Obama Under Pressure Over Role of Ethanol in Energy Policy

Reader Comments
Back to article

Reply Recover,difficult foundation next whole medical peace used invite physical sure planning criticism lead since who latter desk loss document high one lot expenditure manner offer class package often animal straight battle regard close career reason corner news stop pressure standard retain limited fit island legislation high paint ticket fix consist national freedom base act necessarily activity sport prefer only need hurt pound bed some object light grow either arise declare care typical right cause reality in previously colour please could wine gold model state various

weight loss supplements for teenagers of 3:32PM June 27, 2010

As I understand from information I have read, the net output of energy from corn produced ethanol is probably not worth the deleterious effects of using corn for this purpose.

Howard Davis of MD 1:05PM December 01, 2008

If we import our ethanol from brazil whats the point. We are then just dependent on another foreign country for energy. We have plenty of corn to use with out shortages of it. Wow corn prices have dropped 50% and no food has come down. Hmmmmmm doesnt that make u think maybe corn isnt the reason for the food price run up. With the rise in expneses for fertlilzer , chemicals ,seed ,fuel and everything else, we cant go back to cheap corn prices or there wont be any farmers . So i guess some of you are saying to hell with the American farmer and long live our dependence on everything foreign. Smart thinking people!!! Use common sense we subsidze oil big time we fight wars for it . is that worse than ethanol made in the USA think about the real cost of oil and its an easy answer.

tom of IL 5:40PM November 30, 2008

To James Bachmann's comment that the LA plan is a recipe for switchgrass, I would add that it can also be a farm perimeter buffer to help cleanse runoff for those still attached to a petrochemical regime, and a good crop for recovering damaged land.

Kirk Leonard of OR 3:39PM November 30, 2008

The paragraph above is the best source I found. From Dave Blume. The Study that is sited is from 1996, they have improved since then.

Pablo of IL 4:19PM November 24, 2008

Stick and Stones buddy!
Most ethanol research over the past 25 years has been on the topic of energy returned on energy invested (EROEI). Public discussion has been dominated by the American Petroleum Institute’s aggressive distribution of the work of Cornell professor David Pimentel and his numerous, deeply flawed studies. Pimentel stands virtually alone in portraying alcohol as having a negative EROEI—producing less energy than is used in its production.
In fact, it’s oil that has a negative EROEI. Because oil is both the raw material and the energy source for production of gasoline, it comes out to about 20% negative. That’s just common sense; some of the oil is itself used up in the process of refining and delivering it (from the Persian Gulf, a distance of 11,000 miles in tanker travel).
The most exhaustive study on ethanol’s EROEI, by Isaias de Carvalho Macedo, shows an alcohol energy return of more than eight units of output for every unit of input—and this study accounts for everything right down to smelting the ore to make the steel for tractors.
But perhaps more important than EROEI is the energy return on fossil fuel input. Using this criterion, the energy returned from alcohol fuel per fossil energy input is much higher. In a system that supplies almost all of its energy from biomass, the ratio of return could be positive by hundreds to one.
permaculture.com

Pablo of IL 4:17PM November 24, 2008

The ethanol we use now is an oxygenate that replaced another one called MTBE. It is not simply ethanol buy anhydrous ethanol, meaning with all the water distilled out of it. Oxygenates were designed to meet EPA air quality standards but have actually been proven to make it worse. Now ethanol as an oxygenate is being used as a fuel but oxygenates were never designed as fuel, in fact they purposely cause a loss of mileage to create high VOC emissions that mix with other pollutants causing a chemical reaction in the sun that produces low level ozone. This was done to get rid of smog. The result is cleaner appearing air but it is actually much more dangerous.
Recent studies adopted as guideless for future US greenhouse gas polices report low level formation has been causing the weather pattern changes we have been attributing to global warming, not carbon dioxide.
Oxygenates cause more of a loss of mileage than the amount added to gasoline. We add ethanol to gasoline at 10 percent and import over a 11 percent more gasoline to make up for it.
Hydrous ethanol added to gasoline however causes no loss of mileage, no harmful emissions, can be transported through pipelines safely, while it is cheaper to produce more of it this way.
The reasons we are not using hydrous ethanol are solely political, part of one of the biggest scandals in history, a cover-up. Ask yourself why is the EPA managing an ethanol fuel program instead of the Department of Energy? The reasons are horrendous.
If you look at when the dollar started to decline which lead to the high price of gasoline and diesel causing the economy to fail, it was in May of 2006, the same month we switched from using MTBE to anhydrous ethanol.
Obama has a lot to think about if he wants to fix this equation. It’s not hard to figure out how to do it but there are a lot of people behind what broke this nation who he would be going up against. How he handles this issue will define his presidency and future.

Clyde Novitz of VA 5:23PM November 22, 2008

GM 's sudden stewardship of the environment is simply a way to continue to make gas guzzlers thanks to E85 an extremely inefficient fuel. The CAFE standards call for all car companies to achieve an average MPG for all vehicles. I believe the most recent number is 27 MPG. Well if you make the biggest money off of 10 miles per gallon SUV's you would hate to say good bye to them wouldn't you?
The CAFE standards has a loophole, that being that an E85 vehicle operating on E85 miles per gallon are ONLY figured against the actual amount of gasoline in the blend (15%) if you divide 100% fuel by 15% gasoline you get the multiplier to the mpg (666) therefore a gas guzzling 10 MPG SUV is given credit for 66.6 MPG. If you sell one SUV like this you can have 5 vehicles only achieving 20 MPG and this gas guzzling SUV and you average more than 27 MPG overall while not one of their vehicles really met the standard.
GM is not the only one taking advantage of this free ride Ford and Chrysler are too. The big three are heading down the toilet and this is just their hands clinging to the rim.

Bustanut of IL 4:51PM November 22, 2008

The Louisiana requirements sound like a recipe for switchgrass ethanol. It can be grown on marginal lands and so does not have to affect the food supply. It also requires little to no fertilizer, and grows each year without reseeding.

James Bachmann of CO 3:41PM November 22, 2008

Amazing how the defenders of corn ethanol can make a plea to end subsidies and mandates into somebody telling corn farmers to whom they can sell their corn. Do you think, Pat S. of LA that the grocers and livestock producers would be mounting a big campain if the government wasn't skewing the grain (and soybean) markets in favour of biouels, if biofuels were simply competing with other users for those grains and oilseeds, rather than being subsidized and mandated?
All the grocers and livestock producers are asking for is a level playing field. What the corn producers and biofuel producers are trying to hang onto is billions of dollars a year worth of taxpayer-funded benefits.
http://www.globalsubsidies.org/en/research/biofuel-subsidies-united-states-2007-update

RonS 12:10PM November 22, 2008