Carney: There are some very attractive things about ethanol as fuel. However, when you so casually brush off any potential problems that may exist you do your credibility an immense disservice.

There is no panacea solution to our energy problems. Every technology has drawbacks. When you deny that (or gorr denies thermodynamics, or noz denies technical challenges to hydrogen distribution) you are just sticking your head in the sand which makes it hard to take anything you say, even the valid points, seriously. You turn from a reasonable advocate into a fanboy.

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I realize you probably don't care, but I though I'd point out that you're not differentiating between cellulosic ethanol and corn ethanol. Most people here aren't all that against cellulosic ethanol. It's just a fact that making it from the edible part of corn is really stupid and wasteful. Corn is overgrown as it is, the last thing we need is an excuse to grow more of a crop as resource intensive as corn.

Most biofuels are viable options, I know with the amount of CRP land we have in Minnesota cellulosic ethanol would be a boon. Especially here because the cold weather makes diesel, biodiesel, and all current battery technology a lot less viable for half the year.

I'm very much in favor of Ethanol, or better yet Butanol, production just stop making it from corn kernels.

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Goodcheer, I understand your point.

Usually I'm careful to concede and acknowledge ethanol's legitimate drawbacks (such as lower MPGs or the lack of pipelines at this time), although I'm convinced that the importance of those are usually overstated. And relatively often (though not always) I will patiently explain why this or that myth is a myth.

I guess I lost my patience this time because of what looks to me like the latest drip-drip-drip example of ABG's anti-ethanol bias that got my goat a little.

Also raising red flags for me are hints of technophobia on issues like modern agriculture.

Operating throughout for me is, first, a sense of hair-on-fire urgency on this issue, given how much money we are giving to our enemies and how many lives are being lost to extremist violence, not to mention deaths from pollution each year, and the human suffering from the depressed economy; and

Second, an awareness of precisely what you pointed out: that there is no cost-free and flawless solution. So, when the best overall short and mid term solution emerges (and has been in plain sight for over 10 years), letting endless objections bog us down and delay us further can get frustrating, especially if they may not be emerging in good faith.

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dwarg said: "I realize you probably don't care, but I though I'd point out that you're not differentiating between cellulosic ethanol and corn ethanol. Most people here aren't all that against cellulosic ethanol."

Cellulosic ethanol should be a low priority and does not deserve anything near its current prominence.

First, we can already make ethanol in profitable and sizable quantity using the starchy or sugary portions of over 17 plants grown worldwide, WITHOUT harming food availability (see more below);

Second, we can already make alcohol fuel from cellulosic material - methanol. In fact, today, no further research necessary, we can make methanol from ANY biomass without exception, including crop residues, weeds, trash, even sewage and more. The first flex fuel cars were invented to run on methanol and/or gasoline, not ethanol. Current FFV tech allows gasoline or any alcohol, including methanol, ethanol, propanol, and others. We should mandate that all new cars be fully flex fueled.

Third, cellulosic ethanol is years away from being ready.

Now ethanol does offer higher octane (115 instead of 105) and better mileage (67% rather than 50%) than methanol, so cellulosic ethanol is a nice to have. But it is no way an excuse to delay the long-overdue and urgently necessary shift to alcohol

"It's just a fact that making it from the edible part of corn is really stupid and wasteful."

No, that's merely an opinion, and one proven wrong many different ways.

In the first place, the last several years' increase in ethanol corn production has not harmed the production of "food corn" - more of the latter is being grown too, as are other staple crops.

Second, only a bit over 1% of the arable land in the US is used for ethanol corn, and the large majority of farmland is uncultivated, so there's oodles of unused slack capacity and room for ethanol corn expansion without hurting food production.

Third, ethanol corn is food corn too because while the starch is removed for fuel production, the protein, vitamins, and minerals are used to make animal feed for meat livestock, so it ends up on our plates anyway and those animals would have had to have been fed anyway.

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The only real problem facing the production of ethanol in the US is the artificial EPA imposed limit of 10% blend. This regulation was put in place on the 70's, and needs to be removed.
Why are ethanol producers and farmers going bust? Two reasons...commodity trading manipulated by oil-backed hedge funds and artificial limits on market access.
If we gave US ethanol full access to the market, you'd be surprised by the level of adoption into our markets.
A final note...ethanol bashing works very well since Clinton's administration deregulated investment in our media outlets. Guess who owns controlling interests in many of our TV and news conglomerates? Princes and sheiks from the land of sand.

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Ok that to me is a INFORMATIVE answer. thank you.
As for the interest in US firms also ..I am soooo cheesed off
my partner worked for 9 years from China to Africa to the head office in a Canadian company that was public in the mining software industry NOW the world leader.
Then went private and is owned by the Carlyle Group that ( was ..don't know if still is) the World largest equity group. In July his corp went private and was promised NO change for the next 3 years. The Carlyle lost 20+ Billion in the economic games and result On Thanksgiving their lemons were pressed against all promises 4month earlier. 10% of the Canadian staff of a CANADIAN corp who is doing VERY WELL one of top 25 $maker in BC had to loose their jobs and were made redundant ( development) and all the jobs moved to Australia to a smaller firm that they took over previously.Talk about patriotism...I hope one day they will pay for their crimes against their own citizens.
I looked into the Carlyle group BOARD member names disgusted me. the EX president Bush PAPA the EX chief of CIA the BIN LADEN family of all early names etc.. who knows maybe Osama is funded via Mama & Papa through underground caves and channels by USA equity groups. Who do NOT care for electricity etc..as Americas dependency makes their lives comfortable. Thanks for your views and instructive comments. Very interesting.

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Food AND Fuel said: "The only real problem facing the production of ethanol in the US is the artificial EPA imposed limit of 10% blend."

But without changing the cars we can only hit 24% or so, tops.

We need to make sure all new cars are able to run on E100, M100, or any alcohol fuel by being fully flex-fueled. The fuel will have to be E85 or M85 in cooler areas and times of year, but being able to run HIGH alcohol blends is the key.

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We didn’t ruin overseas agriculture; we created “carbon sinks” over there. Think of them as carbon garbage dumps for the United States.

Now we must be careful not to let the price of corn get too high. If the cost of production is less than the price of corn, those thoughtless poor people will be able to afford to start farming again and feeding themselves instead of relying on cheap American corn. We’ll lose our dumps.

That’s called Indirect Land Use Change.

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As I said I am not a scentist .I am not making comments to try to bash anyone or any theory.

So kindly explain to us why so many "corn4ethanol" plants that sprung up in USA have gone BANKRUPT in 2008-2009 as shown in a documentary on CNN ?

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090405/BUSINESS/904050331

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=226928&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28

http://www.scoopit.co.nz/story.php?title=US-Biofuel-Plants-Going-Bankrupt

Some farmers invested millions and they are standing no EMPTY and INACTIVE and the
price of corn was so low they could not get it to sell and SURE they wont send it to Africa.
I am NOT trying to bash anyone here I happend to have just have lived 10 years in Africa ( I am European) an I have seen and lived the plight of anyone trying to grow 10-100 corrn plants in their yard that looks awful, underdeveloped etc etc.. and fertilizer is UNFORDABLE for most of them.

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Vic Stapel asked, "So kindly explain to us why so many "corn4ethanol" plants that sprung up in USA have gone BANKRUPT in 2008-2009 as shown in a documentary on CNN ?"

Three reasons.

One, the price of gasoline collapsed, reducing the price advantage that ethanol had been enjoying;

Two, the entire economy collapsed, making the environment tougher for many businesses in many sectors;

and

Three, only 3% of all vehicles in the US are Flex Fuel Vehicles and thus able to run on high-alcohol blends. Being confined to that small of a market niche makes in harder to survive downturns.

The major problem faced by alcohol is the "chicken-and-egg" dilemma Few auto buyers demand alcohol compatibility when alcohol pumps are so rare. Few gas stations will change one of their eight (12.5%), six (16.7%), or four (25%) pumps to alcohol when only 3% of cars are potential customers.

We have to break through this standoff and mandate that all new cars sold in America be fully flex-fueled. It's not an onerous burden on automakers; it would cost them only $100 per car.

With 10% of all cars on the road each year being new, FFV marketshare would skyrocket. In just three years it would be big enough for most gas stations to start selling alcohol profitably.

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Yes My mother ALWAYS carries a bottle of normal grade WHISKEY in her car since the 50s in Africa. Why ? Because she tells me THERE .. you never went very far with your city car and if by any mishap you run out of fuel the WHISKEY would always get you back to your town fuel station.:-)

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First, you are probably not talking about fully flex-fueled vehicles that can run high alcohol blends like E85 (85% ethanol). FFVs are engineered with engine alloys, fuel tanks, etc. that are optimized for alcohol and do not corrode. Introducing low-alcohol blends into cars designed for gasoline-only, especially older cars with inferior sears and materials, can cause problems.

Second, the environmental benefits of alcohol are enormous.

Alcohols when burned emit NO PARTICULATE MATTER, SMOKE, OR SOOT, which are what make smog. Wiping out the vehicular contribution to smog would do wonders for Los Angeles, not to mention Mexico City and Beijing.

As for spills, toxicity is all about dosage, concentration, and rapidity of ingestion. And unlike petroleum, which when spilled remains concentrated and localized, alcohols dissolve readily in water and thus melt away into the vast planet-wide hydrosphere. Moreoever they are readily biodegradable and break down within days if not hours into harmless components. This makes lasting damage to the oceans, coastlines, and aquifers from alcohol fuel leaks and spills from tankers, fuel stations, etc. literally impossible.

Getting back to air pollution, alcohols emit significantly less NOx, a source of acid rain and ozone smog. Even better, alcohol vapor washes out of the atmosphere when it rains, unlike petroleum fuel vapor. On top of that, alcohol vapor is less than a tenth as reactive to NOx as petroleum fuel vapor.

Alcohols emit NO SULFUR, a major source of acid rain.

It's also nice that alcohols are NON-CARCINOGENIC and NON-MUTAGENIC, unlike petroleum fuels.

All these realities have been known for decades, which is why switching our cars to methanol was the great forgotten crusade of environmentalists. By the 1980s, large scale use of methanol-only cars by government was in use, such as the California Energy Commission. Then came the breakthrough in 1986: the flex fuel car, enabling any mix or none at all at any time of gasoline and/or methanol.

Today's flex fuel tech is even more versatile, enabling gasoline or any alcohol fuel, including methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, etc.

Alcohol fuels do emit CO2, but that CO2 is from plants, from the biosphere, part of the carbon cycle, and was recently in the atmosphere and would soon have returned there on its own. Thus not adding any new CO2.

That's a big difference from petroleum, which has been sequestered underground basically forever in human terms. Drilling it up, refining it, and burning it into the air adds CO2 to the atmosphere that would NOT otherwise have been there and does add to greenhouse gases.

This distinction is extremely important and too often ignored in the ignorant knee-jerk rush to lump all CO2 emissions together as the same when they are NOT.

As for range, just make the fuel tank bigger! What does it matter if you're using more fuel if the fuel is cheaper, clean, and renewable?

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