Sheikh Mohamed Al-Najimi of the Saudi Islamic Jurisprudence Academy has advised the Muslim community (via Al Arabiya) that burning ethanol and other alcohol fuels could be a sin. Al-Najimi said that ethanol runs afoul of the Prophet Mohammed’s ban on the sale, consumption, processing, and handling of all forms of alcohol. He does stress that this is not an official Fatwa, or religious edict, meaning ethanol is not officially banned by Sharia, or Islamic law. Yet. But hey, as long as this little guy gets beheaded on YouTube we’ll call it good. To be completely fair though, this isn’t entirely surprising. It’s hard to imagine that ethanol is wildly popular when you live on top of oceans of the real thing. Meanwhile, back in the decadent west, moral clarity (like oil) is a little harder to come by.
The New York Times reports that the European Union is drafting trade duties on imported American biofuels to protect its own $10b biofuel industry. Even though both the US and the EU subsidize biofuels, European producers complain that American producers benefit from production subsidies in the US and retail subsidies in Europe. The EU has been investigating these claims, and tariffs of 44 euros per 220 lbs of imported biofuel could be put in place by this summer. Meanwhile American subsidies for corn ethanol production are set to expand indefinitely. We’ve argued that trade disputes could bring the bailout boom to a rapid close, but perhaps such a dispute will rid us of wasteful ethanol pork first.
We’ve pointed it out before: the ethanol industry has a cunning plan to breach the “blend wall” (a.k.a. the fact that American customers don’t want E85). While they’re waiting, hoping and praying for a Titanoboa cerrejonensi-sized gas price spike, they’re planning on using their political leverage to “offer” (i.e., force) motorists E20 and E30 ethanol blends. The big problem: it’s not entirely clear that engines like to run on those blends. (E85-compatible vehicles are, uh, E85-compatible). In fact, it’s pretty clear they don’t. But that’s not going to stop the lobby from trying . . .
“We’re placing a high priority on biofuels right now.” Yeah, right. “Hey guys, how’s that congressional viability plan coming? Shhh. We’re working on biofuels.” The man shilling for last year’s green queen is GM’s vice president of research and development. Lest we forget, Laurence Fishburne—sorry, Larry Burns—was The General’s main eco-warrior a little over a year ago. That’s when GM decided to squander some its precious pre-bailout bucks on buying a big piece of a cellulosic ethanol start-up named Coskata. Hyperbole is a dish best served cold. Looking back . . . USA Today: “General Motors says it is investing in a fledgling company that claims its secret process could be able to make ethanol from waste in large quantity as soon as 2010 for $1 a gallon or less, half the cost of making gasoline.” Just out of curiosity, anyone want to guess how much GM plowed into this turkey?
You know, this sounds crazy, but this MicroFueler thing might just work. I’m no fuel expert (I just play one in the autoblogosphere), but flex fuel vehicles are ready to rock and roll on any mix this bad boy can brew. And now E-Fuel, the maker of the home pump, is expanding beyond the home brew market to… the micro brewery market. CNET’s Green Tech reports, “The inventor of the EFuel100 MicroFueler home ethanol maker has signed on Sierra Nevada Brewing to make ethanol from beer dregs.” I would have thought that waiting around for drinkers to leave the dregs would be a time-consuming business, but then that’s just a bad joke isn’t it? Here’s the real deal…
North Dakota’s House of Representatives has voted down a measure which would have exempted the sale or lease of a Detroit-branded vehicle from the state’s five percent excise sales tax. The Chicago Tribune reports that the measure, which would have cost the state $25.9m, was defeated by a convincing 64-29 vote. “If we do anything as far as tax exemptions, we should have a greater good in mind,” says Rep. Jon Nelson, R-Rugby. “The passage of this bill . . . we don’t expect anything from (the Detroit auto companies), except that they’re going to sell more of the same old, same old. . . . Every technology in the world has grown, doubled or tripled or quadrupled, in the last 20 years, but the pickup I drive gets the same mileage as one 30 years ago,” he said. “Things like that . . . they haven’t progressed, and that is the reason that U.S. auto makers are in . . . the shape they’re in.”
Bentley is hanging out the greenwashing. Yes, Bentley. Volkswagen-owned uber-luxury marque tasked with somehow meeting new European and now Californian emissions laws, without shovelling 34,746 lithium-ion batteries under bonnet. Or perhaps that is the plan, eventually. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of pol-pleasing auto execs? Meanwhile, Bentley’s asking the autoblogosphere to marvel— marvel I tell you!— at a highly-horsed E85-compatible Bentley Continental GT headed for the Geneva Auto Show. Honestly chaps, I can’t think of a more pathetic attempt to appease your European overlords. I also can’t imagine that a single Bentley customer could or would give a shit that their 600hp Bentley can run on corn juice– especially when they find out that filling-up with E85 gives them fewer mpgs in a vehicle with not a single mpg to spare (especially in 600hp trim). And how exactly does E85-compatibility cut a Bentley’s CO2 emissions on a “well-to-wheel basis?” Apparently, this such an important development for environmentalists that Autobloggreen doesn’t even mention it. Instead… “In any case, a new Bentley’s coming, and it’s fixin’ to open up a plus-sized can of whoop-ass.” So much for trees, then.
You gotta give those crazy corn-into-fuel kids credit: they don’t give up. Whereas you and I might think, well, if we can’t make a go of this thing with 50 cents a gallon blender’s credit and a federal mandate requiring someone somewhere (especially government-paid someones) to buy billions upon billions of gallons of the stuff, and the legislature of every state that even thinks about farming in our pocket, and the majority of the U.S. Congress and the President of the United States in our corner, then fuck it. Time to move on and get a real job. But no. Ethanol makers who’ve hit the so-called blending wall appear out ot prove themselves wrong (“no one ever died defending a corn field”). First, they’re opening stations with a choice of E10, E20, E30 or E85. it’s the first step on the way to legislating motorists to use E20 or above, obviously. Which will make them no friends amongst motorists whose cars are not so happy on anything ethanol-related. in fact, KOB4 reports that the Albuquerque Police Department’s new, E85-fueled Chevy Tahoes and Crown Victorias are experiencing fuel pump failures. Back to "regular" unleaded for now. Meanwhile and in any case, the ethanol boondoggle continues. [hat tip to HarveyBirdman]
GM Biofuels Communication Manager clearly doesn’t want go against his firm’s new emphasis on resurrecting the electric car. “When you think about it,” he writes at GM’s Fastlane blog, “the technology news at the auto show rarely has the same emphasis in back-to-back years any more than the Super Bowl features the same teams from one year to the next. GM has multiple approaches to advanced propulsion, including improved internal combustion engines, flex-fuel, hybrids, battery-electric, and hydrogen fuel cells. All have significant dedicated engineering resources, and the best stories – like the best football teams playing on Super Bowl Sunday – are told at the auto shows.” But a man can only feed on weak-wristed simile for so long. Sooner or later, GM’s resident biofuel booster has to wonder: “where is ethanol?” It’s dead, Mr Adler, hadn’t you heard? Price inversions? Refineries going under? The MSM figuring out what E85 does to your mileage? Sure, the huge federal and state subsidies have not yet been repealed,, and we’ll be singing the E85BOTD blues for at least another five years. But the days of GM spinning the stuff of tortilla riots into green PR gold are over. The great cellulosic ethanol hope is years away for GM’s Coskata partners, meanwhile electric cars have become The Big Thing Right Now. So thank you, Mr Adler, and condolences. We now know that the Volt will have a flex-fuel option, and that’s probably all the PR attention ethanol will get from GM for months. And on this point, The General has finally got it right.
“I found real gasoline again. So my days of 33 to 37 mpg in the Prius during winter SHOULD be over soon, and hopefully I’ll see my typical winter time 44 mpg overall average return soon. On the current tank of E10, as the trip meter passed the 120 mile mark, the fuel gage went to 4 bars used up (4 gallons roughly). When you’ve seen the car doing 58 mpg, you KNOW damned well that it’s more than a little frustrating to see this. Computer claims about 37 mpg, but with E10 that seems to be off when it used to match the measured MPG pretty closely ON AVERAGE over say 10 tankfuls (which evens out the topping-up variations).
President Barack Obama’s inaugural address promised that his administration will “harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” I’ve heard of solar-powered cars, but wind? Dreams for sail? But seriously folks, “the soil” can only mean one thing: bio-fuels. And although environmentalists would like to switchgrass (or sell you lows), that’s E85 to you and me, bub. The news comes too late for VeraSun. The ethanol producer, Obama supporter and alleged check kiter filed for Chapter 11 last Haloween. But, according to The New York Times, ADM’s still good to go. “Not long after arriving in the Senate, Mr. Obama himself briefly provoked a controversy by flying at subsidized rates on corporate airplanes, including twice on jets owned by Archer Daniels Midland, which is the nation’s largest ethanol producer and is based in his home state.” Anyway, as they say in the DC’s corridors of power, in for a penny, in for a few billion. Meanwhile, corn prices continue to climb…
The E85 BOTDs are less frequent these days. Thanks to low gas prices, the ethanol industry has run headlong into what they call the “blend wall.” In fact, the corn juice supply so far outpaces demand that government subsidies, mandates and [the E85 folk hope] bailout bucks are all that stands between the industry and total collapse. In other words, here’s another auto-related enterprise whose survival depends on the taxpayers, rather than commercial success. So when I encountered E85 consumption figures for Iowa on MidwestAgnet.com, I nearly fell out of my chair. Well, OK, I’m too old for that action, but the numbers indicated a huge jump. [jump after the jump] And the answer is… “Quarters prior to 4th quarter 2007 did not include government gallons. Beginning with the 4th quarter 2007, government gallons are included.” I’m not entirely sure what government gallons are, but whatever they are, you can bet your bippy the tank-fillers had little say in the matter. There’s some interesting info if you follow the links to Iowa’s fuel tax revenue. Year-to-date to November 2008, the state collected $198,280,544. Of that, E85 accounted for $44,683. The year previous: $35,705. And this, folks, is The Tall Corn State.
From menno: “My Prius is now down to about 30 miles per gallon on E10 (real MPG, not on the computer – it’s showing 38.5 mpg). 130 miles on the trip meter and over 4 gallons used – you do the math. Just for the sake of comparison, before the loss of real gasoline, I was averaging 44 mpg (real calculations and on the car computer) in the winter, and about 50 in spring and fall, and 48 in the summer. This was with both the 2005 Prius and the 2008, over 48,000 miles on the 2005 and now having 21,000 miles on the 2008. Don’t know if the continuous E10 has made the difference between the computer MPG and calculated MPG, but there is essentially no point in having a Prius anymore. The Prius sucks ethanol tainted fuel like a drunk at a free bar. My wife’s (way) less expensive to buy, more comfortable, zoomier, roomier and nicer Sonata averages MPG in the low-mid 20’s in the winter, 26-27 in spring, summer and fall, and did 32.2 mpg on a 5000 mile trip on expressways and in mountains. As soon as gas prices hit $3.00 a gallon I’m putting the Prius up for sale. Recently, the last gas stations in the area stopped selling 100% gasoline (it was BP). The resulting MPG loss was immediate.” And he’s not the only one who’s turning his back on E10…
So we complain quite a bit about ethanol around here, but you might be thinking, what does it really cost me? Well, according to an analysis by the Environmental Working Group, US taxpayers shelled out over $3b in ethanol subsidies in 2007 alone. As if that weren’t outrageous enough, ethanol slurped up two-thirds of all government assistance to renewable energy producers that year. The so-called E10 “blender’s credit” (51 cents credit for every gallon of gas blended with ethanol) racked up $2.9b of the bill, with the Alcohol Fuel Tax Credit adding another $50m. In addition to countless state-funded subsidies for ethanol producers, distributers and refiners. If this is starting to sound like more money than it’s worth, don’t worry. It’s only going to get worse. Ethanol blending mandates were set at 4.7b gallons in 2007, climbed to 9b gallons in 2008 and will reach 12b gallons in 2011. Regardless of whether consumers want it or not. Unscientifically projecting those numbers forward, blender’s credit claims for 2008 could easily top $5b after the IRS adds it all up. Oh yeah, and the Ethanol industry is already asking for $1.5b in “emergency” loan guarantees and short-term credit facilities. And an expansion of blending mandates to E15 and beyond. How great is that?
Recent Comments