Corn ethanol industry strikes back against greenhouse gas emission charge
Earlier this year, the EPA criticized ethanol because it has a negative environmental balance of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions when compared to gasoline obtained from crude oil (read their report here). As there's rarely an attack without pushback, the Renewable Fuels Association has decided to interpret that report from their point of view and has found that certain sources of oil do indeed have a worse negative impact than corn ethanol. That is, when lighter and more easily refined crude grades become exhausted, oil will need to be extracted from other sources (e.g., oil sands) and these methods incur greater environmental impact. By comparison, RFA says, corn ethanol looks good. Of course, we can have a long debate on what to take in account when producing these fuels. Yes, the fuel burned by the tractor that plowed the land where corn was grown can be taken into consideration, as it us under ISO standards. But what about the oil used to produce the tractor itself? How about the balance of cutting some forest to plant sugarcane in Brazil? Not an easy equation, but one that invites more pushback.
[Source: WSJ]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Tim 9:26AM (8/08/2009)
Headline SHOULD read:
Corn ethanol lobby fights to keep taxpayer money flowing, making them rich!
subheading:
(lobby says to pay no attention to the years of real data behind the curtain)
Welcome to OZ where food for fuel is compassionate "progress" and up is down depending on what "is" actually is. (Definitions "change" when the ends justify the means)
Famous Progressive Quote: “"it depends on what is is." Bill Clinton
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Martin 10:05AM (8/08/2009)
What we need are cheaper corn products, not more expensive ones used for fuel. Where are we going to get our high fructose corn syrup for sodas and cheep beef if all that nasty corn is used for fuel?
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Zeph 10:29AM (8/08/2009)
What we need is to realise the forced link between ethanol and corn is contrived, as there are better sources of ethanol, from kelp to hemp, and all this politicized debate is just wool over people's eyes.
Ethanol works if it's made from a mix of plants in a systemic farming environment, monoculture is just farming entropy and it's killing the soil and ruining the markets, both financial and food.
People need to educate themselves, build their energy economies locally and cut out big business and big government, hives of parasites that they are, out of the equation.
Nobody up there will change the world for the better, we all have to do it for ourselves.
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PabloKoh 4:30PM (8/08/2009)
AMEN
Ray 11:45AM (8/08/2009)
Listen, T Boner Pickens. I mean T- Bone, tried to fight corn ethanol. Members of the Senate told him there were 22 pro corn senators and you can fight that so don't even try.
George Dingle kept fuel economy standards low for his constituents, screw the other 99.9 percent of America. The corn row senators are the same, screw the 95 percent of America I want this for my state even if it does make no economical sense. I hope Obama shoves a corn cob up all of those corn loving senators and makes them sit and spin.
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Ray 11:53AM (8/08/2009)
Oh yea Obama comes from a corn state. Oops.
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Doug 12:08PM (8/08/2009)
Just a point of clarification - sugar cane doesn't grow in forestlands - in Brazil or the U.S.
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russellgeister 7:15PM (8/09/2009)
sorry doug florida?
brett 12:22PM (8/08/2009)
The fact is we should all be looking to find clean and renewable sources for energy, not one OR the other. Ethanol is not now, nor will it ever be clean, and corn ethanol is only renewable at the expense of stealing from an important and needed food crop. Chuck Grassley and all of his idiot co-horts on Capital Hill need to be put in their place publicly and shamed for their arrogance and attempts to take care of their own at the expense of the rest of us. Solar, Wind, and clean burning natural gas (as a bridge solution) are all much better alternatives to clean up the environment and get us off foreign oil.
I wonder how many of us have taken the time to contact our representatives to tell them to stop the flow of government money to ethanol, and re-direct it to more promising alternatives... It only takes a 2 minute phone call...
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PabloKoh 4:50PM (8/08/2009)
By saying "nor will it ever be clean" do you imply that ethanol inputs can not be grown or made without fossil fuel energy input? If that is what you meant, and that is the only conclusion I could draw from the statement. Your statement is wrong. Will ethanol grown without fossil fuels be cheap? No. Now look at the big question everyone struggles with. "Should energy be as cheap as it is today?"
brett 9:36PM (8/08/2009)
to PabloKoh 4:50PM (8/08/2009)
No where in my post did I say or imply that ethanol can not be grown or made without fossil fuel energy input. You came to that conclusion erroneously all by yourself. The fact that burning ethanol produces green house gases makes it a dirty energy source. The fact that it takes extreme amounts of H2O to produce ethanol and it pollutes much of that H2O in the process, makes it a dirty energy source. And contrary to your belief, we are not any where near having the technology to produce ethanol with out using fossil fuels, nor will we be anytime in the near future. From all of my research, I have yet to see an affordable farm tractor that runs on a clean, non-polluting energy source. I'd make a good bet that clean alternatives will be well developed long before we see clean burning tractors used in most agricultural applications.
CNCMike 9:48PM (8/08/2009)
Actually ethanol production does not make any waste or polluted water, Everything that is produced during the production of ethanol is a useful product in it's own right. The water can be reused for several batches and then used as an organic fertilizer and irrigation. As for water used to grow corn, ethanol is only made from animal feed corn wich makes up 87% + of all the corn grown in the U.S. and over 70% of that is never irrigated. There are many acres of corn where I live and none of it is irrigated or fertilized. There is actually more water used to grow corn and process it into junk products like HFCS, corn chips, etc than is consumed in the entire ethanol production process. That is in stark contrast to water consumed in the processing of oil, all of which will be toxic for about a thousand years.
brett 10:15PM (8/08/2009)
CNCMike. I don;t know where you are getting your facts since there are countless publications from private and University studies that contradict what you say. Ethanol production uses exorbitant amounts of water and it is in no way safe to the environment after it is used. Additionally the numbers you quote as far as irrigation for corn are also way off. If you take a simple trip through the corn belts of Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, you will see they are filled with irrigation systems. So much to the point that many environmentalists and scientists warn that the water tables will not be able to supply the needed water with-in another decade or two.
galop 1:37PM (8/08/2009)
What horse-hockey. The basis of "Indirect Land Use Change" is that we will devote many more acres to corn, thus less acreage to Soybeans. As a result of this, the "theory" goes, Brazil will chop down Rain Forest to plant more soybeans.
1) Corn Acreage is, actually, falling due to higher, and higher yields.
2) Brazil has "Reduced" its Soybean Acreage from 58 Million Acres to 53 Million Acres since 2003.
3) Brazil has 150 Million Acres of Fertile Land lying Fallow in the Cerrado.
4) The Sugar Cane area is 1,000 Miles South of the Rain Forest
5) Corn is selling, Today, for $3.22/bu. This is a little less than $0.06/lb (how many pounds of corn did You eat today?)
6) The Box of Corn Flakes in your cabinet "might" be $0.02 more expensive than 2004 due to the added cost of corn (about a Half a Penny for the HFCS in your 2 litre Coke.)
7) Our future Marginal oil WILL come from Tar Sands.
8) Ia State University Study concluded that the presence of 700,000 Barrels/Day of Ethanol in our market LOWERED the price of a Gallon of Gas by approx. $0.35/Gallon.
9) Without the "phony balony" Iluc dreamed up by Searchinger (a lawyer, not a scientist) et al, Ethanol reduces CO2 emissions by 69%.
10) And, last (but not least,) Corn Ethanol is wholesaling (Without Subsidies,) Today, for $1.56/gal. Unleaded gasoline for $2.00/Gal.
11) Oh, wait, one more. We haven't lost 4,000 Dead American Children "protecting" the Corn Fields, and we haven't Spent $800 Billion doing it. And, the last I looked the 5th Fleet was in Abu Dhabi, not Minnesota.
No American Kids Died for MY Fuel.
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brett 3:08PM (8/08/2009)
corn ethanol is dirty and polluting as well as majorly corrosive to engines that aren't specifically built to run on it. As the world population continues to explode there is no reason to be creating more dirty fuels when there are clean alternatives, particularly when there are people starving from hunger in this world. Millions have died from hunger compared to your paltry thousands that have died in your twisted war about oil which if you really know the facts, wasn't about oil at all.
Zeph 3:11PM (8/08/2009)
Excellent post. It boggles the mind how the proponents of what in essence is a death culture are able to trash ethanol based on such phoney baloney arguments that are clearly false.
It's not about corn, it's not about food. The real issue is getting off oil and the people, nay the parasites, that don't want us to do this. Ethanol could get most cars off oil in less than 5 years if there was a concerted effort to promote it, from whichever source best applies locally.
Ray 3:36PM (8/08/2009)
Corn ethanol subsidies totaled $7.0 billion in 2006 for 4.9 billion gallons of ethanol. That's $1.45 per gallon of ethanol (and $2.21 per gal of gas replaced).
Even with high gas prices in 2006, producing a gallon of ethanol cost 38¢ more than making gasoline with the same energy, so ethanol did need part of that subsidy. But what about the other $1.12. Not needed! So all of that became, $5.4 billion windfall of profits paid to real farmers, corporate farmers, and ethanol makers like multinational ADM. Why is it the farm states put up with this?!
Where did those subsidies come from:
1. 51¢ per gallon federal blenders credit for $2.5 billion = your tax dollars.
2. $0.9 billion in corn subsidies for ethanol corn = your tax dollars.
3. $3.6 billion extra paid at the pump.
That's quite a bit when you figure it only made us 1.1% more energy independent and only reduced US greenhouse gases by 1/19 of 1%.
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OrngCrush 3:40PM (8/11/2009)
One of your numbers is a subsidy. If you're going to include that other questionable data, you at least have to include the $400 billion a year we spend defending oil routes.
galop 3:49PM (8/08/2009)
Brett, one more time, you know naught of which you speak.
U.S Petroleum companies have been putting 10% Ethanol in their premium grades for 30 years. Where DID you think that extra Octane came from?
As for "hunger:" What part of $0.06/lb didn't you understand?
The UN states that 70% of the world's malnourished are "subsistence farmers." They are poor, and malnourished because they don't have a "cash crop." The best thing you could do for these people would be to "raise" the price of corn to a level where they could "turn a profit" by growing, and selling it.
BTW, do you not realize that, basically, "people" (poor, or otherwise) don't eat "field corn?" Livestock (primarily cattle) eat "field corn." Then "Rich" people eat the Cattle.
Solar? What if I live in North Dakota? Or I want to travel "at night?"
Wind? What if I want to travel (or recharge my battery) when the "Wind" isn't Blowing?
Nat Gas? Sure, we'll just switch all 260 Million cars in the U.S. over to a depleting fossil fuel resource, TOMORROW.
Brett, you're just babbling.
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brett 11:07PM (8/08/2009)
Galop, do your homework and think before you make stupid statements. There are NO mass produced cars that run directly from solar. There are many EVs coming to market that can be charged directly and indirectly from solar.
Since you live in North Dakota, you are in one of the best areas for using wind energy incase you don't know, you are in the "wind belt"). It doesn't take a genius to understand that when you hook up solar panels or wind turbines to a battery pack, that you can produce energy to be stored and used later when the sun doesn't shine or the wind isn't blowing. You can recharge a car battery from a home battery system, thus zero emissions of any kind. See how simple that is?
As for natural gas, it's an easy conversion to make common ICEs run on natural gas. In essence millions of American vehicles including Semi-tractors and Farm equipment could be converted quickly and easily.
It's obvious you don't know your facts and you are the one babbling
p.s. look up the Pickens plan, you'll learn a lot...