The ethanol scam

As gas -- and corn -- prices creep ever higher, everyone in my great
State of Iowa is all ablush with talk of riches pouring in, thanks to
ethanol production. They can barely contain their glee at this
remarkable turn of economic fortune. (Remember, just a few years ago
farmers here had one foot in the grave, and the other on a banana
peel...)

Thus, I feel like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, trying to get a
word in edgewise about the absurdity of it all. Of course, since
subsidized ethanol production is the single greatest farm subsidy
program in US history -- and since Iowa remains largely an
agricultural society -- facing facts is not a popular passtime here.

But it must be done, or our country is being led down the primrose
path to perdition. The fact remains that converting corn into
ethanol, for the purpose of fueling automobiles, is simply absurd.

Here is a quote that sums it up nicely, IMHO:

"Overall (farming, distillation), it takes 129,600 BTU to produce a
gallon of EtOH (ethanol), but the energy value of a gallon of EtOH is
only 76,000 BTU. In SI units [conversions in footnote 3]: it takes
45.7 MJ to produce a kilogram of EtOH, but the energy value of that
kilogram of EtOH is 26.8 MJ."

"There is thus a net energy loss of about 54,000 Btu for every gallon
(18.9 MJ for every kilogram) of EtOH produced. Unlike the old joke
about the tailor who claims he loses money on every suit, but stays in
business by 'making up for it in quantity', there is no deception
here. It's a losing proposition."

You can read the whole article he
http://www.energyadvocate.com/etohscam.htm

Write your Congress Critters. The politicians are leading us down
this path for purely political purposes, and it's up to us to stop it.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
As gas -- and corn -- prices creep ever higher, everyone in my great
State of Iowa is all ablush with talk of riches pouring in, thanks to
ethanol production. They can barely contain their glee at this
remarkable turn of economic fortune. (Remember, just a few years ago
farmers here had one foot in the grave, and the other on a banana
peel...)

Are they still subsidized? If (if) they're making money growing and selling
corn such that taxpayers don't have to subsidize their farms it seems like
there's
a general economic benefit in there.

Still doesn't solve the oil problem. Brazil uses sugarcane, which the US
could do on a smaller scale, but CNN is correct in that we can't grow enough
corn to meet our own needs.

-c

In article ,
"Gatt" wrote:

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
As gas -- and corn -- prices creep ever higher, everyone in my great
State of Iowa is all ablush with talk of riches pouring in, thanks to
ethanol production. They can barely contain their glee at this
remarkable turn of economic fortune. (Remember, just a few years ago
farmers here had one foot in the grave, and the other on a banana
peel...)

Are they still subsidized? If (if) they're making money growing and selling
corn such that taxpayers don't have to subsidize their farms it seems like
there's
a general economic benefit in there.

Still doesn't solve the oil problem. Brazil uses sugarcane, which the US
could do on a smaller scale, but CNN is correct in that we can't grow enough
corn to meet our own needs.

Sugar cane has a higher sugar (and therefore energy) content than corn.
Approximately 7-10 times the energy content of corn.
A WSJ article this week reported that a US university has modified a
grass that can be broken down without the use of acids and has an energy
content 7 times greater than corn.
Just think, everyone could plant their yards with this grass, mow and
bag the clippings, have them picked up curbside and taken to the
processing plant. Corn prices drop back down to food levels and more
ethanol gets produced from our lawns.

"john smith" wrote in message
...

Just think, everyone could plant their yards with this grass, mow and
bag the clippings, have them picked up curbside and taken to the
processing plant.

That would be huge. Could probably get a lot more citizens to sign on if we
reactivated the term "Victory Garden."

I wonder how much lawnmower fuel I could produce from my own grass compost.
If every lawnmower-operating family or business did that, it really would be
substantial.

-c

"john smith" wrote:

Just think, everyone could plant their yards with this grass, mow and
bag the clippings, have them picked up curbside and taken to the
processing plant. Corn prices drop back down to food levels and more
ethanol gets produced from our lawns.

That sounds like a terrific idea, if you could get folks over their
compulsion to have to have a manicured lawn.

How high does it grow? How many times a year would you cut the stuff? I cut
my lawn about 14 times/year. Reducing that to once or twice would sell me on
the idea!

--
Dan
T-182T at BFM

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:55:52 -0400, john smith wrote:

Sugar cane has a higher sugar (and therefore energy) content than corn.
Approximately 7-10 times the energy content of corn. A WSJ article this
week reported that a US university has modified a grass that can be broken
down without the use of acids and has an energy content 7 times greater
than corn.

This:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118403019523461642.html

?

Searching on the name of the grass (Miscanthus X giganteus) provides
quite a few additional links such as:

http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/mis...iscanthus.html

But this is a specific example of a general trend that I hope we're
seeing. Biotech is still a relatively new field. And it's still
only just started to be directed to the idea of "fuel" over the past
ten years or so (at least as far as I've seen). I think/hope we're going
to see some interesting possibilities out of that area.

This does suggest, though, that government fiddling with the market such
that a "winner fuel" is chosen prematurely - esp. by the anti-scientists
currently in the administration - would be a bad thing. While Brazil
does seem to be doing well with sugar cane, our growth environment is
significantly different. And I think it would be repeating a mistake to
chose a fuel not easily/efficiently grown "at home".

BTW, searching on this grass also brings one to links regarding other
possible fuel "grasses".

- Andrew

Jay Honeck wrote:


"Overall (farming, distillation), it takes 129,600 BTU to produce a
gallon of EtOH (ethanol), but the energy value of a gallon of EtOH is
only 76,000 BTU. In SI units [conversions in footnote 3]: it takes
45.7 MJ to produce a kilogram of EtOH, but the energy value of that
kilogram of EtOH is 26.8 MJ."

Does anyone know how much energy it takes to pump crude out of the
ground, ship it to a refinery, and the refine it to make a gallon of
gas? I don't, just asking for a comparison.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:04:46 -0600, RomeoMike
wrote:



Jay Honeck wrote:


"Overall (farming, distillation), it takes 129,600 BTU to produce a
gallon of EtOH (ethanol), but the energy value of a gallon of EtOH is
only 76,000 BTU. In SI units [conversions in footnote 3]: it takes
45.7 MJ to produce a kilogram of EtOH, but the energy value of that
kilogram of EtOH is 26.8 MJ."

Does anyone know how much energy it takes to pump crude out of the
ground, ship it to a refinery, and the refine it to make a gallon of
gas? I don't, just asking for a comparison.

It's surprisingly inefficient, but using the same stuff for power
makes it relatively inexpensive.
I looked it up a while back and as I recall it was "cost of producing
alcohol compared to processing crude oil into gas" The biggest problem
I found is there is so much conflicting information out there that it
takes time (a lot of it) to filter out what is and is not both correct
and up-to-date. Even where studies are undertaken you really need to
know the criteria under which the studies were conducted.

*Probably* one of the least expensive fuels is hydrogen produced by
gasification of coal, but that process is not clean and produces a
tremendous amount of CO2 as a byproduct. OTOH the byproducts and be
recovered and sold while the CO2 can be sequestered.

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:28:14 -0400, "Roger (K8RI)"
wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:04:46 -0600, RomeoMike
wrote:



Jay Honeck wrote:


"Overall (farming, distillation), it takes 129,600 BTU to produce a
gallon of EtOH (ethanol), but the energy value of a gallon of EtOH is
only 76,000 BTU. In SI units [conversions in footnote 3]: it takes
45.7 MJ to produce a kilogram of EtOH, but the energy value of that
kilogram of EtOH is 26.8 MJ."

Does anyone know how much energy it takes to pump crude out of the
ground, ship it to a refinery, and the refine it to make a gallon of
gas? I don't, just asking for a comparison.

It's surprisingly inefficient, but using the same stuff for power
makes it relatively inexpensive.
I looked it up a while back and as I recall it was "cost of producing
alcohol compared to processing crude oil into gas" The biggest problem
I found is there is so much conflicting information out there that it
takes time (a lot of it) to filter out what is and is not both correct
and up-to-date. Even where studies are undertaken you really need to
know the criteria under which the studies were conducted.

*Probably* one of the least expensive fuels is hydrogen produced by
gasification of coal, but that process is not clean and produces a
tremendous amount of CO2 as a byproduct. OTOH the byproducts and be
recovered and sold while the CO2 can be sequestered.

Interesting data point:

"ChevronTexaco has installed a solar photovoltaic facility called
Soalrmine to help power oil-field operations near Bakersfield, Calif.
The grid-tie project comprises 4800 flexible, current-producing solar
panels, each about 1.3 feet wide by 18 feet long, mounted on metal
frames.

"At 500 kW, Solarrmine is one of the largest photovoltaic
installations in the U.S. and the largest array of flexible,
amorphous-silicon solar technology in the world. Solarmine covers six
acres, enabling it to take advantage of Uni-Solar's
amorphous-manufacturing economies of scale. (ChevronTexaco owns 20% of
Uni-Solar's parent company, ECD.) "

That's from an article I wrote in 2004. I don't know the current
status.

Don

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:11:54 -0700, Don Tuite
wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:28:14 -0400, "Roger (K8RI)"
wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:04:46 -0600, RomeoMike
wrote:



Jay Honeck wrote:


"Overall (farming, distillation), it takes 129,600 BTU to produce a
gallon of EtOH (ethanol), but the energy value of a gallon of EtOH is
only 76,000 BTU. In SI units [conversions in footnote 3]: it takes
45.7 MJ to produce a kilogram of EtOH, but the energy value of that
kilogram of EtOH is 26.8 MJ."

Does anyone know how much energy it takes to pump crude out of the
ground, ship it to a refinery, and the refine it to make a gallon of
gas? I don't, just asking for a comparison.

It's surprisingly inefficient, but using the same stuff for power
makes it relatively inexpensive.
I looked it up a while back and as I recall it was "cost of producing
alcohol compared to processing crude oil into gas" The biggest problem
I found is there is so much conflicting information out there that it
takes time (a lot of it) to filter out what is and is not both correct
and up-to-date. Even where studies are undertaken you really need to
know the criteria under which the studies were conducted.

*Probably* one of the least expensive fuels is hydrogen produced by
gasification of coal, but that process is not clean and produces a
tremendous amount of CO2 as a byproduct. OTOH the byproducts and be
recovered and sold while the CO2 can be sequestered.

Interesting data point:

"ChevronTexaco has installed a solar photovoltaic facility called
Soalrmine to help power oil-field operations near Bakersfield, Calif.
The grid-tie project comprises 4800 flexible, current-producing solar
panels, each about 1.3 feet wide by 18 feet long, mounted on metal
frames.

"At 500 kW, Solarrmine is one of the largest photovoltaic
installations in the U.S. and the largest array of flexible,
amorphous-silicon solar technology in the world. Solarmine covers six

Amorphous-Silicon in what configuration? Deposition on a substrate or
polycrystalline?

Hemlock Semiconductor Corporation (HSC), affectionately known around
here as Hemi Semi...just finished up a major expansion program (they
were the world's largest producer of polycrystalline Silicon well
before that expansion) announced a one Billion Dollar expansion that
should again double the plant's capacity.

The problem for us using solar (active and passive) up here, contrary
to many claims made by the state and tourist bureau, is lack of sun
coupled low cost electricity. With electricity costing about 8 cents
per KWH or 10 cents with all surcharges, being 43.37N, in a cloudy
area, and no subsidy we aren't even on the pay-back charts. California
OTOH with peak charges of just shy of 40 cents per KWH and a subsidy
of near 50% last I heard, has a reasonable payback time. Up here an
installation would run about twice the cost of one in California and
we receive no subsidy. That makes the $30,000 to $50,000 for an
installation just a tad steep.

acres, enabling it to take advantage of Uni-Solar's
amorphous-manufacturing economies of scale. (ChevronTexaco owns 20% of
Uni-Solar's parent company, ECD.) "

That's from an article I wrote in 2004. I don't know the current
status.

Don