The ethanol industry is in trouble because the market is rejecting its products, which turn out to have been wildly over-hyped. So it's taking a cue from the coal industry and improving its product launching a massive advertising campaign. Fresh from my inbox:
WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday, November 11th, leading ethanol producers from around the country will announce the launch of a new organization at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The organization will be dedicated to promoting ethanol as America's best renewable fuel that is reliable and affordable now. In addition, they will announce a new ad campaign focused on one of the most important issues regarding ethanol and public policy.
How hard is it to make your product affordable when you receive billions in subsidies from taxpayers? And if taxpayers are paying to keep the price low, does that really count as affordable?
EPA punts on raising ethanol “blend wall”
More power, less roadkill: How one professor’s landscape has shifted
Corn-based meat and ethanol: burning the planet to a crisp
Comments
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:41 pm
07 Nov 2008
The industry's supporters still defend ethanol. Bob Dinneen, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, the industry's main lobbying group in Washington, said the fuel represented an opportunity for Americans to invest "here at home" rather than continue to "haemorrhage money ... to the Middle East" [Note: if Americans really gave a shit about that they would stop driving pickups and SUVs].
"I'd challenge you to find any energy resource today that isn't dependent on government support," Mr Dinneen said. "If domestically produced energy is something that you want to have, then some of these subsidies are going to be necessary."
The Renewable Fuels Association should join forces with big coal and oil so they won't have to run separate commercials.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Wolverine Posted 4:28 am
08 Nov 2008
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Jonas Posted 5:35 am
08 Nov 2008
So why defend industries that receive far more subsidies and reduce CO2 levels less, over an industry that reduces CO2 levels more and is less subsidized?
They don't need propaganda, people like you do the work for them!
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Biodiversivist Posted 6:40 am
08 Nov 2008
Agrofuels don't decrease greenhouse gases at all.
The other industries have not to my knowledge received 80 billion in subsidies.
I've never defended subsidization of the other industries.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Bart Anderson Posted 10:15 am
08 Nov 2008
They've gotten a bad rap because they've been so abused.
They can be an important tool of policy - if they are seen as temporary or as part of an overall strategy.
The problem - as the libertarians tell us - is that subsidies are seductive. Special interests, politicians and favored parts of the population love them.
It's important to have counter-forces in society which can provide an objective judgment. Common Cause and the GAO are examples.
Subsidies and special interests have been with us for thousands of years. (If you think the US is bad, read about Ancient Rome!) There's no magic solution.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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AmericanFarmer Posted 3:01 pm
08 Nov 2008
Duh.
We don't need gasoline.
We never needed it.
Facts: Scientific and historical about gasoline and alcohol
The original automobiles ran on alcohol because when they were invented gasoline was not available.
John D. Rockefeller spent $4 million in early 1900 dollars (that we know of) to promote Prohibition, a ban on alcohol manufacturing in the US that started in 1919 just as the car industry was taking off.
When Prohibition was lifted in 1933, gasoline stations were ubiquitous and most engines ran on gasoline only.
Alcohol can be manufactured locally and on a community level from renewable plant material for $1 - $2 per gallon.
The growing of plant material for alcohol would have no effect on the price of food.
The growing of plants for fuel would more than neutralize the carbon created by burning alcohol for fuel.
In Brazil, over 50% of new cars sold can already run on 100% alcohol.
Producing alcohol from plant material is energy efficient and has a positive energy return (You get more energy out of alcohol than it takes to make it).
The oil companies aggressively promote garbage science to deceive the public into believing that alcohol fuels:
a) will cause starvation
b) are uneconomical
c) are net polluters.
Gasoline is a high toxic material.
It is entirely unneeded to fuel our cars.
Oil companies like Chevron have pressured PBS, commercial TV networks and other news media to keep this basic information from the public for decades - and the censorship continues to this day.
Remember this information when the gas shortages start, and pick up a copy of America's playbook for digging out of this mess.
Our biggest challenge in the world right now is not our 401k's... it is that there are nuclear armed countries whose people are starving, and they are descending into chaos. All the leaders of the world need to do is feed people and they can maintain order.
The highly armed nations of the world need to be fed, folks - because it sucks to die and countries that are armed with weapons of mass destruction will take others out with them as they go.
And to add to our own domestic national security problem here in the United States, Matt Simmons, one of the world's foremost energy experts, says gasoline stocks are the lowest here since 1967 and refinery production is down following recent hurricanes. He warns that if there were a run on the "energy bank" by everyone topping off their gasoline tanks, the U.S. would be out of fuel in three days, and grocery shelves largely emptied in a week.
We do not have a very large alcohol fuel energy infrastructure in place yet, and there are bound to be emergency shortages of energy. You can live without electricity and gas, you would just have to get used to digging in the dirt. They survived collapse in Cuba, and we can do it here.
So let's become less selfish REAL FAST. We can survive without money. But it will be easier as long as we have communities with local leadership, farming and people-organizing skills, electricity, the Internet, and barter systems. I think it would suck if the Internet went away.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:16 am
09 Nov 2008
Oil companies love ethanol because the government subsidization of this additive (that they must by law blend into gas to meet EPA air pollution requirements) puts money in their pocket.
Rather than devote 35,000 square miles of prime farmland to increase fuel supply less that 2%, how about driving cars that get double our average gas mileage so we can decrease money spent on fuel by 50%? My family has reduced fuel use 80% without compromising anything. We still go anywhere we want, whenever we want, and just a fast as ever and save money while doing it.
The American tax payer may eventually grow weary of propping up the agrofuel industry.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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AmericanFarmer Posted 3:45 am
09 Nov 2008
Here is one reason...
Day care costs average between $3,380 to $10,787 a year for just one preschooler, according to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.
Even before this year's economic perils, the cost had climbed 5.2 percent between 2006 and 2007.
About 2,650,000 0preschoolers attend day care.
These parents are now having to pull their kids out because they can't make ends meet, and you expect them to go buy a NEW CAR?
Get real.
We need a new infrastructure for making alcohol fuel, and that means new jobs in still manufacturing, mushroom farming, talapia farming, and all the wonderful side-businessesthat spring up from the WIDE VARIETY of feedstocks you can use to make fuel, not just corn.
We can make fuel from the 70 million acres of mesquite in the US, from Kelp grown off the ocean's shores, and many, many more things than corn.
So stop trying to peddle crap about ethanol being a bad choice. Seriously - I am making my own fuel on a small scale, and it is our way forward from oil.
Anyone who wants the truth needs to pick up a copy of "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" by David Blume. Gristmill needs to get on this.
Randy White
Lawns To Gardens
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:57 am
09 Nov 2008
Yes, I've been there before. Blume's website appears to be the main source of these conspiracy theories.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:25 am
09 Nov 2008
I wish I could be more enthusiastic about ethanol and David Blume's approach, but the more facts that come out about ethanol, the worse it looks.
Skepticism and opposition are coming from all parts of the political spectrum, from Fidel Castro to Libertarians (who object to the subsidies). I think it is widely accepted now that corn ethanol is a bad idea, that at most it would be a stepping stone to a better process.
Similarly, outside of the ethanol lobby, it is accepted that growing crops for ethanol does boost food prices. Estimates of the effects range from "small-moderate" to "huge." One of the strongest statements came from agriculture experts at The World Bank.
The EROEI (energy return on energy invested) of ethanol is debated. Although much depends on the particulars of the process, the numbers range from slightly negative to perhaps 2-4. This is not very much compared to other energy sources.
What bothers me as a permaculturalist is that widespread production of ethanol represents a constant stream of nutrients away from the soil. This contradicts permaculture's maxim to recycle.
What does make sense (and this is perhaps where David Blume's ideas are applicable) is local production for small-scale use -- perhaps farm vehicles and rural transportation.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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AmericanFarmer Posted 1:53 pm
09 Nov 2008
I am not an advocate of the way the ethanol business is presently run. We need way more people involved, and way less emphasis on corn.
There are just so many ways to brew hooch. I have bought into Dave Blume's plan hook, line, and sinker because we need to give people new jobs as the layoffs build up and hyper-inflation begins.
I have built a hyper-local commerce and community system for any city that wants to deploy it as a "Peak Oil" crash system, but we need physical labor to offset oil and natural gas depletion.
Not that we shouldn't walk and bike more : )
Thank you for all the work you do at Energy Bulletin.
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Gaustin Posted 3:26 pm
15 Nov 2008
Some of your "facts" are quite incorrect;
5. The growing of plant material for alcohol would have no effect on the price of food.
This is can not be true, just imagine if half the land in America was changed to crops grown for ethanol, the production of food would be halved, and when supply decreases and demand stays the same price increases.
6. The growing of plants for fuel would more than neutralize the carbon created by burning alcohol for fuel.
This "fact" is wrong on so many levels. First, all carbon taken in by a plant in the form of CO2 stays in the plant and when burned releases all that CO2 back again. At this level using an entire plant for heating fuel would keep the CO2 balance equal.
Next one must add in the energy costs of transportation, tillage, planting, harvesting, fertilizers, pesticides, and the costs of building equipment, all these create CO2, and other environmentally damaging compounds, which will not be removed by the carbon neutral process of growing and burning a plant.
8. Producing alcohol from plant material is energy efficient and has a positive energy return (You get more energy out of alcohol than it takes to make it).
Another deceiving point, as of course it is positive, why would someone run a negative process to create energy, spending 2L of ethanol to create 1L of ethanol, just doesn't make sense.
Also your point does let everyone know that even more energy(probably from burning coal or oil)to convert the crop into ethanol.
Only problem now it, what can we use for energy? No coal, no oil, no ethanol. Thermal, hydro, wave and tidal anyone?
There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance. -Ali bin Abu-Talib
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