This whole ethanol business is a joke. Does
anyone remember what the price of a gallon of gas was before this "ethanol push" was initiated? I don't remember exactly either, however I know it was considerably
below what we are paying now! What have we
accomplished with the government's influence other than paying much more for gas at the pump? Oh there's 1 other thing
we've learned again and again is that any
time the government tries to "solve a prob-
lem" such as pushing the subdidy of ethanol
to the delight of large farmers, is that they don't have a clue as to what they're
doing,e.g., the transportation of ethanol via trucks. Surprise, surprise these are
the same vehicles used to transport much of
the gas delivered to your corner service
station. The government has proved once
again that if there's any way "they can
screw up a soup sandwich", they'll find it.
As long as this administration has their way, we'll continue to subsidize big farmers and big oil. EV's don't need either of these factions so this administration will never get behind them.
The same thing can be said about plug-in
hybrids. It's amazing to me to hear/read
about alternative fuels with no mention of
EV's or plug-in hybrids. It's not as if these are unproven technologies. GM killed
their popular EV's over 5 years ago and
there are documented cases of pickup plug-in hybrids getting 250 MPG over 30 years
ago. This latter example was created by a
mechanical engineering professor at UC Davis in the early 1970's. How many energy
crises have we had since since the early
1970's? Several! Are BIG OIL,THE BIG 3 OR
THE GOVERNMENT serious about alternative
fuels? HELL NO!!!!!
We could cut our energy usage significantly
overnight if we wanted to. But as long as
Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco are gener-
ating record profits every quarter, we'll all be whistling past the graveyard about
ethanol,hydrogen and other "fairy tales"!
Wake up people and smell the coffee, this
administration and the opposing party as
well are only going to do what big oil
wants them to do such that their pockets
"continue to be greased".
Let's face it we're going to have to solve this ourselves by buying plug-in hybrid kits
and bio-diesels when they're available.
The irony here is that we all complain about
energy cost but when the public is surveyed
about what they'd buy a 400HP vehicle vs a
hybrid, they choose the 400 horses. We need
to put our money where our hypocritical
mouths are!

Angelo is correct; this whole bio fuels idea, including ethanol, cannot substitute in any way for the entire amount of fossil fuel now consumed. It is a transition marginal technology that might have continued viability if and only if, the petroleum demand worldwide collapsed down to 10-20% of its present demand level.

This in the long run, is not at all impossible, as it would seem today; Since demand is so concentrated in a single application, ground transportation, it will probably be the case in as short as two decades. Electrical substitutes will soon become the preferred answer for ground and perhaps marine transport. Aviation will still need some portion and its substitutes are not at all apparent.

Even if that were to happen, I suspect that this business will be a white elephant. the Sheiks will have petroleum for sale at whatever price thy can get for a few hundred years when demand collapses. They will bankrupt these firms like synfuels collapsed after the government subsidies ended.

But as th aphorism says: "In the long run we will all be dead." For the next decade or two this will be a growth business, subsidized by government and supported under monopolistic prices obtained by the Socialists in their Nationalized Oil companies, and the mid East Sheiks.

Stan,

You're soooo glooomy. There are transitional strategies and then there are places we hope to end up long term. Corn ethanol, warts and all, helps us get to cellulosic ethanol, which probably helps us get to cellulosic butanol. Estimates are that an EROIE of 8-12 is possible for cellulosic butanol, with its many other advantages as a straight gasoline replacement, coming from abundant marginal lands. Add that to doubling fuel efficiency (or quadrupling it if SOFC fuel cells ever get good and cheap enough for lightweight cars). Add to that algal biodiesel producing 5,000-20,000 gallons per acre running off of farm waste, smokestack gases, sewage, catfish waste, etc. Gradually offset with PHEV and BEV powered by cleaner electric, and you eventually replace most liquid fossil fuel use.

We've gotta start someplace. The harshest critic is often a frustrated idealist. Energy is a 15 Trillion dollar business, and we will need to try many things to evolve the portfolio...but, there's a lot of people with an interest in trying.

HealthyBreeze - well said. Quite the opposite of Frank's rather pessimistic rant.

HealthyBreeze - "There are transitional strategies and then there are places we hope to end up long term."

While you understand this and see biofuels as a transition only it is being sold as a direct drop in replacement for fossil fuels. People that have large SUVs and suppliers of such dinosaurs are clutching onto biofuels as a way of preserving the status-quo.

That is the main problem with biofuels. In my opinion they will delay the introduction of BEVS as continuation of the present IC car infrastructure is more comforting that changing.

Also while switch grass and mallees (here in Australia) will possibly be the future of ethanol or butanol right now people are starving and rainforests are being cleared for the cheap and easy option of food crops as feedstocks for biofuel plants. While it is cheaper to use food, that is what will be used for biofuel production, until food becomes too expensive and productive land becomes too scarce to finance the switch to more expensive options. Which is fine for the first world as we have the money to buy more expensive food this will, in the short term, devastate the third world.

Fuel prices are going to go up biofuels are not, efficiency must go up to match if our economy is going to contiune growing, so the SUV are doomed no matter what fuel is the future. Lets say the much toted pipedream of hydrogen was to come around, hydrogen replacing most fuel, only problem is you can't make plastics from hydrogen, or asphalt or solvents or pharmaceuticals, etc, and you can't sequester CO2 with hydrogen. With Biofuels you can make all of those industrial organics and sequester CO2 at the same time automatically!

This is great work. I hope the next step will be a larger-scale pilot project that also uses more heat-recovery heat exchangers and solar for the rest of its energy, and offers its byproduct CO2 for sequestration or algeaculture. Demonstrating that ethanol production can be carbon-negative. Once that is done, we can stop arguing about whether biofuel, in its inaugural incarnation of ethanol, should be killed and move the topic to where it should fit in the overall scheme and how to advance from where we are.

The reason for all this propaganda battling to snuff ethanol in its cradle is exactly the reason we need it so bad. Sufficiently-available biofuel takes the edge off of our acute addiction to petroleum by remedying dangerously low market elasticity through very expandable, free-world competition, and curtails the vast profits made by some in the oil industry that hinge on this abject dependence. That kills the incentives for fighting the reform program, so that the interests of all budding alternatives industries (based on their promise) can balance those of the sunset industry and progress can get the upper hand.

It is indeed a problem that some people will justify slacking off on other measures because of the argument that ethanol's availability lets them off the hook, but the ethanol methadone issue is more important.

Once the obstructionists are out of power we can get moving with PHEVs, which will still need chemical fuel for the range extension and it strengthens the program if that is biofuel such as ethanol, especially with high-efficiency high compression so mpg is up with gasoline. PHEVs will then advance the technology to where it is ready for widespread full electrics. That will keep the land requirement from becoming a strain as we say goodbye to the need for petroleum.

Why is it that the propagandists try to poison the well by accusing the fact-based community of spouting propaganda?

Ethanol has been out of the "cradle" for decades. Even if you could get the conversion efficiency from biomass to ethanol up to 75%, the 700 million tons/year of biomass available today would still only be able to replace about 1/4 of US motor fuel energy. Ethanol from grain is hugely wasteful and survives only on taxpayer handouts.

Ender has it. Biofuels at this point are an excuse for continuing Business As Usual, which means going into debt to pay the oil producers. A good first step would be to shut down the production lines for Yukons, Expeditions, Durangos, Hummers etc. and taxing the dickens out of petroleum.

Why is it that people assume that in promoting one technology, you have to be against all others? No one is suggesting that every resource should be devoted towards biofuels. We have to reduce our need for liquid transportation fuels overall. Reduced weight. PHEVs. Pure EVs. We get it. Look at the story we are responding to - it has NOTHING to do with any of this. We were talking about a significant improvement to one component of a very diverse energy infrastructure.

Up until only a few years ago, there had been minimal investments in ethanol technologies. There wasn't enough demand prior to that. The developments that have occurred in the last few years are quite impressive, yet most seem determined to only analyze the 15 years prior to that.

Yes, Angelo, an improvement in EROI from 0.9 to 1.7, or from 5 billion to 70 billion gallons/year, is quite impressive. It is also far short of what's needed to fulfill the promises made, but those promises are being used as excuses to do nothing else. THAT is the problem.

Detroit points to ethanol as an excuse for the flex-fuel CAFE credit, and the pols promote E85 pumps as the cure for the high price of feeding the Hemi and to deflect the charges of ecocide from those who are trying to do something about climate change. Ethanol cannot make good on the promises made for it, even in principle. If it can't make us free of petroleum and carbon-neutral, we have to stop the denial and get started on solutions RIGHT NOW.

(Now GCC is censoring the URL of my Wordpress blog.  What next?)

"...but those promises are being used as excuses to do nothing else. THAT is the problem."

I cannot agree with that. Who is it that is doing nothing else? The government? Automakers?

Everyone wishes they would do more, but, the government is spreading incentives all around, and automakers are investing in other technologies like EVs, PHEVs, fuel cells (not that I support FCs - just making a statement), etc. Yeah, they are going to push E85 in the short term, but what else can be done with all the ICEs already on the road and in the pipeline? I don't think they are using it as an excuse. It would be a terrible business proposition. Yeah, GM and Ford have made their fair share of bad decisions, but even they can see the writing on the wall. However, they still have to run a business in the meantime. They aren't non-profit organizations.

This marginal amount of ethanol we have now is creating a small amount of downward pressure on gas prices. Despite the fact that the oil companies say otherwise, explaining that they aren't adding new capacity because of ethanol, ethanol is giving us a tiny bit of breathing room. In my mind, not having to build any new refineries is a good first step.

engineer-poet:

It may be difficult (if not impossible) to close gas guzzlers production lines in a democracy. However, I fully agree with you that we could legally reduce their numbers and even tax them out of existance with progressive carbon taxes.

Most of us will switch to Hybrids, PHEVs and/or BEVs when buying and operating an ICE vehicle becomes too much of a drain on the pocket book.

This may not happen naturally. The average car owner is not fully aware of the benefits or cannot afford the cost differential. The collectivity (governments) will have to intervene with better subsidies covering about 75% of the cost differntial to accellerate the transition. The majority of the extra revenues required will have to come from carbon taxes and/or from levies from oversized vehicles.

The yearly $25 billion dollars in farm support in USA could also be progressively redirected to the PHEV/BEV transition program. Farmers will make enough profits with ethanol feedstocks + much higher food prices in the years to come.

Eng-Poet,

The DOE/USDA study put sustainable biomass availability at one billion tons/year; at 8,600 BTU/lb and 75% conversion efficiency that's 6.4m boe/day or almost half of our motor fuel usage. With PHEVs our liquid motor fuel usage would drop below 5m boe/day, so biofuels could in theory cover 100% of demand. Forgetting environmental benefits for the moment, such an achievement would yield huge economic and foreign policy benefits to the US.

I also disagree that the ethanol pork-barrel restrains progress elsewhere. I can't think of any area where we'd be farther along today if ethanol didn't exist. It's fantasy to think if we shut ethanol down there'd suddenly be a huge groundswell of support for a $5/gal gas tax or a nationwide SUV ban or something. Real change comes from working within the realm of the possible.

Actually, DEDW, The Billion-Ton Vision came up with only about 700 million tons/year today; the 1.3 billion ton figure assumes considerable changes in e.g. crop strains to increase non-grain biomass. (It also assumes no overall downward pressures on productivity such as persistent drought.)

We may be able to improve this by maintaining land in the Conservation Reserve Program and allowing e.g. hybrid Miscanthus Giganticus to be planted on it (Miscanthus is about twice as productive as switchgrass and can yield as much as 20 tons/ac/yr compared to about 6-7 average grain+stover for maize), but that's a big question mark.

Suppose you do get that 1.3 billion dry tons. The energy value IIRC is 17.4 GJ/MT, or about 15.8 million BTU/short ton. Your total energy input is about 20.5 quads (US petroleum consumption at 21 mmbbl/day and 6.1 GJ/bbl is about 44 quads/year). In other words, you're starting with less than half the input energy we now get from petroleum.

The downstream is more quantifiable. The chemical efficiency of cellulose-to-ethanol processes is in the region of 36-60%. If you somehow get 75%, that 20.5 quads of cellulose becomes 15.4 quads of ethanol. Compared to the 27.3 quads of diesel+gasoline the US burns, it's a tad over half. This leaves you nothing for heating or industry, either.

The actual end-use energy we get out of all that motor fuel is about 6 quads. It shouldn't be all that hard to replace it all with biomass, except if you insist on a lossy conversion to liquid fuels for even lossier internal combustion engines. This is why our first step needs to be a displacement of liquids by electricity.

"This marginal amount of ethanol we have now is creating a small amount of downward pressure on gas prices."

No. Despite the explosive growth in corn ethanol production, the growth in gasoline demand has been steady, and far exceeded it. And of course gasoline prices are headed back up again. See my essay:

The Mythical Ethanol Threat

I am pro-sustainability, and in fact I try to walk the talk by keeping a very low carbon footprint. But one day we will look back at corn ethanol as a misguided fiasco. And cellulosic ethanol is nowhere near making it commercially. Technically feasible? Yes? Commercially feasible? About as commercially feasible as a vacation on Mars:

Cellulosic Ethanol Reality Check

RR
R-Squared Energy Blog

Robert: Read your blog, and for the most part it makes sense. However, advances like the one in this article could go a long way towards shifting your equations.

Having said that, I still advocate a move towards EVs and away from ICEs.

"However, advances like the one in this article could go a long way towards shifting your equations."

I love technology, and it is good to have hope that needed technological advancements will come. But it is also good to base energy policy on a realistic assessment of the probability of success. We don't do that in the U.S. If we did, I believe we would be encouraging policies that move us to EVs, which I also favor.

There is a vast gulf between the status quo of cellulosic ethanol and of bio-butanol, and where they would need to be to be viable energy solutions. Yet so many have faith that the needed advances will come. Most don't realize that this problem has been worked for decades - longer than we have been trying to cure cancer. Faith in these advances is not much different than faith that a universal cancer vaccine is right around the corner.

Cheers, RR

Robert Rapeir:

Most of your arguments make sense in an ICE dominated, gas guzzlers, low cost fossil fuel era. Ethanol (grain or cellulosic) may NOT make economical sense unless:

1) Oil price goes up, and it will soon: ($100/barrel + by end of 2008 and possibly $200/barrel by 2015/20.

2) A progressive carbon tax is impossed on fossil fuels, and it will also come sooner or latter.

3) Better ways are developped (by 2010/2012) to produce cellulosic ethanol and butanol while greatly reducing the energy and water required and production cost, and it will come.

4) The most important change to your equation: i.e. PHEVs and BEVs will be mass produced to reduce fuel consumption by up to 75%, and it will happen starting in 2010.

Most of us would agree with you that we do not have enough land to sustain (food production) + economical production of ALL the liquid fuel required without drastic fuel consumption reductions and increases in alternative fuels production efficiencies.

Both may be a reality by 2020.

Unwanted/damaging, agriculture, forest, industrial and domestic waste + managed production of appropriate grass type feedstocks on lower quality land may be sufficient to produce enough liquid fuel for 200+ million, 100+ mpg PHEVS.

This membrane technology needs the Ethanol Water mixture to be gazeous.

A distillation tower is not needed but a flash drum is still necessary and I am sorry but both systems need the same heat for the vaporisation of the water Ethanol mixture.

Getting the water ethanol azeotrope is then just a matter of tray number in the column, then the membrane can help.

So Lunken is right in his assertion

"I think the 40% efficiency gain that they speak of comes mostly from the fact that they don't need to use a molecular seive. The maximum ethanol to water ratio that you can get off of a still is 90% 10%. To bring the alcohol from 90% purity to 99% purity, it is normally run through a zeolite compound (molecular seive)to soak up that last little bit of water. After each production run, the zeolite has to be heated up to drive off that water. This regeneration process requires alot of energy, because the zeolite really wants to hold on to that water."

This is nice, but I have bigger hopes for something like ZeaChem's process, as it turns more of the carbon in the input stream into usable fuel, and potentially allows extension of the fuel output (for a given biomass input) by addition of hydrogen from other sources.

For latest stories and news on ethanol, biofuels and climate, please visit:
www.ethanol-news.de

A sore spot obviously is over the distaste of ethanol subsidies and the inefficiencies of ICE engines. Here are a couple things to keep in mind.

ICE efficiencies are currently based on using gasoline as a fuel. ICE efficiencies therefore are limited to 20% (at best) due to gasoline's tendency to be unstable and cause destructive detonation. ICEs burning alcohols (like ethanol) can reach into the low to mid 40% ranges and comparable to CI engines. Essentially you have as much as a 30% gain in mpg if you displace gasoline completely. Please note this is for an ICE engine optimized to burn E100 or E85, not the current FFV engines being toted today. There is equal hostility to what is required for retrofit.

Subsides is the major contention - Quite a few point fingers at the $3 billion for the ethanol industry that is just fledgling technology. That fuel credit is available to anyone that can produce biofuel however.

Compare this to the $560 billion the petroluem industry receives exclusively from the American government, and they are an economy of scale, and a mature industry.

$560 billion is the conservative figure, estimates run as high as $1.6 trillion a year when you factor in the economic costs of military operations to secure American oil industry assets worldwide, environmental costs for pollution, toxic spills and accidents. This also includes the damage incurred to ICE engines with the long term use of gasoline as a motor fuel.

http://www.icta.org/doc/Real%20Price%20of%20Gasoline.pdf