Yes, this is another bitter polemic against ethanol, but I want to make one point up front, because I sometimes forget to: The only concrete alternative energy/climate policy that our political class can agree on -- a plan that unites Democrats and Republicans to commit some $5 billion per year and rising -- is a clear and obvious boondoggle: a cash sieve that has done and will do much more harm than good.
This is our main public intervention into the energy markets on behalf of "alternative fuel"? The opportunity costs alone are staggering. Say what you want about Amtrak, but its annual federal budget amounts to about $1 billion per year. I suppose building out a woefully inadequate train system doesn't quite match the urgency of churning out flex-fuel Hummers and the like.
OK, where was I? David's post on "us corn hatas" reminded me that I hadn't commented on a recent Foreign Affairs piece on the food vs. fuel debate.
And while I'm at it, I should note that a Stanford scientist has concluded that ethanol -- whether made from corn, switchgrass, or rose petals -- may cause greater health damage than gasoline.
The Foreign Affairs article states bluntly that corn ethanol mania will unforgivably drive up food prices for poor people worldwide -- without delivering much in the way of environmental benefits.
That's pretty strong stuff, coming as it does from a pair of mainstream Minnesota ag economists writing to an audience of policy elites. There may be deep fissures in elite opinion toward throwing a bunch of money at corn-based fuel after all.
As for the grand hope of cellulosic ethanol, here's what the authors have to say:
The logistical difficulties and the costs of converting cellulose into fuel, combined with the subsidies and politics currently favoring the use of corn and soybeans, make it unrealistic to expect cellulose-based ethanol to become a solution within the next decade.
So cellulosic is ten years off -- not five, the timeframe its boosters have been flogging for the last, oh, 15 years.
And it might not be worth the wait. Here's how the L.A. Times summarizes Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson's findings:
The study determined that a 9 percent increase in ozone-related deaths would occur in greater Los Angeles, and a 4 percent increase nationally, by 2020 if a form of ethanol called E85 were used instead of gasoline. In the Southeast, by contrast, mortality rates would decrease slightly.
Discover how climate change is affecting our world
Et tu, Al? Franken gulps the ethanol-spiked Kool-Aid
Comments
View as Flat
gmunger Posted 1:22 am
19 Apr 2007
But is it really food?
I don't want to minimize the impacts of ratcheting up production of "ag commodities" for making fuel. It seems a terrible idea for many reasons. But can someone help me understand the extent to which the transfer of a bushel of commodity corn or soybeans to fuel production represents a debit from the "real food" column?
I have the impression that commodity corn, i.e. the vast sea of yellow field corn comprising the Great Midwestern Corn Desert, is generally not used to produce "real food", except for the proportion that goes to animal feed (of course, many of the animals this feeds are cattle which are not "designed" to eat corn, but that's another debate). Instead, most of it is used to make pseudo-foods such as high fructose corn syrup, and other pseudo-food or even non-food "products".
And I also hear that most corn that is used in "real food" is white corn, which is different from what comes out of the Great Corn Desert.
And yet I hear repeatedly the mantra that corn-based ethanol is causing price spikes of tortillas in Mexico, for instance.
Is there good information on how a bushel of corn is divied up in the "marketplace"? How much goes to "real food"? How much goes to animal feed? How much does planting an acre of "ethanol corn" really subtract from the production of real food? Can someone help me sort this out?
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 1:40 am
19 Apr 2007
Beer is up
Because more acres are being used to grow corn for ethanol. That puts other grains, like barley, in short supply. Prices rise for all crop based food products when land area of corn energy production goes up because demand for ethanol goes up.
Cut back on meat, for instance, and the much more efficient foods, dairy, vegetable, and egg sources use a lot less land area for the human food produced.
Starvation from food price rise due to fuel farming is already soaring. Couple that with water problems from drought, contamination, and war (the US attacked Iraqi water supply firtst in gulf 1 and 2, dooming 100s of thousands of, mostly children, from water bourne illness), and a massive death toll is inevitable.
Global climate change, oil war, and fuel farming. Brutal methods of population control. Corporate feudal methods.
Reproductive rights for women, that's the natural answer to overpopulation.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 2:00 am
19 Apr 2007
But corn ethanol
But corn ethanol is almost too easy to hate
- It's a crappy feedstock
- It's a crappy biofuel (on performance / compatibility basis)
- It's a food crop (And therefore receives a bunch of subsidies it doesn't deserve for fuel)
Practically a strawman._
Now the harder one to figure out are the solid arguements against stuff like switchgrass butanol.
Permalink
WWAGD?! Posted 2:05 am
19 Apr 2007
Greeners Screwing the Consumer
What's really going on here...clearly we're on the verge of some breathtaking energy revolutions -- but the real action is in nanotech, fuel cells and -- the one gas that Grist loves to hate -- hydrogen.
Yet, we're being overcharged for day old fuels: Ethanol, Oil, Methane. Why? My theory is the Old Guard is trying to make as much cash as possible before the house of cards comes tumbling down. They know it's going to fall. I know it too. However, as long as they can pull enough Green Rugs over the peoples eyes, you'll continue to pay them 4 times value.
http://www.physorg.com/news96198893.html
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 2:35 am
19 Apr 2007
Except that
Except that using solar to harvest hydrogen is a waste of energy.
You'd get 3-4x more energy just by using the raw energy inside a battery.
Thats why the European Fuel Cell Forum, one of the most influencial fuel cell groups in the world.
They have officially canceled all hydrogen fuel cell research.
(Focusing instead on massive power plant fuel cells that use carbon fuels and could replace coal and natural gas facilities)
Permalink
mihan Posted 2:45 am
19 Apr 2007
food vs. fuel, "policy elites"
The specific commodities that would be made into ethanol are not taking food off the market so much as the land and energy that went into growing those commodities. For example, nobody think that we're going to eat the feedlot corn in Iowa, but we would eat wheat grown on those fields, using those resources.
The people who read Foreign Affairs are generally not "policy elites," though some probably are. They could be, for example, employees of USAID who are trying to help farmers in developing countries develop their farming practices. Foreign-service types are usually more realistic than "policy elites," and they're probably the vast majority of people who read Foreign Affairs.
Permalink
gmunger Posted 3:25 am
19 Apr 2007
I repeat
So what about the question of ethanol vs. tortillas? This direct negative correlation is being widely circulated as fact. Is it just another unproven assumption being propogated by lazy journalists? Because there are a LOT of lazy readers out there.
Permalink
Tom Philpott Posted 4:35 am
19 Apr 2007
Gmunger,
You've got the right idea. Here are corn usage numbers for '06. Yes, nobody actually eats yellow corn; it's an industrial input.
Two things, thoough. The more prime land devoted to yellow corn, the less that can be used for food purposes. The corn boom is pushing up soy prices, for example, as farmers spurn corn for soy. It's also making land prices rise in the midwest, putting the pinch on anyone--and yes, they exist--who want to start a new farm in the midwest to grow food for people to eat.
Globally, the ethanol boom can be expected to crowd out food crops by inspiring farmers to plant, say, sugarcane on prime farmland. In the US meat prices are heading up, squeezing low-income folks. Processed food prices will rise, too, at least a little, which will fall hardest on people who can least afford it.
In the global south, it will impact the swelling numbers of un- or underemployed in megacities--people with no access to land to grow their own food, who lead precarious lives.
Yes, food needs to be revalued, but this is hardly the way to do it.
You also have the right idea about Mexico. Two things. One, as the price of yellow corn spiked, livestock producers there in some cases switched to white corn, pushing up its price. Also, multinational grain traders like Cargill and ADM, along with dominant Mexican tortilla and corn-flour maker Gruma (partially owned by ADM), quite likely took advantage of the run on yellow to artificially jack up the price of white, or of its processed product, corn flour (masa harina). The grain traders dominate large-scale distribution of even white corn in that country, and Gruma makes the corn flour used by a huge portion of the country's tortillarias. I've written a couple of Victual Realities on this topic, if you search around.
Victual Reality
Permalink
liminalgrey Posted 4:44 am
19 Apr 2007
Why ethanol caused a tortilla price spike...
gmunger:
From the Foreign Affairs piece Tom referenced:
"In late 2006, the price of tortilla flour in Mexico, which gets 80 percent of its corn imports from the United States, doubled thanks partly to a rise in U.S. corn prices from $2.80 to $4.20 a bushel over the previous several months. (Prices rose even though tortillas are made mainly from Mexican-grown white corn because industrial users of the imported yellow corn, which is used for animal feed and processed foods, started buying the cheaper white variety.)"
Permalink
Energy745 Posted 4:45 am
19 Apr 2007
gmunger
In the short term a higher demand for corn by the ethanol producers will increase the price of corn. More bidders for a fixed amount of production will cause the price to go higher.
In later years corn production will increase to meet demand as in all markets. The supply increase does not happen overnight because more land must be procured for farming, along with more equipment for planting and harvesting.
Assuming of course that demand for ethanol remains high.
Permalink
gmunger Posted 4:50 am
19 Apr 2007
Thank you
As usual, some patient searching would have lead me to the answers. Thanks for helping.
Don't get me wrong, I'm on your team here. Just trying to flesh out some details that don't always get fleshed out in the mainstream media.
Thanks for humoring me.
Permalink
gmunger Posted 4:54 am
19 Apr 2007
Also assuming...
...the subsidy for commodity corn remains constant.
But if the demand rises substantially, what justification can we invent for maintaining the subsidy?
Permalink
Tom Philpott Posted 5:03 am
19 Apr 2007
Well,
...the commodity corn subsidy is tied to price--the government estimates the cost of production. At current inflated prices, there won't be much subsidy for corn growers. Ethanol makers, however, get all manner of indirect tax subsidies, the most prominent being the $0.51/gallon mixers credit for ethanol use.
Victual Reality
Permalink
gmunger Posted 5:05 am
19 Apr 2007
Thanks again
The enlightenment is coming rapid-fire.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 5:08 am
19 Apr 2007
Well
The real question is why are we trying to increase the supply of liquid fuels anyways?
Electricity uses 3-4x less energy than hydrogen.
And we now have batteries that can recharge in 10 minutes and drive hundreds and hundreds of miles.
It's not like we're running out of Oil anytime soon. We're merely at the halfway mark.
The difference is that Oil is going to continue to get more scarce. More expensive.
Which is a good thing.
All the more reason to abandon ship, rather than furiously using a bucket in a vane attempt to keep the Titanic afloat.
Permalink
GreenEngineer Posted 5:09 am
19 Apr 2007
market adjustments
In later years corn production will increase to meet demand as in all markets.
Except that that production will come at the cost of production of other grain products. And with an enormous ecological price tag as well. Corn is one of the worst food crops in terms of impact per acre. The last thing we want to do is grow still more of it.
Permalink
gmunger Posted 5:25 am
19 Apr 2007
Great Corn Desert
Indeed. The tallgrass prairies and oak savannas of this region may be the most dramatically transformed ecotypes in North America. We've been trading our natural heritage for cheap soda pop.
Supermarket to the world....my arse.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 5:25 am
19 Apr 2007
Corn sucks anyways.
But like said
Corn is a strawman argument anyways
If we were forced to make alcohol biofuel without subsidies in play.
We wouldn't pick Corn
Yield in gal/acre/year
Algae Starch 20000
Miscanthus 1500
Switchgrass 1150
Sweet Potatoes 1069
Poplar Wood 1000
Sweet Sorghum 900
Sugar Beet 714
Sugar Cane 662
Cassava 410
Corn 370
_
And we certainly wouldn't pick Ethanol either.
Since it's a horrible fuel based on it's
- 30% lower Energy Density than Gasoline
- Incompatibility with existing vehicles, pumps, pipelines, and storage tanks due to it's corrosivity, high vapor pressure, and attraction of airborn water which contaminates the fuel.
If we had to choose, we'd go with Butanol_
However like said, this is all a stupid argument to begin with since biofuels are inherently just pork barrel subsidies for oil and farm lobbies.
And at best, merely air quality and performance additives to oil.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 5:30 am
19 Apr 2007
Well for example.
Brazil has been heavily subsidizing ethanol for over 2 decades.
They are equal with the US in ethanol production, but use 10x less transport fuel.
They use sugar cane, and have a perfect climate for high yields.
_
Brazil still uses Oil for over 85% of their fuel.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Brazil/Oil.html
Roughly 302,000 barrels of ethanol a day
And 2,100,000 barrels of domestically drilled oil a day.
And each barrel of ethanol contains 30% less energy than the oil.
Permalink
Energy745 Posted 5:50 am
19 Apr 2007
GreyFlcn
What is the source of your estimates for gal/acre/year?
Are they scalable based on land and growing climate? Corn is used because it grows over the large flat portion of N. America. I am not sure about land area available for the crops you show. I also am not sure about the current technology to convert crops to a useful biofuel for a reasonable $/GJ.
In the present biofuels depend heavily on subsidies, but looking out to 2030 can they stand on their own? Will changing to a differnt feed-stock like Algae Starch decrease the cost per GJ of the fuel?
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 6:00 am
19 Apr 2007
Wikipedia
With a guesstimate on the algae, which can be bred to be 97% starch.
Permalink
Ron Steenblik Posted 7:07 am
19 Apr 2007
Great string, folks
And thanks, Tom, for all the links. There has, indeed, been quite a lot of negative press about ethanol recently.
Just one correction. GreyFlcn asserts that
Actually, the Brazilian federal govermment supported the production of ethanol capacity (e.g., with subsidized loans) for most of two decades, but stopped providing these subsidies in the 1990s.
Nowadays, the main support is indirect, through differential taxation, especially at the State level. But to give some indicative numbers, gasoline is taxed at a rate or around 45 percent of the final price, while the tax on ethanol is only 28 percent. The important point is that this tax differentiation does not subsidize exports.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 7:13 am
19 Apr 2007
Well the real answer is
Liquid fuels don't make sense because solid and gasified biomass utilized as electricity generates drastically more net usable energy for the same amount of biomass.
_
For instance a Direct Carbon Fuel Cell can reach as high as 72% net energy utilization from biomass.
(90% efficient torrification process.
80% efficient direct carbon fuel cell)
Which is a far cry from 7.2% conversion with ethanol.
(38% efficient Fischer Trophe process
20% efficient gasoline engine)
10x difference in energy content, from the same amount of biomass.
Permalink
WWAGD?! Posted 7:48 am
19 Apr 2007
Big Name; Little Matter
First of all, that Forum is private -- it does not speak for all (or any) of "Europe". This article is most revealing (and balanced).
http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/hydrogen-fuel-cells- ...
To me it sounds like the "Fuel Cell" forum is a group of apoligists for coal:
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
Permalink
GreenEngineer Posted 7:57 am
19 Apr 2007
out of context
Jesus jabailo. If you're going to quote out of context to intentionally distort their point, you could try a little harder next time.
Bossel's point is that hydrogen is a bad idea because it's a poor energy carrier, and switching to it as a primary mode of energy distribution would increase our total energy requirements, and this increase would have to come from fossil fuels.
Continuing the rest of the quote:
GreyFlcn Posted 8:25 am
19 Apr 2007
Also another reason to focus on electricity
Another reason the focus on electricity is that electricity can be generated from renewables, rather than hydrogen.
Permalink