Will the Rough Patch Continue for Ethanol?

Ethanol is not yet a good fuel. My car loses 10% of it's mpg when I use fuel with 10% ethanol, worse than I thought, too bad it's not any cheaper.

In the near future, vehicles will use no fuel, we're already doing it today with cars, boats and even airplanes. They'll only get better. See what's avaiable and for sale today at http://www.selfpoweredelectricvehicles.com/

Moving to renewable sources of energy is going to be like any other transition to a new technology. There will inevitably be blind alleys, and plain daft ideas that someone manages to sell to gullible punters.

With the exception of powering aviation, which demands high energy density fuels, the future of ethanol looks bleak; - well it certainly does from my European viewpoint. A simple calculation shows that if Europe starved itself and put all its productive land down to ethanol production there would be enough to power Europe's transport fleet for January and February, but it'd be bicycles for us all for the rest of the year.

I am equally dismayed that even after all this time, so-called 'experts' still confuse energy sources and its transport medium. All energy comes from the sun, (OK there's nuclear fission, the earth's natural heat and tidal - but that's tiny by comparison). There are no other sources. The transport media are electricity, wind, waves, gas, coal etc. and it's perfectly possible to use the energy being transported to convert from one medium to another (like a power station or a wind turbine).

Why, oh why, is that so difficult for people to understand ?

America will fail miserably with renewable energy because the nation picks winners and losers based on avoiding stepping on the toes of the entrenched fossil and nuclear fuel monopolies. Ethanol from corn and more recently cellulosics were poor choices (in comparison Brazil succeeded with sugar cane.) America's favortism for unreliable, intermittent windpower, with a little solar thrown in, while blocking small-hydro, geothermal and biomass will also result in failure. Our company is leaving this broke nation.

Can't take Anonymous' Sept 4th comment seriously - its well known alcohol has 10% lower energy content by volume than gas - adding 10% ethanol to a gas tank would reduce fuel mileage by 1% -- an imperceptible difference. We are seeing a lot of dis-information being spread around -- which is damaging America.

Really thomas-blum,
I can support the anonymous comment with my own experience. My mileage went from 34 combined to 28 mpg with ethonal added. almost a 20% drop? And after the conclusion of the study that proved we could get 22% more energy from burning biomass, than from distilling it into alcohol. I think it's pretty clear, we're being rob once again by the special interest that are benifiting from the mandates and tax subsidies! I personnally am looking forward to my plug-in hybrid and universal healthcare, free and clear elections on and on and on!

My last project when I worked in the Petro- Chemical, before I started working for myself was dosing Ethanol, with Methanol, and other nasty tasting liquids.
Now in the UK, BP Energy is spending approximatly £200 million on a Bio Ethanol plant at Saltmarsh near Hull.
Would BP spend that amount if they were, not looking to the time, when the oil runs out.

Probably the same reason oil companies advertize to tell us how environmentally concerned they are. It is called corporate goodwill. Notice their corporate goodwill is a very small percentage of the profits. We offered our technology to an oil company who demanded an exclusive and that we build only a few plants.

Stephen, I just listened to your Podcast. You need to get your own studies on the causes of the food for fuel crisis when questioning the two extremes. Jeff Broin, who has a stake in the ethanol fuel industry, accused speculators. Lester Brown, along with his buddies at the World Bank, blame ethanol made from corn, likely because they justifiably believe a food crisis will develop in the future if ethanol is continued to be produced on prime farmland.

A US government study blamed the crisis mostly the effect of high oil and gas prices on food production. I think this study was right especially if you look at the historical correlations. Moreover, the world uses only 25 million of 1.5 billion food crop hectares for biofuels and another 1.5 billion hectares of marginal land is available worldwide.

You must also make Lester Brown prove his propaganda that windpower is replacing coal. Actually, coal and nukes are being replaced by natural gas, which is merely supplemented by windpower. Windpower can't replace anything because generation is too intermittent. It seemed like you were trying to disguise this problem by phrasing it as a question about "smart grids" and "mobile distributed loads" and then Brown took the disguise a step further by not even addressing you question.

There is no reason for all of us to go back to the 1800s when we were all farmers, as Michael Pollin seems to want to do. Capitalism is not the problem, but rather the solution. The US blocks alternative energy crops by subsidizing corn, mandating production from difficult to process cellulose and granting monopolies to utilities. If Brazil did this nonsense, they would have never developed cost competitive production of ethanol and electricity from sugar cane.

Anonymous--David Williams and others-------E10 is not always labeled. Stations simply fill the tanks with whatever is available for delivery. The pump signs are not changed. During the summer you are probably getting E10 no matter what it says on the pumps. One truck will make several deliveries. The trucks are filled with E10 because some deliveries will be to stations in areas that are required by law to dispense only E10 during certain time periods. You cann't know what you are getting by looking at the pump. Some states now require the sale of E10 only--you cann't get regular gasoline.(I think it is 8 states now, and will soon be 10). E10 comprises about 75% of all gasoline sold now.

Mike Holly------ethanol need not be produced from food crops at all. We can make ethanol from cellulose----and have been able to for over a century. Wood was the most common source of fuel alcohol prior to WW1. Ethanol was produced in large quantities from wood at a plant in Wisconsin during WW2---it was not used as fuel however, it was far too critical as a feedstock for other products, primarily butadiene(artificial rubber).
Humans can not eat dent corn used in ethanol production--when DDG(high protein animal feed) is made from from corn,(or any other grain)---the ethanol must be removed or you end up with herds of drunk livestock. You get food AND fuel when you make ethanol from corn.

There are lots of ways to store energy from wind. Pumping water back upstream to be recycled through hydroelectric dams is one way----we have been doing that to store energy during non peak demand periods for over 50 years. Wind turbines need not even be connected to the grid at all. Storing water in tanks and using it later to turn water wheels provides power that does not even need electricity at all, and was being done in the 17th Century.

Fred, my comment number 3 should tell you that I know ethanol can be made from cellulosics, but that I think it is a poor choice (too expensive). If you listen to the podcast you will find further verification of that. Energy storage is also too expensive.

-------"Fred, my comment number 3 should tell you that I know ethanol can be made from cellulosics, but that I think it is a poor choice (too expensive). "--------------

If alcohol could be produced from wood waste economically over 100 years ago using 19th Century technology----what makes you think it is not possible to do it today? Cellulosic ethanol was produced in both the US and Germany as far back as the 1890s.

Ethanol from sugar cane works very well for Brazil. We can grow sugar cane here in the US also. We can also grow sugar beets. We can also grow sorghum.

We can make biofuels from any type of plant material at all.

--------"Energy storage is also too expensive."---------

Why do you think that? It costs no more to store biofuels than it does to store petroleum.

Fred, I'm sure I already answered your same identical question about the relative costs of cellulosic ethanol compared to grain ethanol and petro for you in the comment section of another article. But I will repeat - the relative costs of grain ethanol and petro have dropped as a result of higher yields and efficiencies, whereas cellulosics is still very expensive to process. Just listen to the podcast: both Jeff Broin and Lester Brown, who come from opposing sides, agree that cellulosic ethanol is not competitive.

The US cannot grow either sugar cane or sugar beets at costs competitive to sugar cane grown in Brazil. Sorghum has potential but it is doubtful that this sugar crop will developed in the US, while as I already pointed out in my comment 8, the US is subsidizing corn and not sorghum, mandates production from difficult to process cellulose instead of sugar, and blocks use of the cellulose for power production.

As for energy storage, I was referring to your claim in comment 9 about storing windpower, not biofuels or petro. If you doubt me, just look in the comment section of an article by Jeff Anthony of the American Wind Energy Association, who says the storage of electricity is too expensive. That is why no one is attempting to store wind energy on a significant commercial scale today.

Peak Oil. The only way for the price of oil to go in the long term is up. We can either plan ahead and have contingent energy sources available to meet demand, or we can put things off and be caught flat footed and unprepared...................again.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/06/chemrec-20090612.html

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea//news/article/2008/08/pulp-and-paper-industry-poised-to-take-center-stage-in-global-bioenergy-arena-53239

We are already producing "black liquor"---the biological equivalent of crude oil. Converting black liquor into biofuels simply adds a second product string to what is already being produced from the pulp used to manufacture paper.



Storage of electricity is difficult and expensive. Storage of energy is not. Pumping water uphill stores energy. Compressing air stores energy. Heating water or something else in an insulated container stores energy. Putting oil in tanks stores energy. Stacking firewood on the backporch stores energy. Taking a chair lift to the top of the slope stores energy. The Anazazi Indians built their cliff dwellings on south facing cliffs---heated by the sun in winter, and shaded in the summer. The thermal mass of the rock cliffs made them warm when it was cold outside, and cool when it was hot outside. No electricity needed. They can have as much as a 40* temperature difference between the interior of cliff walls and the outside air. You'd need a very big air conditioner to do that.

Storing windpower as any energy for electricity generation is expensive - and is the reason this power source is intermittent and limited in potential.

Digging coal up out of the ground and shipping it all over the place is expensive too. And extremely damaging to the land, watersheds and the air.

Use wind to store energy using pumps. Then use water to generate electricity. You don't need electricity to store wind power at all. It has been done for centuries.

Fred, do you really think coal generation is as expensive as windpower generation with storage? I have seen numbers for coal generation many times less expensive than windpower generation with pumped water storage. You seem to be fixated on doing things as they were done centuries ago regardless of cost.

Even the biased American Wind Energy Association doesn't believe windpower generation with pumped water storage is a cost competitive option:

http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Energy_Storage_Factsheet.pdf

Figure in the cost of environmental destruction and health care. Figure in the cost of fuel. Build a coal plant and you have to have coal to get any electricity out. Build a windmill, and there are no fuel costs---even if it is operated for centuries. And there is no environmental damage. I've never heard of anyone who got asthma or black lung from a windmill.

Mike---from the document you cite, second paragraph:---------"Every day, grid operators constantly accommodate variability in electricity demand and supply by increasing and decreasing the output of flexible generators – power plants like hydroelectric dams or natural gas plants that can rapidly change their level of generation. Thus, the water kept behind a dam or the natural gas held in a pipeline may be thought of as a form of energy storage, with operators using this energy when it is needed and "storing" it when it is not. Grid operators use these same flexible resources to accommodate any variability introduced by wind energy."-----------

Just what I've been saying. Use the "variable" windpower to pump water and it is no longer variable.

Come on Fred, you should know that, when comparing coal and windpower, all costs of capital and operation are included, including fuel. Only externalities, like environmental costs, are not included. And these externalities can be eliminated by other base-load renewables like small-hydro, geothermal and biomass co-generation at a far lower cost than windpower with pumped water storage. And yet these base-load renewables are being blocked in the US in favor or mandating 97% windpower.

How are they being blocked?

I don't know of any "mandate" that we have to have windpower exclusively.

Utilities can use their monopolies to block all renewables in both regulated and deregulated states. States must mandate utilities to buy some renewables. But, according to a law firm that has categorized state programs, nearly all states show preferences for wind and solar. Here in Minnesota, state law requires our largest utility Xcel to buy 80% windpower. Also, utilities commonly conduct their bidding exclusively for wind. The result has been that renewables added by US utilities since 1994 have been 97% windpower.

Then it is a problem of government and coporate monopoly corruption, not a problem of what can or can not be done.

I think there is much to be said on that subject.

The North Carolina legislature recently voted to block construction of wind turbines because they are "unsightly". There was only one vote against. Coincidentally, Duke Energy, which operates more coal power plants than any other utility in the US, is based in North Carolina.

It should obvious by now that as soon as the Bio Diesel and bio fuel suppliers go bankrupt the price of diesel will go through the roof again. As usual, the public is taking the bait. We need to insist on more bio fuel, or we will soon be facing $8.00 a gallon fuel. It's the same old game! I have watched it for forty years. They (the large energy companies,) are also killing the solar energy business. China is light years ahead of us! Write your congressman and insist on energy reform before it is too late!