Math is not my forte, in the sense that I grew up thinking times tables supported New York newspapers. But there are many of you who know your way around a calculator. For your number crunching pleasure, I submit this article from Seeking Alpha, a stock tip site. The unnamed author crunches the numbers: the total amount of potential ethanol production vs. total U.S. gas consumption. The conclusion: "Corn ethanol will never replace any meaningful quantities of gasoline nor diesel." More specifically, "ethanol (spark ignition) will not substitute for diesel (compression ignition) anyway without substantial vehicle and fuel changes. Ethanol will not easily substitute for heating oil nor jet fuel neither. And if you add in ALL the energy-related inputs, some have said we may be able to replace, at best, 3-4% of U.S. gasoline using all U.S. corn." And so ethanol supporters will move on to cellulosic sources or trash or lithium ion crystals, with your tax money.
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Washington knew this long before they selected ethanol as a favored boondoggle.
Where is the profit in dredging up dull facts that show our national policies do not address fixing our national problems?
Corn to ethanol is not 100% useless though. add back a percent or two of usefullness since swapping out corn for other material might pan out, and people are working on yield.
This week, chairman of Daimler tells WSJ cheap-per-unit way out of energy mess is not found in the technology of the car, its in civic planning, and behavioral issues. Lutz went on to say Ethanol is the cure.
Corn ethanol is a boondoggle only a government could think up and heavily subsidize. With the rise in the price of corn, ethanol plants will not be able to produce ethanol at a profit even with the present subsidies. The Iowa primary is almost four years away which spells doom for corn ethanol.
I don’t think there’s any way to completely replace gasoline. How can we expect to replace all that energy with a single solution? I think the true solution is to blend and/or be flexible with the energy sources we use.
I don’t see a problem with generating ethanol or biofuels in general from trash. I’m willing to let my tax money fund something in that direction.
But yes, corn needs to be used to feed people and animals, and I’m generally wary of any biomass to fuel program. I’ve mentioned before that energy from biomass is ultimately energy from the sun, so why not just use solar energy more directly? I would expect an acre of solar panels gives us more energy over the course of a year than burning an acre of vegetation that took a year to grow. Not to mention the energy and water used to raise and harvest it.
@ kph
Re: solar, I would say you are correct except you have to figure in the cost to capture that sunlight. Corn seed, water and chemicals (fertilizer, pest control) is cheaper than making solar panels. Mother nature’s been working on photosynthesis for millions of years, after all.
Now, if the crazy science fiction people in the 70s had been listened to and we had built solar power satellites, well, that might be a different story altogether.
Although I don’t support it personally, I have to say that ethanol is still in its infancy in terms of current market techniques and practices. In time it could very well be developed into a useful energy source. And to be honest we need some sort of liquid fuel replacement because its only in Al Gore’s dilluted dreams that we will all be driving electric cars in the not extremely distant future. Now, coal to liquid technology holds more promise in my opinion but to each his own.
But hey, by the time we are all driving plug in cars we could solve our entire energy need through highly practical Nuclear Plants…. Ok maybe thats my dilluted dream but I work at one so…
Corn produced in the US:
2007 – 13,200,000,000 bushels
2006 – 10,500,000,000 bushels
2005 – 11,100,000,000 bushels
Assume 50% of corn is for animal feed (probably a low estimate)
2007 – 6,600,000,000 bushels
BTW, making ethanol only uses the carbohydrates in corn, the leftover ‘waste’ is a high protein animal feed, so animals won’t go starving
Current yields average around 3 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn
which means in 2007 there was the potential to make roughly 20 billion gallons of ethanol or about 23.5 billion gallons of E85
This would supply about 12% (23.5 billion gallons * 75% Fuel Economy / 150 billion gasoline used per year) of the US needs without affecting the food supply.
With increased efficiency of producing ethanol from other sources and usage of land not in production, ethanol could make a good supplement but not a replacement.
Alternative energy is made by mixing the fad of the day with your tax dollars. Since these schemes are not economically viable, the specter of Global Warming is used to justify going with them anyway. Who cares about the costs when the planet is at stake?
A slight twist on JFK’s famous speach:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of E85.
If Iowa was the last primary, would we still be having this conversation?
“ethanol is still in its infancy in terms of current market techniques and practices”
Mankind has been making ethanol for thousands of years.
bluecon:
True, but not for its current purpose. That being large scale economical use in a wide variety of transportation.
Fueling a car to run down a 1/4 mile strip while consuming 6 gallons over several seconds doesn’t exactly match up with my need to get 20mpg at 70mph
Economical and ethanol=oxymoron
People…this is why we need to use SWITCH-GRASS to make ethanol. An acre of corn…on it’s best day…will get you between 300 and 350 gallons of ethanol.
Switch-grass will get you 1,150 gallons of ethanol out of that same acre, can be grown in a much more vast area (it is basically prairie grass), and it will grow if there is major rains…or major drought.
But yeah…lets stick with the corn…
People…this is why we need to use SWITCH-GRASS to make ethanol. An acre of corn…on it’s best day…will get you between 300 and 350 gallons of ethanol
Still need lots of water to make it. Have to truck it in. Poor mileage. Need fuel to harvest it. And we will still have 53 cent import duty on ethanol made overseas.
The fact that GM jumped into bed with E85 says some very sad and revealing things about GM, a company that once led the way with EVs. Keep yapping Bob [K]Lutz and hope nobody pays attention to the facts…