Rethinking Ethanol
The New York Times gets it right:
The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill.
The situation is actually worse than that. It would have been better to say that ethanol has recent found favor, in spite of all logic. At any rate, we need to do far better than grain-based alcohol when it comes to replacing foreign oil.
(via memeorandum)
Especially corn [or maize] based alcohol. This was a ginormous con by Sen. Dole on behalf of Archer Daniel Midlands & other consortia with a rock-solid base of nearly forty corn-maize growing states.
Even the Brazilian version using cane sugar is hardly efficient, and the ethanol production robs Peter to pay Paul—a transformation of money in an equibalance of energy, as it takes about as much energy to produce ethanol as the product expends in the gas tank.
A classic educational exercise in the law of unintended consequences.
The "takes more energy than it gives" line is a myth, and even if true would be irrelevant in most cases, as the claim omits the overall economics of ethanol fuel production in calculating the energy balance. Grain ethanol shows a definite energy balance gain, and an energy production "profit" is still a gain, a boost in fuel usage efficiency. Like trading a dollar bill for six quarters, you win.
Another major point to consider in the energy balance consideration is that the goal here is portable fuel. If it takes three units of stationary energy to produce one unit of portable energy, so what? What is the cost of the stationary energy input? Say the energy involved in production is largely nuclear, wind, or solar, not a single one of which is a portable source and the latter two of which are near-free and non-polluting. What does it matter how much windmill spinning is required to produce a gallon of ethanol, or how many watts a solar still absorbs while distilling it?
All that said, Brazilian sugar cane ethanol makes sense–for Brazil. Completely different cost-efficiency-resource structure. But in general grain ethanol is at best only a partial substitution for America, not a replacement. Cellulosic ethanol show much greater promise as a sustainable alt-fuel. Grain ethanol was indeed foisted ito the political structure as a "desirable" alternate only because of the frm-state and Big Ag politics involved.
All arguments pro and con in the EtOH arena, has anybody looked at the National Ignition Facility website maintained by Lawrence Livermore Labs? If this thing is real then the future will get really interesting in terms of energy production! Google it (National Ignition Facility,) and have a look.