To Survive, Some Biofuels Companies Give Up on Biofuels – Technology ReviewPosted on 12/28/2011 9:29:12 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Interesting timing, especially when some biomass companies are switching from wood chips to corn, because they couldn’t turn a profit on wood chips. Looks like all the wheels are coming off the bus now.
To Survive, Some Biofuels Companies Give Up on Biofuels – Technology Review
Gevo, a prominent advanced-biofuels company that has received millions in U.S. government funding to develop fuels made from cellulosic sources such as grass and wood chips, is finding that it can’t use these materials if it hopes to survive. Instead, it’s going to use corn, a common source for conventional biofuels. What’s more, most of the product from its first facility will be used for chemicals rather than fuel.
As the difficulty of producing cellulosic biofuels cheaply becomes apparent, a growing number of advanced-biofuels companies are finding it necessary to take creative approaches to their business, even though that means abandoning some of their green credentials, at least temporarily, and focusing on markets that won’t have a major impact on oil imports. This is hardly the outcome the government hoped for when it announced cellulosic-biofuels mandates, R&D funding, and other incentives in recent years.
Here’s the story on the subsidy ending from the Detroit News:
Congress adjourned for the year on Friday, failing to extend the tax break that’s drawn a wide variety of critics on Capitol Hill, including Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Critics also have included environmentalists, frozen food producers, ranchers and others.
The policies have helped shift millions of tons of corn from feedlots, dinner tables and other products into gas tanks.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth praised the move.
“The end of this giant subsidy for dirty corn ethanol is a win for taxpayers, the environment and people struggling to put food on their tables,” biofuels policy campaigner Michal Rosenoer said Friday.
Dirty Corn Ethanol? I’m all for ending taxpayer siphoning, but dirty corn ethanol?
Full story h/t to Lawrence Depenbush
I’m going to guess that we will be importing it from Brazil.
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Washington —The United States has ended a 30-year tax subsidy for corn-based ethanol that cost taxpayers $6 billion annually, and ended a tariff on imported Brazilian ethanol.
Corn ethanol has always been a boondoggle and has been little more than an elaborate farm subsidy program. Without the subsidies watch the price of ethanol/gasoline blends go up and consumers will abandon gasohol.
About time.
This means $5 a gallon gasoline by November 6, 2012.
Buh-bye, Barry.
More from the Detroit news article:
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The subsidy has provided the oil and agribusiness industries with 45 cents per gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline. By some estimates, Congress has awarded $45 billion in subsidies to the ethanol industry since 1980.
The bribe money can go directly to the politician’s Cayman Island accounts-no trail inside the USA.
Barack just lost most of the Midwest.
so this summer i can pay 15 cents per ear of corn again :) and have plenty of it
subsidy has ended but not the mandate?
jeez
so my corn will still be expensive AND so will gas.
just damn.
That is the heart of the problem.
More half-a**ed action from congress.
As long as the mandate to force the use of ethanol in gasoline exists there will be no relief at the pump.
Corn ethanol is not sustainable, and the farmers I’ve talked to know it... but they’re locked into the Govt underwritten merrygoround of debt and increased production for their survival.
Part of the death spiral for the American Heartland.
In favor of...what? All gas has up to 10% ethanol in it by law.
Will straight unleaded gasoline now be available or will it continue with the US buying their ethanol from Brazil?
bttt
Just listen to the local news and as of Jan. 1 the NC State tax on gasoline will go up $.04 per gallon with an additional $.04 a gallon because of the end of the subsidy.
Happy New Year to NC from our Republician leaders.
meanwhile, T-paw stuck us with this:
Pawlenty signs bill increasing ethanol content in gasoline by Laura McCallum, Minnesota Public Radio May 10, 2005
Minnesota is the first state with a law mandating 20-percent ethanol use by the year 2013.
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/05/10_ap_ethanol/
Abandon?
I never wanted the overpriced reduced performance trash in the first place!
All of my cars are pre-computer, none of them run as well on the gasahol trash.
Range Fuels broke ground on its first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facility in Soperton, Georgia in November 2007.
The plant plant was built, and ran one batch of alcohol in January 2011
as proof of meeting conditions set by grants and financiers,
and was then immediately shut down because it was not profitable to operate.
All of this after receiving:
a $76 million grant from the US Department of Energy,
a $6 million grant from the State of Georgia,
and an $80 million loan guaranteed by the U.S. Biorefinery Assistance Program.
08/19/2010
Range Fuels Begins Commercial Cellulosic Operations in Georgia
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/20885
01/24/2011
Range Fuels Closing Georgia Cellulosic Ethanol Plant
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/21755
side note.. I seen where Kellogg's may stop making Corn Pops next year. what next? Cocoa Puffs? Cap'n Crunch?
posted from a lowly single processor laptop. (but I'm looking)
The sooner they get dirty ethanol out of my gas the better.
From that article ....see link at post # 16:
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Flawed carbon accounting schemes at both the federal and state level are creating a dynamic where the U.S. is importing ethanol from Brazil while simultaneously exporting greater volumes back to Brazil.
See #25.
20%? Ouch. My boat and truck would hate that, maybe even throw up from drinking it.
Be sure and check out the AMD Llano based Quad laptops with integrated graphics on the chip,,,,,good graphics with decent cpu performance ....especially compared to a single CPU based portable....yuk.
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This “ethanol shuffle” is occurring exclusively as the result of state and federal fuel regulations that “treat Brazilian sugarcane ethanol as if it were the Holy Grail of biofuels,” according to Geoff Cooper, the Renewable Fuels Association’s Vice President of Research and Analysis.
We’ll see if any of our brave GOP leadership here in MN will repeal this BS.
Don’t forget that we gave Brazil millions (down payment) for offshore exploration. And don’;t forget that Brazil now has ties with the Muslims.
The death spiral from this ethanol crap is no longer avoidable, investor land owners will be the result.
Stop the subsidies, stop the mandates, abolish the Dept
of Agriculture. FUBO FUGOP Send us a candidate who will chop this govt nightmare. There is no more time for trimming the fat.
Let Brazil have the advantage by letting them keep all their ethanol, and we can keep our corn for food, trade problem solved, energy saved.
Is its use still mandated? Gas prices are going to go up.
This was always the plan. Make it seem free at first, then stick it to the middle class.
They did the same thing with the ocean fishing license; free the first year so nobody complains, then charge.
There really needs to be a gallows in downtown Washington D.C. Even if they don’t use it, it should be there, in the windows, as they vote.
Write your congress and demand an end to EPA’s ethanol mandates.
Drop the sugar tariff while they’re at it.
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