Posted on 03/21/2008 7:43:32 AM PDT by Red Badger
ETHANOL MADNESS
PART ONE: End the Great 2006 Bio-Fuels Swindle, by EIR staff The current mania for ethanol, biodiesel fuels, "flex-fuel vehicles," and the like, is creating a financial bubble, within which is a swindle, inside of which is a slippery old methane fart waiting to explode. Members of Congress taking part in the swindle, enthusiastically or not, are going to wind up very smelly when the ethanol party ends, the investment boom collapses, and motorists indignantly demand regular gasoline again.
Why should we shift to biofuels for transportation — ethanol, for example? Well, first, we'll get 20% less gas mileage from our fuel that way. Second, we can pay a good deal more for fuel, in direct prices and subsidies; in fact, we'll be able to use a fuel whose price is inflating much faster than the price of gasoline. Third, we'll be able to spend tens of billions of dollars more a year in tax revenues, subsidizing ethanol makers, including some of the biggest global cartels. Fourth, we can use up more petrochemical energy making ethanol than we get by using it. Fifth, we can use up large volumes of scarce regions of the country, and overburden our transport infrastructure as well. Sixth, we could soon deny corn exports to nations that need them — maybe even cut our own consumption of corn and burn it in our cars instead...
And last but not least, we can delay or cut off the revival of nuclear power for industry and economic expansion; instead, we could take a major scientific and technological step backwards, a great leap back toward primitive ages when mankind burned straw for fuel. Those are seven pretty good reasons: For the past year, they've been enough to affect the public posture of quite a number of members of Congress. In the worst example, one such Congressman, an Ohio Democrat, addressed a rally promoting the ethanol madness in his home state on May 20, and then stepped off the podium and told a questioner that he knew ethanol wouldn't work as a solution to high fuel prices. He knew, in fact, that ethanol is expensive and uses up more petrochemical energy in production than it gives back in burning; but, he said, he was promoting it because he had no better alternative. This Congressman was not just posturing, but lying to his constituents about the crucial question of inflation and the economy, and this in a depressed state where Democrats have made Republican elected officials' lying and corruption a major issue.
Another, a northern Republican governor, cheered on the start of construction of new corn-ethanol factories in his state, admitting publicly that the process was too inefficient for fuel! He claimed that the next generation of technologies would surely cure that, so let’s get on with it. As the friendly drunk could tell you about ethanol, “the more you drink of it, the better it seems to work.” A combination of switch grass and farm dung is alleged to make a much “stronger” fuel variety. No doubt. And if you've just invested your constituents' money, your farm co-operative, or your nephew's pension plan in it, it becomes a virtual miracle cure. Why, a Congressional deputy leader of the Democrats proudly called for installation, in the Congressional garage, of an E-85 ethanol fuel pump. He was sure this would cure any defects of national leadership the voters have found in that body recently. Another leading Democrat thought the better part of $50 billion was not too much to lavish on such technologies.
The great satirist Jonathan Swift painted such a scene in Gulliver's Travels, wherein scientists of the Lagado Academy strove to extract sunbeams from cucumbers for warming and to reconstitute food from dung. (Please recognize that nuclear power is in the same class as ethanol; both are highly subsidized with billions a year annually — as all well-connected Congressmen do: Provide pork to their constituents. — Techno-critic.) In the articles below, we show that the delusional ethanol mania gripping many defies well-established scientific principles of technology and physical economy: "Replacing" one gallon of gasoline from imported oil with a gallon of ethanol from domestic corn costs the nation $7.24 in prices and subsidies. By one exhaustive calculation, even a small increase in the tiny fraction of transportation fuel which is ethanol now would consume most of our corn crop, leaving none to export and little to eat. A significant shift, say, to 25% of transportation fuel, as the auto "Big Three" CEOs disingenuously proposed, would plant 13% or so of the nation's entire landmass in corn for that purpose alone. The underlying physical situation is that ethanol production consumes more fossil fuel energy than ethanol gives when burned, for clear scientific reasons. Ethanol's national average market price has made gasoline prices seem stable by comparison, catapulting from about $1.20 a gallon in early 2005 to $1.80 or so by September 2005, to $2.75 this spring. Now, it is just about at the price of regular gasoline, and that is after a federal subsidy of 51 cents on every gallon, additional state subsidies and tax breaks, and some local subsidies. As the price has soared, 35 new ethanol plants have leapt up. Fermentation ethanol production has zoomed from 2.7 billion gallons in 2003 to almost 4.5 billion gallons annually now, and corn for ethanol now exceeds corn for export, by volume. The phenomenon is an ethanol investment bubble, adding at least several more “tulips” to the global commodities markets fury of the past 18 months.
This bubble has been caused and fed by direct government subsidies, and by Soviet-like orders in the 2005 Energy Act that ethanol production grow to 12 billion gallons by 2010. The White House has pitched in by ordering states to put ethanol in their gasoline blends beginning with California in 2001. In fact, ethanol — the "alternative" to rising gas prices — has pushed the national price of gasoline up in recent months. At Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearings on "gas price gouging" on May 23, witness testimony repeatedly acknowledged that government-ordered use of ethanol in gasoline has been driving up the gas price. How? By inefficient truck transport of ethanol from the Midwest to the coasts, combined with refinery delays and costs in adding ethanol to gasoline blends, causing an additional 10- to 15-cent increase in gasoline prices in late April.
That is nothing compared to what will happen as an ethanol price bubble expands before it bursts. We show in this feature that at the center of this bubble is the food cartel — specifically, the Archer Daniels Midland conglomerate, which has gorged on the federal subsidies. ADM made 40% of all fermentation ethanol in the United States until recently; that is now down to 25%, as every local fund and cooperative tries to start an ethanol plant to tap the bubble. But ADM is itself building new biodiesel plants and reporting profit increases of 30% on the ethanol boom. Its stock is up 51% in a year.
We show that Brazil, the constantly cited model, produces ethanol en masse with virtual agricultural slave labor, more than with sugar; and the Brazilian history with ethanol in fact shows the economic/financial dangers ahead on the path of ethanol madness. Having produced ethanol fuel in cycles for 30 years with 90% of all cars produced there being capable of burning E-85, Brazil has suffered repeated hyperinflationary bubbles of ethanol prices and then of the prices of sugar. One of those cycles is going on now, and the price of ethanol within Brazil has increased 15% in the past few months, while sugar prices are at 25-year highs on global commodity markets.
The result: Once again, Brazilian motorists who were using ethanol are switching back to gasoline, and ethanol use is falling; once again, Brazilian ethanol producers are trying to get rid of tariffs and sell ethanol to the United States; once again, sugar cane ethanol producers are switching back to producing sugar, and ethanol supplies are suddenly very short, pushing the price up further. Ethanol production in Brazil fights food production, helps generate the highest inflation rate in the world, and thus fights overall consumption. An "ethanol boom" in the United States will do all the same things, and worse. Corn, particularly the U.S. corn crop, is a far more important food source for nations and people in need than sugar.
And we show that the political promotion of the fraudulent ethanol craze, through foundations and think tanks, has been led by the neo-cons, the kindergarten of George Shultz and his Committee on the Present Danger. This is the mendacious crew who brought America the "Iraq cakewalk," the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, the war that would pay for itself in oil revenue, and so many other of Dick Cheney's lies. Now, it's "energy independence through biofuels"; and such great anti-neo-con truth tellers as Al Gore, George Soros, and a host of liberal and labor outfits, are publicly backing Shultz’s neo-cons in this swindle.
If Congress continues down this very slippery slope, with more and more billions of subsidies, the aroma of hypocrisy, and even deliberate lying for campaign contributions and votes, will cling for a long time. PART TWO: Ethanol: Not a Kernel of Science in it, by Laurence Hech
Here we will inform you about ethanol, why it is worse than a stupid way to replace our oil dependency. Ethyl alcohol or ethanol (C2H5OH) is the second in what chemists call the homologous series of alcohols, which include methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, and amyl alcohol, each one distinguished from the previous by the addition of an atom of carbon and two of hydrogen (CH2). Man has been making ethyl alcohol since long before the discovery of its chemical and structural formula. Almost any plant substance can serve as the raw material — grapes, apples, corn, grain, and potatoes are traditional ingredients. To make some yourself, start with some store-bought apple juice which has been bottled without preservatives. Put it in a clean glass container and let it sit several days. Yeast, naturally present in the air, will act on the fruit sugars, according to a process first deduced by Louis Pasteur, to change them into alcohol. This is called fermentation. Make sure you use a loosely fitting cover, because carbon dioxide gas is released in the process and could explode a tightly-closed contained. To produce ethanol on a commercial basis, the laboratory process of fermentation and distillation must be scaled up. Remembering that our original intention is to save on the use of petroleum products, we must therefore examine the amount of gasoline and other petroleum fuels that would go into the production of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline. First, we have the production of the corn or other vegetable product that is going to provide the sugars for fermentation. Modern agriculture is a highly energy-intensive operation: tractors and farm vehicles require a lot of gasoline or diesel fuel; ammonia fertilizers use natural gas as a feedstock; irrigation requires large amounts of electrical energy; farm work also requires human physical and mental labor, which requires energy for its maintenance. Bulk raw materials must now be transported from the farm to the still for processing and distillation — another energy-intensive process frequently using natural gas. In fact, more than the total current national consumption of natural gas would be required to power the stills to produce enough ethanol to replace our petroleum dependence.
Studies by Dr. David Pimentel of Cornell University and Tad W. Patzek of the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Berkeley have shown that when all of these inputs are taken together, alcohol production consumes more units of fossil fuel energy than it yields when burned as fuel. Corn ethanol, switch grass ethanol, and wood alcohol(methanol) consume respectively 29%, 45%, and 57% more units of fossil-fuel energy than they give back on burning. If we were so insane as to attempt to replace our petroleum usage with corn ethanol (the least inefficient of the choices),it would require placing 1.8 million square miles, or 51% of the land area of the 50 states, under corn cultivation, according to the calculations of retired University of Connecticut physics professor Howard Hayden (21st Century Science & Technology, Spring 2005, pp. 10-11). However, this is a physical impossibility, for not only could we not find the arable land, we would lack the fossil fuel supply with which to generate our replacement fuel! Need we also mention that a large portion of the human population is suffering from malnutrition? Knowing that, can any moral person justify taking our productive agricultural land out of food production to feed this swindle?
The high cost of the energy inputs required for ethanol production is actually reflected in the price of the product. When all the tax credits and government subsidies are taken into account, the cost of ethanol comes to $7.24 per gallon of “imported gasoline replaced’ (see [link] for an exhaustive study). A bipartisan grouping of senators has now moved to remove the federal requirement of a l0% ethanol additive to gasoline, because it is adding 30-40 cents per gallon to the price of gas. Not surprisingly, the largest financial beneficiary of the government subsidies has been the grain cartels — Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and hedge fund speculators who have recently moved in on the ethanol boondoggle.
My pet peeve. What a disaster!
bump!
Part One implys there will be a Part Two, which I am looking forward to reading.
There are new technologies that will reduce the amount of energy to produce ethanol from corn. There are geneticly altered corn in development that will reduce the energy needed to break it down to ethanol. This coming year the planting of corn has increased ten folds (which will impact the cost of corn for fuel, feed and food) will lower the price of corn. Sizeable part of the cost of food prices is due to high gasoline prices (trucking costs) and to blame it all on corn prices (due to ethanol production) is faulty. New reports and studies on ethanol production reflecting the latest technologies indicate that the energy needed to produce ethanol versus energy produced by ethanol is at worst even. The price of ethanol versus gasoline is still volatile because the government mandates did not allow the farmers to ramp up production to meet the new incentives to produce. Once the farmers and crops catch up and stabilize, we will get a more accurate picture on the actually cost to consumers. Right now the ethanol costs will fluctuate, and taking a snap shot of the fluctuation to justify or condemn the technology is not accurate. Based on technology, farm capability and once we get thru the fits/starts of the transition period, ethanol will be cost compatible against gasoline. Finally, I would like to point out to those freepers that like to compare the cost of gasoline against the snapshot data picking of ethanol, have these freepers factored in the costs of maintaining a military force in the Middle East to safeguard our main source for oil????
I drove by 20 miles of newly planted corn fields here in NC yesterday to get to the grocery store for some things. One of the first items I viewed in the produce section was a package of three small, maybe 6 inch long, ears of corn. Price $3.75. I would assume they are still there on the shelf.
TEN TIMES the present acreage?
From an estimated 92.9 million acres in 2007 to 929 million acres in 2008?
That's good news for consumers - corn will sell for about 20 cents a bushel.
His comments on "Oil Addiction," coupled with his willingness to sign legislation outlawing perfectly good light bulbs as welll as proposing and supporting a substantial INCREASE in Ethanol use--not to mention his approval for mandated increased fuel efficiency, leaves me wondering what he's been smoking and has he been inhaling???
Typical of most if not all of the Green Weenies’s wonderful concepts.
Mythanol may be the worse yet.
If the lack of DDT doesn’t kill babies and innocents in the third world, now they may starve to death due to shortages of grain to make mythanol.
Watch the two faced freepers with jobs or more in the Mythanol bs tell us how stupid we are.
There IS a PART TWO at the pdf link..........
Biofuel mandates are madness. The mandates are just a central plan, the antithesis of market development. The defenders of biofuel mandates are hypocrites, defending a central plan to boost their industry at the expense of the rest of the country. The mandates and subsidies are just another entitlement, buying votes in the farm states while preventing viable energy solutions.
Part Two followed Part One. You may have been reading too fast and didn’t notice it.
I have always been convinced that the usefulness of C2H4OH as an energy source has been overblown. Ethanol is for drinking, not driving.
Explain to me the problem of methanol compared to Ethanol...
Methanol can be made from garbage.. scraps of food, wood, coal, waste vegitation such as switchgrass and a whole host of other things.
Ethanol.. requires.. Corn.
Liberals will whine : why are food prices so high ?
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
Now there is something I can believe in.. pass the Jack Daniels please
I guess we need to rename the two-faced jerks, GRIEFERS. Stands for green freepers who have imbibed so much ethanol that their brain dead mutterings can only attempt to cause us all GRIEF.
Based on reports of well IP's in the Baaken horizontal oil play in ND, the first 30 wells to go onstream will probably produce more oil than all ethanol plants produce today. Initial Potential reports have varied from 1,700 BOD to 2,500 BOD, for Baaken wells. Griefers need to do the math and wake TFU.The Baaken oil play ALONE, should help to eliminate the idiotic idea that we can grow fuel. All Baaken oil is a NET ENERGY GAIN, not a heavily subsidized net energy LOSS.
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