The folly of E15 anti-hydrocarbon policie
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EPA’s E-15 ethanol plan is bad for our pocketbooks, environment and energy policy
Guest post by Paul Driessen
The Obama Administration’s anti-hydrocarbon ideology and “renewable” energy mythology continues to subsidize crony capitalists and the politicians they help keep in office – on the backs of American taxpayers, ratepayers and motorists. The latest chapter in the sorry ethanol saga is a perfect example.
Bowing to pressure from ADM, Cargill, Growth Energy and other Big Ethanol lobbyists, Lisa Jackson’s Environmental Protection Agency has decided to allow ethanol manufacturers to register as suppliers of E15 gasoline. E15 contains 15% ethanol, rather than currently mandated 10% blends.
The next lobbying effort will focus on getting E15 registered as a fuel in individual states and persuading oil companies to offer it at service stations. But according to the Associated Press and Washington Post, Team Obama already plans to provide taxpayer-financed grants, loans and loan guarantees to “help station owners install 10,000 blender pumps over the next five years” and promote the use of biofuels.
Pummeled by Obama policies that have helped send regular gasoline prices skyrocketing from $1.85 a gallon when he took office to $4.00 today – many motorists will welcome any perceived “bargain gas.” E15 will likely reduce their obvious pump pain by several cents a gallon, thus persuading people to fill up their cars, trucks and maybe even boats, lawnmowers and other equipment with the new blends.
That would be a huge mistake.
E15 gasoline will be cheaper because we already paid for it with decades of taxpayer subsidies that the Congressional Budget Office says cost taxpayers $1.78 every time a gallon of ethanol replaced a gallon of gasoline. Ethanol blends get fewer miles per tank than gasoline. More ethanol means even worse mileage. People may save at the pump, but cost per mile will increase, as will car maintenance and repair costs.
Ethanol collects water, which can cause engine stalls. It corrodes plastic, rubber and soft metal parts. Pre-2001 car engines, parts and systems may not be able to handle E15, which could also increase emissions and adversely affect engine, fuel pump and sensor durability. Older cars and motorcycles mistakenly (or for price or convenience) fueled with E15 could conk out on congested highways or in the middle of nowhere, boat engines could die miles from land or in the face of a thunderstorm, and snowmobiles could sputter to a stop in a frigid wilderness.
Homeowners and yard care professionals have voiced concerns that E15’s corrosive qualities could damage their gasoline-powered equipment. Because it burns hotter than gasoline, high ethanol gasoline engines could burn users or cause lawnmowers, chainsaws, trimmers, blowers and other outdoor power equipment to start inadvertently or catch fire, they worry.
As several trade associations have noted in a lawsuit, the Clean Air Act says EPA may grant a waiver for a new fuel additive or fuel blend only if it has demonstrated that the new fuel will not damage the emissions control devices of “any” engine in the existing inventory. E15 has not yet met this requirement. EPA should not have moved forward on E15 and should not have ignored studies that indicate serious potential problems with this high-ethanol fuel blend.
Largely because of corn-based ethanol, US corn prices shot up from an annual average of $1.96 per bushel in 2005 to $6.01 in 2011. This year we will make ethanol from 5 billion bushels of corn grown on an area the size of Iowa. E15 fuels will worsen the problem, especially if corn crops fall below expectations.
Ethanol mandates mean more revenues and profits for corn growers and ethanol makers. However, skyrocketing corn prices mean beef, pork, poultry, egg and fish producers pay more for corn-based feed; grocery manufacturers pay more for corn, meat, fish and corn syrup; and families see prices soar for almost everything on their dinner table.
Farmers like pork producer Jim A were hammered hard. Over a 20-year period, Jim became a part owner in a Texas operation and planned to buy out the other shareholders. But when corn and ethanol subsidies went into effect, the cost of feed corn shot from $2.80 per bushel in 2005 to “over $7.00” a bushel in 2008. “We went from treading water and making payments, to losing $100,000 a month,” he told me.
His farm was threatened with foreclosure and the ominous prospect of having to make up the difference in a short sale. After “never missing a single payment to anybody” in his life, he almost lost everything. Fortunately, at the eleventh hour, a large pork producer leased the property, the bank refinanced his loans and Jim arranged a five-year lease. But thanks to ethanol he almost lost everything he’d ever worked for.
Even worse, the price of tortillas and tamales also skyrocketed, leaving countless poor Latin American families even more destitute. Soaring corn and wheat prices have also made it far harder for the USAID and World Food Organization to feed the world’s malnourished, destitute children.
Simply put, corn ethanol is wasteful and immoral. And yet E15 advocates want to go even further.
“For 40 years we have been addicted to foreign oil,” says Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis. “Our nation needs E15 to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, keep gas prices down at the pump, and end the extreme fluctuations in gas prices caused by our reliance on fuel from unstable parts of the world.”
That’s nonsense. America is blessed with centuries of untapped petroleum resources that antediluvian Deep Ecologists, ideology-driven politicians and EPA officials, and subsidy-obsessed renewable energy lobbyists seem intent on keeping locked up, regardless of the negative consequences.
These oil and gas deposits cannot be developed overnight. However, 40 years is not overnight. Yet that’s how long America has kept Alaska’s ANWR coastal plain, most of our Outer Continental Shelf, and most of our western states’ public lands and resources off limits to leasing, exploration and drilling.
If we had started the process twenty, ten or even five years ago, we’d have enough oil flowing to slash imports and cut world crude and US pump prices significantly. If President Obama had approved the Keystone XL pipeline, within two years over 800,000 barrels of Canadian, Montana and North Dakota crude would be flowing daily to Texas refineries – with similar effects on imports and prices.
Developing these resources would also generate hundreds of thousands of jobs – and billions of dollars in lease bonuses and rents, production royalties, and corporate and personal taxes.
America’s surging natural gas production has already driven that fuel’s price from $8 to barely $2.00 per thousand cubic feet (or million Btus). That alone will persuade auto makers to build nat-gas-powered cars and trucks (and consumers to buy them), without massive new subsidy programs as advocated by T. Boone Pickens and assorted politicians. Natural gas can even be converted into ethanol (and diesel).
It will happen, unless Congress interferes – or EPA tries to regulate horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) into oblivion, and send natural gas prices back into the stratosphere.
Right now, we are burning our own – and the world’s – food, to fuel cars and trucks. And to grow corn, convert it into 14 billion gallons of ethanol, and ship it by truck or train, we are consuming one-third of America’s entire corn crop – and using millions of pounds of insecticides, billions of pounds of fertilizer, vast amounts of energy (all petroleum-based), and trillions of gallons of water.
Just imagine how those numbers will soar, if E15 is adopted nationwide – or if Big Ethanol’s big dream becomes reality, and motorists begin to burn “cheap” corn-based E85 in flex-fuel vehicles.
Will President Obama, Democrats and extreme environmentalists ever end their hatred of hydrocarbons, and their obsession with biofuels – and start embracing reliable, affordable energy that actually works?
__________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.cfact.org) and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
Related articles
- U.S. approves 20 firms to make ethanol for E15 (reuters.com)
- EPA moves closer to approval of 15 pct ethanol gas (kansascity.com)
- EPA gives E15 go-ahead despite objections, approves production applications (green.autoblog.com)
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My emphasis added. Damn right! But that also means that we should use it, but just to use it wisely.
Even stations in areas ‘not in attainment’ (of EPA air quality requirements) where Reformulated Gasoline is mandated?
I would not at first blush think that was possible (like in the DFW area in Texas where we are ‘not in attainment’).
http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/energy/renewable/ethanol.php
What’s a few million acres of tropical forest lost and more than a few million of the world’s poorest living their short lives in hunger, when you are saving the planet.
And if you want to stop the pain at the pump, promote natural gas vehicles. NG price in the USA is about a quarter of petrol/diesel.
Thank you mr Driessen for a very informative aricle. I think you ar absoloutely right that it is a huge mistace to use corn for methanol production. But what about the claims that it should be possible to use straw and other non-food resources as source for methanol production?
Paul,
We need to tie all this insanity together. Ethanol production in 2011 consumed some 40 million acres using about 6 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer. This fertilizer runoffs into the Mississippi River according to EPA creating a New Jersey size dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. (since there is an awful lot of fish and shrimp in the dead zone they must be zombies) In EPA terms one Iowa size area of ethanol destined corn creates one NJ sized Gulf dead zone.
EPA to “save the Gulf” is considering regulations requiring drastic nitrogen reductions of 45% or higher for the entire Miss. River drainage Basin. EPA admits they have no idea how to achieve a 45% reduction without getting us off of meat and other high nitrogen food crops, passing on billions of costs to upgrade treatment plants and new emission controls on fossil fuel NOx.
EPA is similarly pushing smart growth in attempt to limit our sprawling development habits which to date have eaten up about 3% of the land in the US. EPA scolds us that the 66million acres we use for our homes and businesses is unsustainable. Yet they seem happy about ethanol consuming 40 million acres and no end to the growth in sight. We can expect to see ethanol consume more land than all our urban and suburban developed areas in a few years! Homes Bad- Ethanol Good.
So I guess we all have to live in high-rise housing so that EPA can direct more land towards ethanol production that raises the cost of fuel and food. The high costs of corn also will see land pulled out of CRP to produce more corn- hurting wildlife in the process. The large fertilizer needs for corn based ethanol increases the nitrogen loadings to surface waters which allows EPA to declare nitrogen TMDLs for all waters draining into the Gulf of Mexico- expanding its power exponentially. And we will have to listen to increasing calls to go meatless because the nitrogen signature is too high. That is if we have enough money to buy meat and pay for the treatment upgrades.
I have never seen a more fact-deficient illogical rant published on this site, nor such a series of comments in the same vein. Study some history and economics. If you want 1970’s prices on corn, sign up to accept 1970’s wages. If you like MTBE, move to a state that followed the oil companies lead and used it to meet the oxygenated fuels mandate to clean up the air, and now have MTBE in their water. The next time you swallow a line about alcohol damage to engines, ask why 99% don’t have a problem. If you think the U.S. should feed the world with cheap corn, why shouldn’t the Middle East be subsidizing them with cheap oil? If you think you know what’s in your gasoline, can you explain which of the 20+ grades of EPA-approved regular gas you are buying, according to the seasonal requirements in your area.
Ethanol-ers, is this correct?
The energy of ethanol relative to gasoline:
A. 76,000 = BTU of energy in a gallon of ethanol
B. 116,090 = BTU of energy in a gallon of gasoline
C. A / B = .655 ~ 2/3 GGE of energy in a gallon of ethanol. (GGE =Gallon Gas Equiv.)
D. B / A = 1.53 = Gallons of ethanol with the energy of 1 gallon of gasoline.
As this applies to mileage, Ethanol proponents may claim it doesn’t hurt mileage, but this has to go against physics. E85 MPG rating figures, with all other factors being equal (e.g. engine compression ratio), should achieve about 2/3 of the MPG rating for straight gasoline. This seems to be borne out looking at the EPA’s figures for the ethanol mileage tests as they show to be 2/3 of the MPG for gasoline only.
ref
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It appears atheok answered Camburn quite effectively. I have been studying the ethanol debate for several years (and not just the talking points put out by the ethanol industry). Every point Camburn made was either incorrect, misleading or immaterial. Everybody knows that there’s only about a nickel’s worth of corn in a box of cornflakes. Most of the expense is transportation, processing raw corn into palatable ceral, packaging and marketing. The problem is the cost of feedstock to grow meat (the most efficient form of protein for human consumption).
A couple other quick points. The octane rating of a fuel is just an arbitrary measure to compare the fuel to the properties of pure octane (an eight carbon satuaruated hydrocarbon). Fuels with higher octane ratings don’t necessarily contain more energy. High octane fuels are necessary for high compression engines (general aviation engines are high compression). Burning high octane fuel in an engine not designed for it will not produce added performance and may even result in diminished performance.
Ethanol essentially replaced MTBE as an oxygenator in fuel. There was never really anything wrong with MTBE other than it stinks and tastes bad. It’s not particularly toxic. The fact that it ended up in some water tables is not the fault of the MTBE per se but rather old, leaking storage tanks. Most cars on the road today utilize electronic fuel injection. In these vehicles an oxygenator is not really even needed.
Everyone who feeds at the ethanol trough seems to loathe liberty and the free market. End the subsidies and the mandated use and let’s see if this, now mature, industry can survive. If it can’t survive without taxpayer money or government mandated demand, it is a non-viabale technology.
CO2…
Ethanol is has about 1/2 of the energy of octane… that is you need 2X as much ethanol to develop RPMs and Torque at the wheels of your vehicle.
Ignition and combustion control systems know this and accordingly will put more fuel through the combustion chamber to allow you to drive as if nothing has changed.
The trouble is you will require 7% more fuel to make up for 15% ethanol.
The CO2 production does not change since, any way you slice it, you need to produce enough CO2 and H2O for propulsion and it really doesn’t matter if come from propane, methane, octane or ethane.(ethanol).
The seeming advantage is the reduction is SOx and NOx which is ok with me. Just don’t tell me that CO2 production is reduced. That is neither true nor required, Furthermore, the EPA should get out of the CO2 business.
Never attribute to stupidity what is more parsimoniously explained by malice.
My what an interesting collection of misstatements, outright lies and outdated info presented as fact. You don’t suppose the author is trying to hype his books do you?
Yes ethanol absorbs water — just like the gasoline dryer you pay extra money for from the autoparts store to prevent gas line antifreeze. It absorbs water and carries it out of the fuel tank preventing rust. In modern sealed fuel systems ethanol cannot absorb significant amounts of moisture from the air, and it actually removes water from the fuel system.
Yes it corrodes some plastic, rubber and soft metal parts. Gasket materials and plastics that have not been used in properly designed fuel systems since the 1970’s.
The soft metal parts they are referring to are soft metals like zinc that have not been used in modern fuel systems for decades. Modern cars designed (and warranted to run on 10% ethanol) will have no problem with 15%. In fact most modern cars will run just fine on a 30% or higher blend of ethanol based on actual testing, not some based on the opinion of someone with an ax to grind. Ethanol actually cleans out the fuel system. Some modern cars actually get better fuel mileage on high ethanol fuel blends than they do on straight gasoline, and the certainly make more power.
What cause causes many of the problems mentioned above is the general level of ignorance about fuel ethanol. People are getting ripped off by auto garages who are either through ignorance of malicious intent hitting them with bogus repairs that are not needed. They are using ethanol as a handy scape goat for their screw ups and an excuse to sell parts.
The stalling and other problems mentioned are due to ethanol cleaning out all the crap left by straight gasoline due to the accumulation of tars and partially oxidized gasoline heavy ends. All you need to do is replace the clogged fuel filter and the problem goes away. The City of Denver went through this in the 1970’s when they first introduce ethanol added gasoline to the police car fleet. Replace all the fuel filters after they collected the crud from the gasoline and no more problems.
We have been driving on ethanol added gasoline here in Denver for decades ( required by law in 1988 to reduce emissions) Yes that’s right the ethanol reduced emissions rather that increasing them.In fact that is why it was mandated to meet EPA emissions requirements — specifically winter CO levels.
In fact one of the ways to get cars that have trouble passing the IM240 dyno emissions test here in Colorado to get a clean test is to add 2-3 gallons of E85 to the fuel tank. In many cases the added ethanol it improves combustion enough for the owner to avoid expensive repairs to get a clean emissions test.
In actual controlled tests, added ethanol caused very small changes in fuel mileage typically a only about 1.5% reduction in fuel mileage for E10 blends. In properly run tests it is hardly measurable.
http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/ap/down/oxyfuelstudy.pdf
They did it is called fuel ethanol, much less toxic, does the same job, easy to produce with existing infrastructure.
The assertions it might damage current cars is pure nonsense. In the 1970’s Brazil demonstrated that cars with unsophisticated fuel systems of the period could run on 22% ethanol blends with no problems. That is why they standardized on a low ethanol blend of about 20% (it varied over time) to allow older cars to run on the new ethanol blended fuel.
Modern cars with electronic engine management can adapt to much higher ethanol concentrations automatically with no harm to the engine or fuel system or emissions.
In much of the US we have been driving on ethanol added fuel for over 24 years (first mandated by law in 1988 here in Colorado in the winter pollution season.) It was voluntarily used even prior to that due to its lower cost per gallon, before the oil companies cornered the blending market.
I don’t like mandates any more than most of you do, in fact I would like to see the EPA get out of the way and let me put any fuel I wanted in my gas tank. If they did, I would use a blend of 60% fuel ethanol as that is usually the sweet spot where there is minimal fuel mileage loss and maximum gain in power and best cost of fuel per mile.
Don’t blame the “tax credits” they were phased out last year when the blenders tax credit was allowed to expire at the end of 2011.
Guess what high ethanol fuel blends are still cheaper than gasoline in spite of the elimination of that blenders credit. The suppliers are working a lot harder to make their price spread but is achievable with modern ethanol production methods.
At my local station that pumps E85, last week E85 was selling for $3.49 while regular gasoline was selling for $3.95. At that price spread they are just reaching the break even point where cost per mile is the same for both fuels. In the case of cars that require premium fuel the E85 is an outright steal, as it is a 112 octane fuel for less than the price of regular gas.
Yes some small engines had problems — but they were self inflicted wounds due to poor design and a failure of the manufacture to pull their head out of a dark place between their legs. Anyone with a brain would not have used incompatible gaskets and designs for small engines sold in a country where ethanol added fuel has been required by law in some locations for a generation. Small engines are very easily converted to run on ethanol added fuels with trivial changes in the fuel system. I know several folks that run them on E85 so E10 and E15 would be a no brainer for any competent engineer who was not trying to save a nickel on each engine sold or rip off his customers for expensive repair parts to fix a problem that never should have happened in the first place.
I have run 3 different cars on high ethanol blends, none of them were designed for E85 no changes in the fuel system or engine management or any kind. An 86 and 88 and 2000 model year car, and I know literally hundreds of other folks who have done exactly the same thing.
Don’t tell me what fuel to use in my car, just give me a blender pump and let me burn any mixture I want of ethanol and gasoline. In locations where blender pumps are available the most popular blend is 60% ethanol. Now why would that be if it was so destructive to older cars?
Why would a few gallons of E85 get a marginal car past a dyno emissions cycle if it increased emissions? Simple it does not increase emissions or degrade emissions equipment.
Larry
Ethanol attracts water? Then why is the water removal stuff you put in your tank 100% Ethanol? If you took a bottle of 190 proof alcohol and stuck it in a closet for five years, how much water would it attract? Seems to me that the real argument is that Ethanol burns hotter, is corrosive to parts and costs more. Not that it attracts water.
Not exactly addressing the points in the post as I’m in the UK and this is not directly an issue for us. Our farmers can’t afford to run any part of their agriculture business without subsidies so we are already paying taxes to keep the dairy, meat and cereal industries afloat. We don’t have the land to divert any of it to major biofuel production.
What does amuse me though is the recent trend for Americans to complain about their gas prices when they have had it so good for decades. Our gas prices have always, always increased at a similar rate for as long as I can remember and it has seemingly little to do with the price of world crude. Oh for sure when there is an oil scare and crude prices rise then the forecourts are quick to hike up the prices but sure as eggs is eggs, when the prices settle in the global market you can be damned sure the fuel price to the user never returns to it’s previous value.
Currently the average cost of a litre of fuel is £1.40. That’s £6.30 a gallon and at the current exchange rate that’s just a little over $10 a gallon of unleaded fuel at the pump. 63% of which is taxes (duty) to government revenue. Oh how I’d wish for your fuel woes. The last time we paid for gas what you are paying today was 15 years ago in 1997. I’d take your gas prices in a heartbeat even at today’s levels. Shame there’s not a bridge over the Atlantic, it might be worth driving over to fill up. /sarc
It’s killing heavy fuel users in industry such as the obvious, haulage, and as a result it directly affects the prices of just about every other commodity we consume in the UK.
It kind of makes me wish that ethanol or other biofuels were a credible alternative. (sadly not the case if only because it requires nearly 30% more energy to create than it produces at end product and any CO2 emission reduction is outweight by the CO2 released during the milling process ) Instead it’s another pie in the sky job creation scheme to placate the green vote.
One thing the greens might want to consider is the fact that more and more rainforest in Brazil and Asia is being cleared in order to grow food crops that the US is no longer exporting due to turning over so much land use to fuel crop in a grab for the subsidies. It’s not as sustainable as you might think.
Really sorry to hear of your surging gas (petrol) prices to over $4 a gallon. We’re at over $10 a gallon in the UK but think how green we are. Broke yes, but the green ness more than compensates and obviously our govt will use the tax raised very wisely on building thousands more ultra efficient wind turbines.
tonyb
Wish I lived some where that I could get E15. Sports cars love ethanol.
Yet another attack on ethanol riddled with half-truths, unsupported attacks and outright errors. It is at best a political rant, complete with the requisite tear-jerking foreclosure story, absent of all supporting facts or documentation and in my opinion has no place at a science and fact based site like WUWT.
If this was a AGW proponent writing this – a story with wild assertions wholly unsupported by facts – the author would be immediately and strongly taken to task.
LET ME SAY FIRST I AM A STRONG ADVOCATE OF DRILLING FOR AND USING OUR FOSSIL FUELS. I AM CURRENTLY RESEARCHING INVESTMENT IN PROJECTS IN THE BAKKEN OIL REGION.
That said renewable fuels – of all types – are an important part of our future.
As to the unsubstantiated claims:
1.) Older engines – It has been well known for many years that older cars, small engines and older boats are not appropriate users of ethanol based products. Not a thing has changed. Many older vehicles of all types have been running E10 for years with little negative long term effect, nor significant long term maintenance cost. I also find the claims that a 10% ethanol blend destroyed engines, carb’s etc specious. Ethanol CAN damage some, primarily fuel system, components – but they are things like filters, hoses, old fiberglass marine fuel tanks and some old plastic parts – almost always on OLD equipment and vehicles. The majority of the damage is, as several noted, corrected by the initial repairs, when upgrading to newer quality fuel system parts.
And most small engine manufacturers products over the last 5 years ARE fine running ethanol blends – one example: http://ethanol.husqvarna.com/ .
Husqvarna actually recommends using 89, not 87, octane E1o fuel in their equipment – proving false the authors heated rhetoric about “burning” and catching fire.
2.) Subsidies – The blenders credit subsidies were eliminated last year. The authors continued use of this red herring shows a complete abandonment of any attempt to provide factual, relevant, accurate information or insight. The OLD subsidies have NOTHING to do with TODAYS fuels – they no longer exist.
3.) Mileage – more claims that are all but false. Simple science shows the lie:
Straight gasoline = 114,000 btu/gal
Straight ethanol = 76,000 btu/gal
Straight ethanol (E100) has 33% less energy than straight gas
Those are the inflated numbers ethanol alarmists use – but we do not use straight gas or straight ethanol.
The science shows E10 has 110,000 btu/gal (114k*.9+76k*.1) and E15 has 108,300 btu/gal … E10 has just 3.3% less energy and E15 just 5% less energy than straight 100% gasoline.
Many people are extremely surprised to read fear-mongering claims about lower MPG etc, as in the story above, and then find out the difference in E10 is a paltry 3% lower mileage. Which is offset by as the author admits lower prices.
Well then – E85 must certainly be terrible then, being 85% ethanol?
Nope … E85 has 81,700 btu/gal – appx 28% less than 100% gas (and appx 25% less than E10).
I just paid $2.88 for E85 vs $3.68 for E10 – or appx. 21% less. Using straight science – the btu/gal difference – there is a 5% premium for me to use E85 – and that is with the 45 cent blender credit gone.
But in reality my 2003 Tahoe got 15.4 mpg on last tank E10, and 12.3 mpg on last tank E85 – I got 20.13% lower fuel economy but paid 20.82% less.
That ethanol costs more because of lower mileage is in reality largely a fallacy. Using ONLY the science of the energy differential, and not taking into account that many engines perform better than the base science – using ethanol blends uses a few percent more fuel to get the same energy as gas – but ethanol blends, as even the author notes cost less.
The remaining claims are equally misleading and in many cases outright false – as is the claim in a comment about Net Energy balance.
4.) Corn Yields – corn yield increases have made up much of the additional crop use of corn for ethanol – increasing from just over 100 bushels per acre in the early 1990’s to almost 150 bushels per acre today. Yields are predicted to reach 190 bushels per acre by 202 – a further 29% increase. http://www.farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2012/02/the_historic_pattern_of_us_cor.html
We have plenty of corn – over last several years the USDA and EIA reports show we met 100% of the domestic demand, exported all that others wanted and still had excess to add to the reserves.
5.) Poor pig farmer Jim – more untruths yet here. We used 5 billion bushels of corn to make 13.9 billion gallons of ethanol in 2011. As part of that process nearly 1/3 of the corn used was returned to the market in the form of high quality distillers dried grain animal feed – almost 40 million metric tons in total, along with nearly .1.5 billion pounds of corn oil.
Farmer Jim had far, far worse problems on his Texas pig farm than corn prices if he lost the farm.
5.) Subsidies and taxes – a comment makes note of the additional taxes raised on the increased fuel used with an ethanol blend. A whole whopping 3% – 5% more fuel depending on whether we use E10 or E15. But he also ignores that the higher corn prices received by the farmers for their crops has a large positive effect on other government farm subsidies – reducing the subsidy, insurance and other governmental crop protection costs significantly.
6.) Price/Cost – corn is a COMMODITY – it is subject to laws of supply and demand, but also to speculation. The positive side is that many farmers are finally able to make more consistent, modest profits. Having many farmer friends I challenge each person here to stand up and say these hard working people are not entitled to a decent living – which farming often does not provide.
As others have noted the cost of corn is a tiny fraction of the cost of products that use corn. Even with a box of Corn Flakes – the corn cost is little more than 1-2% of the retail price.
I largely agree with the last 8 paragraphs in the article – but by then they have little meaning after the unsupported and inaccurate attack prior.
Ethanol – especially corn ethanol – is only a PART of a renewable energy strategy. Renewable energy should – must – be in addition to a proper fossil fuel program.
Ethanol – including that from corn – is a stepping stone – a gateway to the future renewable fuels that we will eventually need.
It is neither immoral or wasteful – and those that try to make that claim as with this author – especially when they make inaccurate, misleading and wholly unsubstantiated claims – do far more damage than good.
In my personal opinion they are no better than the worst of the AGW alarmists – their actions are much the same.
Sorry – but yet another silly ethanol attack that ignores simple reality.
The ethanol antagonists pontificate on how terrible it is we are using food to make fuel. That we should be using good ‘ol corn to make tortillas and not fuel.
And then these same folks trot out the fertilizer, water etc etc attacks – that nasty ol ETHANOL corn is purely evil.
Just one little bitty problem. CORN IS CORN!
If you stop using corn for ethanol and use it instead as advocated by the alarmists for food – YOU ARE STILL GROWING THE SAME CORN on the SAME land using the SAME fertilizer, water etc.
I would also point out I largely agree with many, if not most of CFACT’s positions and mission statement.
Which I believe is all the more reason that inaccurate, unsubstantiated and often simply false rhetoric as written here is so wrong. It significantly damages other credible work they may be doing.
Ethanol is far from a perfect solution – but it IS a true renewable fuel that is available now. The increasing use of ethanol will see technology continue to improve, and will see the all important distribution system infrastructure built out.
Ethanol is NOT a mature product and certainly not a mature technology. Distribution is limited, and without a mature robust distriibution infrastructure its use and growth will be artificially limited.
Continuing in building out that infrastructure will provide the distribution (and demand) platform for enhanced and improved technologies down the road. Cellulosic ethanol for one, along with isobutanol which is currently showing good promise, with a recent study showing it has benefits of ethanol without many of the negatives. Some ethanol plants are already being converted now.
Little of this activity would be occurring if there was not a foreseeable real demand.
You think gas prices are high in the USA?
Try the UK. It is not $4/gallon (I wish it were!), it is $10/gallon.
Some 75% of this is tax. We have fuel tax on top of the base price, then another 20% “value Added tax” (VAT) on top of the new price (base price plus fuel tax).
In effect we are paying a tax on a tax!
Then the idiots in Government wonder why the economy is not recovering.
Brian H says:
April 24, 2012 at 11:45 pm
Never attribute to stupidity what is more parsimoniously explained by malice.
Far more appropriate than Hanlon’s original aphorism.
Camburn says:
April 24, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Thank goodness for the ehtanol market. IF we didn’t have one, we would have unemplyment running over 10% in the USA for starters.
For starters, the “official” smoke-and-mirrors unemployment rate may only be 8.2%, but the actual rate (the BLS U6 index) is 14.5%.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
So, how’s that argument for the bennies of ethanol run again?
Here in Germany Gasoline is 1.70 Eur a liter at the moment; and E10 (90% gasoline, 10% ethanol) is 4 cents cheaper. So it’s still a rip-off: ethanol contains 30% less energy so the 10% mix contains 3% less energy a liter than pure gasoline; and should cost 1.7*3 = 5.1 cents less.
Well, it should cost even less still due to the possible problems with water accumulation, that could become a problem in winter. Maybe not such a grave problem but an aspect that reduces the competitiveness of the product so should result in less demand and lower price.
The oil companies count on people just going for the cheaper price per liter. The mainstream news don’t report about the energy content.
My car runs on it without problems, but I’m not happy with the price/performance ratio of the product.
Anyone else remember “gasahol” from the 70s? Didn’t work then, not going to work now.
Stop trading oil for food…
I wonder what ethanol tastes like I hope it is good for you because all the farms will be growing corn or suger cane for ethanol
Ya know, in thinking last night why Mr. Watts would let drivel like this be posted on his wonderful site, I have come to a conclusion. He allowed this op-ed to demonstrate what a non-fact based piece establishes. The author of this op-ed distorts facts, surely has no clue what he is writing about, yet his words see the light of day and are accepted by some.
Kudo’s to you Mr. Watts for doing this. You have demonstrated what is wrong with a lot of the op-ed pieces written to support the GAWG senerio. Outcomes based on falsified facts, solutions based on inuendo and all contradictory in themselves.
Thank you for demonstrating this.