Wired article about ethanol

[rjacket]

Thanks for posting the link to the article.

I like that the author provides facts.

A few comments

1) Market prices of gasoline (and many other things especially energy related) do not often reflect what are called externalities. If Ethanol produces less pollution than regular Gasoline, then lowering it's price through subsidies or differential taxes presents to the market a choice at correct prices
2) It is interesting to hear that there is considerable upside in current research in terms of efficiency and cost effectiveness. Being able to use the inedible parts of food, plant in any soil type brings up the prospect of ethanol becoming cheaper and cheaper relative to regular gasoline. It's also great to hear that ethanol burns more cleanly from an environmental perspective

I'd love to read a similarily informed piece that is anti Ethanol so that I can test whether my new found support for Ethanol makes sense.

 

[Bluestream]

Originally Posted By: Clevy
I don't agree with ethanol in the fuel but this whole corn for food stuff has to end.
The corn used in ethanol production is corn that cannot be used for food for anything. The ethanol producers use what's leftover to make ethanol so if you are going to comment please know what your saying.


Who told you that? Its just not true...

 

[buickman50401]

Originally Posted By: Clevy
I don't agree with ethanol in the fuel but this whole corn for food stuff has to end.
The corn used in ethanol production is corn that cannot be used for food for anything. The ethanol producers use what's leftover to make ethanol so if you are going to comment please know what your saying.


That is pure unadulterated bull. The ethanol producers don't use the "tailings" (to borrow a mining term) for production. They use the same field corn that is used as animal feed for for producing HFCS and ingredients in other foodstuffs.

I don't know where you ever got that idea, but its patently false. Take it from someone in one of the largest corn producing states that is littered with ethanol plants.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: buickman50401
I don't know where you ever got that idea, but its patently false. Take it from someone in one of the largest corn producing states that is littered with ethanol plants.


Clevy has a point, but it isn't applicable to the States. In this province, we certainly don't have a lot of corn, and our ethanol production is based on other grains. In this province, what's left over after ethanol production is used as cattle feed.

 

[ddtmoto]

If ethanol is so good, stop with the politic smokescreen, end the corrupt business of our tax money going into this and other green [censored] our leaders in DC find a need to prop up. Let it stand on it's own!. Stop the tariffs on cheap imported ethanol. And most of all, let me chose between corn liquor and gasoline to run in my engines. Oh, and dill baby, drill...

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: Clevy
I don't agree with ethanol in the fuel but this whole corn for food stuff has to end.
The corn used in ethanol production is corn that cannot be used for food for anything. The ethanol producers use what's leftover to make ethanol so if you are going to comment please know what your saying.
As far as I am concerned ethanol has no business in fuel. It makes motors consume more fuel and gives fuel refiners the chance to use lesser quality fuels and sell them to us. The octane rating on ethanol is very high. You can "cut" gas with ethanol to achieve the same octane rating,but use a lesser quality gas. We,the consumer get worked over again


Whoever told you that (it's different corn) is wrong, wrong, wrong. That's part of what is driving food prices higher: increased demand for the same corn. Using food for fuel shortens the food supply...and who gets hurt? Those who can least afford it: the poor, for whom food is a larger part of their budget.

Sure, ethanol octane is very high, but by the time you fertilize the field, run the tractors to harvest the corn, transport the corn, convert the corn, each step of which takes energy; you've used about as much energy per gallon of ethanol production as would be found in a half gallon of diesel.

And diesel has about twice the BTU/gallon as ethanol...so it's a net zero in terms of energy production...you've used as much energy in production as you have sitting in the ethanol...but you have reduced the net food supply - it's a stupid, inefficient program...

Oh, wait, it's government-subsidized...I guess I am being redundant...

 

[Shannow]

I've got no problem with ethanol...but, like Astro said, the energy balance has to be there.

Sugar works, there's enough energy in the baggase to distil the stuff, and even export a little bit of electricity...grains aren't like that.

Scarier to me than the grain prices is the world grain stores have become depleted majorly in diverting food to fuel...once there was enough excess to tide over a failed season, now there isn't.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Garak
In this province, what's left over after ethanol production is used as cattle feed.


Cows should be doing what they were designed to do, and that's turn pasture (that we can't eat) into grass and milk (that we can).

A simple look at the nutritional qualities of grass fed beef and milk demonstrates that grain is not cattle food if humans intend to eat them.

 

[Shannow]

grass...duh...meat

 

[3311]

Originally Posted By: Astro14
Originally Posted By: Clevy
I don't agree with ethanol in the fuel but this whole corn for food stuff has to end.
The corn used in ethanol production is corn that cannot be used for food for anything. The ethanol producers use what's leftover to make ethanol so if you are going to comment please know what your saying.
As far as I am concerned ethanol has no business in fuel. It makes motors consume more fuel and gives fuel refiners the chance to use lesser quality fuels and sell them to us. The octane rating on ethanol is very high. You can "cut" gas with ethanol to achieve the same octane rating,but use a lesser quality gas. We,the consumer get worked over again


Whoever told you that (it's different corn) is wrong, wrong, wrong. That's part of what is driving food prices higher: increased demand for the same corn. Using food for fuel shortens the food supply...and who gets hurt? Those who can least afford it: the poor, for whom food is a larger part of their budget.

Sure, ethanol octane is very high, but by the time you fertilize the field, run the tractors to harvest the corn, transport the corn, convert the corn, each step of which takes energy; you've used about as much energy per gallon of ethanol production as would be found in a half gallon of diesel.

And diesel has about twice the BTU/gallon as ethanol...so it's a net zero in terms of energy production...you've used as much energy in production as you have sitting in the ethanol...but you have reduced the net food supply - it's a stupid, inefficient program...

Oh, wait, it's government-subsidized...I guess I am being redundant...

 

[GMorg]

I have to keep up with this argument for a class that I teach.

Currently, 40% of the US corn crop goes to EtOH production. Once the starch has been converted to EtOH, the levftover distiller's grains (higher in protein than corn) does go into animal diets. It is essentially low calorie corn with some extra sulfur in it when the distillers are done.

Feed corn can be consumed by humans, but few people want to each it as corn. Instead, it can be ground into corm meal and used to make corn chips.

There is net energy gain with corn ethanol, but it is much smaller than with sugarcane or sugar beet ethanol.

And to Shannow's point, it would be great if US consumer's had a preference for grass-fed beef, but American's just don't like flavors. Explain the popularity of American beer (or cheese) if you don't believe me. As for pasture dairies, they can work. Missouri has a rapidly growing pasture dairy industry. However, between native weeds that have unpleasant flavors that make it into the milk and the ubiquitous presence of fescue that hurts summer production, the pasture dairies will not meed US consumer demands any time soon.

 

[Shannow]

It's interesting about the taste/flavour thing, and it's something that we noticed while over there...I must admit that when I saw Coopers' Sparkling Ale in Guyserville, I bought it ($8 cheaper per 6 pack than across the road from my parents a week or so before).

15-20 years ago, restaurants started advertising "grain fed" as premium, whereas now, it's the grassfed that's premium...but water buffalo is popular as well, and it's fairly flavour strong.

Don't know what percentage of our milks is grass vs grain, but an article in New Scientist compared the calcium zinc, and fatty acid in grass and grain milk, and grass had twice the mineral content (surprise).

A former workmate went feedlotting, and from the fence, it was an interesting exercise (ultimately futile, the extended family were bankrupted).

Family's successful beef farm went from grazing to feedlot at the suggestion of some financiers, graincorp, and supermarket chains, who wanted cheaper, (and more consistent) product.

They ran nearly an order of magnitude more cattle, and in order to process the floor waste (diahrea more than not with urine), fertilised their former pastures to grow grain and produce sileage (at least that's got some minerals etc.)...and had to invest in a harvester, another $1/4Mil.

FIL/MIL felt their hearts being torn by keeping each beast on a computer, with pass/fail on food in for weight gained...poor performaers culled early for dog food,and the "runts" that were formerly hand raised in the house paddock shot for dog food.

Oz banks started calling in debt and foreclosing about 18 months before the GFC, and they all lost their farm, and houses.

Hasn't altered my views, or jaded me to feedlot, just a story I watched happen from the fence.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: GMorg
As for pasture dairies, they can work. Missouri has a rapidly growing pasture dairy industry. However, between native weeds that have unpleasant flavors that make it into the milk and the ubiquitous presence of fescue that hurts summer production, the pasture dairies will not meed US consumer demands any time soon.


Read a really good book on pastures (we've got an interesting library if you can get access to the old books), the big problem is when people try to overproduce.

Race studs in the UK have been "productive" for half a century on the same block of land by pasture management, and not the liberal application of NPK, and when they start to notice a lack of diversity of paletable grasses and weeds (12 or 13 desirable), they ease off on production until the soil recovers.

It's not a business model that works with consumers demanding milk that the chains will only pay 5c/qt

 

[GMorg]

Clearly off OPs topic:

There is truth in what you say about overproduction, but in most temperate zones, the big issue from a management issue is that the farm/ranch/dairy becomes absolutely dependent on local weather - both unexpected weather patterns and seasonal norms. As soon as you open your feed options to the entire market of feeds, you can manage local interruptions to feed supply. A mixed model that optimizes pasture use (not maximizes) while supplementing with external feed sources is probably the best use of pasture while maintaining predictable production.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Cows should be doing what they were designed to do, and that's turn pasture (that we can't eat) into grass and milk (that we can).

A simple look at the nutritional qualities of grass fed beef and milk demonstrates that grain is not cattle food if humans intend to eat them.


I know you meant grass into meat. It was funny though.

Nonetheless, we do have a lot of grass fed beef up here. Aside from the debate as to whether grass or grain is better feed for beef, the grain used in this province to feed cattle (after ethanol production) is not graded for human consumption. It's feed grade grain.

And believe me, the farmers aren't growing feed grade wheat because it's lucrative. Number one grade wheat sells for far more than feed grade. Weather conditions just tend to ensure that not all grain grown will be graded for human consumption, and then at least there's a market for the product, as feed, or for ethanol and then feed.

 

[sdowney717]

since your car gets 10% less mileage running E10 gasohol,

HOW IS THIS ANY BENEFIT TO SAVING FOSSIL OIL SUPPLIES?

see it is just another scam, this E10 scam costs us a lot in higher food prices.

It is a green weenie thing, it is a program started to wean the country off fossil fuel usage, grow our own fuel, what a lie.

People believe lies deep in their souls when their beloved government leaders speak.

 

[sdowney717]

Green Ethanol pushers also will say it reduces your carbon footprint, it uses carbon which is not 'fossil' and then will help save the planet from human beings.
Another outrageous feel good deceptive lie. That E10 takes a lot of energy to make, like heating the boilers with fossil carbon natural gas, running the tractors with fossil carbon diesel oil, fertilizing the corn with fossil carbon natural gas fossil fuels.

The only way to truly 'save the planet from human beings' as any sane green weenie ought to admit is to get rid of human beings. Something which governments thru the centuries have frequently attempted and still do today. They should start with themselves.

 

[sdowney717]

I keep getting back to this, make pure gasoline from any plant directly, breaking it down with heat and pressure and a catalyst.

No alcohol produced, no food corn wasted.
Make it from wood chips, switch grass, etc...

http://www.anellotech.com/press.html

 

[Alfa_Hadera]

Well, now people ARE starving because of corn for ethanol.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: sdowney717
I keep getting back to this, make pure gasoline from any plant directly, breaking it down with heat and pressure and a catalyst.

No alcohol produced, no food corn wasted.
Make it from wood chips, switch grass, etc...

http://www.anellotech.com/press.html


Great points.

I sure hope people will start to pay attention to the way the big lobbies run things here. Otherwise corporate America is going to be a very different place.