ATC (alcohol type concentrate) foam specifically designed for polar solvents. Straight AFFF and protein foam will not work. A fire department with an extensive stockpile of the wrong kind of foam would be on the same footing as the poorest rural VFD equipped with no more than fire axes and good intentions.
Even with the right kind of foam, fighting a polar solvent fire is no cake walk. I remember a burning 160-foot diameter storage tank in Texas City. Even with a foam blanket six to eight feet deep, flames were still visible. It took four days to bring that one under control.
How much ATC foam will you need in addition to your standard stockpile? Using ATC on an ethanol fire will require double to four times the amount of foam used to extinguish a gasoline fire of the same size. That makes it not only a matter of expense but logistics.“

Larry says about ethanol: “It is biologically natural and benign easily decomposing if spilled.” That may be true regarding pure ethanol. The problem is that the spill we are talking about is components of gasoline plus MTBE versus same gasoline components plus ethanol. One study says “Overall, the preferential degradation of ethanol and the accompanying depletion of oxygen and other electron acceptors hindered BTEX biodegradation, which suggests that ethanol could increase the length of BTEX plumes” (MTBE did not do that). IOW, with MTBE you end up with MTBE first, then other bad stuff. With ethanol you get very little ethanol (all oxidized) but more of the other bad stuff (can no longer degrade in anoxic environment), so probably equally bad in a gasoline spill. Pure ethanol would be much less problematic like you say, but not really relevant so a red herring.

I live in Illinois, this is corn country. The production of corn is not maxed out. If the price of human type corn goes high enough a lot of unused land will be farmed. How about a bushel of corn for a barrel of Mideast oil. As a bonus it eats CO2. 🙂

220mph, “Research does require at least a very little amount of effort … I could have spent 5 minutes and come up with this independently but it was just as easy to click one of the “useless nonsense” links and get at least enough info (from a Wiki) to prove the point”
Research does not mean believing everything you “Google” or read on a Wiki, ROFLMAO! Do you even understand what a wiki is? It is truth based on who edits last. No wonder you believe all the ethanol propaganda.
“If you really care – are actually interested in learning – I’d be happy to dig up a bunch of the actual studies for you:”
That is not what I asked for, I specifically asked for,
Show me the published rebuttal to their papers where Pimentel or Patzek did not reply or conceded. That means a rebuttal in a peer-reviewed journal.
“Since Pimentel seems to be about the only still pushing this concept of a negative energy balance with ethanol (with the assistance of Patzek) perhaps it would be in our best interests to have full disclosure here.”
I will be happy to provide their full credentials,
David Pimentel, B.S. University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1948), Ph.D. Cornell University (1951), Hon. D.Sc. (Honorary Doctorate of Science), University of Massachusetts at Amherst (2008), United States Army Air Force (1943-1945), Chief, Tropical Research Laboratory, U.S. Public Health Service, San Juan, Puerto Rico (1951-1954), Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chicago (1954-1955), Project Leader, Technical Development Laboratory, U.S. Public Health Service (1954-1955), Assistant Professor of Ecology, Cornell University (1955-1960), Associate Professor of Ecology, Cornell University (1960-1963), O.E.E.C. Fellow, Oxford University, UK (1961), NSF Computer Scholar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1961), Professor and Head, Department of Entomology and Limnology, Cornell University (1963-1969), Professor of Ecology, Cornell University (1969-1976), Professor, Core Faculty, Center for Environmental Quality Management, Cornell University (1973-1974), Professor of Ecology and Agricultural Sciences, Cornell University (1976-2005), Member, Secretary of Energy’s Energy Research Advisory Board, U.S. Department of Energy (1979-1983), Member, Ecological Society of America; Member, Entomological Society of America; Member, Society for the Study of Evolution; Member, Entomological Society of Canada; Member, American Society of Naturalists; Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Member, American Institute of Biological Sciences; Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Agricultural Sciences, Cornell University (2005-Present)
Tadeusz W. Patzek, M.S. Chemical Engineering, Silesian Technical University, Poland (1974), Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, Silesian Technical University, Poland (1980), Research Associate, Chemical Engineering Research Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland (1974-1980), Fulbright Fellow, Chemical Engineering Department, University of Minnesota (1978-1979), Research Associate, Chemical Engineering Department, University of Minnesota (1981-1983), Research Engineer, Enhanced Recovery Research Department, Shell Development (1983-1989), Senior Reservoir Engineer, Shell Western E&P, Inc. (1989-1990), Assistant Professor, Department of Materials Science and Mineral Engineering, U.C. Berkeley (1990-1995), Associate Professor, Department of Materials Science and Mineral Engineering, U.C. Berkeley (1995-2002), Professor of Geoengineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, U.C. Berkeley (2002-2008), Invited Professor, Earth Sciences Department, TU Delft, The Netherlands (2004), Member, American Geophysical Union; Member, American Physical Society; Member, American Chemical Society; Professor and Chairman, Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin (2008-Present)
Now get back to me with the published rebuttal that allowed them to respond.

Show me the published rebuttal to their papers where Pimentel or Patzek did not reply or conceded. That means a rebuttal in a peer-reviewed journal.

The readers of this blog know all too well how meaningful that requirement for it being a peer-reviewed journal is ! It has about the same significance as insisting the rebuttal be published in a comic book.
You won’t find one of those either.
Read the Wang study or the Michael S. Graboski study and tell us what is wrong with their analysis and errors they pointed out out.
Peer-review is a useless credential in today’s scientific culture, it has totally destroyed any credibility it had through misuse and abuse of the scientific publishing process.
Larry