Republicans Drunk on Ethanol

National Review Online ^ | October 12, 2007 | The Editors

[neverdem]

October 12, 2007, 8:45 a.m.

Republicans Drunk on Ethanol

By The Editors

It’s a depressing ritual. Every four years, as Iowans prepare to cast the first votes in the presidential-primary season, candidates descend on the corn-covered state and discover the miraculous properties of ethanol. The latest convert is Fred Thompson, who voted against ethanol subsidies when he was a U.S. senator but now says that ethanol is “a matter . . . of national security.” What he means is that he supports increasing federal assistance for ethanol production, on the grounds that this will reduce American dependence on oil from the Middle East. But, like most arguments for ethanol subsidies, this one is spurious.

First, even the biggest of proposed ethanol supports — an increase in mandated ethanol consumption from 7.5 billion gallons a year to 15 billion gallons a year, as called for in the energy bill Congress is currently debating — would barely dent America’s oil consumption, which is approximately 150 billion gallons annually. We could plant corn from New York to California and still not produce an equivalent amount of ethanol.

Second, only around 5 million automobiles in America are “flexible-fuel vehicles” — cars that are equipped to run on a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline (known as E85). That’s out of 135 million registered passenger cars in the United States. Moreover, as the Dallas Morning News reported last year, the owners of almost all of these flex-fuel vehicles tend to fill them up with regular gas, owing to a scarcity of gas stations that sell E85. Simply mandating greater ethanol consumption won’t change that. A more drastic intervention — for example, requiring gas stations to sell E85 — would also be necessary. Some liberal groups have called for just that. Does Thompson agree with them? Conservative voters should hope not.

Thompson has cited high oil prices to defend his about-face on ethanol: “When I was in the Senate, I think oil was at $23 a barrel,” he told the Associated Press. But this is another red herring. Petroleum is a major input in the manufacture of ethanol — it is required not just to make ethanol, but to transport it to points of sale. In fact, there’s good evidence that making ethanol requires more petroleum than making gasoline does. So if high oil prices should make us want to use less oil, that’s an argument for diminishing our ethanol consumption right now, not boosting it.

None of this is to deny that there’s a legitimate market for ethanol. All gasoline is required to contain additives known as “oxygenates,” and ethanol is one of them. Gasoline blenders have turned increasingly to it since MBTE — another additive — was found to contaminate groundwater.

But the momentum behind federal support for ethanol militates toward production of far more than the market can absorb. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which enacted the initial ethanol mandate of 7.5 billion gallons a year, encouraged the ethanol industry to increase production dramatically. Now, reports of an ethanol glut suggest that the industry has overproduced — something that tends to happen when companies make production decisions based on government mandates rather than market signals.

The ethanol glut is inefficient, but it’s bad in other ways too. The diversion of corn from use as food to ethanol production has led to higher food prices — a side-effect that has finally gotten Congress’s attention. As farmers grow more corn in hopes of selling it to ethanol makers, they also threaten to disrupt the water supply in some regions. That’s because farmers are both planting new corn on formerly uncultivated soil, and converting acres already under cultivation toward corn and away from other, less water-intensive food crops. To put the current expansion of corn production into perspective, consider that we have more corn growing on American soil right now than at any time since World War II, when the farms of Europe had been devastated by war and America was feeding two continents.

There is no excuse for Congress to bail out the ethanol industry again by doubling a mandate that should not exist in the first place. If any major 2008 presidential candidate aside from John McCain opposes this heavy-handed dirigisme, he or she has yet to say so. McCain, for his part, deserves credit for taking a clear-eyed view of ethanol subsidies — even as he jokes that he drinks “a glass of ethanol every morning.” That position on ethanol is quite possibly the most sober in Washington.

[Enduring Freedom]

One of the most exciting things about ethanol is that it provides a painless transition from gasoline engines and distribution systems.

E85 flex-fuel vehicles can run on pure gasoline if necessary in the interim. They also are a cheap modification of existing engine technology.

Finding better sources of ethanol, and more efficient extraction processes, may seem to be a frightening leap of faith to many.

But don’t despair.

As Ray Kurzweil and others have noted, our historical scientific progress is not linear. It is exponential.

The implications are astounding, almost too great for most people to understand.

The 20th century, which saw the introduction of the airplane, rocket, computer, television and much more, was a very eventful 100 years to say the least.

But because we are advancing our science at an exponential, not linear, rate, we will achieve the equivalent of 100 years of 20th century scientific breakthroughs in just the first 10 years of the 21st century!

And in only a few more years beyond that, significant scientific development will double again. And so on.

In fact, Kurzweil believes that children born today will likely live forever. How? Because even a few years of extended lifespan will bring the equivalent of the entire 20th century in medical understanding and achievement to bear, leading to yet more extended lifespans. And so on.

Don’t bet against scientific progress - we simply have to get started.

[Nathan Zachary]

oops:

http://peswiki.com/energy/Main_Page

[Wonder Warthog]

"I read awhile back here that Brazil uses ethanol based on sugarcane, and that we could grow enough here in the US in Mississippi and Louisiana for the whole country."

Wherever you read that, the authors were wrong. Sugarcane only grows well in a very narrow southern band across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida (the subtropical zone). There is NOT enough land area to "grow enough here in the US...for the whole country".

And FYI, I grew up in the "sugar country" of South Louisiana, so know whereof I speak.

[Enduring Freedom]

Cellulosic ethanol shows great promise.

Switchgrass will grow like weed in all 48 states.

What would you be willing to do to defund the Middle East Islamofascists?

I thought so.

Let’s give ethanol the respect it deserves, believe in ourselves again, and let’s win this one for the Gipper!

[Wonder Warthog]

"I'd like to defund the Middle East and have energy independence as much as the next guy, but ethanol distilled from corn is problematic as it comes off as an azeotropic mixture with 5% water."

Ye screaming gods!! Chemical engineers have known how to break that azeotrope for over a century. At least try to come up with a realistic objection.

From Wikipedia:

"The ethanol-water azeotrope can be broken by the addition of a small quantity of benzene or cyclohexane. Benzene, ethanol, and water form a ternary azeotrope with a boiling point of 64.9 °C. Since this azeotrope is more volatile than the ethanol-water azeotrope, it can be fractionally distilled out of the ethanol-water mixture, extracting essentially all of the water in the process. The bottoms from such a distillation is anhydrous ethanol, with several parts per million residual benzene."

[Nathan Zachary]

"Any ethanol blended with gasoline for internal combustion engines has to be 100% ethanol."

Not true at all.

In fact many guys run water injectors on their race engines, farmers used water injectors on alcohol tractors to increase power as well, because the water vapor added extra 02 for extra power under load.

Besides, it isn't hard to "dry" distilled fuels. In fact many fuels such as bio diesel are "washed" with water, then dried.

Your regular crappy gasoline contains water. You use ethanol to absorb it and burn it, and to keep it from building up on the bottom of the tank when it pecipitates out. Ethanol is a good fuel for keeping your tank clean.

That is also the bad thing about ethanol. it WILL absorb water from the atmosphere, so you have to ensure you keep it capped.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

My understanding is correct:

Ethanol and Pollution

[RFEngineer]

“I support the ethanol initiative, but for reasons more of my own:”

Ethanol is for drinking. All other uses are wasteful, including the 9 reason listed by you.

[Nathan Zachary]

Sugar beets are also much better for making ethanol than corn, and they will grow well practically anywhere in the midwest.

The cornbelt however, is where corn likes to grow, and the region can produce a lot of it. That is why development of ethanol plants is good for that area. It will give farmers a boost rather than sitting on truckloads of worthless corn they can’t make any money on.

[Enduring Freedom]

Cute.

But ethanol is a serious opportunity to defund Islamofascists, relatively painlessly and seamlessly.

Let’s do it!

[Nathan Zachary]

No, it's based on the theories of ONE quack, and his computer model. where have we heard of quacks using computer models to simulate air quality in the year 2020?

His "study" isn'tr supported by anyone else.

For the study, Jacobson used a sophisticated computer model to simulate air quality in the year 2020, when ethanol-fueled vehicles are expected to be widely available in the United States.

"The chemicals that come out of a tailpipe are affected by a variety of factors, including chemical reactions, temperatures, sunlight, clouds, wind and precipitation," he explained. "In addition, overall health effects depend on exposure to these airborne chemicals, which varies from region to region. Ours is the first ethanol study that takes into account population distribution and the complex environmental interactions."

In the experiment, Jacobson ran a series of computer tests simulating atmospheric conditions throughout the United States in 2020, with a special focus on Los Angeles. "Since Los Angeles has historically been the most polluted airshed in the U.S., the testbed for nearly all U.S. air pollution regulation and home to about 6 percent of the U.S. population, it is also ideal for a more detailed study," he wrote.

Jacobson programmed the computer to run air quality simulations comparing two future scenarios:

So, what we have here, is ethanol causes dangerous emissions that don't even have names yet. And this is what you post and claim as FACT?

Sheesh...

[Nathan Zachary]

Are you related to Al Gore by any chance?

[who_would_fardels_bear]

I may be wrong, but I bet I'll make lots of money if I short ethanol in the near future.

This whole circus is driving over a cliff. And I hope it does before we waste too much money.

[Enduring Freedom]

Tell that to Brazil.

The country that achieved energy independence by creating an ethanol economy.

Read about it and get back to me.

[Enduring Freedom]

Hamlet!

[Nathan Zachary]

Ethanol has been around for a long, long time. It's just that gasoline became so much easier.
So don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Ethanol is a pretty good fuel on it's own, a little expensive, but so is gas now, and getting even more expensive.

Just wait until the USD drops a little more, and another war hits the world. Then you'll be wishing your great gandpappy left you his recipe book for good "all purpose", and diagrams for that invisible still.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

When the war starts, and nobody’s looking, I’m gonna harpoon me a whale and use my ole’ pappy’s recipe to fuel my SUV with whale oil!

[Enduring Freedom]

ManBEARpig?

[Nathan Zachary]

"When the war starts, and nobody’s looking, I’m gonna harpoon me a whale and use my ole’ pappy’s recipe to fuel my SUV with whale oil!"

yeah, I bet there are lots of those swimming around in Arizona...

You'll be needing a diesel engine in your SUV to burn that stuff as well, so make sure you refine it well or you'll bugger up that rather expensive fuel injector pump.

[neverdem]

Ye screaming gods!! Chemical engineers have known how to break that azeotrope for over a century. At least try to come up with a realistic objection.

I didn't imply they didn't, just that simple distillation from corn mash isn't good enough to use for motor vehicle fuel, and the cost of making the ethanol anhydrous needs to be considered.