Posted on 11/26/2008 6:37:38 AM PST by IbJensen
The use of ethanol and other renewable fuels supposedly helps gasoline burn cleaner creating less pollution. It also reduces America's reliance upon foreign oil.
Last Monday the Environmental Protection Agency increased the amount of renewable automobile fuels required to be sold in the United States next year from 7.8 percent to 10.2 percent of the 138.5 billion gallons of gasoline projected to be consumed. This mandate mainly directs that higher levels of ethanol be mixed with gasoline.
The higher standard is required by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a law that requires the increased use of renewable fuels each year in order to reach an annual use of 36 billion gallons by 2022. While burning cleaner gas is an admirable goal, the federal government's ethanol mandate has ensured that the American corn industry has consumers and businesses in a stranglehold without producing quantifiable benefits. In fact, some scientists now argue that there are few, if any, environmental benefits to using ethanol.
According to an April Hudson Institute report, "The Case for Ending Ethanol Subsidies," by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, "converting undeveloped land to cropland - in order to grow more corn and facilitate bio-fuel production - releases a massive amount of carbon dioxide. Only if bio-fuels are made from waste products or grown on abandoned agricultural lands does the production process actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
In addition, since ethanol separates from gasoline in the presence of water, the blends of ethanol and gasoline that we put in our cars cannot be transported through traditional petroleum pipelines. Instead, ethanol is shipped by rail, at greater cost than gasoline and mixed with gasoline near the point of distribution. That is why the 10 percent ethanol-gasoline blends are not available all over the country, only in major metropolitan areas.
Meanwhile American taxpayers subsidize the ethanol industry with $3 billion every year. These subsidies are given to corn farmers and ethanol producers no matter what the price of corn is on the market. These are extremely high because of the EPA requirement for biofuel usage. So many corn farmers have become wealthy from this two-tier system of subsidies and federal environmental mandates which inflate the price of corn on the open market.
Food prices around the world have risen dramatically in the last few years because of this system. Corn, beef, milk, butter, tortillas, gasoline and many other basic food commodities have become more expensive than ever because of the artificial government intervention in the market. This increase in food prices has hurt the world's poor more than anyone else but even middle-income American consumers have felt the pinch at the pump and the grocery store.
And then there is the question of energy independence, which is both an economic and a national security issue. Relying upon bio-fuels, predominantly ethanol, to make ourselves independent of foreign oil is a false hope. It has far less energy density than traditional gasoline, meaning nearly twice as much ethanol is required to equal the energy output of gasoline. We simply cannot convert enough of the land required to make ethanol into cornfields. There isn't enough land in America to do so.
Instead of releasing new federal mandates for ethanol consumption, Congress and EPA ought to overturn our artificial dependence on bio-fuels and begin building clean nuclear-energy power and coal plants, drilling for oil and natural gas in Alaska and off our coasts, and building more traditional petroleum refineries. Then we seriously could discuss the possibility of energy independence while working to clean up air pollution.
I do not believe any state to date requires 10% ethanol in gasoline. Do you have any information concerning that?
Legislative Actions: State
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/policy/actions/state/
Minnesota requires 10% ethanol in most but not all gasoline sources.
The Ethanol Industry in Minnesota
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/issinfo/ssethnl.htm
Also see:
State Mandates & Incentives
http://drivingethanol.org/ethanol_facts/public_state_mandates.aspx
“Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California do not have the water to grow corn or any other crop for ethanol.”
True, nor should they attempt to grow corn. But offshore California has vast oil reserves they could utilize and profit from if they would quit strangling themselves.
The Pimmential study is over a decade old and was the least objective of the 4 or 5 scientific studys about the same time.
Texas has plenty of oil and they are sharing their oil with the rest of America whenever the government allows them to.
New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada should grow nothing. But they have a solar exposure capable of generating large amounts of electricity. The east has vast amounts of coal capable of fueling automobiles and power plants, if the government would let them utilize the resource. The East also has wind and tidal potential.
My point is, ethanol is not everyones alternative. If we divide America into 3 quadrants, each one is capable of delivering enough self contained energy to significantly reduce oil imports and increase domestic energy.
The key is what the government enables the people, and their investors to do. Since government has the permission slip every process has to be approved by our great poly scientists in Washington Dunce Cap.
For one, I think Missouri does.
Missouri is one of a handful of states that has an ethanol mandate. In the state, regular and mid-grade gasoline are to have 10 percent ethanol mixed with conventional gasoline.
But the mandate has a loophole. If ethanol becomes more expensive than conventional gasoline, then gas retailers are allowed to sell 100 percent conventional gasoline.
http://economy.kansascity.com/?q=node/347
Note: The Missouri requirement only took effect this year.
http://governor.mo.gov/press/EthanolSigning070506.htm
Recently, because of the prices, many stopped selling E10 as linked above.
Also forgot to mention, Premium grades are exempt at well.
Paul M. Weyrich is a nutcase owned by big oil. Let him publish who keeps him alive by donations. He would prefer we keep Arabs in charge of our destiny?
Yep, and the vilification of farmers is part of the push to discredit any serious threat to the middle east petroleum lock on mobile fuel sales to the US.
Yes but drilling for oil is not a boondoggle. Ethanol is. You are apparently not aware of more recent studies done by Pimentel in conjunction with others.
Hey, I am all for drilling oil domestically anywhere it is feasable for the driller.
Ethanol has been around my region since the mid 1970’s.
I have watched local coal mines close. I have seen trainloads of coal come in from Wyoming. Recently a power plant in my region was killed by govermentalists who pulled the permission slip.
The Missouri River used to ship bargeloads of grain down to St Louis and then the Gulf. envirowackos think the pallid sturgeon is more important so they regulate the water flow so barges can’t run as often. So a bargeload of corn has to be shipped in 40 semis, on overcrowded highways, burning $5.00 diesel fuel to St Louis. Why waste that kind of energy when the same corn can be trucked 30 miles, and the farmer gets paid the same cost per bushel as he would get in St. Louis? The one thing about ethanol economics that Pimmential never acknowledges is that 90% of the money from the product stays in the local economy. With oil the money kept locally is less than 1% and the rest goes out of the regional economy to foreign places.
The one thing we have is plentiful corn and wide open spaces to plant it. Farmers decided that feeding the World for free wasn’t cutting it anymore. So we make ethanol and use the distillers grain to feed the beef. I haven’t seen any shortages of corn flakes. Ethanol don’t need battleship escorts and 200,000 soldier security forces in foreign countries. Add those costs into the price of oil. And don’t forget about the people who have died fighting to protect our foreign oil supply. To my knowledge, no soldier has made the ultimate sacrifice for ethanol.
On the other hand, we haven’t seen any energy independence from the use of ethanol and it complexifies when the answer is in simplifying. By going to the better gasoline now and then moving swiftly into the better, cheaper, cleaner, smaller refining that we can then use, combined with drilling in the areas we have foolishly forbidden and increasing the production of the total amount of oil in formations, particularly surface formations with processes better than the inefficient, environmentally destructive Stark hot water process used in Canada we can be energy independent in a few years and even be net exporters to crucial allies in Asia. In particular with regard to the mining of all the oil (as opposed to the 33-40 percent we get by conventional pumping and drilling) the government has made a complete mess by engaging in the other great subsidized boondoggle, oil shale. But complexifying and endless large subsidies, even if they create no energy independence, do create endless subsidies, and a built in lobby for not solving the problem.
If we move to the use of E II gasoline immediately we can build small, modular refinery units locally that are far cleaner and cheaper and simpler than present refineries. They can be build right at production locales and also right at consumption points. The technology for them is already being patented by Bill Talbert, the E II inventor and the Korean joint venture technology company that was formed by the Korean oil companies is interested in them since they have already gone into tar sand production here.
Where is there US tar sand production?
It began very modestly a year ago this past April in Utah, Oklahoma and West Texas. It is very modest and all the small companies involved have encountered obstacles in getting their production refined, which is what has led to the interest in refining. The Koreans have backed a project in Utah that has been developed by experienced hands who spun out of Bartlesville.
I agree about subsidys. Any form of alternative fuel not capable of making it on it’s own merit is bad economics.
Most of the subsidys for ethanol production are only in loans and loan guarantees. Our state Missouri has a loan program for ethanol production startups. Some would call that a subsidy I suppose. Corn growers get no subsidys because the price is above parity (cost of production), thanks to ethanol.
Our US farm program (very deceptive description) does have a few subsidys for certain crops, product development and genetic studys. but the biggest subsidy in the USDA is known as food stamps and US surplus commodities provided for little or no cost for school lunches.
there is also a CRP (conservation reserve program) that pays farms to contract for idle ground. The ground has to be mowed once a year. supposedly it has benefits to wildlife conservation. Even with that land out of production, farms continue to break production records.
I am all for oil and coal. Oil shale. coal gas. There is no reason private enterprise will not produce those products for consumers. But since the government grants the permission slip to develop coal power plants, nuclear power, and oil and gas drilling they ultimately control the supply of energy. America could have been nearly energy self sufficient 30 years ago if not for environmental laws and frivolous lawsuits by the Sierra Club and their ilks, blocking oil drilling and exploration in ANWR, costal California, florida, and elsewhere.
We are doomed to fail in energy self sufficiency because the government’s energy plan reaches no further ahead than an election cycle. And since government holds the permission slip for development, we have no plan other than Ethanol. And since 10% ethanol based fuel has powered my vehicles over a half million miles in the last 30 years, and I have seen how ethanol has helped our local economy, it’s far better than the nothing else plan.
How were they able to begin production prior to the approval of the US Tar Sand EIS?
Oil Shale and Tar Sands Programmatic EIS Information Center
http://ostseis.anl.gov/index.cfm
Sorry about that last question, I was thinking of the IES for BLM land. Not applicable in this case.
Well, if you think that they have violated some laws, you could file a complaint. Otherwise, my guess is that they will keep on producing.
Is this the same company in Vernal, UT?
At this stage, because of business arrangements and agreements, I can’t go into names and specific locations beyond what I have already said. I regret that but it is important to do everything to get these projects moving because energy independence is achievable. The government, as I have said and even written about partially, has made a mess of this area but it appears that private entrepreneurs are beginning to have some success. The location you speak of has had some publicity but is not one where I personally have been involved although one of my colleagues has spoken to them.
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