@ ai_vin

“By what standard?”

That would be ISO 14000 ai_vin. What is the most important thing about a LCA? Location, location, location. This LCA is location specific written by and with the help of honest people with local knowledge. If the German Treehugger had bothered to actually read the LCA he would learn that all his concerns were addressed.

A second aspect of a good LCA is using the data collected to identify how the process could be improved further. In this case, a major improvement would be adding a CAFO near the ethanol plant and using anaerobic digesters to produce biogas from manure to replace natural gas from the pipeline.

To further address ai_vin issue with BEV, charging and discharging batteries in an EV is an inefficient use of electricity. It does not surprise me that ai_vin has read lots of studies that ignore the second law of thermodynamics. There are some places where efficiency is not a factor. Places like France or British Colombia in Canada where there is surplus sources of low carbon electricity. Using that electricity may be a good choice to reduce ghg.

However, when the electricity comes from old inefficient fossil fire thermal plants, BEVs are going to produce more ghg from charging and discharging batteries. A good source of reading for the US consumers can be found at the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center (CEIC) http://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/ceic/ .

@Darius

Clearly phosphorus is a very important environmental issue. I think it is more important than ghg. One of the reason I thought this LCA was excellent is that it address phosphate in detail.

"The GWI of ethanol produced in a biomass fueled system may be less than 1/3rd of the GWI of gasoline (30,502 gCO2eq/MMBtu vs. 98,134 gCO2eq/MMBtu)."

30,502 includes 6,431 from gasoline used to denature alcohol. That gasoline is not part of the process of making ethanol; rather denaturing is a legal requirement to prevent the alcohol being used to make alcoholic drinks. When comparing the GWI of alternative fuels and gasoline, the GWI of gasoline in blends could be attributed to gasoline rather than the alternative fuel. Whether or not you include the denaturing gasoline, biomass CHP will make a huge impact on the GWI of biofuels.

Note also that the figure of 30,502 includes 20,755 for the agricultural phase. The 20,755 is a standard figure for 2030 applied to all processing fuel types. This suggests that no calculation has been made of the potential for biomass CHP in drying on the farm.

Other studies from as far afield as Norway have concluded that biomass CHP will be the most effective way of reducing GHG emissions. The limitation of biomass CHP is the transport cost. Hence biomass on the farm can be used to provide heat to dry biomass and electricity to drive blowers for drying. Corncobs transported with the kernels to the processing plant can provide CHP to offset NG and grid electricity.
Likewise, thin distillate can be used to make biogas which can be cleaned for CHP with the effluent returned to the fields as a soil improver.

Biomass CHP is low-hanging fruit for reducing GHG emissions.

In the past with low prices for natural gas, NG was routinely used for industrial process heat.
In a new era of high NG cost, surely businesses will gradually change over to biomass CHP where it is available.

If concerns about global climate change continue, a GHG tax on fossil fuels is likely which will increase the cost of using NG for industrial process heat.

http://www.evadc.org/pwrplnt.pdf

@Kristoff

“Biomass CHP is low-hanging fruit for reducing GHG emissions.”

I agree but the goal of US farmers is not AGW. US farmers are looking for markets so they can earn a decent living. The US is also looking for alternatives to importing oil. Corn ethanol provides a market for excess production and is reducing demand for oil. This is called a win-win.

The only reason to do a LCA is to document what was being done for economic reasons also reduces ghg. If ghg becomes regulated, ghg credits may have value.

There are some places in the EU and also California that have no coal resources. Painful regulations that give France an economic advantage will not remain on the books in the US very long.

Of course the impact is less than gasoline and even better when the ethanol production is integrated to use Dried distilled grain for cattle, wet distilled grain for fertilizer and methane from the cattle manure to heat the process and generate electricity...

In addition ethanol can also be made from many types of biomass such as sorghum and fruit waste from agriculture, let's be creative here, it's not that hard.

"Algae development or "Solar methanol“ are far away (20 years) from showing signs of commercial viability."

We recently heard a CBC broadcast claiming the far off (10-15 years)potential of algal oil. These statements are politically motivated often by opponents of the resource (oil) or social scientists who push frugality agendas. While conservation IS a very important component of energy independence, it is NOT a solution.

Almost any technology can excel in the near term if it is given the attention and financing needed to bring it online quickly. Algae has been around as a viable biofuel since the 1980s DOE Aquatic Species Program. There are already small, yet productive pilot sites producing biodiesel from algae (GreenFuel Tech, Valcent).

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Biodiesel_from_Algae_Oil

Statements predicting these solutions to be 15, 20, 25 years off, are as unconstructive as oil and automotive statements about impractical EVs. We need to grasp the idea that ANY technology with good fundamentals can be accelerated to productivity in the near term given soci-political will.

The main stumbling block to commercially viable algal oil farms today is political. If the influences to the contrary are dismissed in favor of major investment in sustainable biodiesel today - we CAN make a significant reduction in our petro-diesel use in less than ten years. The key is mustering the political will to get the ball rolling NOW.

To that end we'd like to see greater efforts in salt water micro-algae species identification for high lipid content.

Apologies for skewing off topic. Thought it necessary.

Kit,

You need to read the reports yourself and note why they were not published in a real energy journal. Let's take a look at the first one;

"Prepared For: Illinois Corn Marketing Board"

"Finally, the study finds a much lower on-farm energy consumption of 7,855 Btu per bushel for IRE supplied corn than the current GREET default value of 22,500 Btu per bushel (representing US national average)."

"Note that these values are based on relatively few respondents."

"While the coefficient is weak at 0.35" [only 18 survey respondents for Grower Fuel Use]

"All of the DDGS is sold to Asia. The DDGS is sold via backhaul arrangements (if the containers were not loaded with DDGS they would likely go back empty)." [Which means they ignore international shipping energy consumption]

"Also, diesel and gasoline consumption at 5.5 gal/acre for IRE corn agriculture are lower than the Illinois average of 10 gal/acre."

And on and on...

fakebreaker wrote,

>The latest United Nations study (yes the same as the IPCC United Nations) shows that the price of corn does NOT affect food prices.

What an odd statement... The source he quoted (drilled down to ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/011/i0100e/i0100e06.pdf ) states:

"Higher world food prices do not necessarily affect household food security: the impact will depend on the extent to which international prices pass through to domestic markets... in a study of eight Asian countries in the 1990s, found that price transmission was strongest for maize"

fakebreaker wrote:
> An as yet to be delivered UN study will reveal substantially the same level of misplaces hysteria in the instance of AGW.

You must be getting your information from propaganda blogs. Try THE UN climate change site http://www.ipcc.ch/

I did say "well-to-wheel." You saw that didn't you? What you lose in one place you more than gain in another.

Most unbiased environment sites have carried this Reuters report on the UN finding:

"CHICAGO, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Heavy demand for corn from ethanol makers was seen as a key driver of corn futures to record highs in June, but since then the sharp decline of corn along with other commodities shows that belief was mistaken."

"... it is important to keep in mind that biofuels are only one of many drivers of highfood prices: weather-related production shortfalls in major exporting countries, low global cereal stocks, increasing fuel costs, the changing structure of demand associated with income growth, population growth and urbanization, operations on financial markets, short-term policy actions, exchange rate fluctuations and other factors also play a role. UN Report"

"You must be getting your information from propaganda blogs."

No. Just the slowly self-correcting manufacturers of hysteria.

@Will S

“You need to read the reports yourself ..”

No Will, I did that before forming an opinion. Will S wants to suggest that people are dishonest without reading the reports. Then Will S lists some quotes which actually contradicts his position.

Spin is not openly identifying the limitation of your report or who funded it. I frequently object to reports that obfuscate information to lead reader to erroneous conclusions.

@ai_vin

Yes I got the "well-to-wheel" part. Did you get the coal strip mine to 50 year coal plant to grid to inverter to batteries to motor to wheels part?

The thing for Will S & ai_vin to keep in mind. This LCA is based on real data which may have flaws. If you think magic wand reports based on some mystical future scenario is the same real data, then you are just as wrong.

Ethanol is being used now. Where is the LCA funded by Toyota on real world data for HEV or PHEV?

Since I am an engineer. I am really biased towards what works now. Journalists are really biased toward the woo woo of the future because it is much more interesting.

Kit

only non perennial crops, trees and to a less extend residue of food crop like straw or corn stover (but it is limited since the soil need these residues)the rest is just blabla.

Very few people mention that CO2 is released by the fermenting of sugars derived from corn to make ethanol. Since 1800, there has never been enough land area to supply the demands for energy. Less than 3 percent of the old growth forests remain in the US, and much of these were burnt in the years from 1600-1900. About 90 percent of all wood harvesting in africa is for fuel.

Because of US governmental interferrence on one side and inaction on the other side, speculators were allowed to drive the price of oil far beyond the production price. If there were a free market in oil without US government interferring and allowing such controls in production, Oil or natural gas would, by far, be the cheapest fuel for automobiles. For the past several years it has been cheaper to make gasoline from coal than from oil, but the US has not enough such facilities.

Cheap energy is the basis for a working economy and an advanced civilization, and any increases in price allowed or caused by the government will and have destroyed the US economy to some degree.

People, who do not know that 25 nano atomic bomb blasts are happening every second right next to the DNA in every pound of their body, are afraid of nuclear radiation and nuclear power. They also do not know that the cleanest power plant that burns "clean" natural gas is releasing more radio-active radon than nuclear power plants do to the air.

Because they have existed for thousands if not millions of years, all live creatures must have been and now still are capable of surviving the low levels of nuclear radiation that is built into living organisms and that come from the earth and from space. Many humans and other organisms live at high altitudes or other places that have many times the radio-activity of NewYork appartments with no major ill effects that are traceable to radio-activity. Much fear about radio-active materials is promoted by people and politicians who refuse to learn the actual facts or ignore them to get the votes from uniformed people.

The facts are the volume of nuclear wastes from reactors and fuel processing is very very very small compared to the coal wastes or municipal wastes. There are many ways to store these wastes that are sufficiently safe. There is an official site called WIPP that is in operation that is built for the most radioactive materials possible from the military and for the least. This only needs to be replicated for power reactor fuels a few thousand yards away. Yucca Mountain is also safe enough, and anyone who opposes it and rides in airplanes or automobiles or smokes or drinks or rides motorcycles or bicycles or crosses the street or climb stairs at home is being untruthful.

Nuclear radiation from nuclear power plants and uranium mining and processing has caused the early demise of much fewer than 500 people including Chernobyl. Very few have met an early demise as the result of any mishandling of nuclear materials.

For the equivalent energy, hydrogen can be made at nuclear power plants by electrolysis cheaper than gasoline. This hydrogen can be combined with CO2 to make methanol, ethanol or gasoline. It is five times more efficient to charge the battery in a plug-in-hybrid, but newer high temperature reactors can produce hydrogen more efficiently. Hydrogen can be combined with CO2 to make methanol or ethanol. Even bacteria can use then as food perhaps with a little air and water.

Methanol or Ethanol can be produced at afforable prices when made with nuclear energy, but if possible, electricity should be used for phevs ..HG..

HG:

Agree with you that using food and useful biomass to produce liquid fuel and energy is not sustainable. Look what happened to Ethiopia, Haiti and other countries who burned most of the available biomass for heating and cooking.

However, there is a lot of unwanted biomass and wastes around that should be used to produce gas and/or liquid fuel and chemicals. That being said, it will never be enough to feed our 800+ million gas guzzlers and produce enough energy for other essential uses.

The world will not stop using energy after oil, NG and coal have run out. There are a few other energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal etc but more new Nuclear power plants should definately play a major role in the near future. Over 500 new plants may be required during the next 100 years to complement other electrical energy sources.

It is doubtful if the world population can continue to grow without many more Nuclear power plants.

Good farm land should be used to produce food to feed a growing population, not to feed gas guzzlers.

Wow HG, so many on related facts in one post.

“Methanol or Ethanol can be produced at afforable prices when made with nuclear energy, but if possible, electricity should be used for phevs ..HG”

HG, you ‘could’ do this or you ‘could’ that but the Illinois Corn Growers Association published reports on what they are doing. Not only do the reports look reasonable, but the ethanol they are making looks like a pretty good thing.

We should all celebrate good work that improves the environment and makes the US a better place to live. The interesting thing is that the Illinois Corn Growers Association did not spend anytime beating up nuclear power or PHEV.

I see no reason why PHEV could also be E85 capable. The only limitation of good work is achieving a perfect world.

fakebreaker wrote:
>The latest United Nations study (yes the same as the IPCC United Nations) shows that the price of corn does NOT affect food prices.

Still waiting for you to address this statement. Red herring ignored.

> An as yet to be delivered UN study will reveal substantially the same level of misplaces hysteria in the instance of AGW.

You must be getting your information from propaganda blogs. Try THE UN climate change site http://www.ipcc.ch/

Still waiting for your source, or did you make this up?

@Kit

" Then Will S lists some quotes which actually contradicts his position."

Not at all, I simply showed how some of their figures and assumptions were wildly out of line with US averages, and even Illinois averages. Such a tiny sample set can't be extrapolated across national corn ethanol production. And note that they did not collect the information themselves, it was self-reported by 31% of the people asked to respond, which is an extremely low response rate that should have concerned any involved statistician.

"I frequently object to reports that obfuscate information to lead reader to erroneous conclusions."

I haven't seen that from you on the subject of ethanol, so I cannot embrace your implied claim to objectivity.

Folks, don't feed the Troll - he's stuck in a loop.

Will S, did you find that the LCA failed to follow ISA 14000 methods? Will S establishes his own set of criteria.

“Such a tiny sample set can't be extrapolated across national corn ethanol production.”

You are correct but the LCA did not attempt to extrapolate. There is a reason Will why I keep saying your objection are baseless.

I did a LCA of adding AD to a dairy farm because I was skeptical of the environmental benefit. My data set was tine, one. The dairy farm did not meet any US average because it was way above average. While my LCA indicated very positive environmental impact, the real challenge was economics. With the support of my company, we did a survey of dairy farms, feed lots, and other agricultural operations. I had no interest in the average farm. However, information about specific operations was very useful.

Will S you are clearly biased and a gossip. You seem to think it is okay demean the character of others without being very careful how you do it. However, one of my constant criticisms of biofuels is the lack of recent LCA to support national average type claims with actual data. Now I have more data.

I don't understand why anyone expects ethanol to replace all of gasoline usage. It doesn't have to, it just needs to be one part of the solution. When we add PHEV's to the equation plus electricity generated from wind, solar, and nuclear now we're getting somewhere. My only question is (as kit suggested) why the hell aren't automakers building flex-fuel PHEV's? Why do all these new technologies have to be seen as competing with each other when we should be developing them all at the same time? I'm getting frustrated because i would like to buy a PHEV that can burn E85 and i don't see anybody building one, except one report of a concept Ford Escape.

If we can get PHEVs to work, it won't really matter what liquid fuel is used (gasoline, ethanol, E85, etc.) because the liquid fuel will be used only about 25% of the time. So the consumer will be able to afford a much higher price for it without it being problematic. Plus, much less of it will be used, which will most likely bring prices down.

So I guess PHEVs ARE competitive with ethanol. Hmm, maybe that's why ethanol is being pushed so much harder than PHEVs...control, control, control.....

@Jim
Where can I buy a mythical PHEV and for how much? You of course can provide a references to support the environmental benefits.

Furthermore Jim, using your PHEV in the electric mode would infer that you do not very far. In this case the higher cost would be problematic.

Could you explain 'control' since this appears to be a new CT.

Quoth rich:

I don't understand why anyone expects ethanol to replace all of gasoline usage. It doesn't have to, it just needs to be one part of the solution.

• Its net energy is much smaller than most advocates claim (see Robert Rapier's fisking of various energy balances).
• It represents mostly energy transformed from other fossil fuels, not generated.
• The subsidies it receives per unit of fuel actually saved are far in excess of those given to more direct methods, like EVs.
• External costs, such as rising corn prices, greater erosion and more nitrate pollution, are not counted against whatever benefits are provided.

“If we subsidized power lines so that farmers could collect rent from wind turbines…”

But we do subsidize wind. It is the $21/MWh PTC. Most states also have a RPS that promotes wind.

E-P needs to use the word ‘AND’ and forget ‘INSTEAD OF”.

The main problem BEV is that they are 110% fossil fuel.