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.
Corn-based meat and ethanol: burning the planet to a crisp
New interactive map shows devastating effects of global temperature rise
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gmunger Posted 1:22 am
19 Apr 2007
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?
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amazingdrx Posted 1:40 am
19 Apr 2007
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
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:00 am
19 Apr 2007
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.
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:05 am
19 Apr 2007
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
Renewable hydrogen energy - an answer to the energy crisis
Harvesting solar energy to produce renewable, carbon free and cost effective hydrogen as an alternative energy source is the focus of a new £4.2 million research programme at Imperial College London, it is announced.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:35 am
19 Apr 2007
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)
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mihan Posted 2:45 am
19 Apr 2007
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.
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gmunger Posted 3:25 am
19 Apr 2007
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Tom Philpott Posted 4:35 am
19 Apr 2007
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
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liminalgrey Posted 4:44 am
19 Apr 2007
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.)"
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Energy745 Posted 4:45 am
19 Apr 2007
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.
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gmunger Posted 4:50 am
19 Apr 2007
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.
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gmunger Posted 4:54 am
19 Apr 2007
But if the demand rises substantially, what justification can we invent for maintaining the subsidy?
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Tom Philpott Posted 5:03 am
19 Apr 2007
Victual Reality
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gmunger Posted 5:05 am
19 Apr 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:08 am
19 Apr 2007
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.
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GreenEngineer Posted 5:09 am
19 Apr 2007
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.
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gmunger Posted 5:25 am
19 Apr 2007
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.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:25 am
19 Apr 2007
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.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:30 am
19 Apr 2007
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.
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Energy745 Posted 5:50 am
19 Apr 2007
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?
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:00 am
19 Apr 2007
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Ron Steenblik Posted 7:07 am
19 Apr 2007
Just one correction. GreyFlcn asserts that
Brazil has been heavily subsidizing ethanol for over 2 decades.
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.
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:13 am
19 Apr 2007
_
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.
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Delay And Deny Posted 7:48 am
19 Apr 2007
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:
Ulf Bossel of the European Fuel Cell Forum, an organisation that supports technical and scientific advances on fuel cells, challenges what he calls 'the hydrogen illusion'.
"Hydrogen is clean only if it is made from renewable electricity," says Bossel. But he adds that if a hydrogen-based economy becomes a reality, it will be characterised by a massive increase in demand for electric power, which he says is unlikely to be met by renewables alone.
According to Bossel, a substantial part of the increased demand for power will therefore need to come from coal-fired or nuclear power plants with all the known consequences for the environment and for safety.
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:57 am
19 Apr 2007
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:
In addition, he says a substantial amount of energy is lost when the electricity is converted to hydrogen for storage in a fuel cell and subsequently converted back into electricity.
"About three quarters of the original energy is lost for electrolysis, compression or liquefaction, transportation, storage, transfer and re-conversion back to electricity with fuel cells," the Fuel Cell Forum said in a statement.
According to Bossel, this is because "a synthetic energy carrier cannot be more efficient than the energy from which it is made. Renewable electricity is better distributed by electrons than by hydrogen."
</blockqoute>
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:25 am
19 Apr 2007
coal -> electricity -> batteries -> motor = 36% efficient
coal -> hydrogen -> fuel cell -> motor = 45.6% efficient
wind -> electricity -> electrolyzer -> hydrogen -> fuel cell -> motor = 45% efficient
wind -> electricity -> batteries -> motor = 90% efficient
When hydrogen is used as the medium, coal and wind have roughly the same end-to-end efficiency.
If electricity is used as the medium, coal loses about 20% compared to hydrogen.
If electricity is used as the medium, wind GAINS 100% compared to hydrogen!
http://ergosphere.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-hydrogen-is-no ...
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