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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I see you’ve again abandoned civility and any attempt to support your position and attacks with data or proof.
Despite my giving you a clear road map to allow you to find the error in your data presented re: your cotton crops, you either refuse to take the few minutes to find out where you are wrong, or … I’m guessing more likely, you DID follow it and found out you did not provide meaningful correct overall US cotton crop data.
And now – since the data you provided to support your position is provably wrong, you resort back to unsupported, ad hominem attacks.
You cannot or just wont make the effort to refute or rebut my comments with any factual support or documentation. Even after I gave you a tip on data that might help support your case.
Just when it seemed you were making progress 😉
None of your attacks change the fact that the data you presented to support your cotton crop plantings claims is incorrect. By an order of magnitude.
The cotton crop in the US is not in the thousands of acres as you posted – in 2010 there were 10,974,200 acres planted acres and 10,698,700 harvested acres.
Here is the annual acreage planted and change for the 4 main crops in the US, including the correct cotton crop numbers – the information link is at the top – quoted directly from the annual USDA reports:
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1000
Cotton plantings did drop off in 2007 And here is why the cotton crop plantings were down in 2007 – lack of demand and resultant low prices – NOT because of ethanol edging out cotton:
Total US Cotton did not drop “by half” or anywhere near that as you claim. The acres PLANTED (acres “harvested” is an inaccurate measure as it is significantly affected by weather, not market forces) at lowest point – 9.150 million in 2009 – were just 27% below the 1965-2011 average of 12.648 million. And as noted the fall of in plantings in 2007-2008 was due to slowing world economy, lower prices and lower demand. NOT to ethanol.
On top of the lower acreage of cotton planted in 2008 and 2009, the crop was low due to weather etc – just 81% of planted acres harvested vs. the average 91% typical. This lost production caused a shortage and increase in prices, at same time the economy improved and demand picked up. 2010 saw 10.827 million cotton acres planted, and 2011 14.72 million acres planted.
One more time eyesonu … the changes in the cotton crop are driven by COTTON demand and pricing, not by ethanol crowding out cotton.
As for your ranting again about fuel economy – I and others responded a couple of time already and pointed out, as with most of your claims, you are wrong – and are not even fraudulently portraying the comments made by others.
You’ve shown you are uninterested, and unwilling to engage in civil debate – even when handed a road map to the data you need to correct your inaccurate data. You’ve pretty much shown – since you refuse to invest the smallest effort at presenting support for your positions, and no apparent desire to insure you’re using correct data when you do – seems there is little point in anyone taking your comments seriously here.
No matter how many times you try to make this inaccurate and nonsensical claim it will not change the answer.
Producing ANY fuel requires a “feedstock” and energy to process it. With gasoline it requires OIL and the energy to run the process. With ethanol it requires corn (or other feedstock) and the energy to process it.
Without the feedstock, from which energy is extracted in the refining process, there is no end product.
In determining net energy yield the cost of the feedstock – in the case of corn the costs of growing it (including fertilization costs and similar) – is factored into the overall energy expended, along with the energy in processing – if the energy to grow plus the energy to process is less than the energy created then you have a positive net energy balance.
Corn ethanol produced appx 1.6 BTU’s of finished product for ever 1 BTU total energy expended. That is a positive net energy balance.
Becasue it requires FEEDSTOCK to create that energy it is not your mythical perpetual energy machine.
You can use ethanol as the energy to process corn (or other feedstocks) into more ethanol, but you cannot use ethanol as the feedstock.
It really is quite simple. If you honestly did not understand that, hope my explanation helped you understand now.
If as I suspect you did understand that and were simply attacking anyway – well shame on you.
I’ll repeat – if you have some data or other support for your position then present it and it can be discussed and debated.
NOTE: hadn’t seen your post below when I made the reply above – you will find more clues in the above reply that should direct you to the correct total US Cotton Plantings data.
Also – please pick a persona, it would be so much easier and better if it was the one that makes the effort to find answers and provide support for your position, than to have to deal with the one that just flings poo and makes ad hominem attacks 😉
Sorry … still a “NOT” …
Before you can do anything else you have to be using the correct data. You are not. You need to go back to my prior post to you and follow the instructions I gave you …that will lead you to the correct data for the total US cotton crop – which is in the millions of acres – not the per “1000 acres” amounts you posted, and as is in the Table-08 you keep referencing.
I’m not going to give you the answer outright. That’d simply be giving you a fish – when you really need to properly and accurately learn the rewards and benefits of fishing for yourself.
Once again I’ll give you credit for at least making an effort, but that does no good if you do not have the correct information to start. I’ll be first to admit that the information is, while easy once you know it, a challenge to properly understand to start.
Figure out where you’re wrong – get correct information first – and then we can debate what it says. Not “schooling” you – trying to educate.
Eyesonu … here it is again so you don’t have to dig thru the thread:
Take your acreages planted from Table 08 and find the 2010 and 2011 planted acreage in middle of page 19 of the other link noted. Note the numbers don’t exactly match but are very close. Look at them compared to rest of cotton data there. Read all of the page and you will find the answer to what you are actually reporting vs what the correct overall number is.
Your posted cotton plantings (from Table 8)
Year --- Ac/Planted (1,000's)
2004 --- 248
2005 --- 269
2006 --- 324
2007 --- 288
2008 --- 169
2009 --- 138
2010 --- 202
2011 1/ --- 288
@ur momisugly A.Scott
You continue to be obscure in your responses to the facts that have been presented to you with supporting links, not just from myself, but many others.
Planted acreage of crops over the past several years. The key word is ‘planted’ that clearly shows intent of the market. You try to divert attention from a yearly trend beginning with the ethanol agenda by trying to use previous single year comparasions and cite crop harvest figures. But I will give you credit, you make a very good attempt at obscurity but the facts are just not on your side.
As I said before, you clearly have an agenda rather than simply being misinformed. You have been debunked on every claim that you made in your opening comment / post as well as your many follow-up comments. You are a ‘one man show’ and I feel certain that you haven’t even convinced yourself. That said, I’m going to leave so you can ramble on with whoever may wish to waste their time with you.
What is so hard about actually following the information I gave you and digging yourself out of the hole you’ve dug with incorrect data.
There is nothing obscure in what I’ve posted – period. I post the links – especially for you – directly to the underlying data and or studies – not to PR or news pieces about them. The direct sources that support my comments. Not sure how you get “obscure” outta that one – but you have been dancing awfully hard around giving direct answers.
In your case I’ve given you a clear and simple road map – with direct links to the data – and explicit easy directions on how to figure out where you are wrong.
You seemingly refuse to even look.
And now you’re posting the OPPOSITE of what you did originally … now you want us to use “planted” acreage – becasue as you say that shows the intent of the market. Whioch is exactly waht I said if you’d read my comments.
It is NOT what your original claim was – reposted here:
Again – NOW you ARE correct – PLANTED acres are the important indicator … harvested acres factor weather etc and show only result, not intent.
Funnier yet – you claim I was comparing to a single year to somehow “obscure” something or other. Not even remotely true.
In the recent posts I gave you the planted acres data and THE YEARLY TREND – percent up or down, for the top crops; corn, wheat cotton and soybeans … for every year from 2001 to 2011. Direct quotes from the acreage report for each year.
And for cotton I gave you the comparison for 20009 – the lowest cotton crop planted recent – compared to the statistical AVERAGE cotton acres planted from 1965-2011.
Once again it was YOU who was doing what you accuse me of – using a single year for comparison:
And then there is the best part … Its worth its own post, to make sure it doesn’t get lost …
A Scott
Any comments on the following: http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=1002061334&gid=1773692&type=member&item=86412972&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Etechnologyreview%2Ecom%2Fenergy%2F39371%2F%3Fmod%3Dchfeatured&urlhash=zYtr&goback=%2Egde_1773692_member_86412972
“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.”
“Cellulosic biofuels still cost much more to produce than either corn ethanol or gasoline”
While cellulosic ethanol was touted in the past as the technology that would provide massive amounts of ethanol, it has been a total failure.
Unfortunately I have additional experience that confirms that cellulosic ethanol is a failure and we should stop misleading the public. It only destroys the credibility of the industry to deny the facts.
Time to move on
Do you agree?
A. Scott,
Hand waving again. The feedstock in the corn-ETOH cycle must be planted, fertilized, watered, harvested, and transported to the ETOH processing plant. Once there it must be dried, ground, fermented, and distilled. You continue to quote the same efficiency (the distillation step) as the overall efficiency of the system, as do all other ethanol hacks.
Some folks take into account the cost of fertilizer production as well as the cost of environmental cleanup caused by fertilizer runoff and air pollution during the manufacturing process. They also include the extra cost of trucking ETOH to the retail point-of-sale as it cannot be piped.
Just taking these inputs into account (there are many others). the thermodynamic efficiency of the corn-ETOH cycle is somewhere between 24% and 34%. (%efficiency = (sum of outputs/sum of inputs) * 100).
Your claims don’t hold water. You are linking, cutting, and pasting ETOH lobby lies.
If ETOH provided more energy than it used then, there would be no need for government subsidies.
If ETOH provided more energy than it used then, there wouldn’t be the wholesale failure of ETOH companies.
If ETOH provided more energy than it used then, The whole corn-ETOH cycle would use ETOH for all of its inputs completely eliminating its heavy dependence on fossil fuels.
When all is said and done, when the great ETOH scam is completely dead, you will move on to blogging for plug-in electric cars and windmills and solar panels while I just sit and shake my head wondering: How did such a huge waste of tax dollars and precious fossil fuels ever get sold in the first place? I guess it illustrates the failure of our education system to teach even basic math and science.
See ya at the next plug-in electric car discussion and have a happy new year.
PS Don’t bother responding unless you have specific non-ETOH-lobby answers.
A. Scott says:
“Unless of course you think the US Dept of Energy, and the Iowa and Wisconsin universities are publishing ‘snake oil’…”
They know where their bread is buttered. Only the credulous believe what they publish isn’t influenced by the $billions in federal grant money shoveled out every year, or that big agriculture doesn’t have a vested interest in promoting self-serving schemes like using food for fuel.
Sal Minella says:
January 1, 2012 at 9:57 am
A. Scott,
Hand waving again. The feedstock in the corn-ETOH cycle must be planted, fertilized, watered, harvested, and transported to the ETOH processing plant. Once there it must be dried, ground, fermented, and distilled. You continue to quote the same efficiency (the distillation step) as the overall efficiency of the system, as do all other ethanol hacks.
Some folks take into account the cost of fertilizer production as well as the cost of environmental cleanup caused by fertilizer runoff and air pollution during the manufacturing process. They also include the extra cost of trucking ETOH to the retail point-of-sale as it cannot be piped.
Hey Sal … you are so far out in the twilight zone on your claims it is simply funny now. Especially considering you have not once provided a link to support any of your absurdly inaccurate claims. And refuse to make the slightest effort to look at anything anyone provides you as rebuttal.
One more time … please read slowly this time 😉
Each of the many ethanol Net Energy Balance studies DO take into account the energy costs of GROWING AND the PROCESSING. That includes seed costs, fertilizer costs, feedstock transport to the plant and all the rest, and all parts of the production of finished product as well. Just because you refuse to acknowledge or apparently read any of the MANY reports and studies doesn’t change the facts. Your continued wild claims are so far off it just makes you look silly.
Ethanol CAN be transported by pipeline, and is – but much of it is transported directly from plant to local distribution – that is one of the benefits of ethanol – much of it is used where it is grown.
Your “fertilizer runoff” statement is simply ludicrous. It shows exactly the mentality of people who are married to ideas and not facts. It is a great sound bite but ignores reality. The reality is folks like you claim we shouldn’t be growing corn for fuel – we should be growing it for corn instead.
What is the constant there? You grow corn for either. And when you grow corn it doesn’t make any meaningful difference what its used for – corn for food takes fertilizer and causes same runoff as well.
The Gulf “dead zone” has existed since long before ethanol. It is caused by excessive farm runoff, which then goes into the Mississippi and on to the Gulf. If you TRULY want a REAL cause to attack – attack the sedimentation and soil runoff problems.
But to claim there is fertilizer runoff – and attack ethanol with it is simply put … ridiculous.
Please tell us about this alleged air pollution of yours as well. Exactly how does the production of ethanol cause air pollution? And assuming you had some facts to support that claim – does the study also take into account the substantial clean air benefits of ethanol?
Or is it like the ethanol study that found using ethanol could cause something like 12 more deaths a year – which was trumpeted from the rooftops by guys like you – except when you actually researched it you find that ethanol potentially saves huge numbers of lives comparatively by its greatly reduced emissions. Cherry picking is a wonderful thing Sal – isn’t it?
As far as failure of ethanol company’s – to use your metaphor – “if you had” … ever bothered to look around you, you’d find we had this big old financial meltdown in this country. Been goin’ on nigh on 4 years now. You know, the one that tipped over most major banks and has made a mess of life for most of us. The same one that caused a dramatic drop in miles driven and resultant drop in oil prices. Also caused a similar drop in ethanol prices -17% in 2007 and -25% in 2009.
Building ethanol plants takes capital – lots of it. And when the financial markets went away so did the capital. On top of that with the big corn price run-up caused by speculators many of those new plants bought futures contracts for corn at then current prices – worried about having corn available. When the speculators bailed corn prices dropped dramatically – and the ethanol folks were stuck with corn contracts at prices that no longer made any sense, and no capital available to pay for them anyway.
The failures of these plants were driven by the extreme conditions in the business world thanks to the Wall Street idiots. Most of those plants are being bought as they work through the system – for a steal in most cases. Which will be good for the industry on the whole – and for ethanol prices.
Again, “if you had” made the effort to check you could have found that plants CAN use ethanol – and some do – for processing. Others, much like Brazil does, use the waste, stalks etc, and burn for energy. You’d also find though that there are lower cost energy sources – that the ethanol is often a more valuable product. And most rational folks, when they have a choice, sell the more expensive stuff and buy the cheaper.
And you show you haven’t bothered to read a bit of what I’ve said with your comments about solar, windmills and the like. I have stated I think they are all silly. Where does all that electricity come from for plug in cars? COAL fired electric mostly. Yeah – that’s smart.
Solar and windmills are both massive boondoggles in my book. They require huge physical area to generate a relatively tiny amount of electricity. They are both huge eyesores – even the tree hugging liberals don’t want em in their back yards. Windmills are dangerous to anything that flies, including aircraft, as they actually create disturbances on radar.
And worst of all – wind and solar require an almost equal amount of conventional generating capacity – that must be held offline – in expensive hot start mode – for whenever the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow. It doesn’t get any dumber than that – building a highly inefficient alternative energy system that requires a whole conventional generating system as back up – that you can’t use unless the alternative crap isn’t working. Another smart idea. Not.
You could have found that out if you took off the blinders Sal – and bothered to read my comments, instead of blindly attacking.
As to the cut and paste claim and the industry shill garbage – all I can tell you is you’re chock full of compostable material there too. Never been part of the industry in any way shape or form, and only wish I was getting paid to post.
I’ve found its usually the folks that have nothing to stand on – no factual support behind their attacks – that are the ones that use the “shill” moniker, and worse, so easily.
Instead of intelligent rebuttal backed up by facts or documentation, those folks usually can’t do much more than insult and attack others.
I’m fine with that. I post about ethanol because I took the time to educate myself on what was true and what wasn’t. And in doing so I found the benefits far outweigh any bad.
I don’t say or believe ethanol – especially corn ethanol – is ever going to be a replacement for fossil fuels. But it IS a clean, renewable viable start – it does reduce our fossil fuel use – currently about 10%. And it is sustainable at that level as Brazil has shown.
Had you taken time to read my comments – instead of slamming those blinders on, you’d also have found I’m a big proponent of drill here, drill now as well. They are NOT mutually exclusive.
I originally thought like you when I first looked at ethanol. I went out to find the facts to support my opinion it was bad – a waste of money and subsidies. In doing that research – just as I experienced with the whole AGW deal – I learned differently. Ethanol isn’t without its issues, but again as Brazil has proven, it can be successful and sustainable, and can be an important part of our overall energy program.
I’m gonna keep studying it and the industry and encouraging others to educate themselves as well.
I’ve pretty much learned folks like you are not much worth arguing with – I think most people can see through the bombast – that the emperor’s a little light on clothes. I’ve learned that most reasonable folks, even if they disagree, if you give them rational thought and some facts and/or data they can look at themselves, do want to educate themselves and learn about the issues. May not change their mind but at least they make their decisions based on more than hot air and inaccurate rhetoric.
If you want to post some facts or support for your claims I’ll be happy to look at it – I spend as much time looking at the opposition side in most of my research. Most of the time it simply reinforces your own educated beliefs, but sometimes you learn a bit along the way. And even on occasion, that you were pure and simple wrong.
Smokey says:
January 1, 2012 at 6:36 pm
A. Scott says:
“Unless of course you think the US Dept of Energy, and the Iowa and Wisconsin universities are publishing ‘snake oil’…”
They know where their bread is buttered. Only the credulous believe what they publish isn’t influenced by the $billions in federal grant money shoveled out every year, or that big agriculture doesn’t have a vested interest in promoting self-serving schemes like using food for fuel.
Hmmm … I got the impression you were better than that smokey – you indicated you wanted to hear more early on i the thread – that I shouldn’t give up just because of a few jerks.
If you think every scientist, institution, agency and the people in them are shills because they get funding or promote a particular position, then I don’t know how you can believe anything.
There certainly are some bad actors – some of the “cabal” on the AGW side, Patzek and Pimentel on the ethanol front, etc. but to paint all with that brush is silly.
I believe nothing. I go to the root data and actually read the reports. I go to their sources and wherever possible try understand, and where able do some simple replications. I often go to multiple sources and build my own data sets and see how they compare.
Ethanol is primarily a numbers, not a science, game. Sure there’s science involved – but at it’s most basic level its pretty settled. As Patzek and Pimentel showed, you can’t get away with crap “science” – with cooking the books – when most of the work is math and data.
Figuring if ethanol makes sense is about gathering data, understanding and visualizing how it all fits and interacts, and then crunching it. Something I’m pretty decent at. Its usually not terribly hard to do and numbers rarely lie – they usually will lead you to a credible answer.
Take our buddy eyesonu … he’s been harping on that same ‘ol ethanol is terrible because corn for ethanol has forced out cotton crops thing since start of this thread. Notwithstanding that he still hasn’t figured out or understood he is using the wrong data, the data does give an answer for his claim.
The short story is the old supply and demand thing. Cotton supply and demand – not ethanol or corn. If the plant too much prices go down. Pretty soon with less supply prices go up. So they all speculate and get on the “boom” wagon and plant a bunch more – cause everyone wants their piece of the pie. And then supply exceeds demand and prices go down.
Eyesonu says it was ethanol and the resultant demand for corn – that caused cotton crops planting to drop. And on surface there looks like support for that claim – 2007 cotton acreage planted decreased 20.21% from the 2000-2011 average, and corn crops increased 12.26% from same average. This after both cotton and corn acreage planted was relatively unchanged from 1996 to 2006.
Dig a bit deeper though and you find out more. From 1996 to 2006 cotton prices gradually dropped from $80 to $58 per pound – while planted acreage stayed roughly the same.
There was a reason – nothing to do with ethanol or corn – Cotton plantings did drop off in 2007 And here is why the cotton crop plantings were down in 2007 – lack of demand and resultant low prices – NOT because of ethanol edging out cotton:
Too much cotton, sluggish market and weakening demand die to economic and issues. Add the resultant low prices. THAT is why cotton acreage dropped sharply in 2007. The deepening financial crisis is why they dropped in 2008 and 2009 although by increasingly smaller amounts.
Planted corn acres did increase in 2007 up 12.26% compared to the 200-2011 average, before dropping, -8% for the next several years as the economy sputtered.
Cotton plantings remained at that low mark from 2007 thru 2009, but the strategy worked – prices recovered from 58 cents a pound to 64 cents. With the economy a little better and some pent up demand from 3 low crop years – plantings of cotton increased 20% from 2009 to 2010 and price increased to $1.12. Chasing the dragon plantings were up 34% from 2010 to 2011.
A KEY NOTE: while corn acreage increased in 2007, as the cotton acres planted increased 61% from low of 9.15 million in 2009 to 14.72 in 2011 corn acres also increased. Corn did not “take” cotton acreage.
As always happens there may trouble ahead again for cotton. After investor exuberance jacked the price up to well over over $1.30 per pound it has crashed and hard – now down to 87 cents. Demand unexpected sagged at the same time all the cotton investor planted is coming to market.
Likely only the terrible crop in the US due to weather and flooding has kept prices from heading back down to the 55 cents range.
Next year we’ll very likely see a BIG drop in acres planted. Sadly the same uninformed people will be screaming the same uninformed inaccurate garbage about corn and ethanol stealing those acres away from corn.
The fact that they aren’t remotely correct won’t bother them at all. Hopefully some will see thru their uniformed charades.
Catcracking … sorry, not a lotta time for a response for you here, gotta get a little sleep and the comments above were more important and useful 😉
In my opinion the quick answer is what I said to ‘ol Sal above. Everything, especially new technology, takes time and money to develop.
The last 4 years have been the worst financial climate in most of our lifetimes. There is little capital out there, and almost nothing for anything with any risk.
There have been small commercial scale demonstration projects that have been successful. But the cubic yards of capital needed to finance large scale application – to pay for the time necessary to tune and refine the processes, while generating no revenue on hundreds of millions in capital invested – simply aren’t there right now.
R&D and early stage development requires speculative investors – and they are all vacationing in warm places preserving assets the next several (and past) years.
There is some gubbermint $ still around but even our lil buddy Obama has to be getting at least a tad bit scared after Solyndra and now the government paid for electric cars (made in Finland) that are exploding or whatever. Its an election year as well – and with the exception of some voter bribes, errr, economic stimulous dollar in key voter states I think its slim pickin’s to count on Obama to fund cellulosic much more this year.
With no capital companies like Gevo must generate revenue or die. Switching to the proven corn process accomplishes that. They have a chance to live to try again when things are better.
The other problem is – as a start up new technology, even if cellulosic is working it is likely at a big price disadvantage I think.
So I don’t think what we see here is necessarily a failure of the technology – if you have light to shed be interested to hear it – but more just the realities of the economic crapstorm we’re in the middle of thanks to the scumbags on Wall Street and the current President who seems intent on giving them the rest of the country not already owned by them or China.
Oh, and sorry eyesonu … your reply from me was usurped by the response above to smokey. You’ll just have to read it and fill in the blanks. Its very clear that cotton acreage planted was reduced because of prices, supply and demand for cotton, not because corn for ethanol production stole away those acres.
Market conditions and price caused fewer acres to be planted, and those fewer acres would have planted regardless of whether ethanol existed. A simple fact.
Like how and where you are still wrong on the cotton acreages planted. Its millions of acres for the total US cotton crop. Not “thousands” of acres as you insisted.
If you had bothered to read any of the many attempts I made to point you in the right direction instead of mostly attack, denigrate and insult – you would have learned that you were reporting the American Pima cotton sub-segment of the total US crop. A tiny portion – a few hundred thousand acres – compared to the 14.72 million acres of total US cotton planted in 2011.
Had you not been so stubborn and pig-headed you could have followed the instructions, figured it out for yourself, and could have made accurate, educated comments on the topic.
One last thing – for Sal, eyesonu or any of the rest that claim those of us simply interested in the facts are just cutting and pasting industry garbage here’s a link for you – this is a small part of one of my spreadsheets (one tab out of 14 in this sheet alone) that shows a compilation of data I collected regarding this topic over the past week.
http://goo.gl/Qt6zt
The interesting thing is I can find almost every piece of data used by the ethanol positive folks – unlike the AGW cabal. And I can find other cool stuff, easily – like the mathematical model Iowa State uses to calculate profitability and costs for a corn ethanol plant, along with all the data.
I was, for example, able to easily figure out the appx capital cost per gallon of ethanol porduced for the plant and infrastructure – appx .12 to .14 cents a gallon for a 100mgpy ethanol plant. I also have a full set – contrary to Sals repeated silly assertions – of all the crop production costs – shown 3 ways – for a land owner farmer, a cash rent farmer and combined version. And yes it included all the costs Sal whined about including fertilizer, irrigation, and yes, even a prorated equipment cost and similar detail.
What I’ve done isn’t dissimilar – although far, far, less detailed – as to what M & M did with the hockey stick. You try to fin the data and the formulas used and see if they make sense when you do them.
Seems like those of us with a different opinion here are treated by a few here exactly like M & M and others at the warmists sites – ridiculed and attacked regardless of the amount of effort, information and data presented.
Its a bit sad to see the intolerance and attacks, unsupported by any documentation or fact, from some here. As I noted before – you expect a tough crowd here – but also a fair one. Thats why I – and I think many – like the site.
Some folks just don’t seem to get that message – you can see a few in this thread. Hopefully all can do better in this new year.
Dear A. Scott,
I hope they’re paying you overtime over there at the White House Troll Room. Problem with paid trolls is that they are only taught to cut and paste and link. There is no requirement that they read and understand the arguments that they present.
You provided a link to the Pacific Ethanol Institutes web site that supposedly debunks Paztek and Pimintel. That link points to a scatter plot, entitled “Comparative Results of Ethanol Energy Balance Studies 1995-2005”, that simply plots Paztek and Pimintel and five other authors on a scale that compares claimed energy balances. Paztek and Pimintel claim a less than unity gain in the process and the others show a greater than unity gain. There is no associated text, no debunking, only a visual comparason of results. In fact, Paztek and Pimintel take on each of these studies and show how they, individually, violate the first law of thermodynamics by not conserving either mass or energy. I would say that the link that you provided debunks the studies that you reference in your arguments.
You point out that Paztek works as an oil company consultant yet you reference contrasting studies from such notable objective commenters as “Agri-Foods Canada”. This is a bad-faith and ameteurish argument. Objective scientists and engineers are not tainted by the interests of their clients but, Agri-Foods Canada is hardly objective. It has an agenda that can be seen with the naked eye from Alpha Centauri.
Paxtek and Pimintel give full potential energy to all of the outputs including DDGS, corn oil, and isobutanol contrary to your claim. Note that I said potential energy as opposed to actual energy as the actual energy that may be realized depends on how the materials are used but, will always be less than the potential value. In this case Paxtek and Pimintel are painting a more positive picture of ETOH from corn than it deserves.
Paxtek and Pimintel include no input energy term to account for the energy costs involved with the environmental treatment of wastewater and air pollution involved in the corn processing plant. They don’t account for the energy required to reverse the environmental damage done by nitrogen runoff from corn fields or the cost of air pollution mitigation for the fertilizer and pesticide production. Inclusion of these input energy terms would make corn-ETOH look really bad putting it in the 7:1 ballpark.
My biggest argument with Paxtek and Pimintel is that they use the energy in fertilizer and pesticides as inputs where they should use the actual fossil-fuel energy that was used to create them. Now we are at about 11:1.
Before you respond, please read the various papers and be ready to name specific Paztek and Pimintel inputs that are bogus including a science-based reason as to why they should be excluded. Please show where they exclude outputs. Not as you did before because, I can reference the inclusion of the products that you claim are not included.
Earn your troll money and make this a real discussion
A. Scott says:
“Your “fertilizer runoff” statement is simply ludicrous. It shows exactly the mentality of people who
are married to ideas and not facts. It is a great sound bite but ignores reality. The reality is folks like you claim we shouldn’t be growing corn for fuel – we should be growing it for corn instead.
What is the constant there? You grow corn for either. And when you grow corn it doesn’t make any meaningful difference what its used for – corn for food takes fertilizer and causes same runoff as well.
What a ridiculous statement. Corn is perhaps the largest user of of nitrogen on a per acre basis requiring about 1.5Lbs of N per bushel of corn. The demand for ethanol and the associated price pressures has increased the acreage planted as corn.
While I agree with you about the hypoxia in the Gulf the sad fact is that EPA is moving towards strict Nitrogen regulations suing models that assume massive N loss from corn production. The way the regulations are being enforced the costs of N will not necessarily come from the corn producers but will hit the local governments in the costs of building advanced N removal facilities for both sewage and storm water. The costs for Maryland to remove the N produced in ethanol production are estimated at $10bn which will be picked up by the tax payer.
Until the ethanol lobby reigns in EPA’s nitrogen madness – the tax payer is going to find they are increasingly being asked to pay for ag subsidies, ethanol subsidies, higher food costs, higher fuel cost, higher maintenance costs and additional hundreds of billions$ to remove the nitrogen.
Should be Patzek and Pimentel.
Let me try again. That is Pimentel and Patzek 2005 as a reference
Noticed that you harped on the cotton issue. I haven’t checked back to see if the acreage was in millions or thousands but would make no difference as the mathmatical relationship was still the same. The percent change would be the same.
You have conviently sidestepped the USDA publication as noted showing the increase in corn planted 2006 thru 2011 and the drop in other grains planted (sorghum, oats, barley) and the huge price increases in all. Earlier in one of your very many posts you stated that corn had not affected other grains.
You are very motivated in your ethanol agenda. Why would that be?
@A. Scott:
give it up man , i have the the time and until now the inclination to read your stuff with interest.
but on this one my eyes glazed over about 40 or so of your posts ago. now when i see your name i just whizz right on by.
if you really need the money i here tell that the mitchell brothers up in san fernando always need a good fluffer. you should do well at that.
Z
A.Scott.
Please read the URL below. If you cannot conclude that cellulosic ethanol is a total failure , there is nothing more that I can add to convince you. This is the situation we are in after billions have been spent without any intelligent analysis by the DOE to determine if cellulosic ethanol is technically viable. We all knew that cellulosic ethanol did not make economic sense in the first place. It’s time to pull the plug, end the ethanol mandate, stop misleading potential investors, and stop wasting taxpayers money. Also the average person driving his car to work,etc will have to ultimately pay the cost for the failed policy via biofuel waiver credits. More $$$ is not going to solve the technical problems let alone the economics.
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/08/15/cellulosic-ethanol-targets-mandating-the-nonexistent/
Meanwhile spokesmen from the petroleum industry said optimistic production goals create financial hardships for their industry. Greg Scott, executive vice president and general counsel for the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, pointed to this year’s 6 million gallon volume requirement for cellulosic biofuels as proof that optimistic expectations lead to real-world implications for refiners obligated to comply with the mandate. “If the EPA is wrong or if a biodiesel trade group representative or a cellulosic ethanol spokesperson is wrong in his or her rosy predictions for production, it is our members that will experience the economic and regulatory pain,” he stated. No cellulosic biofuel RINs (renewable identification numbers) were generated between July 2010 and May 2011 and the only facility registered to generate cellulosic biofuel RINs—Range Fuels Inc.—is not operating, he said, adding that the EPA should take that into consideration when determining next year’s cellulosic volume. “Obligated parties will be required to buy up to 6 million cellulosic biofuel waiver credits at a $1.13 per gallon RIN in 2011. This is, in essence, a $6.78 million tax that NPRA’s members must pay to EPA due to the agency’s misguided optimism regarding production this year.”
“OK, so the industry is falling short. But how much of the 350 million total gallons of cellulosic ethanol that was originally scheduled to be produced by the end of 2011 has actually been produced? Actual qualifying production of cellulosic ethanol through June 2011 is zero gallons. ZERO.”
eyesonu says:
January 2, 2012 at 10:08 am
Noticed that you harped on the cotton issue. I haven’t checked back to see if the acreage was in millions or thousands but would make no difference as the mathmatical relationship was still the same. The percent change would be the same.
You have conviently sidestepped the USDA publication as noted showing the increase in corn planted 2006 thru 2011 and the drop in other grains planted (sorghum, oats, barley) and the huge price increases in all. Earlier in one of your very many posts you stated that corn had not affected other grains.
You are very motivated in your ethanol agenda. Why would that be?
The expected non-response response 😉
Thousand vs millions make a huge difference when it comes to acreage planted. Especially when you still don’t understand unit of measure wasn’t the important difference. You CORRECTLY posted the cotton data you did – thousands of acres was correct.
But the TOTAL US cotton crop was 10.97 million acres in 2010 and 14.71 million ares in 2011.
It was NOT a unit of measure error — you read the wrong data – you used the American Pima cotton crop, a tiny subset – 202 thousand acres in 2010, and 288 thousand acres in 2011 – of the overall US cotton acreage planted. There is no meaningful data usable regarding your claims. Neither the “mathematical relationship” or the percent change, is the same.
On top of using the wrong data – you posted HARVESTED ACRES data. As you admitted, harvested acres are of little or no value to the discussion as they represent the effects of weather, rains, floods and the like.
I didn’t sidestep anything either – I addressed your original claim – which was regarding cotton and corn acreage. I addressed that in detail showing exactly why cotton p[rices and resultant planted acreages moved as they did – and showed that the cotton acres planted were a direct result of supply, demand and price. There is little point in continuing with you. You simply ignored that like you’ve ignored everything else here.
Its kinda like arguing with a rock. A rock can be a very good listener, but about the only thing intelligent it can tell you one thing for sure.. When the rock is wet it tells you its raining. Well, that – or I guess maybe that you’re peein’ on it … 😉
catcracking …
I read the article and agree with pretty much all of it. I have said the same in the answer to you above.
It is clear Cellulosic has not delivered.
But I see nothing in that article – or others – that show cellulosic is a failed technology. The primary issue is scaling – the basic technology has been around and worked for years.
And I think its entirely fair to cut some slack, as I noted above, considering the unprecedented financial collapse this country experience the last 4 years.
New technology, especially when you’re still do a lot of R&D type stuff as you roll out commercialization – is very capital intensive. And there is very very little capital out there – with almost all going to safe investments like warehouses and office buildings and other boring stuff with steady existing cash flow.
And what is the perspective on the cellulosic amounts? Yeah, 500 million gallons sounds like a huge amount – but its not. Less than the output of 5 existing corn ethanol plants.
The better perspective is that 500 million gals is just a couple percent of the existing ethanol production in the US. It is not like they are missing some huge target – at this point they were simply supposed to be in earliest stages of getting started.
Once again I also agree with you and the author – as I did above – that penalizing anyone for failure to blend cellulosic when its not available is ridiculous. I don’t think even the industry supports that. It is just more of the imbecilic over-reach of the EPA under this silly administration.
I agree with the ethanol proponents that maintaining the RFS goals is worthwhile even if they cannot deliver today. It does exactly what they say – the stability of demand helps encourage investment. But again penalizing for non-use is about as stupid as it gets – simply waive the requirement until there is cellulosic available. And then scale the requirement to the production available plus an “incentive” cushion. .
We are a year or more out at least from any semblance of our economy and the financial markets getting back to operating. I say give ethanol 3-5 years – once access to capital and that type stuff is available again, and then if they have not made big progress reevaluate.
Brazil took 40 years to get to sustainability they have today. They do not NEED oil – although I know from my friend the Brazilian Consul they are thrilled to have it. They can sell oil or ethanol whichever makes more money. Something that certainly would hurt use either.
If you have some info about the viability of the process I’d be interested in reviewing.
Sal Minella says:
January 2, 2012 at 8:13 am
Dear A. Scott,
I hope they’re paying you overtime over there at the White House Troll Room. Problem with paid trolls is that they are only taught to cut and paste and link. There is no requirement that they read and understand the arguments that they present.
Sal – still up to same ol tricks I see. Pretty funny stuff too. Clearly you have read anything I’ve said – if you think I would have anything to do with this corrupt administration or the “I like playing the President on TV, but the real job is too hard” occupant of the White House you are even more wrong than you’ve been on everything else.
Tell you what – for a change YOU post a cogent list of questions, and or claims WITH supporting documentation. If you think the energy balance is negative – prove it – step by step – with some facts and real data. I’ll be glad to debate any meaningful post from you. Won’t even hold you to the “civil” standard since you’ve shown you’re hard pressed to handle that one.
If you think Patzek & Pimentel have the answers – show us exactly how.
Dr. Dave says: “When do you give up? After 40 comments? 50? Your last lengthy comment (replete with cut & paste talking points from the ethanol industry propaganda sites) was cute but alas, it was rife with…uhh…let’s say “inaccuracies”. First let me caution you about using Texas A&M as a fount of wisdom. Texas A&M is the home of Andrew Dessler for crying out loud! Distiller’s grains (i.e. ethanol waste product) can not possibly be higher in nutritional value than the raw grains. We don’t need much ethanol in gasoline to serve as an oxygenator. Actually, there is little need for oxygenators (MTBE or ethanol) in gasoline anymore because most vehicles today have computer controlled fuel injection. Oxygenators were necessary for older vehicles with carburetors in cold weather.
The bottom line is there is no good reason for ethanol as a motor fuel. Hell, I don’t care if people want to make it or people want to buy it. I just don’t want to be forced to buy it or subsidize it. Even you would probably agree that the ethanol industry is now “well developed” (e.g. billions of gallons a year and 40% of our annual corn crop). So why not end the mandates and subsidies? If this is such a whiz bang technology it should survive on its own, right? But I’ll gladly bet you a month’s salary that if the mandated use, the subsidies and the tariffs were removed, the industry would collapse within a year (possibly two because some idiots like E85).”
1) My understanding is that distiller’s grains are higher in nutritive value for cattle (per pound) because the starch has been removed. My understanding is that cattle do not digest starch efficiently. 2) That ethanol acts as an oxygenator has to do with reducing pollution, a subject about which I know little. But the primary reason large amounts of ethanol are useful in gasoline production is because it increases the octane rating. 3) The subsidy is gone now and I think that’s a good idea. The mandates will probably remain in some parts of the country at least, but even if all government rules were eliminated you’d still see large amounts of ethanol added to gasoline as it makes money for the blender. It’s basically too late to go back to a pre-ethanol world. It’s also too late to go back to a world without cell phones. The reason is the same. In both cases the items are useful to humans.
And there’s another side to the “mandates”; the government also regulates the maximum amount of ethanol that can be added to gasoline. If this restriction were eliminated, you’d see blends available with higher than 10% (as in Brazil’s typical 20%). As US production of ethanol continues to increase (without a subsidy), I expect to see the 10% cap lifted to 20%. This will happen probably over the next two or three years no matter who gets elected. Otherwise it will cause us to unnecessarily ship ethanol abroad in return for an increase in crude oil imports.
These kinds of changes mean that some older vehicles will require either modification to run with modern fuels, or will require higher cost fuels. The place where this is most noticeable now is probably with avgas, that is very high octane gasoline. I read somewhere that most of the lead put into the air in the US nowadays (from transportation) is due to avgas which is 0.14% of US gasoline consumption.
Various things become obsolete with time. For example, I wonder if it’s still possible to use a phone that uses clicks instead of beeps (like the old rotary phones that you “dialed”)? I’m sure there’s a lot of lighting equipment that became obsolete when kerosene replaced whale oil, and replacement components for TRS-80 computers are probably hard to find. Technology moves on.