Defeating ourselves before we try is not the answer.
good idea.
even deeper, our current economic problems are from the judicial system. straighten that out, and money would pour into the country.
Would you try to jump over the moon? Do you think it’s even remotely possible? Even if we could produce sufficient quantities there’s still the issue of changing the gaseous makeup of the atmosphere. Also, these biofuel crops rely upon massive input of petroleum derived chemical fertilizer and related problem of run-off enlarging the already vast dead zone areas in the oceans. I just think we should stop fooling ourselves about being in control of the world.
We must make a distinction in this thread between ethanol biofuel, and Waste Veggie Oil biodiesel. I drive an '82 Isuzu Diesel Pup, and I have started purchasing processed waste veggie oil to power it. Let’s not forget that Mr. Diesel debuted his new-fangled engine at the World’s Fair at the turn of the 19th Century. The amazing thing is that it was running on straight PEANUT OIL! He had the insight to create an internal combustion engine that ran on renewable fuel almost a century before the peak oil awakening. Now, that brings us back to growing food for fuel when people go hungry. I burn used veggie oil that comes out of the fryers of some of our local restaurants. The oil is already grown for a food purpose, used, and then saved and utilized further to use every bit of energy we can. Obviously we can’t power everyone’s vehicles on waste oil, so if biodiesel is to be cost effective in the future, we need to grow a crop that is high in oil content. Ideally this high-oil crop can be used for many uses, like fiber, building materials, animal and human protein for food; this would allow more efficient use of energy required to farm it. Now, what IS this crop?? Amazingly, it is Industrial Hemp. It requires no pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. It creates about 8,000 lbs. of seed per acre, which can be pressed into 30 barrels of oil (which can be converted into biodiesel) and 6,000 lbs. of high-protein feed. There are almost 25,000 uses for this SINGLE plant and we could solve so many of our social and environmental problems including feeding and clothing people AND powering our 18-wheelers, schoolbusses, dump trucks, and the list goes on.
Over a fairly short time, crops used for production of cellulosic alcohol would return their value in energy. Sugar cane and corn are not the only crops and certainly not the most energy rich (read sugar content). Sugar beets, sweet potaoes (ugly sweet potatoes aren’t sold in produce stores), sweet sorghum, fruit waste and so many more sugar rich crops could yeild more energy. And the waste from brewing could either be fed as a nutrient rich fodder to livestock or spread as a nutrient rich fertilizer on the growing fields. Hell, waste could be sold to growers of food that you and I eat to replenish fields with a non-petroleum based fertilizer.
So, to start, the distilling process could be done with a wood fire and then the alcohol you produce could then be used to run a new, cleaner process as the brewing process begins to support itself. Catalytic Combusters like those used in home wood stoves would give a brewer approximately 30% more usable energy from wood until the use of an alcohol burner could be put in place, thereby reducing polution from wood burning. And, energy created in a larger production facility could be sold to the power grid as an offset to the carbon footprint.
The only thing is that auto makers would have to be convinced that a little tweak here and there to the engines in their cars would be needed; ie higher compression. The computers in todays flex-fuel cars are just fine right now to run a nearly 85% mix of alcohol and gasolene.
But what incentives are there when oil companies even now realize what this means to their bottom lines. Big oil has powerful lobbyists and “money talks” to politicians.
I must give credit to David Blume for much of the info herein. He has spent a huge portion of his life promoting alcohol and permaculture. I believe his vision holds weight in this conversation
You are dead wrong friend. I only wish we did live in a free market economy as you suggest. I am a southern farmer that raises both cattle and catfish on 1,000 acres of family farmland. So I am on the front lines on this issue. The largest expenses by far is our feed which is grain-based (soybean and corn). Grain prices have tripled over the last few years as a result of grain being diverted to ethanol production. I have not been able to pass these costs on due to the economy. I have not made a profit in two years. Half of the farmers I know have quit raising cattle and catfish and/or gone bankrupt due to these outrageously high feed prices. I have no idea where Americans expect to get their protein needs met in this environmentally PC world now (Oh wait a minute, yes I do - all your food will now be imported from countries. Food safety? What’s that?)
As others have posted earlier here, ethanol is subsidized by the government. Not just at the grain growers level, but at multiple levels in the production cycle. Did you know that there are companies that have sprung up that simply blend biodiesel into regular diesel for the subsidized dollar they receive from the government to make a 20% blend? It’s a racket, a government created fiasco. To add insult to injury, ethanol can be economically produced from non-food grains, chiefly sugercane. But that comes from South America and the special interests in the grain producing states can’t have THAT. That is the rationale anyway used for slapping South American ethanol with such a heavy tariff that it becomes non-competitive to sell in the US (It can’t be just any alternate fuel; it has to be OUR alternate fuel)
Want to hear more? Catfish farmers that can show they have been hurt by high grain prices can petition the government for monetary relief (courtesy of YOU the taxpayer) to help offset the higher grain prices created by the government in the first place! I can tell you it wasn’t a lot of money (I applied for relief too; hey, I’ve got a family to feed) That being said , I would rather have government simply stay out of our markets in the first place. Are biofuels ethically defensible? I say not just no, but hell no! It’s all contrived by special interests. And you know what really sucks? The biofuel itself. It has less energy content by any measure AND it makes a mess of your engine if left to sit for more than a few days. The ethanol binds with water to make an emulsion (fancy word for gunk…have you tried running your boat/ATV,weedeater lately?)
Wake up America.
The biggest bottleneck in utilizing algae is in the harvesting process. They haven’t really even got to that stage yet though. They are still trying to grow enough algae TO harvest. I grow more algae everyday in my catfish ponds than these researchers are doing, and the concentrations in my ponds are still too low to be viable. At some point the density of algae in the pond crowds out the light and, you guessed, no more algae growth. The other limiting factor is, ironically, CO2… But, I believe these technical issues will be resolved and the economical feedstock for biodiesel will eventually be made from algae. Just ask Boeing.
We must make a distinction in this thread between ethanol biofuel, and Waste Veggie Oil biodiesel.
Why?
Both oil and ethanol are food-to-fuel plans. Both oil and ethanol can be produced from crops, or from waste (either the french-fry grease, or the potato peelings). As you admit yourself, there isn’t enough waste oil to go around. Growing plants to be turned into fuel of some sort runs into the same arable-land constraints.
Amazingly, it is Industrial Hemp…There are almost 25,000 uses for this SINGLE plant and we could solve so many of our social and environmental problems …
Okay, who didn’t see this coming a mile away? The main problem with hemp, obvoiusly, is that it would trigger a worldwide Doritos shortage…
Last year corn was over $7.00 a bushel and now corn is $3.50 or less.
Have food prices dropped in half?
Have food prices come down? No. The plastic bag for your corn flakes costs more than the corn in the box.
Why?
Corn based ethanol is a result of a large supply of cheap corn that nobody wanted to buy. Ten to fifteen years ago the price of corn was far below the cost of production. At that point several people started realizing that grain was a cheaper form of carbon than oil. It was literally cheaper to burn corn in a stove than buy fuel oil, or propane or natural gas. Even at $3.50 a bushel that is still true.
One thing that is usually lost in this debate is that corn when used in an alcohol plant is not destroyed. The resulting distillers grain (sour mash…) makes an excellent feed. The largest single cost against ethanol is drying that mash to make a powder, but that doesn’t have to be done if the livestock is close to the plant. Most of the anti-ethanol stats are based on an over twenty year old Purdue metric that has long been discredited.
Yes there is a tax abatement for ethanol used in gasoline, as there also is for those driving electric cars. But for all intents and purposes there are no longer price or acreage subsidies for the large grain crops. This saves the government, us, billions every year. We also export billions of bushles for sale and ship food aid around the world.
To those who want to grow food, come on out of the city and try it! It’s still a remarkably free country.
We have a No Silver Bullet situation.
Food-source ethanol takes more fossil fuel to produce than if you just poured that same amount of fuel in the tank; and it continues to deplete soil and water.
Ethanol from farm scraps makes sense only if you want to continue your dependency on artificial fertilizers and pesticides indefinitely.
We don’t yet have the enzymes to easily crack the hard structure of wood, but going the way of making fuel from woody wastes that drop off the tree could be a good ethical solution.
Until that time, get rid of the middle man, ride a bike! Last year, I bicycled 2250 miles for my commute and weekends, drove 2700 miles in my car, and rode the bus and train for the rest. Imagine if more Americans had that freedom of transportation choice? We could reduce our fuel demand by at least a third. Imagine what that would do to fuel prices, those refineries desperate for the $ we no longer need to give them?
Over a fairly short time, crops used for production of cellulosic alcohol would return their value in energy. Sugar cane and corn are not the only crops and certainly not the most energy rich (read sugar content). Sugar beets, sweet potaoes (ugly sweet potatoes aren’t sold in produce stores), sweet sorghum, fruit waste and so many more sugar rich crops could yeild more energy. And the waste from brewing could either be fed as a nutrient rich fodder to livestock or spread as a nutrient rich fertilizer on the growing fields. Hell, waste could be sold to growers of food that you and I eat to replenish fields with a non-petroleum based fertilizer.
So, to start, the distilling process could be done with a wood fire and then the alcohol you produce could then be used to run a new, cleaner process as the brewing process begins to support itself. Catalytic Combusters like those used in home wood stoves would give a brewer approximately 30% more usable energy from wood until the use of an alcohol burner could be put in place, thereby reducing polution from wood burning. And, energy created in a larger production facility could be sold to the power grid as an offset to the carbon footprint.
The only thing is that auto makers would have to be convinced that a little tweak here and there to the engines in their cars would be needed; ie higher compression. The computers in todays flex-fuel cars are just fine right now to run a nearly 85% mix of alcohol and gasolene.
But what incentives are there when oil companies even now realize what this means to their bottom lines. Big oil has powerful lobbyists and “money talks” to politicians.
Edit/Update your post
Mike, duckweed is another viable option to corn for ethanol. Could be faster AND cheaper than corn to produce ethanol: http://biotech.sujanani.com/news/?p=22000786
Did you really say a wood fire to create ethanol? The goal is less carbon, and fewer particulates. Ethanol is a gigantic political scam, government waste,energy loser, and indirectly pollutes more than gasoline, in addition to being morally indefensable.
Natural gas burns cleaner than ethanol or gasoline, in terms of trace pollutants and CO2, and we are up to our eyeballs in it and we don’t have to buy it from countries that hate us. We could run every vehicle in the country on it, but if we only converted 75 of the old dirty coal plants to natural gas, we could meet all the cap and trade CO2 goals the instant that is done, instead of 17 years. In reality, since the natural gas power plants are at 25% capacity, we could do it tomorrow.
Say no to ethanol and demand that our politicians quit throwing our money away to buy the farm belt’s votes and Archer Daniels Midland Corp’s campaign contributions. Read the book “Gusher of Lies” if you want to know just how big a scam ethanol really is.
One issue with using corn to make fuel is the larger swaths of land (including conserved grasslands) converted to it’s production. Otherwise, I’d think higher prices would eventually make corn ethanol less appealing. Hopefully, there will be some advances that allow cellulosic fuel production (from biomass/waste) to be scaled up at reasonable cost. Until then, what do we have at our disposal other than fuel economy (including the higher efficiency of next-gen hybrids), natural gas, or the more carbon-intensive tar sands that are now serving a higher percentage of American fuel demand?
The small potential displacement of gasoline consumption (now at 378 million gallons a day) aside, the only real benefit of corn ethanol appears to be the reduction of carbon monoxide emission (achievable with a 10% blend). Carbon dioxide seems to be a different story - only a modest reduction in net output (depending on method used). Although biofuel use is carbon-neutral (unlike fossil carbon, which is accumulative), corn ethanol production & distribution still involves significant amounts of fossil fuel.
Humanity’s survival requires the ability to think beyond the dichotomy of good/bad. Biofuels can be done in a manner that harms efforts to feed humanity and solve energy needs. Biofuels can also contribute to solving both problems. In the US most ethanol is made from corn. Most corn grown in the US is grown for feed stock, not human consumption. Corn that has been fermented to make ethanol before feeding to pigs or cows makes better feed, and in the case of cows, reduces the amount of methane they fart (a not insubstantial problem regards global warming). Of course fermented corn is wet and heavy and therefore expensive to ship. Ethanol plants need to be located in every county where cows and/pigs are raised. Obviously we are doing it wrong in the US and adding to the problems rather than solving them. Likewise, some other biofuels can be done well, or badly. Biofuels should be part of the mix that solves the ecological problems that threaten humanity’s very survival. I am an ex-dairy farmer. I am a lifelong ecologist - “tree hugger”.
I still say we’re ignoring the larger issue here. ethical or unethical, biofuels simply aren’t going to save our carefree motoring lifestyle. We’ve come near to the end of an economic inflationary period on earth using up the bounty of fossil fuels that took mother nature hundreds of millions of years to produce. It is the height of human arrogance to think that we can replace that tremendous bounty with our own puny efforts. Everything has its time and happy motoring is nearing its own end.
We all need to wake up to reality and put our best efforts towards figuring out how to live in a world where we can’t all go buzzing around in vehicles wherever and whenever we want and will have to resort to a more local model of existence. Let’s stop wasting the shortening time we have left to make this inevitable transition and stop trying to sustain the unsustainable.
Hydrogen-where’s the hydrogen going to come from? We have to manufacture it from existing fuels. How is that going to solve our energy problem?
It’s an incredibly complex issue. It’s true that corn to ethanol does not make economic or environmental sense, but also true that corn farmers large and small have suffered through decades of surpluses and depressed prices while the buyers held all the cards. There’s a thin line between surpluses and low prices in a food/feed world and shortages and speculative price spikes in a food/feed/fuel world.
In the world’s poorest countries, people are starving. Part of it is economic and part due to wars and other disruptions. Less food certainly doesn’t improve that situation, but high fuel costs won’t help either. And there’s the moral question around the issue that the poorest countries have the highest birth rates. I don’t like to see a child starve any more than the next guy, but I do have to wonder about parents who produce a dozen children when they are ill-equipped to care for even one.
Switchgrass (cellulosic biofuel) and algae (bio-crude) are both very promising, and we should be spending money to develop them, but neither is going to contribute meaningful volumes of fuel for a decade or more. It’s going to take a combined approach: higher fuel economy standards, plug-in hybrids, better mass-transit, develop new oilfields where it makes sense, and develop biofuels where they make sense, including elimination of the tariff on imports. Subsidies can be a useful tool - Heaven knows our existing fuel markets are nowhere near “free” as it is - but they need to have a sunset. Subsidies need to end after a reasonable period, and if the new fuels cannot then survive on their own, so be it.
But in the end, the ethics of food vs. fuel should only be a constraint if the ethics of population growth are equally constrained, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Until it does, actual parents and the governments that serve in loco parentis for all of their citizens bear the responsibility for food being unaffordable or in short supply.
The problem with corn ethanol is not the corn. It is the ethanol. It is also the fact that we are making it in a very unsophisticated and inefficient manner. We shouldn’t make fuel vs. food. We should make both, AND fertilizer, using the same corn kernel we use today to make ethanol…all at the same time. Let me explain how.
I am the CEO of SynGest Inc. (www.SynGest.com) We focus on commercializing production technologies that focus on the intersection of energy and agriculture, what we call ?The Three F’s: Food, Fertilizer and Fuel?. It is now possible, by deploying some very old technology, such as dry milling (a.k.a. “dry fractionation”), along with a few new technologies that are now ready to deploy commercially in large scale, we can have our fuel, and eat it too (pun intended). The new approach that SynGest is deploying, in conjunction with a number of other clean energy companies, is to first separate the corn into starch, germ and bran. Then, (1) the starch is used to make pipeline compatible fuel instead of ethanol. This fuel production using the starch is also an important alternative to making more diabetes-producing high-fructose corn syrup. Next, (2) the germ is separated into human food-grade oil (a.k.a. Mazola) and human food-grade protein (a.k.a. veggie burgers) that can also be fed to any animal or bird. Finally, (3) the bran is used in our SynGest gasification system to produce carbon-negative nitrogen fertilizer. Every 250,000 acres of corn can now produce 120 million gallons of high-energy and pipeline compatible fuel (v.s. 100 million gallons of ethanol today), 500,000 acres of nitrogen fertilizer, 64 million lbs of corn oil and 67,000 tons of protein. As you can see, with the appropriate deployment of technologies in the most efficient design, we can actually make all of The Three F’s. The whole is truly greater than the sum of the parts. By the time this rolls out widely, we will be making some of the lowest carbon fuels possible, with the lowest external energy content, all while making enormous amounts of food AND fertilizer.
Today’s ethanol industry was not originally intended to be a serious and major source of replacement energy for the country. Therefore, we cannot judge the industry for what it is today as it relates to that goal. Once we rationalize it as described above, it will become a very effective tool for producing low carbon fuels that contribute to our energy independence all while feeding us and the world, all at the same time. Please don?t be too quick to judge.
Always thought the Dairy farmers did a good job of recycling waste,that being said-Your point of production and usage makes sense.I have said the same thing all along about ,Coalfired powerplants.It would be cheaper and a bit less polluting to combust the coal at the point of production.-Kevin