Some comments on the story: Academic
Study Discredits Ethanol, Biodiesel
-- Tripp Bishop, July 15, 2005
OK, I don't get it. Somebody is lying or doing poor
research or the scope of their research is not accurate.
I've read several DOE white papers that are completely
contradicted by this report. Since they both can't be
correct, who's wrong?
-- Tripp
John Teague, July 15, 2005
There have been huge technology improvements in the ethanol industry
in just the past 5 years. The heat recovery systems alone have
increased efficiencies by at least 50 % in the past 3 years alone .
I am sure that if the Professors were using current technology
numbers instead of industry numbers of 20 to 30 years ago, the
conclusions would be very different. I would be curious to see if
their methods of calculating costs were peer reviewed by people
actually in the industry with current real costs ??
-- neal skapura, July 15, 2005
Hey Tripp....I think the DOE has been compromised either
because of politics or because their studies did not
take in the entire process of production of
ethanol--from beginning to end.
I think that the DOE et. al. treated a lot information
about the process as an externality (i.e., "energy used
in producing the crop (including production of
pesticides and fertilizer, running farm machinery and
irrigating, grinding and transporting the crop) and in
fermenting/distilling the ethanol from the water mix.
Although additional costs are incurred, such as federal
and state subsidies that are passed on to consumers and
the costs associated with environmental pollution or
degradation, these figures were not included in the
analysis.")
And what this new study does is consider all the
information from beginning to end.
Cheers,
-- Eric Husman, July 15, 2005
I'm a little concerned that he thinks he can look at
ethanol from corn and biodiesel from soy and make
sweeping statements like, "There is just no energy
benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel ... These
strategies are not sustainable." That's a pretty
sweeping statement, considering he didn't evaluate
rapeseed, jatropha, algae, or the new UWM study on
cellulose. With a statement like that, I'm concerned
that he's tilting his procedure to prove his assumption,
or at least engaging in conscious publication bias.
As to the government study, remember that the DoE likes
to justify its own existence (which is pretty shaky,
considering their original charter was to oversee
nucular 8) power), and the Ag Dept has always been a
cheerleader and cartelization agent, so yes, their
results are also questionable.
-- Sean K. Barry, July 16, 2005
If the economics of industries like Ethanol production or Biodeisel
production were NON-SUSTAINABLE then these types of businesses would
already be out of business or will soon be out of business, even
with government subsidies.
Energy inputs to farming; to grow crops, produce fertilizers,
irrigate, and harvest them surely are included in the price of the
crop at market, or else the farming of those crops would not be
sustainable. The energy inputs required to farm crops destined for
use as biofuels is also surely not the entire cost covered in the
price at market either (seed costs, land costs, labor costs, etc.).
-- Sean K. Barry, July 16, 2005
Producers of biofuels need to buy crops at prices those market
prices, and pay to transport the raw materials to their plants.
Those costs need to allow them to make profits. If the energy
required to farm the crops exceeded the energy output from the
produced biofuel, then these businesses could not afford the crops,
nor would they pay to transport the raw materials, because you
cannot buy what you cannot afford.
Then the energy inputs and associated costs of production for
biofuels would also play into the economics and should also bear out
that these costs (for energy inputs), plus the crop and transport
costs are lower than the price of the produced fuel. With a subsidy
of only 20 cents per gallon and a price of $1.89/gallon for Ethanol,
I do not believe it would be possible to stay SUSTAINABLE let alone
even enter into the business of Ethanol production. The capital
costs involved in building the production plant are also large.
-- Sean K. Barry, July 16, 2005
There are hundreds of operating Ethanol production plants in the US
alone. Are we to believe that all of these business people are
working with stupid investment bankers who see that they pay out
more money in raw material and production costs than they make in
revenues from product sales ?!
The price of E85 fuel is always at least 20 cents lower than both
regular unleaded gasoline and diesel.
The physics law of Conservation of Energy also prevents these
biofuel producers from making the excess energy output (above the
energy inputs) from nothing and then allowing them to sell that.
David Pimentel, professor of ecology, needs only to look up into the
sky, at that strange ball of fire, to see where the surplus energy
comes from.
-- Sean K. Barry, July 16, 2005
Now my premise above is entirely specious if farmers work for free,
on land they do not own, and pay wildy cheap prices for the fuels
they use. The producers also do not pay their employees, work in
other people's buildings, with equipment that just appeared one day,
and they violate one of the most imprtant laws of physics every day.
Worse of yet, are those silly Europeans, who are paying $4.00 and
$5.00 a gallon for fuel used to produce crops like rapeseed for
biodiesel.
What you need is a professor of ECONOMICS to make this analysis,
Dave!
-- Sean K. Barry, July 16, 2005
I cannot stop. Dave, production of biofuels do not contribute to
"... air, water and soil pollution and global warming." The crops
take CO2 out of the atmosphere and buring the biofuels merely puts
it back. That means NET ZERO CO2 emissions! That means no increase
in global warming due to excessive green house gas emissions.
There are no benzenes, nor sulfur, nor nitrogen coming from the
buring of oxigenated hydrocarbons like ethanol or biodiesel. Those
pollutants only come from fossil fuels like gasoline and petroleum
diesel. That means no air pollution.
-- Sean K. Barry, July 16, 2005
Tripp Bishop, July 15, 2005 said it ...
Somebody is lying or doing poor research or the scope of their
research is not accurate.
Dave? What about that peer review process? Want to test your
theories with somebody outside the Bush White house?
-- neal skapura, July 16, 2005
Just to kick this off in another direction, why even bother with
ethanol from crops, when an electric car seems much more promising?
If we're going to put huge subsidies--our tax dollars--toward
something sustainable, why not into battery development or ongoing
tax breaks so that the electric car can have a firm foothold.
The reasons for supporting ethanol in the past couple of years have
largely been to get the US off of foreign oil. While celulose or
microbial production of ethanlol might be more realistic and
practical than crop-based production, neither would be as promising
as an electric car that is charaged through renewables like solar or
wind.
Cheers,
Neal
-- Reynier Funke, July 16, 2005
A Study by the German Environmental Ministery came to very similar
conclusions. Unfortunately the press does not publicize facts that
no one wants to hear, we all want to keep driving our cars do not
we? The car industry for sure will do everything to support
biofuels, evenm when from an energetic poitn if view using crop to
burn to produce heat or to ferment for CHP would make a lot more
sense. The problem is that these do not solve the dependency on
fossile fuels for transportation. In the mid term everyone would be
better off by letting the facts set policy, reduce use of fossils in
heating and electricity (replace with renewables of whatever form),
make cars more efficient, but keep them running on fossil fuels till
a better solution is economically feasible. The combination of these
2 policies will help to stabilize CO2 emissions and buy us precious
time to come up with a truly sustainable energy form.
-- BiGG BiGG, July 16, 2005
"Only Dr. Pimentel disagrees with this analysis. But his outdated
work has been refuted by experts from entities as diverse as the
USDA, DOE, Argonne National Laboratory, Michigan State University,
and the Colorado School of Mines. While the opponents of ethanol
will no doubt continue to peddle Pimentel's baseless charges, they
are absolutely without credibility."
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/pr020801b.html
In addition to providing a 34% positive energy gain, ethanol
production utilizes mainly domestically available energy, such as
coal and natural gas. Therefore for every 1 Btu of liquid fuel used
to produce ethanol, there is a 6.34 Btu output.
The study cites increased corn yields, lower energy use in the
fertilizer industry, and advances in fuel conversion technologies
that have enhanced the economic and technical feasibility of
producing ethanol. The study is an update of a previous USDA study
completed in 1995, which demonstrated a 24% net energy gain.
-- Sean K. Barry, July 18, 2005
Dave Pimentel's "study" is outdated, having been done in 1991.
Modern fertilizer production and ethanol production have greatly
improved the net energy value of producing ethanol to 1.34.
It should also be noted that a gallon of gasoline doesn't just blow
up out of the ground in Saudi Arabia and into your gas tank for
free. There is an approximate 20% net energy loss to produce a
gallon of gasoline from raw petroleum and transport it into a
vehicle in the USA.
On balance, local ethanol production using local energy resourses to
produce a cleaner liqued fuel for use locally seems like a better
way to go, for our local economy and for our global environment.
-- Tripp Bishop, July 18, 2005
Neal,
Actually, most of those DOE reports do take the externalities into
account when determining the energy balance. That's what
precipitated my original post.
-- Tripp
-- jon tenbensel, July 19, 2005
i am a farmer and i own a small portion .001 of a 50 milion gallon
ethanol plant what the study does not take into account is modern
practice farming is so much difrent then it was 10 years ago i use
no pestisides and minimal chemicals, also the corn is going to b e
produced with or without the ethanol market . Ethanol production
does not take the feed value away from corn or sorgham it has a high
protien by-product that we use so baxicly without ethanol the energy
in corn is wasted . also think about the war? the middle east?
ethanol is a good step towards a oil free economy
-- Subject, July 19, 2005
I think it would be interesting if these two professors applied the
same rationale to the current petroleum fuels we use today. It would
be interesting to see if gasoline and diesel fuel consumed more
energy than they produce.
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-- Tripp Bishop, July 15, 2005
-- Tripp
I think that the DOE et. al. treated a lot information about the process as an externality (i.e., "energy used in producing the crop (including production of pesticides and fertilizer, running farm machinery and irrigating, grinding and transporting the crop) and in fermenting/distilling the ethanol from the water mix. Although additional costs are incurred, such as federal and state subsidies that are passed on to consumers and the costs associated with environmental pollution or degradation, these figures were not included in the analysis.")
And what this new study does is consider all the information from beginning to end.
Cheers,
As to the government study, remember that the DoE likes to justify its own existence (which is pretty shaky, considering their original charter was to oversee nucular 8) power), and the Ag Dept has always been a cheerleader and cartelization agent, so yes, their results are also questionable.