Maybe we can use this ethanol to make US a superpower with corn.

Green and Environmental Website | Almighty Cleanse

I'm glad to see Gristmill posting Michael Klare here. Welcome!

I've been following Klare's writings for several years. They are essential reading, in my opinion, for understanding the international situation.

Many of his previous essays are on the web. His just published book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet puts together a compelling picture of how the race for energy resources will largely determine alliances and conflicts in the years to come.

I come away with two conclusions.

One: Anything we can do to reduce our need for energy is a step towards peace. Especially oil.

Second: We have to learn to co-operate with China to move towards renewables and efficiency, both because of climate change and so that we don't accidentally come into military conflict.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

green8659 writes:

Maybe we can use this ethanol to make US a superpower with corn.

Last year -- a record year -- the United States produced 13 billion bushels of corn. Current analyses assume (gross) yields of about 2.6 gallons per bushel of corn. Let's be generous and assume that can be boosted to an average of 2.8 gallons/bushel. That means that, if all of the nation's corn kernels were to be turned into ethanol, the total yield would be 36 billion gallons per year.

In 2007, the U.S. consumed 142 billion gallons (3.39 billion barrels) of finished gasoline. Its consumption of all finished petroleum products was 283 billion gallons.

Thus, on a gallon-for-gallon basis, 36 billion gallons of ethanol would displace 25% of domestic consumption of gasoline, or 13% of total finished petroleum products.

A more appropriate comparison, however, is on an energy-equivalent basis, since ethanol has about 67% the energy content of gasoline. But let's assume, because of ethanol's higher octane content, that the effective energy penalty is just 25% and not 33%. That still means that converting all of the current corn crop to ethanol would displace only 19% of domestic gasoline consumption, or 10% of total finished petroleum products.

At some point in the future, some of the cellulose and hemi-cellulose in corn stover could be turned into ethanol as well. But the amount that could be harvested sustainably is not as large as some people imagine:

To quote a USDA report from 2007:

[W]hen you add soil organic matter concerns to erosion concerns, it slashes the amount of cornstalks available for conversion to ethanol. For example, 213-bushel-per-acre corn yields leave farmers an average four tons per acre of cornstalks after harvest. Farmers could then harvest about two tons of cornstalks per acre for conversion to ethanol--but only from land with low erosion risks, using little or no tillage.

If the same farmers rotate with soybeans as recommended, they can only remove half again as much biomass for ethanol production, or just one ton per acre, to compensate for the lower biomass left by soybeans.

So, say that in the future, ALL corn farmers sell (on average) one ton of corn stover per acre for ethanol production. At a theoretical yield of 113 gallons per ton, and (let's be generous), an assumed 90 million acres planted to corn, the theoretical production of that would be around an additional 10 billion gallons a year.

I must remind readers that that is a GROSS, theoretical yield. Some of the biomass harvested for the cellulosic ethanol production would be needed to provide the process heat for the plants. And, of course, some fuel would be needed to power the tractors that plant and harvest the corn, and transport the corn kernels and stover to the processing plants. And, of course, I'm not allowing for the possibility of wide-spread drought or pestilence.

But ignoring all that, what we are left with is a maximum ethanol yield from corn (including its stover) of around 12% (= 0.75 * [36 + 10] / 283) of domestic consumption of finished petroleum products, on an energy-equivalent basis --  significant, but hardly enough to turn the United States into an energy superpower.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: with all the corn going into ethanol production, there would be none left for exports, animal feed, or for processing into products for human consumption.

These are only my personal opinions.

No doubt, somebody will point out that I am wrong to say that "there would be none left for ... animal feed." That is of course, wrong. When corn kernels are turned into ethanol, about 1/3 of the weight of the original corn ends up as distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS), a high-protein animal feed.

The degree to which DDGS can be substituted for corn in livestock feed is limited, however. According to the University of Iowa, the maximum recommended amount of DDGS in animal feed is:

Livestock Beef cattle -- 10-20%
Dairy cattle -- 20%
Holstein steer -- 40%
Broilers, turkeys -- 10%
Chicken layers -- 15%
Sheep -- 10%
Hogs (except for gestating pigs) -- 10-20%
Gestating pigs -- 50%

These are only my personal opinions.

Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00.

I think this is nonsense.

Firstly, the price of gasoline hasn't even risen enough to seriously reduce consumption.

Secondly, rising incomes mean that this price spike is lower, proportionally, than previous ones.

Thirdly, the end of cheap fossil fuels will impact rival powers as much as the US. Relative power is what matters in geopolitics.

High fuel prices might be hot stuff politically at the moment, but there is no way even $200 a barrel oil would lead automatically to a global reconfiguration of power.

a sibilant intake of breath

Glad to see numbers being run. So, essentially, 10 to 50% of that distiller's grain can replace corn, meaning that on average, about one in every 14 corn kernels can be salvaged to replace corn in the human food chain. Very interesting.

This fear of rising oil prices is what drives a lot of support for biofuels. What people don't realize is that they will be just as expensive (biodiesel here is selling for $5.65/gallon) and increase GHG just as much, but they are also far more environmentally destructive than even fossil fuels.

Our best option is to greatly reduce oil use via high gas mileage vehicles and much improved infrastructure. Biofuels of the future will probably help somewhat but certainly not the stuff we are making today under government mandate.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I'm glad to see a post from Michael T. Klare, surely one of the best analysts of international politics and economics that we have.

I have to disagree on a few things he said, though, in particular, "The fact is, America's wealth and power has long rested on the abundance of cheap petroleum".

In other words, he is saying that our prosperity and power is based on oil.  While oil has been very important, I don't think that it is the single most important factor.  As I tried to argue  here, manufacturing, and in particular the machinery used to manufacture, is the single most important part of an economy.  Oil is important because it used by machinery.  But not even most machinery -- in fact, he gives a catalogue of the main uses to which oil has been put: Abundant, exceedingly affordable petroleum was also responsible for the emergence of the American automotive and trucking industries, the flourishing of the domestic airline industry, the development of the petrochemical and plastics industries, the suburbanization of America, and the mechanization of its agriculture.

All of these, to one extent or the other, were probably mistakes, and I think it can be argued that the U.S. would not only have been just as wealthy without them, we'd be in much better shape now had we not chosen those paths.

That being said -- sindark, the problem is that, since so much of the global economic system is based on oil, and the U.S. in particular, the U.S. will suffer, power-wise and wealth-wise, more than other powers (and by the way, the Chinese are more important now than the Russians, because the Chinese manufacture more than the Russians).  The U.S. was the world's oil producer until 1971, and it definitely affects our power position -- not because oil is inherently important, but because the world has unfortunately chosen to make oil so important.

sindark's arguments and my responses.
 Firstly, the price of gasoline hasn't even risen enough to seriously reduce consumption.It's true that U.S. gas consumption has not been seriously reduced (yet). But that's not the issue; in fact, it's part of the problem. As Klare points out, payments for oil imports represents "the single largest contribution to America's balance-of-payments deficit, and is a leading cause for the dollar's ongoing drop in value."  These are key signs that a nation is in decline.
Secondly, rising incomes mean that this price spike is lower, proportionally, than previous ones. Not sure what you mean. If you are talking about the inflation-adjusted price of oil, we passed the previous peak earlier this year (Christian Science Monitor). If you are indeed talking about U.S. incomes, the problem is that income gains took place predominantly in the upper income segments. This means that fuel prices are seen differently by different income groups:
Rich: fuel prices are a non-issue.
Upper-middle: an irritant.
Middle-class: getting to be a worry.
Lower-middle and below (especially rural): a big deal
Thirdly, the end of cheap fossil fuels will impact rival powers as much as the US. Au contraire. Russia and the Mideeast are exporters of oil and natural gas, as Klare points out. They will thrive, whereas importers lose power. Even China, which is also an importer, seems to have adopted a smarter policy than the U.S. We have come to rely on confrontation and our oil-dependent military to ensure the flow of oil (e.g. the bases in Central Asia and Mideast), whereas China has a lower key, dealmaking approach.  

Bart
Energy Bulletin

OOOhhhhh!

Before you go around talking about America's demise -- America which is probably the most energy efficient country in the world -- you should check what high oil prices have done to the growth rate in China!  and India!

Yeah...tell me about.

Texeme.Construct(Participant)