Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - The Politics of the Ethanol Industry

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The Politics of the Ethanol Industry

I just read this article about the ethanol industry and it's applications as a "cleaner burning fuel" and it goes against everything I've read about reformulated fuels.

It's not a painfully long article but it's longer than what I think would be appropriate to paste in the thread. In leiu of doing that, I'll post the introduction paragraphs to interest you and let you guys read the rest.

http://magazine.audubon.org/incite/incite0408.html

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The answer is the American public.

The question was: Who would spend 10 cents to 20 cents more per gallon for gasoline that reduces mileage, degrades your car, destroys fish and wildlife, increases air pollution, and makes the United States more dependent on foreign oil?

With its 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, Congress tried a revolutionary strategy: regulating not just how gasoline was burned in motor vehicles but how it was made. The idea was to require the use of gasoline with at least 2 percent oxygen-containing chemicals (oxygenates) in areas where clean-air standards weren't being met. This way more carbon monoxide, toxic hydrocarbons, and smog-producing volatile organic compounds would get burned up.

Senator Bob Dole (R-KS), Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), and other politicians from the Corn Belt who had pushed this "reformulated-gasoline program" were ecstatic. The amendments created a new future for the corn-produced oxygenate ethanol (a.k.a. "white lightning" or grain alcohol), which hadn't found a decent market for anything save drinking despite $5 billion in federal subsidies. With the mandated use of "gasohol" (one part ethanol, nine parts gasoline), the moribund ethanol industry would spring heel-clicking from its wheelchair.

Agribusiness would prosper. And America would get cleaner air and homegrown energy. It was going to be a win-win-win-win.

Fourteen years later there are 78 ethanol plants in 19 states. More than half are being expanded, and scores of new ones will soon come online. Fully 10 percent of all corn grown in the United States goes into ethanol. And Senator Daschle, Representative Dennis Hastert (R-IL), and President George W. Bush have been trying to legislate a mandate requiring states to increase the amount of ethanol used in reformulated gasoline from about 3 billion gallons to 5 billion gallons by 2012.

But the reformulated-gasoline program has turned out to be a colossal failure, and the ethanol industry has transmogrified into a sacrosanct, pork-swilling behemoth that gets bigger and hungrier with each feeding. Ethanol dirties the air more than it cleans it. Its production requires vast plantings of corn, which wipe out fish and wildlife by destroying habitat and polluting air, soil, and water. Of all crops grown in the United States, corn demands the most massive fixes of herbicides, insecticides, and chemical fertilizers, while creating the most soil erosion.

This was also interesting:

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Pimentel found that ethanol costs $2.24 a gallon to produce, compared with 63 cents for gasoline. Other costs of allocating corn to ethanol production, reports Pimentel, include higher food prices, because about 70 percent of the corn grown in the United States is fed to cattle.

Like most people, I've been told by enough sources that oxygenated fuels as so much better than just using 100% gasoline. However, as the article points out, this is based on vehicle technology surrounding the 1990 revision to the Clean Air Act. Since that time cars are running much more cleanly than they used to and when you factor in all the pollution caused by ethanol production and the way blending it into fuels increases the cost of gas the story appears to change.

This is not a problem created by either political party. The ethanol industry contributes to both parties and has influenced the decisions of Clinton, and Bush, and many former Presidents. If the topic starts to grow, try to keep that in mind.

sounds kind of biased to me.

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The Corn Belt has lost about 70 percent of its wetlands. In some areas, such as Nebraska, corn has to be irrigated by pumps that suck water from the ground faster than it percolates back in. Moreover, the pumps are powered by natural gas, the frenzied production of which is creating horrendous problems for fish, wildlife, and livestock

being from rurual nebraska, I can tell you right now that corn is not why we have lost our wetlands. We're in a freaking drought and have been for the past 5 or so years! It's rained probably three times as much this summer than it has any of these past summers already. But hey, if it helps the argument, why not omit it.

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Without even factoring in the fuel that's required to ship ethanol to blending sites, Pimentel found that it takes about 29 percent more energy to produce ethanol than you get from burning it.

yeah, but I bet he's one of the retards that factors the sun into the equation. That makes just a tid bit of difference...

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Then, figuring in state and federal subsidies, Pimentel found that ethanol costs $2.24 a gallon to produce, compared with 63 cents for gasoline. Other costs of allocating corn to ethanol production, reports Pimentel, include higher food prices, because about 70 percent of the corn grown in the United States is fed to cattle. "Increasing the cost of food and diverting human food resources to the costly, inefficient production of ethanol fuel raise major ethical questions," Pimentel writes. "These occur at a time when more than half of the world's population is malnourished. The ethical priority for corn and other food crops should be for food and feed. Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning."

there is stuff left in corn after it has been used to produce ethanol and that is still used as feed. He's making it sound like we're completely redirecting the corn to ethanol instead of cattle. Also, I really wouldn't be surprised if that $2.24 per gallon didn't include the selling of the used corn back to farmers for feed (I'm too lazy to look it up).

Quote:

The question was: Who would spend 10 cents to 20 cents more per gallon for gasoline that reduces mileage, degrades your car, destroys fish and wildlife, increases air pollution, and makes the United States more dependent on foreign oil?

I didn't read the whole thing, but I didn't see where he talked about how ethanol makes the US more dependent on foreign oil. If anyone else finds it, please direct me.

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Originally posted by yatzr
[B] sounds kind of biased to me.

Sure, it's biased but due to the effect that corn production has on your local economy isn't your opinion biased as well? At least the author doesn't attempt to hide the bias.

Quote:

Originally posted by yatzr
[B]there is stuff left in corn after it has been used to produce ethanol and that is still used as feed. He's making it sound like we're completely redirecting the corn to ethanol instead of cattle. Also, I really wouldn't be surprised if that $2.24 per gallon didn't include the selling of the used corn back to farmers for feed (I'm too lazy to look it up).

No matter how you look at it, adding ethanol (or any other means of oxygenation) to gasoline is an extra step in the process. That means more equipment needed at the refinery. All those pieces need energy, maintenence, people to watch over them, etc. In the end, you cannot say that it is cheaper to produce oxygenated fuels than it is to produce gasoline. If you remove all the govt pork funding, would it even be profitable?

Quote:

Originally posted by yatzr
I didn't read the whole thing, but I didn't see where he talked about how ethanol makes the US more dependent on foreign oil. If anyone else finds it, please direct me.

Anything that reduces fuel economy doesn't help reduce our dependance on foriegn oil either. If a fuel additive is supposed to result in a cleaner environment, shouldn't it actually make a difference?

One reason this crappiest of the craptacular agriculture subsidies continues to thrive?

Fucking Iowa, and its spot on the Electoral calendar as the first state in the union to hold primary elections.

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Originally posted by Sparhawk
One reason this crappiest of the craptacular agriculture subsidies continues to thrive?

Fucking Iowa, and its spot on the Electoral calendar as the first state in the union to hold primary elections.

:thumbsup:

This quote in the article was great:

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"I once asked Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa at a news conference why Californians and northeasterners should be forced to put ethanol in their gasoline when the science clearly shows it has no environmental benefits," recalls Paul Rogers of the San Jose Mercury News. "Because it helps farmers from my state expand their markets, he explained. 'So I guess you'd support a new federal law to require everybody in Des Moines to buy a computer, to help people in Silicon Valley expand their markets?' I asked. He didn't concur."

Another source:

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~landerso/97rp13905.htm

Quote:

Our analyses of emissions data from the required IM240 tests in the Denver area suggest that there is an average CO decrease during the oxygenated fuels period of about 13%. But these same emissions results present evidence for another concern related to oxygenated fuels use, namely the observed increase in NOx emissions. Previous work has suggested that the effects on NOx emissions were less than 5%. The current analysis estimates the effects to be nearly 14%. In Colorado during the winter, this may have a significant impact on the secondary particulate nitrate contribution to Denver's brown cloud. If NOx emissions increase this much with the use of oxygenated fuels, there might be adverse effects on ozone concentrations related to the use of these fuels. Similar effects on NOx emissions might occur in areas that are required to use reformulated fuels during summer ozone periods as a means of reducing ozone formation. If NOx emissions increase for these fuels by nearly 14%, an ozone increase might occur due to the use of these fuels.

So basicallly we are paying more for oxygenated fuels that are supposed to help us lower ambient ozone concentrations but these oxygenated fuels run the risk of increasing NOx emissions with lead to higher ozone levels. Sounds like we have a great system in place.

I would like to add one thing that was interesting to me and on similar lines to this conversation.

My dad spent some time shopping on a hybrid car. He looked at various models, did research, read articles, etc.

He decided against buying the hybrid car because the claims made in the "brochures" weren't anywhere near real-world data. What the manufacturer claimed the car could do (i.e. mpg) was nowhere near how the car performed in reality.

He felt that the manufacturers were "very enthusiastic" in their claims.

by hybrid car, do you mean a flex fuel vehicle (runs on anything between 100% gasoline and 85% ethanol)? If this is what it was, was he disappointed just while using E85 or overall? I've read a bit about these cars but have never gotten a chance to actually test one out. They do seem to be getting more popular as many people have them and don't even know it. Ford has been making a lot of them, mostly taurus's that have the flex fuel system.

He used the term "hybrid" and I honestly do not know enough to answer your first question.

I do know he was looking at Toyotas, does that help.

Apparently the car was getting much lower mpg on the street then was advertised. At the point the car just didn't make any sense, considering the mpg of his current car.

Here's another thing to consider: Ethanol reduces emissions, but at the same time, it increases gasoline's propensity to evaporate. The extra evaporation pollutes more than the emissions that were eliminated by its presence.

Quote:

Originally posted by KMA-628
I do know he was looking at Toyotas, does that help.

Apparently the car was getting much lower mpg on the street then was advertised. At the point the car just didn't make any sense, considering the mpg of his current car.

He was looking at a Prius, a hybrid gas/electric. The discrepancy is most likely due to the fact that regenerative braking and very light acceleration are used to achieve high numbers. The light acceleration is light enough that it is not feasible in everyday driving.

Quote:

Originally posted by MrSelfDestruct
Here's another thing to consider: Ethanol reduces emissions, but at the same time, it increases gasoline's propensity to evaporate. The extra evaporation pollutes more than the emissions that were eliminated by its presence.

That is true but to what extent I'm not sure. No matter how good the controls are and how well the underground tank is sealed there are still vapors that escape.

One of the larger issues is that although increasing the oxygen levels will reduce CO emisssions (by converting to CO2), the increased oxygen also creates more NOx emissions. Engineers were thinking that the NOx increase would be small compared to the CO decrease but in most cases it's been much worse than planned. Both are ozone precusors and NOx is worse than CO.