Interesting timing, especially when some biomass companies are switching from wood chips to corn, because they couldn’t turn a profit on wood chips. Looks like all the wheels are coming off the bus now.
To Survive, Some Biofuels Companies Give Up on Biofuels – Technology Review
Gevo, a prominent advanced-biofuels company that has received millions in U.S. government funding to develop fuels made from cellulosic sources such as grass and wood chips, is finding that it can’t use these materials if it hopes to survive. Instead, it’s going to use corn, a common source for conventional biofuels. What’s more, most of the product from its first facility will be used for chemicals rather than fuel.
As the difficulty of producing cellulosic biofuels cheaply becomes apparent, a growing number of advanced-biofuels companies are finding it necessary to take creative approaches to their business, even though that means abandoning some of their green credentials, at least temporarily, and focusing on markets that won’t have a major impact on oil imports. This is hardly the outcome the government hoped for when it announced cellulosic-biofuels mandates, R&D funding, and other incentives in recent years.
Here’s the story on the subsidy ending from the Detroit News:
Congress adjourned for the year on Friday, failing to extend the tax break that’s drawn a wide variety of critics on Capitol Hill, including Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Critics also have included environmentalists, frozen food producers, ranchers and others.
The policies have helped shift millions of tons of corn from feedlots, dinner tables and other products into gas tanks.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth praised the move.
“The end of this giant subsidy for dirty corn ethanol is a win for taxpayers, the environment and people struggling to put food on their tables,” biofuels policy campaigner Michal Rosenoer said Friday.
Dirty Corn Ethanol? I’m all for ending taxpayer siphoning, but dirty corn ethanol?
Full story h/t to Lawrence Depenbush
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Per the USDA site referenced regarding cotton:
US acreage harvested
year 2006 324K acres
year 2007 288k acres
year 2008 169k acres
year 2009 138k acres
year 2010 202k acres
year 2011 288k acres
Seems that much cotton cropland was converted to corn for ethanol beginning with the ethanol mandate. Shortage of cotton lead to increase prices. Writing on the wall regarding ethanol returning acreage back to cotton?
Regards to an earlier comment by A. Scott that no cropland was being diverted to grow corn was of course bogus.
Brilliant!
A. Scott says:
December 28, 2011 at 4:08 pm
….
___________
A. Scott,
Pardon, but you are doing exactly what you accuse others of doing.
You’ve invited cynical response by your failure to back up your claims.
Go ahead and take your marbles and go home, secure in your mind that you ‘really told them’.
Bring some truth to the table, next time.
hotrod (larry L) says:
December 28, 2011 at 11:19 am
eyesonu says:
December 28, 2011 at 10:08 am
I knew the trolls were here and would come to A. Scotts rescue.
The only troll here is you.
You magically pop up every time there is a substantive discussion of fuel ethanol or any pro-oil discussion. I have been posting here for years on lots of other topics, but you are a one man band of ad-homonym attacks and misinformation directed at anyone that tries to present the other side of the story that is conveniently ignored by the folks who are against ethanol.
Your tactics are exactly the same small minded sort of character assassination attacks with no substance as we see from the global warming crowd and simply will not fly here.
If you have facts or personal observations you wish to contribute to the discussion, please carry on an adult discussion, otherwise please go back into your hole.
Larry
Thanks Larry … its really sad people like eyesonu and Sal etc are too blinded by their preconceived and clearly uninformed agendas to actually learn some of the most basic facts about what they are talking about.
I will repeat – although its clear folks like these really don’t care – I am not in ANY way shape or form involved in, related to, paid by or associated with the industry. I am happy to provide Anthony any documentation privately to prove that point.
I was an ethanol skeptic, just as I was originally an AGW believer. But as I reviewed the science and learned the facts my positions on both changed 180 degrees.
I believe we SHOULD be drilling for and using our fossil fuels. I also believe we should be looking for and using all means possible to reduce dependence on the finite supply. Ethanol is a partial solution – and as Brazil has shown a real and sustainable solution.
Every bit of renewable ethanol we use for fuel is that much finite fossil fuel we save. It also reduces emissions, reduces GHG’s and a number of other benefits. It is not “burning food” – the corn used is virtually all animal feed, and appx half of the corn used is returned as a by product in form of high quality, high energy animal feed that is better for animals than the original corn. We get corn oil and corn meal, in addition to the distillers dried grans animal feed and the ethanol from every bushel of corn.
Those are facts – no matter how many times some people try to attack and mislead folks otherwise.
Carl Brannen says:
December 28, 2011 at 4:33 pm
An amazing amount of misinformation here. WUWT should invite a post from someone in the ethanol industry. I’d volunteer but I do not have the time to do it right.
======================================
……… but you did it anyway. Great post.
Come on A. Scott, please continue (as Smokey asks of you). Don’t worry about eyesonu, or that guy who thinks ethanol is not an optimal product (oooops that was me, but I was speaking hygroscopically, and I know what’s coming down the pike).
This is flat out wrong and far removed from reality.
Fuel mileage drops due to switching from straight gasoline to E-10 ethanol added fuel, range from 1.5% to 4%. In carefully controlled tests the drop in mileage is so small it is hard to detect without carefully controlled testing.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/ethanol.shtml
http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/ACEFuelEconomyStudy_001.pdf
(yes this study is from a group that advocates ethanol fuels, but read the study and determine if you think the methods are sound before you dismiss it summarily.)
The above quoted drops in fuel mileage by the original poster are only applicable to FFV (flexible fuel Vehicles from Detroit running on E85) These vehicles are not particularly good adaptations for E85 because the CAFE regulations give Detroit the same credit for alternative fuels regardless of the fuel mileage on E85, so they have no incentive of any kind to optimize them to run on E85. Private party conversions from gasoline to E85 can easily exceed the factory FFV performance and approach normal gasoline fuel mileages.
For example I got over 90% of my gasoline fuel mileage on straight E85 after my conversion. If driving for economy I could get into the mid 90% range (92%-95% of my gasoline fuel mileage.
Fuel economy does not track directly with fuel volumetric energy content, but rather with the net useful work extracted from the available fuel energy. High ethanol blends allow higher thermal efficiencies than can be achieved on gasoline (octane only being one reason for this difference). The fuel has wider flammability limits (ie is less prone to lean or rich misfire), it has better performance under load providing both a 5%-15% power increase over gasoline with no other changes, and engines running on E85 tolerate lugging under load much better reducing down shifts under load.
Many people who assert that E10 causes large fuel economy reductions are actually seeing fuel economy drops due to changes in seasonal fuel blends and cold weather (when these claims seem to peak). The total energy drop for E10 on a volumetric basis is only 3%.
I have been driving on ethanol added fuel for 30+ years (it was first available in the 1970’s and was required by law in 1989 in Denver to help reduce air pollution.) The drop in fuel mileage was difficult to detect 30 years ago even if you kept careful records of each fuel fill and miles driven, and is no where near as bad as many assert.
Larry
The U.S. is not the major player in the cotton market that it is in the global corn, and soybean markets. We would have only a very small cotton market but for the generous cotton subsidies.
In the last year, or so, the worldwide cotton prices have Expuhloaded! Weak harvests, globally, and greatly increased demand from the “emerging” countries have led to the Highest Prices, By Far, in History. Thus your increase in planting.
40 Shades of Green says:
December 28, 2011 at 3:59 pm
@jabre. I wonder would you be interested in doing an article on the true cost of oil based on the links you have provided. I think it would be fascinating.
—————————–
40, there are tons of studies by green groups created to report the “true” external costs of petroleum. Some of them are really quite creative. There is a report by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), which is an actual branch of the US govt. that reports on energy subsidation. If you read it you’ll be shocked at the levels of real cash subsidation expended on “renewable fuels”. Looking at one chart I notice that Biomass and Biofuels are constitute 73.2% of Subsidies and support to fuels used outside of the electricity sector veresus nat gas & petroleum’s combined 20.7%. Also it would be important to note the type of subsidation as pointed out here the Oil industries “subsidies” generally come in the form of tax “breaks” while much of the renewables benefit from loan supports and cash grants. You’ll be shocked by the level of renewable subsidation versus unit of energy produced.
Carl Brannen says:
December 28, 2011 at 4:33 pm
“If the corn ethanol business were outlawed world-wide tomorrow, the response of farmers would be to quit planting as much corn. ”
Carl, I appreciate your point of view, especially that you see the removal of subsidies as necessary. I have seen [PV] companies from the inside that were quite unprepared for it, and as you say, they have high management costs, high overhead and seem unprepared for the harsh reality of competition. They are currently going belly-up here in Germany [e.g. Solon, Solar Millenium].
One (big) problem we have here in Germany with the biofuel subsidies – here it’s less ethanol production but more usage of corn as feedstock for biogas reactors – is that the corn planted for this purpose really does crowd out food production, driving up rent for agricultural land and making it next to impossible for e.g. dairy farmers to get the land they need. Political meddling destroys the livelihoods of people who used to have a viable business.That’s the typical ugly side of favoritism.
I forgot the link.
http://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.pdf
Sal Minella:
If I put $1000 in a high interest account, at the end of waiting I will have $100,000,000 dollars.
There is a lot of difference between being able to turn 1 BTU into 1.6 BTU and being able to do it instantly. Your assessment that this gives free energy assumes instantaneous translation and zero costs for inputs. Like my fool-proof plan for making $100,000,000. Which is, actually, fool-proof if you don’t examine the minor time conditions.
Kum Dollison says:
December 28, 2011 at 4:57 pm
E10 will, on average, if blended with 84 SubOctane gasoline give about a 3% loss of fuel economy. If blended with 87 Octane gasoline the reduction in mpg will be about 1.5 to 2%. In either case, it comes out pretty close to a “wash.”
_________________________
That’s the ethanol promoter’s meme, but it doesn’t match my own experience.
I get measurably less mpg w/ethanol than straight gasoline.
I get 22-24mpg (varies w/wind speed/direction) on a frequently traveled 300+ mile stretch, burning pure gasoline. With a tank of ethanol, the most I’ve ever recorded was 18.6 mpg and typically less than that.
I’ve tested this a few times, just to make sure. This result is verified by my ride’s computer and my own calculations.
My vehicle was apparently designed to function efficiently with the engine making normal horsepower, but is really inefficient with a drop in power… at least, that’s my thinking about the poor performance with E10.
My vehicle is also touted as being designed to handle ethanol, but I’ve learned to avoid ethanol, if possible.
I had my auto repair, due to a problem with ethanol and the lawnmore repaired twice. The repair show told me to go to a mid-grade of gasoline as it would not burn hotter in the lawnmore!
A. Scott says:
December 28, 2011 at 4:08 pm
“I started working on detailed responses to the several people with legitimate honest questions…”
Lots of interesting and detailed discussion of Ethanol since my original question for you: “Can you make a cogent argument for public funding of Ethanol development?”
I had previously and perhaps tersely compared it to funding for my small manufacturing company; why is Ethanol development funded and I can’t even get an SBA loan? Perhaps a bad analogy.
Here’s some food for thought – if public funding of Ethanol development is a good idea, then why does our current government dither on approving the Keystone pipeline if the argument for public funding of Ethanol is to assure domestic energy supply. Canada seems like a good bet to me.
Maybe another bad comparison – I’m reaching for an answer to my original question and I take it that the original motivation for this thread is noting that public funding for Ethanol production is being curtailed by the ending of the farm subsidy for Ethanol. Why was it ever subsidized? I’m sure our elected representatives had something in mind and citing “pork-barrel politics” will not answer the question even if it had something to do with it. Somewhere, somehow, at sometime in the public sphere, subsidies seemed like a good idea, with some goal in mind, to somehow cure some (terrible) ill. What made funding ethanol production with public funds a good idea – despite how it has or has not worked out. Just exactly what problem were we trying to solve?
As far as WUWT as a blog, I read on another blog here recently where WUWT was referred to as the “Wolfpack at WUWT”. I cracked up. Really – the Wolfpack? How funny.
Relax. It’s just a fun blog. I have learned a lot here, learned a lot from your original post, and have learned a lot from these comments.
Have fun, and I look forward to your answer.
hotrod (larry L) says:
December 28, 2011 at 5:09 pm
” http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/ethanol.shtml
E10 (gasohol)
E10 (also called “gasohol”) is a blend of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline sold in many parts of the country. All auto manufacturers approve the use of blends of 10% ethanol or less in their gasoline vehicles. ”
Your source is wrong. I’m just repeating this so that nobody gets the idea that he can just try it out without knowing whether his car is suited. MOST new cars are suited, that’s right. Here’s an ultra-comprehensive list; created during this years E10 fiasco in Germany; unfortunately, it’s a lengthy PDF in German. So make of that what you will. But the information in the list comes from the vehicle manufacturers; they list all the models that are capable of running on E10; some manufacturers simply say “all of them”, some say “all of our models except for the following ones”.
http://www.dat.de/e10liste/e10vertraeglichkeit.pdf
And it’s not that the engine won’t work with E10 (it will) but that the seals will be attacked by the E10 over time.
There is a lot of good information on this post but unfortunately there is a lot of mis information mostly from the ethanol trolls
For example the latest crazy fact re ethanol mandates is contained below
The ethanol shuffle is between US and Brazil.
This is even crazier than the original concept of subsidizing and mandating ethanol in the first place. and reveals the insanity that exists in the Washington EPA and California CARB. This is costing the California drivers an additional 16 cents per gal or $ 5.8 million dollars.
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/exchange/entry/the-ethanol-shuffle/?
Posted on: December 12, 2011 inBrazil, Engines, Ethanol, Exports
Some of the facts presented
1) Ethanol production is falling in Brazil due to various reasons mostly weather related
2) Brazil is exporting ethanol to California
3) Brazil is importing corn based ethanol from the US due to a shortage of ethanol. Brazil has reduced the % mandated in gasoloine.
4)California imports from Brazil because ” … state and Federal fuel regulations that treat Brazilian sugarcane ethanol as if it were the Holy Grail of biofuels. Both the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and U.S. EPA have decided that producing sugarcane ethanol results in fewer lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than producing corn ethanol.
5) So, under CARB’s Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS), sugarcane ethanol generates far more credits for compliance than corn ethanol. And EPA considers sugarcane ethanol to be an “advanced biofuel,” meaning it is one of only two options available to obligated parties today for compliance with the RFS2 advanced biofuels requirement (biodiesel being the other). In short, the LCFS and RFS2 strongly compel regulated parties (typically oil refiners) to import sugarcane ethanol to meet their regulatory obligations.
6) But here’s the rub: sugarcane ethanol is in short supply after consecutive disappointing sugar crops in Brazil. Sugarcane yields in 2011 were about 19% below the 30-year trend and on par with average yields from the mid-1980s. Therefore Brazil is purchasing corn based ethanol from the US
7) So, that’s how the “Ethanol Shuffle” works. California imports sugarcane ethanol from Brazil rather than corn ethanol from Nebraska or Kansas; and in turn, corn ethanol from the Midwest travels to Houston or Galveston via rail, then is shipped to Brazil via tanker to “backfill” the volumes they sent to the U.S
8) The congress has foolishly mandated an increasing amount of cellulosic ethanol to be used even though technology did not exist. Because corn based ethanol offers minimal carbon credits, the source of the ethanol was required to be from cellulosic sources based on promises that commercial plants would produce significant amounts of cellulosic ethanol by 2010. Commercial plants were built using government subsidies, and government backed loans. These plants failed because the technology was flawed and has fundamental technology problems were not addressed due to the “rush”. Refiners still have to comply with the mandate to mix the added ethanol or pay a fine
Only government can create such a wasteful system with mandates. One wonders if the shipping carbon consumption is cranked into the system.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204012004577072470158115782.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop#articleTabs%3Darticle
“To recap: Congress subsidized a product that didn’t exist, mandated its purchase though it still didn’t exist, is punishing oil companies for not buying the product that doesn’t exist, and is now doubling down on the subsidies in the hope that someday it might exist. We’d call this the march of folly, but that’s unfair to fools.”
Meanwhile the administration is choking of conventional fuel production in the US and the Keystone pipeline that would back out imports from unreliable and unfriendly sources on the misguided belief that biofuels will be plentiful if subsidized.
I drive on average, about 35 to 38k mile per year. Like most of us, I encountered the mileage hit when E85 was mandated. The only way I can obtain anywhere near the mileage of unadulterated gas, is to follow tractor trailer rigs that are going at about highway speed.
Ethanol absorbs moisture. Ethanol evaporates. As ethanol evaporates, it leaves behind the moisture. If you don’t use it or treat it, your gas goes stale over time. That is one of the reasons that small engines have an issue with it.
Ethanol is a boondoggle, plain and simple.
Hotrod, do you understand the relationship that involves the engine control unit (computer), ignition timing, fuel / air mixture, knock sensor, and other sensors in an automobile engine?
You have called in all the reinforcing trolls here as you have done in the past elsewhere. Seen it before, same game, different thread.
eyesonu says:
December 28, 2011 at 4:27 pm
One point that is missing from the argument with the ethanol advocates is thus.
Use of E10 will give a mpg of 10 – 35% less mpg (depending on the engine). For the sake of this argument let’s use only a 10% reduction in mpg overall.
Pour the 10% etanol down the drain and the ‘pure’ gasoline in the tank will deliver 10% greater mpg so you could drive nearly (99%) as far on only 90% volume of fuel (real gas). On many, if not most, engines not designed for the E10 there could be an increase of 25 – 35% greater mpg.
Consider the EROI of ethanol and only a fool would put in in their tank if given the option. Government mandates at its best?
Where do you come up with this silly stuff?
FACTS: Gasoline has appx 124,800 BTU’s per gal. Ethanol has appx 77,000 BTU’s per gal. E10 has appx 120,100 BTU’s per gallon.
The correct answer to your claim is E10 has appx 3.83% less energy than straight gasoline.
Every engine with fuel injection and electronic engine management systems9I don’t know but at least back pretty much a decade or more) is virtually unaffected by E10 – the engine management system simply adjusts the mixture for the beneficial higher octane ethanol blend. Exactly as it adjusts when you drive into mountains and higher altitude.
James Sexton says:
December 28, 2011 at 4:45 pm
eyesonu says:
December 28, 2011 at 4:27 pm
One point that is missing from the argument with the ethanol advocates is thus.
Use of E10 will give a mpg of 10 – 35% less mpg (depending on the engine). For the sake of this argument let’s use only a 10% reduction in mpg overall…..
===========================================================
On the four vehicles I tested…… none older than 2003 model, pickups and sedans, the average was a 20% reduction in mileage.
I don’t know why some of the people here were never taught not to play with their food. But, with the ending of the subsidy, we’ll see most of their claims go down in flames. Now, finally, some of us will be able to afford a steak now and again.
I use E85 at least 75% of the time in a 2003 Tahoe. I record the majority of purchases. My mileage has never dropped more 20%, usually less. I just paid $2.52 for E85 with E10 priced at $3.35, a 25% discount vs a 20% or less drop in mileage.
Statistically E85 vs E10 is a drop of appx 29% in energy content – which shows the engine management systems in todays cars are making back some of the lost BTU’s of energy by adjusting fuel mixtures.
A. Scott says:
December 28, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Regarding ethanol, there have been numerous studies from reputable scientists, institutions and agencies, that clearly show the net energy balance of ethanol production is positive.
================================================
I am so pi$$ed off about this. I know somewhere on my computer is a single and wonderful powerpoint slide with all the studies (about 10 or 15 of them) showing exactly what you say, and temporally this shows huge improvements. Hopefully I’ll find it soon, especially as it shows the Pimentel work to be the clownish crap that it is.
This science (biofuels/chemicals) is not an exercise in English language usage to which the CAGW science/propaganda has degenerated (or always was). Here, there are people on the ground doing experiments, screwing up, acknowledging screw-ups and tossing that data in the garbage but conversely, making discoveries that advance percentage yields of fermentation and feedstock technology on a daily basis. If you think you knew something 2 years ago, forget it, you’re three or four years out of date, because what people in the field know now will probably not make a press release or published patent application until then.
This field is rocking right now, in this economic environment too. It’s like the early eighties, when big Pharma was telling biotechnology companies they couldn’t afford the plumbing and, of course, now big Pharma does its research by buying companies with marginal plumbing capabilities.
So there you go. The view from the trenches.
Despite the welcome news heralded by this thread, I don’t foresee any real changes in the way we deal with ethanol, etc.
There are just too many powerful players with their hands in our pockets and too many entrenched activists in what is rapidly becoming our politburo.
A. Scott says:
“I just paid $2.52 for E85 with E10 priced at $3.35, a 25% discount vs a 20% or less drop in mileage.”
I suspect that is due to the heavy ethanol subsidies.
GW Bush pushed for the RFS (Renewable Fuel Standard) because it was obvious that Oil would soon be “Peaking.” And, it did, in 2005. We’ve been on the “Plateau” since then (in fact, oil production (C + C) was slightly less in 2011 than it was in ’05.)
Meantime, the “emerging” nations, led by China, India, etal, and the oil exporting nations, themselves, are demanding more, and more of a product that is no longer expanding in supply.
Ethanol was seen as a “mitigating” technology, in that it was compatible with the existing infrastructure, and fleet. At some point, probably in the next few years, we will start to fall off of the current plateau, and the supply of oil will begin to decline in earnest.
We Will need all the help we can get.