EPA

EPA’s E-15 ethanol plan rammed though – won't work in many cars

The folly of E15 anti-hydrocarbon policies

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.

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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Bill Tuttle

April 25, 2012 5:38 am

In EPA terms one Iowa size area of ethanol destined corn creates one NJ sized Gulf dead zone.
First wunna youse guys dat sez dat’s an appropriate measurement fer a dead zone gets it inna kneecaps…

Bill Tuttle

April 25, 2012 6:08 am

A. Scott says:
April 25, 2012 at 1:36 am
– I got 20.13% lower fuel economy but paid 20.82% less.
[ … ]
– using ethanol blends uses a few percent more fuel to get the same energy as gas.
If using E10 reduced your mileage to 80% of what you got using gasoline, then it appears that you used quite a bit more than “a few percent more fuel” to get the equivalent amount of energy.
Of course, that just may be my Scottish genes kicking in…

klem

April 25, 2012 6:15 am

Excuse me, but according to Wikipedia ethanol contains only 61% of the energy of gasoline. The more ethanol you put into my fuel, the more watered down it becomes. It will effectively make a gallon of gas even more expensive because I will be buying fuel with fewer btu’s per gallon.
It also means that I will need to put the throttle down slightly further to maintain my speed while driving, thereby burning fuel slightly faster than if I were burning pure gasoline.
The oil companies are going to make more money per gallon with ethanol added than without. This should make them very happy.
I used to think the greenies hated oil companies, but now I think they maybe ‘paid by big oil’.
Read about ethanol here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

Ed Mertin

April 25, 2012 6:36 am

I have have successfully dealt with the small engine damage issue by putting shut off valves in the fuel lines and running the engines out of fuel after use. Storing them with empty carburetors. But inspect the fuel line and valve periodically and replace when necessary.

adolfogiurfa

April 25, 2012 6:43 am

Ethanol is CHEAPER. Does this mean that fuel will be cheaper?. Not at all, that´s the “trick”, the same as “Hide the decline” ( in volume, as ethanol evaporates easily).

Poptech

April 25, 2012 7:01 am

I see all the supporters of protectionist government welfare farming (corn ethanol) are out again. If their fuel was so superior it would never have needed the government mandates, subsidies and tariffs. Protectionist policies and government welfare checks are only needed for things that are NOT economically viable. Thankfully the worthless ethanol tax credit and tariff expired this year,
After Three Decades, Tax Credit for Ethanol Expires (The New York Times, January 1, 2012)
Now the mandate needs to be abolished. If E85 is such a superior fuel let the market decide.
Myth: Ethanol is Great (Video) (5min) (ABC News)
The Peer-Reviewed Literature is devastating to Ethanol Supporters:
Ethanol Fuels: Energy Balance, Economics, and Environmental Impacts Are Negative
(Natural Resources Research, Volume 12, Number 2, pp. 127-134, June 2003)
– David Pimentel

Several studies suggest that the $1.4 billion in government subsidies are encouraging the ethanol program without substantial beneﬁts to the U.S. economy. Large ethanol industries and a few U.S. government agencies, such as the USDA, support the production of ethanol. Corn-farmers receive minimal proﬁts. In the U.S. ethanol system, considerably more energy, including high-grade fossil fuel, is required to produce ethanol than is available in the energy ethanol output. Speciﬁcally about 29% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy in a gallon of ethanol. Fossil energy powers corn production and the fermentation/distillation processes. Increasing subsidized ethanol production will take more feed from livestock production, and is estimated to currently cost consumers an additional $1 billion per year. Ethanol production increases environmental degradation. Corn production causes more total soil erosion than any other crop. Also, corn production uses more insecticides, herbicides, and nitrogen fertilizers than any other crop. All these factors degrade the agricultural and natural environment and contribute to water pollution and air pollution. Increasing the cost of food and diverting human food resources to the costly inefﬁcient production of ethanol fuel raise major ethical questions. These occur at a time when more than half of the world’s population is malnourished. The ethical priority for corn and other food crops should be for food and feed. Subsidized ethanol produced from U.S. corn is not a renewable energy source

Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood; Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower
(Natural Resources Research, Volume 14, Number 1, pp. 65-76, March 2005)
– David Pimentel, Tad W. Patzek

Energy outputs from ethanol produced using corn, switchgrass, and wood biomass were each less than the respective fossil energy inputs. The same was true for producing biodiesel using soybeans and sunflower, however, the energy cost for producing soybean biodiesel was only slightly negative compared with ethanol production. Findings in terms of energy outputs compared with the energy inputs were: • Ethanol production using corn grain required 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Ethanol production using switchgrass required 50% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Ethanol production using wood biomass required 57% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Biodiesel production using soybean required 27% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced (Note, the energy yield from soy oil per hectare is far lower than the ethanol yield from corn). • Biodiesel production using sunflower required 118% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced.

Ethanol From Corn: Clean Renewable Fuel for the Future, or Drain on Our Resources and Pockets?
(Environment, Development and Sustainability, Volume 7, Number 3, pp. 319-336, September 2005)
– Tad W. Patzek et al.

It is shown here that one burns 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent in fossil fuels to produce 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent as ethanol from corn. When this corn ethanol is burned as a gasoline additive or fuel, its use amounts to burning the same amount of fuel twice to drive a car once. Therefore, the fuel efficiency of those cars that burn corn ethanol is halved. The widespread use of corn ethanol will cause manifold damage to air, surface water, soil and aquifers. The overall energy balance of corn conversion to ethanol demonstrates that 65% of the input energy is lost during the conversion. Carbon dioxide sequestration by corn is nullified when corn ethanol is burned, and there will be additional carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, and sulfur oxide emissions from the fossil fuels used to produce the ethanol.

A First-Law Thermodynamic Analysis of the Corn-Ethanol Cycle
(Natural Resources Research, Volume 15, Number 4, pp. 255-270, December 2006)
– Tad W. Patzek

This paper analyzes energy efficiency of the industrial corn-ethanol cycle. In particular, it critically evaluates earlier publications by DOE, USDA, and UC Berkeley Energy Resources Group. It is demonstrated that most of the current First Law net-energy models of the industrial corn-ethanol cycle are based on nonphysical assumptions and should be viewed with caution. In particular, these models do not (i) define the system boundaries, (ii) conserve mass, and (iii) conserve energy. The energy cost of producing and refining carbon fuels in real time, for example, corn and ethanol, is high relative to that of fossil fuels deposited and concentrated over geological time. Proper mass and energy balances of corn fields and ethanol refineries that account for the photosynthetic energy, part of the environment restoration work, and the coproduct energy have been formulated. These balances show that energetically production of ethanol from corn is 2–4 times less favorable than production of gasoline from petroleum. From thermodynamics it also follows that ecological damage wrought by industrial biofuel production must be severe. With the DDGS coproduct energy credit, 3.9 gallons of ethanol displace on average the energy in 1 gallon of gasoline. Without the DDGS energy credit, this average number is 6.2 gallons of ethanol. Equivalent CO2 emissions from corn ethanol are some 50% higher than those from gasoline, and become 100% higher if methane emissions from cows fed with DDGS are accounted for. From the mass balance of soil it follows that ethanol coproducts should be returned to the fields.

E85 and fuel efficiency: An empirical analysis of 2007 EPA test data
(Energy Policy, Volume 36, Issue 3, pp. 1233-1235, March 2008)
– Matthew C. Roberts

It is well known that ethanol has less energy per unit volume than gasoline. Differences in engine design and fuel characteristics affect the efficiency with which the chemical energy in gasoline and ethanol is converted into mechanical energy, so that the change in fuel economy may not be a linear function of energy content. This study analyzes the fuel economy tests performed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on 2007 model year E85-compliant vehicles and finds that the difference in average fuel economy is not statistically different from the differential in energy content.

Food Versus Biofuels: Environmental and Economic Costs
(Human Ecology, Volume 37, Number 1, pp. 1-12, February 2009)
– David Pimentel et al.

The rapidly growing world population and rising consumption of biofuels intensify demands for both food and biofuels. This exaggerates food and fuel shortages. The use of food crops such as corn grain to produce ethanol raises major nutritional and ethical concerns. Nearly 60% of humans in the world are currently malnourished, so the need for grains and other basic foods is critical. Growing crops for fuel squanders land, water and energy resources vital for the production of food for human consumption. Using corn for ethanol increases the price of US beef, chicken, pork, eggs, breads, cereals, and milk more than 10% to 30%. In addition, Jacques Diouf, Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, reports that using food grains to produce biofuels is already causing food shortages for the poor of the world. Growing crops for biofuel not only ignores the need to reduce fossil energy and land use, but exacerbates the problem of malnourishment worldwide.

Effects of US Maize Ethanol on Global Land Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Estimating Market-mediated Responses
(BioScience, Volume 60, Number 3, pp. 223-231, March 2010)
– Thomas W. Hertel et al.

Releases of greenhouse gases (GHG) from indirect land-use change triggered by crop-based biofuels have taken center stage in the debate over the role of biofuels in climate policy and energy security. This article analyzes these releases for maize ethanol produced in the United States. Factoring market-mediated responses and by-product use into our analysis reduces cropland conversion by 72% from the land used for the ethanol feedstock. Consequently, the associated GHG release estimated in our framework is 800 grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule (MJ); 27 grams per MJ per year, over 30 years of ethanol production, or roughly a quarter of the only other published estimate of releases attributable to changes in indirect land use. Nonetheless, 800 grams are enough to cancel out the benefits that corn ethanol has on global warming, thereby limiting its potential contribution in the context of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

_Jim

April 25, 2012 7:03 am

atheok says:
April 24, 2012 at 10:19 pm
…
Roger: @_Jim: sorry, I’m on a smart phone so am asking you to take the time to read the one paragraph identified above. The shortest version is our domestic oil is a strategic resource. It is unwise to waste it.

Diversion, dodge, straw-man argument; no one is discussing ‘wasting it’ but rather using it …
In case you guys missed it (for all I know you may be liberal arts majors??):
a) car, trucks and buses are more fuel efficient than they have ever been (on account of computerization, better designs, better production methods using CNC et al of engines and powertrains),
b) we’re in the midst of an economic depression the likes of which we have certainly never seen nor seen in this country since the Great Depression; energy prices directly affect everything.
c) we have a real problem in being competitive in this world (producing and selling things), in part, because of the cost of raw material, processed materials (priced metals lately?) as well as finished goods; referring back to b) above this also relates to the cost of energy.
d) I repeat what I wrote in my first post on this subject (since I contend one of your basic assumptions is in gross error): … given what we now envision to hold in the ground, this is policy can and is doing more harm than good economically. For a modern civilization, energy is the ‘key’ to moving forward, to making ‘progress’ as the archaic saying would go.
.

Poptech

April 25, 2012 7:16 am

Yes, Ethanol can damage engines,
Can E15 Gasoline Really Damage Your Engine? [Yes] (Popular Mechanics, December 21, 2010)
Ethanol Fact and Tip Sheet (PDF) (BoatUS Seaworthy Magazine)
Ethanol fires are also harder to put out,
Ethanol Fuels Fire Concerns (Fox News, February 26, 2008)
The Trouble With Ethanol (Industrial Fire World)

TomB

April 25, 2012 7:18 am

Randy says:
April 24, 2012 at 6:08 pm
ONE single tank of E-85 a year ago cost me an entire replacement of a fuel system in my classic ’78 Ski Nautique to the tune of 3 grand!!!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.!!! Let’s double down and go for the rest of the motor next!!!!

While I don’t envy you the repair costs, I’m certainly jealous of the boat. What a gorgeous craft, and nothing better for skiing. As aggravating as the repairs may be, it’s worth it for that boat.
Now get upset at the station or marina that sells the E85 without sufficient warning.

_Jim

April 25, 2012 7:28 am

Paul Westhaver says:
April 24, 2012 at 11:31 pm
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.

My simple little Coleman 1500 Watt generator doesn’t have an ‘Ignition and combustion control system’, instead I now have to partially set the choke to get the engine to run where it will accept full load without ‘surging and stumbling’, otherwise, it seems to run lean …
Something else the Ethanol-ers overlook: distribution facility ‘mixing’ accidents, where an incorrect amount of Ethanol (usually much higher concentrations doh!! of Ethanol are added to the base gasoline) before transport (and ‘splash’ mixing) by the truck to the retailer’s tank … this has resulted in a series of damaged customer’s cars.
An article looking back in history on this ‘tragedy’ appearing in Business Week awhile back:
Ethanol: A Tragedy in 3 Acts
by Ed Wallace
.

Poptech

April 25, 2012 7:33 am

Camburn says
5. Please do research. It costs over 5.00 to raise a bushel of corn. Thank goodness for the ehtanol market. IF we didn’t have one, we would have unemplyment running over 10% in the USA for starters. And I guarantee you your food would be a WHOLE lot more expensive. $3.00 corn means no more farmers. The few that would survive would be CERTAIN to make a profit.

Whatever is not economically viable should not be produced and those who cannot compete should be unemployed. The companies that can produce something the market wants will stay around and prosper. It is absolutely illogical that when you free up all the farm land that is being used to grow “fuel” to now grow food will somehow make the cost of food more expensive. Farmers are not entitled to any price for what they produce beyond what the market decides. If you don’t like it don’t farm. The socialist farmers (CCF) moved to Canada in the 1930s please join them.

I won’t even get into how much per gallon it saves and the effect it has on average retail prices of gasoline.

It doesn’t “save” anything. It makes gasoline more expensive otherwise there would not be a need for a mandate to force it to be blended and sold.

Why do you think gas is cheaper now than diesel? Even tho diesel is cheaper to make??????

It has nothing to do with Ethanol.

Bill Wood

April 25, 2012 7:38 am

Back in the middle of the twentieth century street hot rods often ran 100% alcohol. Converting to alky required and getting the anticipated performance boost meant a significant compression increase or supercharging to make use of the increased octane. The primary requirement was to drill out the jets on your three Stromberg carburetors to greatly increase fuel flow. Mileage was horrible, but performance was outstanding. This did not catch on with the general motoring public.
I have noted the label on my two cycle snowblower that warns “Do not use fuels with more than 10% ethanol”. Toro probably had a reason for this guidance. I believe the best environmentalism is to maintain existing devices and inferstructure and not waste the resources required to replace what works until it is no longer repairable. The idea that we should scrap all our older cars, snowblowers, boats, etc. is the fantasy world of those that can afford to turn “durable goods” into “consumables”.

_Jim

April 25, 2012 7:43 am

Don Keiller says:
April 25, 2012 at 2:12 am
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.
…

Is this a good example of self-immolation or what? Please, do not ask for a medal (or any other avenue of commendation) for such brave acts; we see this as some sort of ‘European centric’ dementia and we have our own cases to deal with (based primarily in Washington, DC as well as other (usually) urban centers of progressivism).
In any case, it is not our (the US’s) fault; suggest you pay closer attention at election time, or invoke our solution (we had a ‘War of Independence’ once upon a time as a certain King George the 3rd sought taxation at/under unendurable circumstances).
.

Dr. Bob

April 25, 2012 7:48 am

Oxygenated fuels were originally mandated as a means of reducing CO and HC emissions from carbureted engines. These were phased out by the early 1980’s. Cars with feedback emissions control systems overcame the issues with “running rich”, which was just an issue of tuning the car properly versus changing the fuel carbon and energy content with an oxygenated fuel.
The advent of effective catalytic converters further reduced the impact of oxygenates on emissions. There were no changes in emissions for 100% hydrocarbon fuels or oxygenated fuels. This statement is based on work done by the excellent scientists at UC Riverside in their CE-CERT lab. Modern cars no longer need oxygenated fuel, but it is still mandated.
Originally, oxygenated fuel was made by blending methyl tert-butyl ether into the fuel. This was a high octane blend component that mixed well with gasoline and was actually mandated by the federal government to be added to gasoline in non-emissions attainment areas (but to little or no effect). However, there were concerns about underground tank leaks allowing water soluble MTBE into groundwater. Lawsuits, mainly from Santa Monica if I remember correctly, caused MTBE to be phased out and replaced with EtOH. This was due to heavy lobbying by ADM and Cargil. At one point, I understood that ADM had the most lobbyists in DC of any single company. Lots of money to be made if your product is mandated to be used!
So now we have E10 mandated, with no impact on either energy security or atmospheric emissions. And they want to mandate that we use more of this fuel because the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 mandated that we produce 16 billion gal of corn EtOH and 16 billion gal of cellulosic ethanol, but there is no home for it in the fuel market. EtOH reached the so-called blending wall last year at about 12 billion gal of corn EtOH. OOPS. A mandated production volume with no market to put it in. So you have to expand the market.
The ethanol producers whine that E85 pumps are not at every station, so they want to government to help them sell their product with $10-30K cost per pump per station. In what world does the Federal Government help market a product that cannot be otherwise sold. Only in the world of EtOH. In those markets in the upper mid-west where E85 is readily available (the Corn Belt), its sales are dismal. Only 2% of ethanol is sold as E85. The consumer response to the opportunity to buy this product is dismal. No one wants it. So to make the EtOH producers happy (political payback is most likely the reason), the Feds need to spend taxpayers money to install equipment to sell something that the taxpayers don’t want. Now that is good use of our tax dollars.
Ethanol has been mandated, protected by tariffs, and subsidized, yet it is still marginal as a profitable product. Time to end this government interference in private enterprise.
Multiple peer reviewed articles have shown that at best ethanol is energy and CO2 neutral. But run-off from the fertilizers necessary to get the massive corn yield per acre are causing eutrophication of our rivers, lakes and the Gulf of Mexico (the massive dead zone of the mouth of the Mississippi is attributed to fertilizer runoff from farms upriver).
Government forcing of markets has never worked in the past and is not working now.
Bob

Poptech

April 25, 2012 7:52 am

A. Scott says:
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.

There shouldn’t be any government farm subsidies or government involvement in farming at all. All government welfare to farmers should be eliminated. I always laugh at the so-called “independent”
farmer crying about not getting enough government handouts.

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.

Who cares if it is subject to speculation? Did you fail economics 101, speculation reduces price volatility. No one is entitled to anything they did not earn and if your friends received government welfare then they did not earn it. If someone thinks farming does not provide a decent living then they should not be farmers and those that can farm profitably should do so instead. If that means big agro-businesses, great. I want my food produced efficiently and cost effectively.

John from CA

April 25, 2012 7:52 am

This is absurd. ADM uses Corn to make ethanol and Corn is one of the most energy intensive crops. It has a longer growing cycle, depletes the soil, and requires petrochemical fertilizers.
I thought Congress just eliminated subsides for ethanol production? What’s up with this?

Gail Combs

April 25, 2012 7:55 am

I left a comment over on “Global Warming, Science or Politics” about the history and Big Picture (Agenda 21) of this movement. This latest move by the EPA is just another step along the path to force us into the New Feudalism. Neo-Feudalism. Peonage. UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development taken to its logical culmination. Remember, Revolution is bad for business.
WHAT IS UNITED NATIONS AGENDA 21? The United Nations International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, (ICLEI) the local manifestation of Agenda 21 is now running the planing boards of most cities, town and counties. They call it Smart Growth The “Revolution” has already taken place and we have lost all the battles. The poison is now manifest from townhall to Washington D.C.
A key point of Agenda 21 is removing private ownership of land and homes. Instead of attacking ownership directly the attack is on transportation or roads or local building codes. This makes resistance very hard. Without cars and the local roads we drive on to get to and from work “private ownership of land” becomes unattainable by all but the very wealthy who can afford private aircraft.

Your home is their castle in the future if Chris Dodd gets his way with his Livable Communities Act. Senator Dodd says participation in the program will be voluntary but with federal money available to communities who enforce the new standards, it really becomes not so voluntary. Towns will be blackmailed into compliance. http://takingourcountryback.net/issues/agenda-21/what-is-agenda-21/

States get about half their moneys from the Federal government and not directly though tax dollars. This is the hold the Federal government has over the states. Collapse the economy, double the money supply and states and local communities have no choice but to take the bribes from the Feds.
A good video with clips from various speakers. Agenda 21 For Dummies
A video of a Liberal democrat, Rosa Koire talking at a Tea Party meeting is excellent once you are over the shock of a Liberal and the Tea Party agreeing.

Larry Ledwick (hotrod)

April 25, 2012 7:58 am

klem says:
April 25, 2012 at 6:15 am
Excuse me, but according to Wikipedia ethanol contains only 61% of the energy of gasoline. The more ethanol you put into my fuel, the more watered down it becomes. It will effectively make a gallon of gas even more expensive because I will be buying fuel with fewer btu’s per gallon.
It also means that I will need to put the throttle down slightly further to maintain my speed while driving, thereby burning fuel slightly faster than if I were burning pure gasoline.

First quoting wikipedia for anything related to fuel ethanol is like quoting Bevis and Butthead. They are notoriously biased in their information on all controversial topics and their fuel ethanol related articles are right at the top of that list. Just like the global warming articles factual updates to their biased pages would be erased almost as fast as the changes were made by “keepers of the faith” who would not allow correct information to be posted.
Your 61% value is correct however so is the 66% energy value. One is for the comparison on a mass basis (kg for kg of fuel) and the other is a volumetric comparison ( liter for liter). The important point how ever is that mass or volumetric energy comparisons are irrelevent. What is important is how much of that energy the engine can extract from the fuel as useful work. The spark igniton internal combustion piston engine throws away about 66% of the fuels thermal energy. About 1/2 of that (1/3 of fuel energy) goes out the exhaust pipe as heat and the remaining 1/3 of the wasted fuel energy goes to the cooling system. Fuel mileage does not track with volumetric or mass fuel energy — it corresponds with net energy recovery.
Since ethanol gasoline blends are inherently more efficient fuels that straight gasoline they often get better absolute fuel mileage when measured in terms of how much fuel energy is consumed to go a certain distance. The mass basis energy comparison is (27 MJ/kg Vs 44 MJ/kg) 61.36%, the volumetric fuel energy comparison is (21.3 MJ/l Vs 32 MJ/l) 66.56%.
In the real world that energy difference is unimportant due to ethanol gasoline blends being superior fuels for internal combustion engines than either fuel alone.
Back in 2002 Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Michigan-Dearborn did a study on small engines running on ethanol blends (yes martha they were successfully running small engines on these fuel blends 10 years ago). Three fuels were used in the tests: 87 Octane unleaded gasoline (E-0), 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol (E-10) and 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol (E-85).

The results showed that the E-10 and E-85 fuels improved energy conversion efficiency but the specific fuel consumption increased when the engine was run on E-85.
Since ethanol blends have different energy contents than gasoline it is more convenient to compare engine performance on an energy basis than on mass basis. Over most of the engine load the difference in energy consumption between pure gasoline (E-0) and gasoline with 10% ethanol (E-10) is very small. But the 85% ethanol blend (E-85) does produce improved specific energy consumption, as shown in the figure.
Fig.

[img]http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/2247/figure1umreport.png[/img]
As you can see even on small engines with unsophisticated fuel and ignition timing control ethanol gasoline blends are more efficient fuels using less fuel energy to accomplish the same work effort.
On my first E85 conversion I carefully measured net fuel energy used per mile and found that it took noticeably less fuel energy to do the work of going a mile on E85 fuel than on straight gasoline. Based on long term fuel consumption vs miles traveled the numbers worked out as follows.
gasoline mileage Gasoline 125,000 Btu/ gallon / 24 = 5208 BTU/mile
My old setup, @ur momisugly 92% of gasoline milage or 22 mpg
E85 90,500 BTU/gallon/22 = 4114 BTU/mile
This is why assertions of fuel consumption based purely on fuel energy content are not only false but intentionally misleading, and if done knowingly are out right lies.
Larry

John from CA

April 25, 2012 8:01 am

Poptech says:
April 25, 2012 at 7:01 am
============
Thanks, excellent comment which lead me to your site. The Skeptical Science article is great.
Looking forward to reading more.

_Jim

April 25, 2012 8:09 am

How much should you pay for E10 and E85? *
If regular gas is $3.00 a gallon you should pay:
. . . . . $2.90 a gallon for E10 (10% ethanol).
. . . . . $2.13 a gallon for E85 (85% ethanol).
Note: adjusting for lower energy content to yield the same fuel quantity per mile driven; can’t escape physics, the same amount of ‘work’ (literally: heat produced during combustion to create pressure to force a piston ‘down’ each ‘power’ stroke on a reciprocating internal combustion engine) must be done regardless of fuel used.
The formula is: For EX, where X is the percent ethanol
. . . . . Ethanol price should = Gasoline price times (100 – X + X / 1.52) / 100
Notice that 100 – X is the percent of gas and X / 1.52 is the percent of ethanol adjusted down by about 2/3 due to lower energy content per reference volume unit.
* Adapted from: http://zfacts.com/p/436.html
.
Editorial portion of post:
So, who is ‘making out’ here Ethanol-ers ?
Is paying __the same price__ for a gallon of product that requires a purchase of 1.52 times (as would be close to the case for E85 fuel) as much straight gasoline really ‘cheaper’ looking at this math? (The answer on the surface looks like “no” BTW.)
(_Jim scratches head in wonderment on the economics of all this)
.

Roger Sowell

April 25, 2012 8:12 am

@_Jim, please take the time to read the article. Waste is the proper word.
There is a good reason much of the US is off limits to drilling. Drill Baby Drill is Dumb Baby Dumb.

John from CA

April 25, 2012 8:15 am

Gail Combs says:
April 25, 2012 at 7:55 am
Agenda 21
==========
Gail, that doesn’t make sense. The UN can’t dictate jack in the US. Land ownership in the US runs with Allodial Title its related rights. No one has the right to dictate farming practices in the US.
The UN can go fish abroad.
Global Weirding in Politics seems to be rampant these days.

Larry Ledwick (hotrod)

April 25, 2012 8:18 am

Bill Wood says:
April 25, 2012 at 7:38 am
Back in the middle of the twentieth century street hot rods often ran 100% alcohol. Converting to alky required and getting the anticipated performance boost meant a significant compression increase or supercharging to make use of the increased octane. The primary requirement was to drill out the jets on your three Stromberg carburetors to greatly increase fuel flow. Mileage was horrible, but performance was outstanding. This did not catch on with the general motoring public.

The modern equivalent is the use of E85 in high performance engines, and this has definitely caught on. There has been a rapid adoption of E85 for use in highperformance applications, and performance enthusiasts who actually have tested the fuel instead of believing many of the bogus misinformation about fuel ethanol love it, and spend their own money out of their own pockets to convert their cars to run on the fuel because it so dominantly superior to even $8.00 – $12.00/gallon racing gasoline.
Hotrod magazine did an article on the fuel several years ago where they did back to back tests using gasoline and E85. (they would not have done the article if there was no demand for the information).
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/hrdp_0801_e85_ethanol_alternative_fuel/viewall.html
A couple quotes from the article:

However, we are not going anywhere near that pie fight. This is HOT ROD. Lucky us: We get to bypass all the left-wing poppycock and right-wing folderol and focus on this issue solely as it relates to hot rodding. The bottom line here is that ethanol looks like a pretty darn good performance fuel.
Just for fun, Urban then bolted up his standard turbocharger combination, a Garrett GT42 blower and Precision Turbo air/water intercooler, to the well-worn test mule. Still running 10.2:1 compression and E85, at 13 psi of boost the engine made an easy 833 lb-ft of torque at 5,000 rpm and 850 hp at 5,900 rpm. You will note there are no comparable test results for pump gas with this combination. “There’s no sense even trying it with this boost and compression,” Urban says. “You just can’t do this with pump gas.” With its knock-stifling 105 road octane, E85 is a pump fuel that performs like race fuel. “I love this stuff,” Urban says. “It’s high-octane fuel for everyone, 105 you can buy on the road.”

I have never met a highperformance car owner who has made the conversion and not fallen in love with the fuel and its higher performance and lower operating costs. When I first made the move to E85 I dropped my cost per mile from 12 cents per mile to 10 cents per mile and got a substantial performance boost, cooler running engine, and a happy wallet. The conversion cost paid for itself very rapidly, as simple conversions only cost about as much as a night out at a good restaurant. In my case I increased my power output by 11% and cut my fuel costs by about 17%.
Larry

_Jim

April 25, 2012 8:22 am

Gail Combs says on April 25, 2012 at 7:55 am:
I left a comment over on “Global Warming, Science or Politics” about the history and Big Picture (Agenda 21) of this movement. This latest move by the EPA is just another step along the path to force us into the New Feudalism. Neo-Feudalism. Peonage. UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development taken to its logical culmination. Remember, Revolution is bad for business.
WHAT IS UNITED NATIONS AGENDA 21? The United Nations International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, (ICLEI) the local manifestation of Agenda 21 is now running the planing boards of most cities, town and counties. They call it Smart Growth The “Revolution” has already taken place and we have lost all the battles. The poison is now manifest from townhall to Washington D.C.
A key point of Agenda 21 is removing private ownership of land and homes.
…

Can you make reference to an actual part, paragraph or sentence in the UN Agenda 21 document that lays all this out instead of a reference to a 3rd party (and possibly misleading and artful) ‘interpretation’? It’s possible that I may have missed where you linked to the primary document in question here today or in the past; I would hate to see a lot of ppl get ‘wound up’ without seeing first-hand the document detailing the purported erasure of personal property ownership.
.