Biofuels: Turning petroleum addicts into alcoholics?(ethanol)

[4dsc]

http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/biofuels-turning-petroleum-addicts-alcoholics/article-159930

The Environmental Law Institute in Washington warns against the US championing ethanol as an alternative fuel.

This paper by Arnold W. Reitze makes a contribution to the hotly contested debate over the benefits of biofuels (EurActiv 29/01/06).

It says that subsidies under the US Clean Air Act have made ethanol production immensely profitable in the US even though it is more costly and performs worse than gasoline. Moreover, it says subsidisation in the US has “distorted the market for renewable fuels”.

From a political perspective, the author argues that the US ethanol programme has provided the illusion that the government is responding to increased petroleum prices.

But he says that, since ethanol production requires about as much fossil-fuel energy as is found in ethanol, its use does not reduce the nation’s demand for fossil fuels. “Until the technology is available to produce a significant net energy gain from using renewable fuels, their use will not be a viable way to deal with climate change.”

[NNadir]

1. I think the scientific consensus is that ethanol has a net positive energy balance.

It is not, however, huge for grain based ethanol. It is moderate. If cellulosic ethanol actually proves commercially viable, though, I think that the balance will be fairly large.

I think that the ethanol industry, to the limited extent that it meets demand, can stand on its own two feet and that it will stand on its own two feet. That said, it will be unexpectedly successful if it ever produces as much as 25% of our demand.

To my mind the problem of growing ethanol feedstocks isn't so much one of access to oil as it is access to water. Water is the limiting reactant, not oil.

In any case, I don't think ethanol will sustain the "petroleum addiction." It is very unlikely that under any circumstances the volume of biofuels will ever approximate the demand for oil. There is not enough water, nor really, enough land.

Oil can be replaced and the notion to the contrary is something of a fetish. But ethanol and biodiesel will be, at best, minor contributors to the replacement.

[lvx35]

2. The demand is just too high.

We are going to have to change the way we do business, and that's fine. When I go down the highway looking at all these people sitting alone in 4,000 pound steel cages at 60 miles per hour, I wonder if trying to be a little more efficient might not be good for us.

[NNadir]

3. Your point is well taken.

Frankly the situation is purely ridiculous.

[Odin2005]

4. What's the news on switchgrass?

I rember reading some time ago that switchgrass ethanol has a energy ROI of over 4.

[NNadir]

5. We've been hearing about it for 10 years now.

Here's a paper from ten years ago:

http://agron.scijournals.org/cgi/reprint/91/4/696

We must be exporting it all to Iraq, I guess.

[luckyleftyme2]

6. IT IS PART OF THE SOLUTION

BIO-FUEL IS A START IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION!

[JohnWxy]

7. He is right in that subsidies for ethanol distorts the market.

that's the point. To enable a very low volume product to gain market penetration to achieve higher volume production and bring the unit price down so as to not need the subsidy. By the way the subsidy to ethanol is an excise tax relief of about 50 cents for every gallon of ethanol blended by a refiner. The money goes to the oil refiner. but it does support the purchase of ethanol by the refiner.

But the full picture is the market is also distorted much more by much bigger subsidies to oil companies subsidies to Oil. Tax relief, program subsidies, reduced royaties and more amounts to many millions of dollars. Of course, a good portion of the defense budget is for protecting oil fields. This too distorts the market and prevents us from seeing what the real cost of gasoline is.

excerpt from link provided:
~~
~~
Total Annual Government Spending Subsidies:
Low estimate: $38.0 billion or $0.32/gallon
High estimate: $114.6 billion or $0.95/gallon
~~
~~
Total Annual Protection Costs: (part of this is part of the Defensse Budget. Note this calculation was performed before the IRAQ war.)

Low estimate: $88.5 billion or $0.65/gallon
High estimate: $140.8 billion or $1.05/gallon
~~
~~

THE REAL PRICE OF GASOLINE
Low estimate: $5.60/gallon

(much more) The article at the link goes into geat detail on how they developed these numbers.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. I think a distinction between ethanol and biodiesel should be made

biodiesel is strongly energy positive, ethanol is not. Biodiesel has nearly as much fuel value as diesel, ethanol does not. Biodiesel is a diverse industry, supporting manufacturers all over the country, ethanol subsidies primarily benefit Archer Daniels Midland.

Biodiesel related ventures need these subsidies to gain a toehold. Progress in the Biodiesel industry is rapid. Soon the technology will exist to farm oil producing algae on what would otherwise be useless desert land, using only a trivial amount of water and other raw materials. This progress would stop were it not for the tax breaks.

"Biofuels" may not merit subsidy, but biodiesel does. Essentially, biodiesel is a portable, liquid form of solar power using organic processes that do not add to global warming.