Strange Bedfellows Fight Ethanol Subsidies 552
Reader Actual Reality sends us to Business Week for a tale of the strangest political coalition to be seen in a while — greens, hippies, libertarians, and livestock producers uniting to get ethanol subsidies reduced or killed. The demand for the alternative fuel is driving up corn prices and having big impacts on other parts of the economy. Not many other issues are capable of getting left-leaning economist Paul Krugman and the Cato Institute on the same side.
Consumer Reports (Score:5, Informative)
So financially and environmentally, it is good to fight the push for ethanol.
Re:Information on CO2 Sequestered (Score:2, Informative)
Q; Please tell me more. Where does it go?
A; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_s
Diversion of corn to ethanol is also a cause (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lobbies not environment (Score:5, Informative)
Corn isn't especially good for this purpose, but I believe this claim is false. Berkley's study [berkeley.edu] computes the whole process at a 1.3x net fuel gain.
Ethanol Subsidies (Score:4, Informative)
Problem solved. Of course we would have never got the subsidies in the first place it wasn't for the ADM lobbyist. Now that we got them making them exclusive solves the issue.
Research has shown ethanol produced from corn is less efficient and carbon positive. Alternative stock materials that require less fertilizing planting, etc. are the answer.
Growing food is hard. Growing grass is hard not to do.
Ethanol is not renewable (Score:4, Informative)
Corn Prices (Score:5, Informative)
My great uncle is a corn farmer, he is salivating at the lips at the prospect the gov't is going to build all of these ethanol plants, a nice payday for him off our backs if it goes through. That is all it is, a payday, it isn't worrying about the environment. Sugar ethanol is much more efficient, 4x much so I believe. We aren't using that because we have subsidies and trade protections for the sugar farmers. HA!
Re:Lobbies not environment (Score:3, Informative)
"Corn isn't especially good for this purpose, but I believe this claim is false. Berkley's study computes the whole process at a 1.3x net fuel gain."
Now compare that with the 10x net fuel gain of canae...
Uh,...., left leaning Paul Krugman? (Score:2, Informative)
I think you're confusing "willing to criticize the Bush administration" with "left-leaning".
Re:Business advice (Score:5, Informative)
However, there are producers out there who will supply you with free roaming beef if that's your taste.
If you really want to fix things, start controlling the number of people on the planet. We're eating up resources at a prodigious rate, technology is helping, but not fixing it.
Biofuels aren't the answer (Score:3, Informative)
The Department of Energy did a study that showed there was enough wind in North Dakota alone to fill the entire US's ENERGY needs, not just transportation. Nanotech in battery technology is showing huge promise in being able to store transport energy and be able to charge in seconds instead of hours. So why aren't we building windfarms and electric cars instead of encouraging South America to slash and burn their entire rainforest to grow sugarcane?
Re:Consumer Reports (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Consumer Reports (Score:5, Informative)
For gasoline to burn, it needs to get into the gas phase. For this to occur at the rate necessary to support combusion in the engine of a car, the mixture known as gas must have a sufficiently high vapor pressure. Since the vapor pressure of any liquid increases as the temperature goes up, gas must be formulated to have a "high" vapor pressure in the cold winter months. In the summer when the temperature is high, "gas" must be formulated such that the vapor pressure of the mixture isn't too high such that the gas evaporates before it enters the cylinders of the engine.
Adding ethanol to gasoline is one way to accomplish this. Ethanol molecules have strong intermolecular attractions (forces that bind neighboring molecules together) due to hydrogen bonding. As a consequence, mixtures with ethanol will have a lower vapor pressure than mixtures without ethanol at the same temperature.
Re:Business advice (Score:4, Informative)
The cow's rumen is not set up to digest corn. Introducing mass quantities of corn into the rumen causes the rumen to acidify (normally it is neutral). This causes several problems including massive ulceration. Essentially a feed lot cow is sick and dying the whole time it is there as it is being fattened. The other issue with the acidified rumen is that it means a cow's stomach is now chemically similar to a human stomach (strongly acid). Now you have an environment for E. Coli in the cow, which previously did not exist. This is why E. Coli in beef has become a problem. THe natural barrier to E. Coli infection transmission from cattle to humans has been removed by feeding the corn to the cow.
A properly managed intensive grazing system produces healthier cattle and, if properly rotated with other livestock (range chickens for example) can be significantly more productive, in terms of calories produced, per acre than modern corn farming. It is also less energy intensive. I think it takes something like 10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food energy through corn farming. MIG (managed intensive grazing) can do it on less without pesticides, herbicides etc.
See the book "Omnivore's Dilemma" for what appears to be a fairly balanced treatmwent of this subject.
Re:Why ethanol? (Score:3, Informative)
Butanol [wikipedia.org] does have it's own problems but is far more promising biofuel than corn based ethanol. Butanol can use the same transport infrastructure and car engines require almost no modification to burn pure butanol whereas an ethanol engine would. It along with biodiesel can make a viable alternative for biofuels.
Conservation and fuel efficiency should be the first step in reducing our dependency on foreign oil while we look for viable alternatives including mass transit.
Re:Allow me to explain (Score:3, Informative)
Furthermore, it's not that simple. Burning ethanol is a very, very wasteful process. Worse than gasoline. And the process releases more CO2 than gasoline. It's likely that if we standardized on ethanol for our motor vehicles, that 1) we would not be able to grow enough corn to produce all of the ethanol needed, and 2) we would be putting out more CO2 than the growing plants could absorb.
If I were you, before I went around advocating for ethanol, I'd do a bit more research first.
Topsoil (Score:3, Informative)
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Graze the Sun: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Comments from a former ethanol plant operator (Score:1, Informative)
Where to start? For every bushel of corn, a dry mill ethanol plant produces 2.8 gallons of ethanol. That ratio keeps improving by the year. The CO2 that is released during ethanol production can be thought of as releasing what the corn has stored. A few ethanol plants store the CO2 for different industries. From what I have read, most energy assumptions about ethanol do not take into account the feed that is produced. I can tell you a lot of research is going into producing nutritious feed for cattle. You can pretty much tell the nutrition in the feed from its color. Heck, if we have to shut the run down, we call up some local farmers to see if they want our wet cake for feed.
According to Wikipedia, the United States is the 3rd largest grower of sugar beets. To me, it makes no sense to spend all this money on corn while sugar beets can more efficiently produce ethanol. Although, there is a large gap between sugar beets and corn production (25 million metric tons to 280).
Regardless, it mathematically impossible to replace our dependence on oil with ethanol. We might as well start using more nuclear energy. This is coming from somebody who was in ethanol research.
And not to be modded off topic, let the free markets decide.
Re:Business advice (Score:5, Informative)
Corn is not what cattle evolved to feed on. Corn causes a nasty condition in cattle called acidosis which is not good for the animal or for the people drinking its milk and eating its meat. Corn has been used in animal feed in recent decades to fatten them up before slaughter because it has more calories than grass. But 'grain finishing' is like you eating nothing but candy bars and vitamin pills. In a very short time, your health would suffer.
Corn is typically genetically modified and contains traces of herbicides and pesticides. Corn subsidies have hurt the small farmer while enriching ADM (Archer Daniels Midland). Corn subsidies have the tax payer paying into ADM's bottom line whether we eat their foods or not.
Grass-fed beef and dairy contains much higher levels of vitamins, enzymes, and essential fatty acids. Grass-fed beef and dairy is the natural, healthy way to farm. As for digging through snow banks to graze on grass, you should look up the words 'hay' and 'silage' to learn how that problem is handled. Furthermore, beef cattle are slaughtered in the fall. You don't have to feed them when they are in your freezer.
Re:Allow me to explain (Score:3, Informative)
Huh? Libertarians are against all forms of welfare, whether for people or companies. In particular, you won't find a single libertarian who likes Con-Agra, or Archer-Daniels-Midland. They both suck at the government teat.
Renewable fuels (Score:3, Informative)
--Addressing the subsidy issue. Yes, our farm receives them, on occasion. Generally speaking they are set up if prices do not reach a set point for a season. Many say they should be eliminated, and in principle I agree with them. However, there are some costs that are unique to farmers, that, well, hurt. One is property tax. Farmers generally do not benefit from abatements like corporations do, and therefore bear the full brunt of tax. In areas with increasing housing pressure, that drives up land values, which can really sting with respect to taxes as a viable single family farm generally isn't less than 350Acres (here in IN due to good soil) X 3-4K per acre = ~$1-1.5Millon. Farmers also cannot control their prices. Whereas a factory can sell lots of widgets for less money a piece, or a few widgets for more $, farmers must take what they can get on the market. Farmers also cannot fully control their production. Agriculture is dependent on weather conditions completely, and poor weather for a year can put a small farm out of business. Subsidies are supposed to help small farmers in those bad years, but are greatly abused by commercial "gipsie farmers." It kind of gives a bad rap to the whole system.
--Bio-fuels.... Yes, we farmers know that rapeseed and sugarcane and all these other exotic crops are better for ethanol than corn. But, not many are willing to take the gamble to grow these exotic crops and not have a market for them. Most farmers around here take their grain to an elevator less than 50miles from their fields. Its generally not feasible economically to go farther than that. Do I know of any elevators in that range that take anything exotic; no. These crops are just too risky for a business that already has so many factors that we cannot control. I mean, think. What if rapeseed does not grow well in certain soils in Indiana? What available chemicals are there to control weeds in these crops? What equipment must I purchase? (for small seeds, probably new drill attachments, and special harvesting equipment, also very expensive). We all know that corn grows well in Indiana. We all know that there are markets, cheap chemicals for weed control, and hey, I already have all the equipment to plant and harvest corn. Hmm, I think I'll stick with corn.
With respect to corn ethanol plants, they have the potential to be very efficient. Imagine this: Ethanol plant takes corn from nearby farmers and produces ethanol and distillers grain. Attached to the ethanol plant is a large confined beef cattle feeding operation which consumes the distillers grains. The cattle operation produces beef and manure. The manure is then placed in a digester, which produces methane and residuals (inorganics, etc.)The methane is used to augment the fuel to power the ethanol plant, and the residuals are used in fertilizer production for the corn fields. Nice and efficient. Too bad this has yet to be implemented.
As for biodiesel (virgin biodiesel that is), its made from soybeans, a crop planted on years opposite corn. It has its issues, such as gelling issues in higher concentrations when temps are low, but from a farmer stand point, we fully support it.
I could go on, but I'm sick of typing...
Yields (Score:3, Informative)
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Use the Sun better: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Re:Corn Prices (Score:3, Informative)
Saab (GM) has a vehicle that runs anything from 100% gasoline to 100% Ethanol. It gets better MPG on 100% ethanol or E85 than it does 100% gasoline. How does that fact square with your assumption? It isn't a matter of the mixing making things inefficient, it's the assumption made when designing the engine and powertrain. Consider this: a smaller engine that makes use of the higher quality of energy in ethanol (that's what octane basically measures though in detail 100% ethanol has no octane because it does not have the components that octane actually measures. Ethanol and Ethanol/gasoline mixes have an equivalent octane based on their ability to run higher compression without detonation) can be used to replace a larger gasoline engine. This can lead to less fuel consumption.
In fact, studies that have involved taking gasoline-only cars (capable of running E10 per mandate from the 80's) such as small sedans have shown that mixes of up to 15% (the highest they tested) ethanol show increases in fuel economy.
Sugar ethanol is much more efficient, 4x much so I believe.
Corn is, from a process and return standpoint the absolute worst choice for ethanol feedstock. Sugar is much better. However, the reason we don't have a sugar-based ethanol industry here yet is due in greater proportion to the relatively small amount of sugar crop grown in the US. Sugar cane has much higher water requirements, and much warmer or tropical-like climate requirements. That has a much more powerful impact than subsidies and protections.
Ethanol can be produced from many sources including coal. Switchgrass is a "popular" choice - where popular means "the upcoming starlet" type of popular, not the "most used" for the US. This is because comparatively speaking it's growth and harvest requirements are far, far less than corn or sugar cane. It requires less input, and has a higher output. There are others that show even greater results than switchgrass, such as members of the miscanthus family.
Sugar beets yield around 700 gallons/acre in France, Sugar Cane in Brazil around 660gal/acre. Switchgrass comes in around 1000 gal/acre. Miscanthus tops the charts at around 1500 gallons/acre. Corn comes in around 400 gallons per acre. Nypa palm is not something the US could grow in large quantities but it's production in the southern hemisphere such as Brazil is showing ethanol yields in the 1500 gal/acre range as well. Unless something is discovered about the Nypa palm that makes it too expensive or risky to use, I would not be suprised to see Brazil double it's production of ethanol over the next several years by converting their feedstock crop over.
So while your memory of 4X is far from accurate, the general sentiment is correct.
Note that the studies being done with Miscanthus are showing that if 10% of Indiana's current farmland were switched to Miscanthus, they would be able to supply over 4 billion gallons/year of fuel. They currently use 5 billion gallons per year.
We aren't using that because we have subsidies and trade protections for the sugar farmers.
We have that for the corn farmers too. Doesn't seem to stop them from doing it. Sorry, but the issue is not as simple as you make it out to be. If only it were.
how about we get rid of all them? Including the oil subsidies. No more US military providing protection for oil tankers and foreign and domestic oil fields. No more protectionism on our crops and other products either. No more farm corporation subsidies. Did you know that the subsidies on crops actually led to the destruction of the small farmer? Fat lot of good it did. It's high time to get rid of them. All of them, including the petroleum industry ones. Let them all stand or fall on their own.