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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
A.Scott
I do not care what Brazil does. Dummy in the White House gave them BILLION$ and said he wants the United States to be Brazils best customer. Get a grip solve AMERICAS issues. Brazil should be our customer.
Funny – we never see a source for claims from these folks …
1.) Brazils sugar cane – as noted above – is processed largely similar to corn. It is NOT a cellulosic process – it uses the sugar in sugar cane just as the starch is used from the corn. The reason sugar cane has a higher net energy balance is because they also use the bagasse – the stalks, to burn to provide energy to run the processing plants.
2.) What are you talking about? Every light vehicle in Brazil uses at least an E20 (20% ethanol) blend. Earlier this year that was temporarily reduced to E18 due to supply shortages. Almost every new light vehicle sold since 2003 is a flex fuel vehicle. They normally produce and use all domestic ethanol, and still have capacity to export. Due to very poor weather conditions, they have a temporary shortage at present, and have actually been importing small amounts.
What part of Brazil’s ethanol program do you deem unsuccessful?
3.) The current expiring ethanol credit reportedly costs appx. $6 billion dollars per year.
A 2010 study conducted by economists at Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin found the increased use of ethanol reduced wholesale gasoline prices by an average of $0.89 per gallon in 2010, ranging from $0.58/gallon in the East Coast to $1.37/gallon in the Midwest.
It also found that the growth in ethanol production reduced gasoline prices by an average of $0.25, or 16 percent, over the entire decade of 2000-2010.
Further, the study determined that gas prices could double if ethanol production came to an immediate halt.
http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/synopsis.aspx?id=1160
We use appx 9.12 million barrels of gasoline per day, just under 140 million gallons per year. At an average price of $3.56 in fall 2011, that is almost $490 billion a year.
If we save .89 cents per gal on gas due to the current ethanol production and use the savings is $124 billion dollars per year. Even if we only use the .25 cents average saving over the last decade, we save $35 billion per year on gas because of the ethanol produced and used.
Department of Energy data shows U.S. gasoline use averaged 138 billion gallons per year from 2000 to 2010, meaning annual savings due to ethanol during the decade averaged $34.5 billion.
Federal Highway Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Energy that show the average household consumed 900 gallons of gasoline at an average price of $2.74 per gallon in 2010. That means the average family’s annual gasoline bill was $2,470, but it would have been closer to $3,270 without ethanol. In 2010 alone, ethanol reduced the average American household’s gasoline bill by more than $800.
Even if we use a 2008 study by US Dept of Energy they found a .17 cents per gal gas savings, nearly $24 billion in 2010 at that rate, or .14 cents without the subsidy, or just under $20 billion in savings. http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/pdfs/44517.pdf
A $6 billion annual investment that generates at minimum, using years old data, $20 billion, but more realistically with current data, $35 billion a year savings.
Yep – that is a terrible waste. Certainly bad money thrown after good.
Yes it can you forget that the distillers grain is the final product following yeast growth. The yeast as it grows augments the protein content and nutrition of the distillers grain. That is why nutrition fanatics often use yeast products as part of their nutritional supplements
There are lots of sources that document this increase in both nutritional content and improved digestibility of distillers grain compared to the conventional feeds it replaces. If you can’t find them you are not looking.
Larry.
Nice xenophobia there Bill – I LIKE the Brazilians – especially some of their mighty fine ladies 😉
That said if you read my comments – I AGREE with you – Obama is a pompous and duplicitous fool.
Spend money drilling HERE and we don’t have to be anyone’s customer. He is too busy trying to be liked – playing a President on TV – to actually DO the hard work and make hard decisions the job requires.
Put American’s to work, extracting OUR oil, and then he can use those savings to go play at being every other country’s little buddy.
Just because I support domestic drilling does not mean we should not do whatever we reasonably can to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Maybe we will never run out, but that is unlikely. And every gallon of gas we replace with renewable fuel gets us that much more time before we do run out.
And just because I’m a warming – an AGW – sceptic, doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea to reduce emissions, reduce GHG’s and reduce use of fossil fuels where we can. No matter what we do the next ice age is overdue and inevitable. A little cleaner air is a good thing.
And just maybe, when we do tip back into the next ice age, having some fossil fuel left to burn will certainly make it more tolerable.
By the way – I jsut noticed those gas price savings because of ethanol use were at the wholesale level – in reality they would be higher if compared to retail prices.
Another very interesting aspect of the study was their finding about a complete shutdown in ethanol. If the removal of the susbsidy cused ethanol to no longer be profitable the result could be a huge increase in gas prices:
Perhaps that is a good sign – ethanol has become too big to fail 😉
A. Scott says:
December 29, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Try this. Click crops. Cotton stats by state and US. 🙂
http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/US.htm.
eyesonu says:
December 29, 2011 at 5:36 pm
A.Scott, everything that you have written has been debunked.
It has been quite clearly shown that you are a troll. Time for you to get some sleep.
Really? Where? Certainly not by you and your petty and childish attacks.
Still waiting for that link from you supporting your claims on the cotton acreage harvested …
CommonSenseBill says:
December 29, 2011 at 6:38 pm
I have been reading this thread for 2 days. No one can solve the problem NOW. Thirty years ago they were demanding big oil get out of california. There was no alternative then and I see none now. The idiot in the White House is supporting loser solar companies and stalling the Keystone Pipe line. Anything to get relected. Now as already mentioned here, the iranians are threatening to close the shipping lanes.
All I can say is. Why after 30 years we are still energy dependent on foriegn oil supplies? We should have first made ourselves energy/oil independent. Then, THEN get alternative means developed, proven and ready to use. This willy nilly running amuck plans are a waste of time and money. Get the Federal Govt. out of the way, let AMERICAN Inginuity prevail.
So much so called high tech talk on this thread, where were you guys before this all came apart???
I’ve been there all along. And I agree with you – we should be drilling – putting our people to work drilling our oil – and increasing our energy independence.
But we should also be making every reasonable – and that is key – effort to find alternative/renewable fuel options. Ethanol is doing exactly that. Despite the viscous attacks and lack of support today it supplies appx 10% of our transportation energy needs. In doing so it is saving us billions by helping keep cost of gas down. It is cleaner for environment and saves a fossil fuel as well.
Unlike wind, unlike solar it actually works and at a reasonable cost. It does not need a whole second back up grid for when the sun ain’t out or the wind isn’t blowing. It can be stored and stockpiled, which neither wind or solar can realistically do.
It is reliable, clean, and sustainable.
There is clear proof (see the gas price reports above) that the more available ethanol is the higher the saving on gas in those areas. A clear indication of success – and that we should be trying to achieve those higher availability levels across the country – to increase the benefit.
It is pretty clear the return on investment – on the subsidies – is, unlike solar or wind etc, truly positive. We are saving a bunch on gasoline because of ethanol. And reducing consumption of fossil fuels at same time.
We are a greed self-centered society these days. We want all the benefits but want no part in sharing the costs. I personally would pay an affordable amount more to use ethanol, simply because its renewable/sustainable, cleaner, and reduces fossil fuel consumption.
I think its worth it long term even if it was increasing food costs slightly today (which I disagree it is by any significant amount.) Long term energy independence and stability is far more valuable than a short term minor food price impact.
But then I’m also one of the few that will still shop local instead of at WalMart. I pay more but I get more value as well. Just as with ethanol – provided you care about things like the environment, costs, renewable and sustainable fuels, reduction in fossil fuel use and the like.
Far too many people just don’t care. They want what they want and don’t care about the rest. The heck with it, I’ll be dead and gone – let THEM deal with it.
Myrrh says:
December 29, 2011 at 7:03 pm
I think ethanol has been unfairly lumped in with windmills and pvc, it should, imho, be looked at in its own right. I think one of the same reasons hemp was considered such a threat plays a part in the antagonism propagandised about ethanol, here it is direct competition with oil as fuel for transport, but hemp more so as production can be very local, it doesn’t need the resources that corn growing needs.
What interests me is personal production – how big a field will I need to grow enough hemp to fuel my diesel car (hypothetical, I no longer have diesel), say 600 miles a month? Will my oil-fired central heating system run on it, or ethanol?
With ethanol:
150 appx bushels corn/acre
2.77 appx gals ethanol per bushel
416 appx gal ethanol per acre
1 acre of corn = 416 gal ethanol
@ur momisugly 20 mpg = 8,310 appx miles a year, 700 miles/month, 160 miles per week, 23 miles per day …
A. Scott, your tedious spamming doesn’t change the cold hard facts. They are:
– replacing cheap energy with more expensive energy makes everyone poorer
– you claim that a mere 40 years of support is needed, while also claiming that ethanol makes economic sense in its own right. Please make up your mind.
– in a similar vein, if ethanol is saving everyone so much money, why does it need to be mandated?
– you must have missed the illuminating post above about the ‘ethanol shuffle’ between the US and Brazil, where each exports it to the other to satisfy artificial mandates and game the subsidy system. Sheer, sheer, lunacy.
I don’t care whether companies manufacture ethanol or not – but I do care (we have similar nutty policies in Australia) that taxpayers and consumers are being slugged to pay for the hobbyhorses of interest groups.
In the case of the US, as PPs have pointed out, the only thing standing in the way of plenty of cheap gasoline is the ideological opposition to oil extraction that has caused money to rain down on inefficient substitutes like ethanol and electric cars. No conflict of interest there, huh?
Nope – sorry, another miss … wonder why you didn’t just provide the link to the actual page?
johanna says:
December 29, 2011 at 11:41 pm
A. Scott, your tedious spamming doesn’t change the cold hard facts. They are:
– replacing cheap energy with more expensive energy makes everyone poorer
– you claim that a mere 40 years of support is needed, while also claiming that ethanol makes economic sense in its own right. Please make up your mind.
– in a similar vein, if ethanol is saving everyone so much money, why does it need to be mandated?
– you must have missed the illuminating post above about the ‘ethanol shuffle’ between the US and Brazil, where each exports it to the other to satisfy artificial mandates and game the subsidy system. Sheer, sheer, lunacy.
I don’t care whether companies manufacture ethanol or not – but I do care (we have similar nutty policies in Australia) that taxpayers and consumers are being slugged to pay for the hobbyhorses of interest groups.
In the case of the US, as PPs have pointed out, the only thing standing in the way of plenty of cheap gasoline is the ideological opposition to oil extraction that has caused money to rain down on inefficient substitutes like ethanol and electric cars. No conflict of interest there, huh?
Sorry – I see no hard facts in your post. And I would point out I believe I brought up the ethanol “shuffle” as you call it – at beginning of this thread … that Brazil is currentlyexporting only a tiny amount to the US at same time the US is exporting more significant amounts to Brazil.
I do claim ethanol is close to being able to stand on its own – but you failed to read the whole comment … in the limited parts of the US that already have significant distribution and availability. The rest of the country does not have sufficient availability to stand on its own yet. And I also noted that even in the better areas more needs to be done – while you can find ethanol it is far from readily available.
I presented factual support for my positions. None of you naysayers seem to ever have anything more than your opinion. For example I provided two different studies and data on the cost savings on gasoline provided by availability of ethanol … one from 2008 by US Dept of Energy and one from 2010 (which was updating an earlier report) by economists at Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin, which found the increased use of ethanol reduced wholesale gasoline prices by an average of $0.89 per gallon in 2010, ranging from $0.58/gallon in the East Coast to $1.37/gallon in the Midwest, and that also found the growth in ethanol production has reduced gasoline prices by an average of $0.25, or 16 percent, over the entire decade of 2000-2010.
I provided data that showed this savings on gas costs – using the .25 cents per gal average they found for the 10 year period from 2000- 2010, amounted to $35 billion a year. And that even if we used the lowest gas savings numbers from 2008 report – of .17 cents per gallon, that the savings was still almost $20 billion annually.
Seems to me that is a heckuva deal – $6 billion in subsidies saves consumers $20 to $35 billion a year … and it does it by using cleaner, renewable ethanol fuel.
Please explain the problem you have with that?
A. Scott says:
December 29, 2011 at 9:06 pm
…
Thanks for those figures. I’ve been trying to find how much an acre of hemp produces for comparison , but keep getting distracted by the the fascinating information about it and its history!
Here’s some I’m just reading:
http://hemp-ethanol.blogspot.com/2008/01/economics-history-and-politics-of-hemp.html
Hmmm indeed… 🙂
I’m really getting very keen on the idea of hemp production for fuel as its so much easier to grow than corn – doesn’t need the pesticides and herbicides, drought tolerant, grows in poorer land, faster cropping and so on, and more besides. The only problem I see with it is being spoiled for choice in uses.. Levi jeans used to be made from it, it softens with age and remains very hard wearing, much better than cotton, but, as a food source it’s also pretty amazing.
It’s way past the time that governments got out of micro managing our lives, not government business to dictate prohibitions on growing any plant for whatever use – and certainly big business interests shouldn’t be allowed to dictate government policy to screw the markets in their favour. Stuff needing permits..
..I’ve got a bit of land.. 🙂
Seems to me that is a heckuva deal – $6 billion in subsidies saves consumers $20 to $35 billion a year … and it does it by using cleaner, renewable ethanol fuel.
Please explain the problem you have with that?
——————————————————–
Sport, 150 years ago you would have been in a travelling tent show selling snake oil.
The proposition that, if I give you $6bn, you will save consumers $20 to $35bn (what’s a measly $15bn difference in savings among friends, anyway? We’re giving away taxpayers’ money to help people here!) would make P T Barnum proud.
Why not just pay the $6bn yourself and save consumers ‘only’ $14bn to $29bn? Since you care so deeply about them and all? I assume that you are not making any profit off the $6bn, so what’s the difference?
It’s called ‘rent seeking’ in the modern vernacular of snake oil sales. It means getting money or commercial advantage from the government through subsidies and/or regulation rather than paying your own way. All rent-seekers claim that giving them an edge over their competitors will reap rich rewards, and they are right. What they misrepresent is to whom those rewards will accrue, and at whose expense.
Your spam is unreadable and I suspect, unread. Do you really think that posting every one of the eleventy million links on Google saying how great ethanol is will change anyone’s mind or add anything to the discussion?
Johanna,
Excellent answer. We always hear about all the $billions “saved”. But where are those ‘billions’? And who does the accounting?
Myrrh: You should read those historical accounts of prohibition with great suspicion. The first successes for states prohibiting alcohol were as early as the 1850’s, well preceding the internal combustion engine. Prohibition of alcohol was an issue constantly churning through the late 1800’s in the US. Before the imposition of nationwide prohibition in 1920, many states had already adopted it within their borders with the last wave of stringent prohibition laws starting in approx 1905. All this was before automobiles became common. Even during the height of prohibition in the 1920’s alcohol was illegal as a beverage, but not as an industrial product.
In none of my readings have I found any indication that it was part of some conspiracy to prevent people from making their own fuel alcohol, though most of my interest is previous to 1920.
Myrrh says:
December 30, 2011 at 5:31 am
I’m really getting very keen on the idea of hemp production for fuel as its so much easier to grow than corn – doesn’t need the pesticides and herbicides, drought tolerant, grows in poorer land, faster cropping and so on, and more besides. The only problem I see with it is being spoiled for choice in uses.. Levi jeans used to be made from it, it softens with age and remains very hard wearing, much better than cotton, but, as a food source it’s also pretty amazing.
———————————————————-
Myrrh, hemp isn’t the only fast growing plant around. Other cellulosic sources, to name just a couple, include switch grass and poplar. Corn has the big advantage of producing a high percentage of easily extractable starch that is then saccharified prior to fermentation.
Why not just pay the $6bn yourself and save consumers ‘only’ $14bn to $29bn? Since you care so deeply about them and all? I assume that you are not making any profit off the $6bn, so what’s the difference?
———————————–
Smokey, Johanna,
According to this, that’s exactly what’s going to happen come Sunday or Monday:
http://farmfutures.com/story.aspx/looking-life-without-ethanol-subsidy-17/55977
5 cents times 125 billion gallons is $6.25 billion.
Many of the subsidies and grants allowed the building of an infrastructure that led to further private capital and corporate cash infusion. The net result is actually a huge asset value for the U.S., particularly if you look at it this way:
http://biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2011/11/29/renewable-reserve-accounting-building-the-biofuels-balance-sheet/
Look at slide 13 of the linked presentation, to see the asset value when compared with oil reserves (and this is based on a 21 year contract).
http://www.ascension-publishing.com/BIZ/Ceres-ABM.pdf
The above probably does not take into account any bad harvest years, so fingers crossed on that. It is kinda ironic though that we can capitalize on China and India’s waste CO2 blowing its way over here to be sequestered in Iowa and Nebraska etc.
Also, one other really good thing that has come out of all this (as I’ve mentioned before up there somewhere), is a realization that synthetic biologic microorganisms can make additional higher value (sometimes much higher value) chemical products, and the markets for these are in the $ trillions.
philincalifornia, what you have cited is just the standard hokum peddled by every rent seeker. Give us free money, and more things will happen in our sector than if you had not given us free money. Well, I’ll be blowed – what a revelation.
The point is that the ‘free money’ is taken by force from consumers and/or taxpayers and spent on things that would otherwise not be viable. It is therefore a net drag on the economy, as it would otherwise have been spent on the things that the contributors actually wanted to spend their money on, including viable businesses who have now to forgo that income.
Not only that, even though the money tap has been turned off and lucky recipients have infrastructure which they didn’t have to pay for, people are still forced to buy their products.
It’s the perfect scam – first taxpayers and consumers give them stuff for nothing, and then they are forced to buy the products. It’s just old fashioned State imposed socialism, in the guise of being ‘green’, and it redirects scarce capital and cash flow from more productive parts of the economy to the scammers.
A.Scott says [T]he ethanol industry now provides approximately 10% of the gasoline used in automobiles, an amount that exceeds the spare capacity of US oil refineries. This “missing” fuel would have to be imported in the short run, and the required volume would be large relative to available import supplies.
More inaccurate information re refining capacity, since several major companies have just shut down two large refineries on the Delaware river, One at Marcus Hook and another at Trainor. Yet another large complex in Phila is scheduled for shutdown in 2012 unless a buyer is found.
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/company-news-story.aspx?storyid=201112211505dowjonesdjonline000601&title=update-pbf-plans-1-billion-upgrade-to-delaware-refinery
The reason for shutdown is probably complex but the expensive EPA requirements are probably a significant factor, possibly including significant investment for producing low sulfur diesel. One of the operating refineries (Delaware City) on the Delaware River announced plans to upgrade the product to satisfy the ultra low diesel specs per the EPA at a cost of up to $1 Billion Dollars. It is not clear that the Delaware “EPA” or the US EPA will ever approve this expansion.
Where is the shortage of refining??
For those who underestimate or misrepresent the importance of offshore oil in Brazil. and it’s impact on their economy.
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201112291225dowjonesdjonline000367&title=anadarko-gets-419-million-from-statoil-for-peregrino-oilfield-stake
“Chinese state-run oil companies have made a big push into Latin America over the past two years and Brazil has been a prime target because of recently discovered deep-water offshore oil deposits, which some analysts said could hold as much as 100 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Last year, state-run Sinochem Group acquired a 40% stake in Statoil’s Peregrino offshore oil field for $3.07 billion. “
ohanna says:
December 30, 2011 at 7:58 am
Seems to me that is a heckuva deal – $6 billion in subsidies saves consumers $20 to $35 billion a year … and it does it by using cleaner, renewable ethanol fuel.
Please explain the problem you have with that?
——————————————————–
Sport, 150 years ago you would have been in a travelling tent show selling snake oil.
The proposition that, if I give you $6bn, you will save consumers $20 to $35bn (what’s a measly $15bn difference in savings among friends, anyway? We’re giving away taxpayers’ money to help people here!) would make P T Barnum proud.
Why not just pay the $6bn yourself and save consumers ‘only’ $14bn to $29bn? Since you care so deeply about them and all? I assume that you are not making any profit off the $6bn, so what’s the difference?
It’s called ‘rent seeking’ in the modern vernacular of snake oil sales. It means getting money or commercial advantage from the government through subsidies and/or regulation rather than paying your own way. All rent-seekers claim that giving them an edge over their competitors will reap rich rewards, and they are right. What they misrepresent is to whom those rewards will accrue, and at whose expense.
Your spam is unreadable and I suspect, unread. Do you really think that posting every one of the eleventy million links on Google saying how great ethanol is will change anyone’s mind or add anything to the discussion?
I posted links to the studies – it is up to you whether you care about educating yourself or not. Clearly you seem to prefer ignorance, and make no effort to prove or support your position.
I presented facts – and I studiously avoid wherever possible “industry” documentation – going instead to the sources – the actual reports and studies themselves.
I cannot as you note make you or anyone else read them.
Those that do may still believe as they did before reading, but they will at least be able to make an informed and educated judgement and comment if they do.
Its really quite interesting and funny that those who whine and attack the loudest – like you – are always the ones that never offer any meaningful, intelligent rebuttal – and rarely if ever offer documentation to support their attacks.
If you disagree with my comments then get off your whiny lazy arse and rebut my comments and claims – and support that rebuttal with documents and facts. We both might even learn something.
Yesterday the EPA finalized the 2012 mandate for blending biofuels into our nation’s transportation fuel supply:
http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=1016064273&gid=1773692&type=member&item=87112882&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eglobalwarming%2Eorg%2F2011%2F12%2F28%2Fepa-sets-2012-biofuel-requirements%2F&urlhash=Aoae&goback=%2Egde_1773692_member_87112882
In a nod to how hard it is to predict the future, the EPA has lowered the cellulosic biofuel mandate from 500 billion gallons to a less ambitious 8.65 million gallons, which is 1.7% of the original planned requirement. Of course, they have done the same in previous years and as of October no qualifying cellulosic ethanol had been sold to refiners. Naturally, refiners are not pleased that in 2012 they will possibly be spending up to $8 million in credits depending upon actual production levels of cellulosic ethanol: The final 2012 overall volumes and standards are:
Biomass-based diesel (1.0 billion gallons; 0.91 percent)
Advanced biofuels (2.0 billion gallons; 1.21 percent)
Cellulosic biofuels (8.65 million gallons; 0.006 percent)
Total renewable fuels (15.2 billion gallons; 9.23 percent)
“500 billion gallons to a less ambitious 8.65 million gallons, which is 1.7% of the original planned requirement”
How could any honest person consider that cellulosic ethanol is a success. Keep in mind that this was mandated because the EPA established that corn ethanol does little to knowthing to reduce the carbon footprint!! Ergo the blenders are screwed as follows
“The credits cost about $1.20 per gallon, according to Charles Drevna, president of the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association. “Once again, refiners are being ordered to use a substance that is not being produced in commercial quantities—cellulosic ethanol—and are being required to pay millions of dollars for failing to use this nonexistent substance. This makes no sense,” he said.
How can anyone justify this insane policy??
After years of subsidies and nothing but failures, it’s time to stop wasting taxpayers $$$ and misleading investors on the near term promise of commercial ethanol production. Stick to basic research.
Smokey says:
December 30, 2011 at 8:15 am
Johanna,
Excellent answer. We always hear about all the $billions “saved”. But where are those ‘billions’? And who does the accounting?
Its right there in my post. Did you read the linked published report?
Here – I’ll help you again:
You can read the above quote – or go direct to either the links. You can choose either the 2008 US Dept of Energy study, or the economists at Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin’s 2010 study.
The answers and info is all right there.
Unless of course you think the US Dept of Energy, and the Iowa and Wisconsin universities are publishing “snake oil” like johanna ….
johanna says:
December 30, 2011 at 3:38 pm
[SNIP: Sorry, but this is just a tad too confrontational. Please follow your own advice. -REP]