

Cellulosic, sugarcane, and biodiesel all get bigger bumps as well


I. New Mandatory Fuel Targets Land


The EPA's proposed changes are seen below:



II. Corn Ethanol Bump Sure to Produce Controversy



Corn ethanol





Cellulosic ethanol
[Image Source: ASPO USA]





Sources: EPA [2012], [2011]

Comments     Threshold


This statistic is really disturbing
By Shig on 12/30/2011 3:50:48 PM , Rating: 2

The DOE just released a study detailing how many flex fuel stations there are in the US (E85). There are 7.6 million vehicles on the roads today capable of using E85, there are a total of 2,468 registered stations to fill up...

RE: This statistic is really disturbing
By Motoman on 12/30/2011 3:55:03 PM , Rating: 5
The only part about that that's disturbing is how the ethanol is getting into the fuel. From food. You're an idiot of biblical proportions if you think fuel from food is anything other than a tragedy.

RE: This statistic is really disturbing
By dgingerich on 12/31/11, Rating: -1
RE: This statistic is really disturbing
By m51 on 12/31/2011 2:40:53 PM , Rating: 5
We do not have a surplus of agricultural land. Certainly not to waste on Biofuels.

To provide enough corn ethanol to fulfill our needs for vehicle fuel would require 6 times the total agricultural land area available in the US. Corn ethanol is very marginal in it's ability to produce fuel efficiently, it uses almost as much energy to produce the fuel as the fuel itself contains.Sugar Cane is 6 times more efficient than corn for ethanol production, but it will not grow in our temperate climate. Even if you could grow it here the land area required and the water needs are not possible to meet.

So it consumes enormous amounts of water and land, causes top soil loss and water pollution, puts an added burden on the tax payers for subsidies, increases vehicle maintenance costs, increases food costs almost across the board, increase fuel costs, all for no added advantage to the environment or the economy.

The only people winning out here are Archer Daniel Midlands corp and ConAgra. To the tune of $6 BILLION dollars a year of taxpayer subsidies. They wield very powerful political lobbies, the Ag-states are always the first to vote in elections and that early vote can be turned into significant political leverage.
The total impact on the economy is many 10's of billions of dollars for almost no discernible benefit.

Biofuels have a very low energy conversion efficiency, roughly around 0.5% of the solar energy is converted to extractable energy sources. We use an enormous amount of energy, to fulfill even a part of that with biofuels requires vast land areas and also enormous amounts of fresh water, which we do not have.

In addition to get high productivity out of the land requires intensive tilling, which causes top soil loss. This is a finite resource, losing 1 inch of topsoil every 5-10 years when it takes 500 years to replace that is not sustainable. We would be sacrificing our future food growing farmland to make biofuels now.

If biofuels are to fill a significant fraction of our energy needs it seems the only scalable and workable direction lies in seawater based algae approaches. Agriculturally farmed biofuels just don't add up in so many ways.

RE: This statistic is really disturbing
By dgingerich on 12/31/2011 3:53:09 PM , Rating: 1
1. I don't believe your "would require 6 times the total agricultural land area available in the US" part. That's totally nonsense.

2. The US Navy seems to be doing so well with Algal fuels at $27 a gallon. I sure don't want to pay that for my car fuel. It's just not feasible right now.

3. do you have a reasonable suggestion, something that preferable costs less than $10 a gallon? The only things we have for this are regular gasoline and corn based ethanol.

4. Greenpeace and The Sierra Club each spend more than twice the money on lobbyists what Conagra and Midlands spend combined. They aren't so powerful. Sure, they get huge subsidies, but they don't spend that much to affect the politics.

When technology catches up, there will be other choices, and they will get there. The market, what people buy and demand, will tell what we use for fuel. When alternatives are available, they will be used, and produced at the rate the market demands. (BTW, suppliers currently have a huge surplus of corn based ethanol because people aren't buying near as much as most people think. It will eventually fail in the market to a better alternative, but not today.)

By Cerin218 on 1/1/2012 10:22:25 AM , Rating: 2
If you understand how business and economy functions, you will realize that business does things for profit. If there isn't a profit, no point. With ethanol, the Fed is paying 6 BILLION dollars a year. If they didn't pay, this wouldn't be done because business has already realized that ethanol is a loss. The environment doesn't win either because ethanol is barely break even on it's environmental impact, most cases it's actually worse then gas. There is NO energy source that has the energy potential, cost, or portability of gas. Period. All of you alt energy people need to realize, that alt energy works great in small things, but is too cost prohibitive large scale. Yes it's fun to experiment, but that's all you are doing is playing around. The business sector has already realized that there isn't a profit in alt energy. You already said that the market and demand will choose. It already has, ethanol is a failure. if it weren't for the 6 billion they get, it would be dead and buried already. When the market wants it, and can sustain it, then we will see alt fuels. Ask Solyndra about alt energy. Alt energy should be explored, but not mandated like the government is doing. You can't artificially create demand for an inferior product.

RE: This statistic is really disturbing
By Solandri on 1/2/2012 1:11:11 AM , Rating: 3

From the chart in the above article, the U.S. produced about 12 billion gallons of corn ethanol last year.

Close to 40% of the corn produced in the U.S. goes to ethanol.

Corn fields represent about 25% of U.S. agricultural land.

U.S. gasoline demand is about 9 million barrels/day = 138 billion gallons/yr.

Ethanol has about 2/3rds the energy per gallon as gasoline, so replacing 138 billion gallons of gasoline would require 207 billion gallons of ethanol. That would mean increasing current corn ethanol production by 17.25x.

17.25 * 40% of current corn production = 690% of current corn production. That means 6.9x as much land as we use to grow corn today would be needed to produce enough corn ethanol to replace gasoline.

6.9 * 25% = 1.73x all agricultural land would have to be converted into corn ethanol in order to meet the country's gasoline demand with corn ethanol.

I am all for biofuels (it's more practical than PV solar IMHO). But corn ethanol ain't it. Corn ethanol began because the U.S. produces an oversupply of corn. The government doesn't want there to be starvation and food riots if there's a crop failure like in the 1930s. So they deliberately encourage farmers to overproduce via subsidies and price fixing.

Due to the overproduction, there's always lots of corn left over every year. We ship a lot of it overseas as foreign aid. Some government heads were thinking of what else we could do with all that excess corn, and someone said why don't we turn it into ethanol? It's a great idea as long as it's limited to excess corn which would just rot in silos before being disposed. The moment you start producing corn for the explicit purpose of turning it into ethanol, the economics all fall apart. The excess corn has zero opportunity cost - it's free because it'd otherwise be thrown away. But growing corn for ethanol has not just the cost of the corn, but the opportunity cost of not growing other food crops.

Unfortunately, several corn-producing states and company lobbyists got a hold of this. Under the pretense of helping wean us off foreign oil, they've turned this into exactly what it wasn't supposed to be - subsidies for producing corn for the explicit purpose of making ethanol.

By tastyratz on 1/4/2012 9:00:01 AM , Rating: 2
someone who backs up with facts and sources, I think I like you.
If only I could give this post a 7. Sadly environmentalists seem to not be bothered by silly things like facts/math/statistics (unless in their favor)

I hope you don't mind but I am going to share this, good work!

RE: This statistic is really disturbing
By inperfectdarkness on 12/31/2011 8:26:01 PM , Rating: 2
can i use soylent green in my car? there seems to be an endless supply of it.

By Homeboyjones on 1/1/2012 11:46:48 PM , Rating: 2
A brighter future using human waste!

RE: This statistic is really disturbing
By hackztor on 12/30/2011 4:03:22 PM , Rating: 1
I got a 2011 car and it says in manual use of E85 violates warranty. It will be hard to convince people to use without warranties.

RE: This statistic is really disturbing
By Shig on 12/30/11, Rating: 0
By E85Prices on 12/31/2011 10:44:57 AM , Rating: 2
Umm ..yeah your Car is NOT a flex fuel vehicle..of course they wont warranty if you are filling up with E85..same as tey wont warranty if you are trying to run diesel in it

By Homeboyjones on 1/1/2012 11:51:28 PM , Rating: 2
I am a mechanic. I service police vehicles. I would never put corn gas in any gasoline operated anything!

By E85Prices on 12/31/2011 10:43:14 AM , Rating: 3
Actually the DOE's site is not up-to-date..we ( have over 6,000 members reporting E85 Prices as well as new stations ..

there are .. 2868 Total E85 Stations in the United States | 1962 Total Cities selling E85 in the United States | 249 Blender Pumps E10 , E20, E30, E40 E50 and E85 in the US


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