President Bush's recent pledge to raise the Renewable Fuel Standard to 35 billion gallons by 2017 dropped with a bit of a thud.
David Roberts made a pretty good case that all the recent hype around ethanol may soon prove quaint: that, in essence, the ethanol craze will eventually likely crumble under its weighty political, agricultural, and technological contradictions. Maybe so.
Meanwhile, though, farmers are planting a shitload of corn, dozens of ethanol plants are sprouting up across the land, and the government is planning to plow ever more cash into research on cellulosic ethanol, a technology whose commercial viability remains perpetually five years away. It's worth asking: If Bush's ethanol dream did come true, how much would it cost taxpayers?
Answer: at least $118 billion.
That calculation comes from Gristmill's own Ron Steenblik, research director of the Global Subsidies Initiative, and Doug Koplow, whose ground-breaking report on biofuel subsidies so informed Grist's recent biofuels series.
And what would taxpayers get for that not inconsiderable chunk of change (which could theoretically be spent, say, building out high-speed trains between population centers)?
That's a question of some debate. Researchers in Oregon recently looked at what environmental gains ethanol subsidies deliver for their own state, and concluded: not much.
For one thing ...
the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by switching to corn-based ethanol was calculated to be more than 200 times higher than other existing policy options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
For example?
For comparison, the authors calculated that the net energy benefits from increasing automobile fuel efficiency by one mile per gallon would be equivalent to three or four corn ethanol plants or 13 biodiesel plants
Ouch.
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Comments
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Ron Steenblik Posted 6:58 pm
05 Feb 2007
Thanks for the comprehensive survey of recent news items relating to the ethanol debate. (And for providing a link to our article, of course!)
Regarding the Oregon State University study (which is written in very clear, approachable language), it is worth pointing out that your last quote actually refers to Oregon only. Here's what the report says on page iv:
For comparison, the degree of energy independence resulting from a one mile-per-gallon increase in average motor vehicle fuel economy in Oregon would be equivalent to 3-4 corn ethanol plants like the one evaluated here [each 50 million gallons per year], or 13 biodiesel plants [each 2 million gallons per year] like the one evaluated here. [My emphasis.]
On a national basis, a lot more than 200 million gallons per year of ethanol capacity, or 26 million gallons per year of biodiesel capacity would be required to match a one mile-per-gallon increase in average motor vehicle fuel economy!
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Tom Philpott Posted 10:06 pm
05 Feb 2007
Now, Oregon is a pretty small state--3.4 million people. Extrapolating based on US population, it would take 308 ethanol plants to match that standard nation wide. To be fair, Oregon's distance from the corn belt makes it less efficient than many other states, since corn has to be hauled there. So let's say that it would take 200 new corn-based ethanol plants to match a 1mpg boost in milage standards.
There are currently 97 plants up and running. So, if my rough analysis is right, we could double the current number of existing plants, and just achieve the net energy benefits 1 mpg boost in standards.
Wouldn't it be smarter to chill on the ethanol and just start pushing up CAFE? Even the tiniest steps would be just as effective as spending billions building out ethanol infrastructure.
Victual Reality
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spaceshaper Posted 10:14 pm
05 Feb 2007
...yes.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Nucbuddy Posted 11:11 pm
05 Feb 2007
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Pandu Posted 11:31 pm
05 Feb 2007
Before I started my current job, I worked for the USDA Agricultural Research Service on a project related to ethanol for fuel. As I was told, it was not cost-effective to make ethanol from corn because so much of the corn is wasted. Only the starch is needed to make ethanol, and so our job was to find uses for other components of the corn.
I was working to help develop a method of isolating and extracting a relatively high quality zein product from the corn. Zein is a kind of protein that makes up about half the protein in corn. It is notable for its film-forming properties, and is presently used as an edible coating such as on pills.
I was the lab technician on this project for about a year (around 2000), and I left before the project was over. At that point, the zein we were able to extract from corn was not anywhere close to competing with other zein sources on the market. I believe the researcher (there was only the two of us) retired shortly after. I don't know what became of the program, but I figure it was probably nothing.
Considering that our project was existing on the premise that producing corn for ethanol was not a profitable option, and that our project likely did not help much, I wonder how the farmers are getting paid enough for this.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 1:15 am
06 Feb 2007
Is a change in a fuel-economy standard the same thing as a change in rate of fuel consumption?
GOOD QUESTION!. Indeed, I was thinking of at some point writing a separate blog on this very topic.
The short answer is: No.
The long answer is: No, and therefore beware of confusion over the cost of achieving a one mile-per-gallon increase in an average fuel economy (e.g., CAFE) standard with the the cost of achieving a one mile-per-gallon increase in average fuel economy (i.e., roughly a 4% improvement), which is yet different from the cost of reducing fuel consumption by an equivalent amount.
Researchers, such as those at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), when estimating the cost of increasing the CAFE standard assume no change in the model composition of the vehicles manufactured and purchased. That is to say, they assume that the fuel-economy gains are achieved solely through technological improvements in the vehicles themselves. To quote from their December 2003 study, "
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:45 am
06 Feb 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 3:01 am
06 Feb 2007
The plugin hybrid subsidy has the added benefit of GHG elimination by curtailing combustion of 100 billion gallons of liquid fuel and preserving conservation land (that would otherwise be used for fuel farming)to sequester CO2.
In addition the plugin tax credits would spur mass production of plugin hybrids lowering the cost and making plugins competitive on initial price with internal combustion vehicles.
This could help plugin technology reach the critical 10% level, putting it right into the exponential part of the typical new product adoption curve.
That could start the total replacement of internal combustion drivetrains. Eventually reducing liquid fuel use by 90% when internal combustion only exists in classic cars in museums.
Fuel farming will never provide over a few percent of present oil based fuel consumption. There just isn't enough farmland to acomplish anymore than that.
Then as global climate change marches on, unabated by fuel farming and flex fuel vehicle scamming, farmland will be converted to desert as drought dries up aqifers. No more farmland will be left for fuel farming then. It will all be needed for food production.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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