Paper suggests that Congress should reconsider biofuels mandates.

[gsvol]

US policymakers need to reconsider the unintended consequences of federal subsidies and tariffs that go to domestic ethanol producers, concluded a study from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

I have to agree 210% with their conclusions.

The fact that this ever passed to begin with makes me doubt not only the competence but the very sanity of congress itself.

Let me add this to the information in the article.

Corn severely depletes the nitrogen found in the soil, instead of adding nitrogen rich fertilizers to corn fields, one can simply rotate crops with a legume to replentish the needed nitrogen.

 

[IPorange]

Food should be eaten, not used for mechanical fuel. It was really short-sided on a lot of policy-makers' parts to force the ethanol issue before we have found a suitable source. Switch grass may pan out, as may algae, but those aren't ready yet. Corn is "easy" to do from a infrastructure perspective, but we are actually exerting more fuel than we are creating- not to mention wasting food and soil.

 

[gsvol]

Food should be eaten, not used for mechanical fuel. It was really short-sided on a lot of policy-makers' parts to force the ethanol issue before we have found a suitable source. Switch grass may pan out, as may algae, but those aren't ready yet. Corn is "easy" to do from a infrastructure perspective, but we are actually exerting more fuel than we are creating- not to mention wasting food and soil.

If we are trying to acheive the stated goal to 'reduce our dependence on foreign oil' then let's drill domestically and extracting fuel from coal is a viable alternative.

The US has more coal reserve than any other nation, including Russia, yet we seem bound and determined to shut down our own coal production completely.

If one wanted to reduce America to being a third world nation one could do no better than what congress and the current administration seem determined to do.

 

[TennTradition]

You will find few people (save corn growers and some politicians) who would argue that corn-ethanol mandates aren't bad policy.

 

[gsvol]

You will find few people (save corn growers and some politicians) who would argue that corn-ethanol mandates aren't bad policy.

One of the worst things about the whole thing is that the program serves to increase oil imports because of the fact that it takes more oil to produce the ethanol than you get in return. That sort of mentality seems prevelant in Washington today in so many many other programs the government gets into.

Another article I read was about some poor subsistance farmers in Ethiopia who were encouraged to grow corn for ethanol, the soil and climate weren't suited for that and they ended up in far worse shape than they began.

 

[TennTradition]

One of the worst things about the whole thing is that the program serves to increase oil imports because of the fact that it takes more oil to produce the ethanol than you get in return. That sort of mentality seems prevelant in Washington today in so many many other programs the government gets into.

Another article I read was about some poor subsistance farmers in Ethiopia who were encouraged to grow corn for ethanol, the soil and climate weren't suited for that and they ended up in far worse shape than they began.

The argument about how much energy return on energy investment you get on corn ethanol is on-going, and it can be anywhere from less than one to more than one. So, depending on how much waste is recycled back into the process, it can definitely take more oil to make it than it would have taken just to burn oil in the first place....and obviously ridiculous scenario. There are some people who do it that are able to get something like 8% more energy or so than they put in...but is that worth the investment and land-use requirements? I think not.

Another interesting point are the blending mandates. Right now, Congress mandates that so many gallons of ethanol must be used in our fleet per year. Because of the dip in the economy, transportation fuel use has actually been decreasing in this country. However, the mandate is a static number - which means that the total percentage of ethanol in fuel has had to increase to meet the ethanol consumption mandate. The problem with this is that particulate from more concentrated ethanol fuels is not well understood, the effect of this concentration of ethanol on engines is not as well understood, etc. I was at an interview recently with an oil/energy company where this was explained to me by a few people who are doing biofuels research. Great example of poorly-written policy.

 

[gsvol]

The argument about how much energy return on energy investment you get on corn ethanol is on-going, and it can be anywhere from less than one to more than one. So, depending on how much waste is recycled back into the process, it can definitely take more oil to make it than it would have taken just to burn oil in the first place....and obviously ridiculous scenario. There are some people who do it that are able to get something like 8% more energy or so than they put in...but is that worth the investment and land-use requirements? I think not.

Another interesting point are the blending mandates. Right now, Congress mandates that so many gallons of ethanol must be used in our fleet per year. Because of the dip in the economy, transportation fuel use has actually been decreasing in this country. However, the mandate is a static number - which means that the total percentage of ethanol in fuel has had to increase to meet the ethanol consumption mandate. The problem with this is that particulate from more concentrated ethanol fuels is not well understood, the effect of this concentration of ethanol on engines is not as well understood, etc. I was at an interview recently with an oil/energy company where this was explained to me by a few people who are doing biofuels research. Great example of poorly-written policy.

Poorly conceived policy to begin with.

Glad to chat with someone so well informed and knowledgeable on the topic.

Remember the statement from the 'Club at Rome"; we attack on many fronts?

Why did the enviros scream bloody murder about Brazilain rain forests being cleard for pasture land to raise beef but were strangely silent when far more was cleared to raise corn??

Whereas land that was previously rain forest is fairly well suited for pasture land, it has a miserable sort of soil for raising corn and so after a year or so more forests must be cut.

This has been slash and burn agriculture for thousands of years.

One would think some sort of alien locusts from some other galaxy were running the Club of Rome, the Bilderbergers et al.

 

[IPorange]

Even when some folks come out with a calculation of a more than 1:1 return, it doesn't factor in the soil degradation.

 

[TennTradition]

Poorly conceived policy to begin with.

Glad to chat with someone so well informed and knowledgeable on the topic.

Remember the statement from the 'Club at Rome"; we attack on many fronts?

Why did the enviros scream bloody murder about Brazilain rain forests being cleard for pasture land to raise beef but were strangely silent when far more was cleared to raise corn??

Whereas land that was previously rain forest is fairly well suited for pasture land, it has a miserable sort of soil for raising corn and so after a year or so more forests must be cut.

This has been slash and burn agriculture for thousands of years.

One would think some sort of alien locusts from some other galaxy were running the Club of Rome, the Bilderbergers et al.

I don't see why they would clear rain forest to grow corn and not sugar cane.

 

[TennTradition]

Even when some folks come out with a calculation of a more than 1:1 return, it doesn't factor in the soil degradation.

Interesting point. That seems like a very hard parameter to characterize (i.e., what can you grow after growing corn vs. what have you cleared to grow the corn).

 

[gsvol]

I don't see why they would clear rain forest to grow corn and not sugar cane.

I knew a poor guy who grew up as a share cropper and seasonal agriculture worker and one day we were talking about the value of persimmon wood as it was then bringing a premium and being used to manufacture golf club heads before the advent of the metal wood.

He told me of picking cotton in the vast fields of the Mississipi (Missippi for natives) River bottoms south of Memphis and that a guy had bulldozed forests of mostly persimmon (and other valueable hardwoods) into rows along the river bank and set them afire and they burned for over three years and all that in order to clear land for growing cotton.

Along came WWII and the development of synthetic fabrics and the bottom fell out of the cotton market and the man lost all that he had.

So basically he had thrown away a fortune to lose a fortune.

Sugar cane or corn, it's the same as the man who would have gained a fortune in the cotton business, ultimately it is a huge loss in the value of Earth's resources to mankind, so that a few can gain fortunes because government has force the issue based on reasons of false premises and of dubious merit.

An adendum to that story, that guy came from a large family and a neighbor farmer felt sorry for them and said he could pay for a college education for one of the children which he did. The one who was able to attend went on to become our local school superintendent and was probably the best we ever had, a thousand times better than the dipsquat PC idiot we now have who is so taken with his little bit of power and control. He reminds me so much of LG.

Even when some folks come out with a calculation of a more than 1:1 return, it doesn't factor in the soil degradation.

How true as is also not calculated the loss of the CO2 absorbsion capability of virgin rain forests.

If oil is selling for about $90 a barrel and it costs about $60 to get a barrel of oil from coal, why would we be shutting down the coal industry when we have about 80% of the world's known coal reserves??

Interesting point. That seems like a very hard parameter to characterize (i.e., what can you grow after growing corn vs. what have you cleared to grow the corn).

"Farming is easy when your plow is a pencil and you are a thousand miles from the nearest corn field."
Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Even the most avid of backers of crap and tax and EPA mandates will admit their whole scam, which will cost all of us everyday American citizens thousands of dollars a year each, would only marginally cut domestic and/or worldwide CO2 emmissions.

Does ethanol produce any less CO2 emmissions than gasoline produced from oil or coal when used to power internal combustion engines????

 

[orangeblooded2]

What ever happened to the push to replace corn with Switchgrass.

**********
Switchgrass is a hardy, deep-rooted, perennial rhizomatous grass that begins growth in late spring. It can grow up to 2.7 m high but is typically shorter than Big Bluestem grass or Indiangrass. The leaves are 30-90 cm long, with a prominent midrib. Switchgrass uses C4 carbon fixation, giving it an advantage in conditions of drought and high temperature.[1] Its flowers have a well-developed panicle, often up to 60 cm long, and it bears a good crop of seeds. The seeds are 3-6 mm long and up to 1.5 mm wide, and are developed from a single-flowered spikelet. Both glumes are present and well developed. When ripe, the seeds sometimes take on a pink or dull-purple tinge, and turn golden brown with the foliage of the plant in the fall. Switchgrass is both a perennial and self-seeding crop, which means farmers do not have to plant and re-seed after annual harvesting. Once established, a switchgrass stand can survive for ten years or longer.[2] Unlike corn, switchgrass can grow on marginal lands and requires relatively modest levels of chemical fertilizers.[2] Overall, it is considered a resource-efficient, low-input crop for producing bioenergy from farmland.

**********


Quote:

Switchgrass yields more than 540 percent more energy than the energy needed to produce and convert it to ethanol, making the grassy weed a far superior source for biofuels than corn ethanol, reports a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).


Link:

Switchgrass a better biofuel source than corn

 

[TennTradition]

Corn-based ethanol is dead everywhere except Iowa and Washington DC. Switchgrass is one alternative that is certainly being looked at. Does anyone know if they are having problems finding the right bugs to make ethanol from switchgrass or if it is just an adoption issue that is being slow.

As for the CO2 emissions from ethanol, I'm not sure but I would say that they are very similar. So, since corn ethanol requires near 1:1 petroleum input to make it, corn ethanol doesn't offset CO2. The entire point is to go to something like switchgrass or celluosic feedstocks that give you a higher energy return on energy investment. Because these feedstocks pull CO2 out of the air as they grow and give it back up as you burn it in an engine, it is a bit like 'recycling' CO2. The only new CO2 emitted by the process would be the petroleum fuel you use to make it - thus why you want that 1:1 number to look more like 3:1.

 

[gsvol]

What ever happened to the push to replace corn with Switchgrass.

**********
Switchgrass is a hardy, deep-rooted, perennial rhizomatous grass that begins growth in late spring. It can grow up to 2.7 m high but is typically shorter than Big Bluestem grass or Indiangrass. The leaves are 30-90 cm long, with a prominent midrib. Switchgrass uses C4 carbon fixation, giving it an advantage in conditions of drought and high temperature.[1] Its flowers have a well-developed panicle, often up to 60 cm long, and it bears a good crop of seeds. The seeds are 3-6 mm long and up to 1.5 mm wide, and are developed from a single-flowered spikelet. Both glumes are present and well developed. When ripe, the seeds sometimes take on a pink or dull-purple tinge, and turn golden brown with the foliage of the plant in the fall. Switchgrass is both a perennial and self-seeding crop, which means farmers do not have to plant and re-seed after annual harvesting. Once established, a switchgrass stand can survive for ten years or longer.[2] Unlike corn, switchgrass can grow on marginal lands and requires relatively modest levels of chemical fertilizers.[2] Overall, it is considered a resource-efficient, low-input crop for producing bioenergy from farmland.

**********


Quote:

Switchgrass yields more than 540 percent more energy than the energy needed to produce and convert it to ethanol, making the grassy weed a far superior source for biofuels than corn ethanol, reports a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).


Link:

Switchgrass a better biofuel source than corn

The whole biofuel mandate is idotic to begin with.

It doesn't matter whether you are talking peanuts or pineapples.

Why take up valuable surface crop land to produce energy instead of food while we have more than adequate resources to pursue sensible alternatives???

Switchgrass doesn't lessen CO2 emissions, (probably the opposite) and switchgrass doesn't lessen our dependence on foreign oil, (imported from countries who for the most part would love to see the final end of the USA.)

 

[orangeblooded2]

Corn-based ethanol is dead everywhere except Iowa and Washington DC. Switchgrass is one alternative that is certainly being looked at. Does anyone know if they are having problems finding the right bugs to make ethanol from switchgrass or if it is just an adoption issue that is being slow.

As for the CO2 emissions from ethanol, I'm not sure but I would say that they are very similar. So, since corn ethanol requires near 1:1 petroleum input to make it, corn ethanol doesn't offset CO2. The entire point is to go to something like switchgrass or celluosic feedstocks that give you a higher energy return on energy investment. Because these feedstocks pull CO2 out of the air as they grow and give it back up as you burn it in an engine, it is a bit like 'recycling' CO2. The only new CO2 emitted by the process would be the petroleum fuel you use to make it - thus why you want that 1:1 number to look more like 3:1.

Enzymes: Seems at least to some extent it is being dealt with.


Novozymes gets $28.4 mln tax credit for US plant | Reuters

 

[TennTradition]

Makes sense...should have said enzymes rather than bugs, I suppose.

 

[orangeblooded2]

The whole biofuel mandate is idotic to begin with.

It doesn't matter whether you are talking peanuts or pineapples.

Why take up valuable surface crop land to produce energy instead of food while we have more than adequate resources to pursue sensible alternatives???

Switchgrass doesn't lessen CO2 emissions, (probably the opposite) and switchgrass doesn't lessen our dependence on foreign oil, (imported from countries who for the most part would love to see the final end of the USA.)

I think it Necessary. So do some of the best scientist and minds that we have. You are propagating a future where we missed the boat to save this planet that we all share.

Should we still use our natural resources, Yes, drill, drill, and drill some more. The ability to tell the everyone else to take there own energy resources and shove them is attainable. Develop every resource we have including alternative energy sources to there logical, scientific, and economic conclusions. It is what we do. It is our nature so to speak.

Also glad to see you are finally worrying about mankind's CO2 emissions and man made global warming.......

 

[gsvol]

Corn-based ethanol is dead everywhere except Iowa and Washington DC. Switchgrass is one alternative that is certainly being looked at. Does anyone know if they are having problems finding the right bugs to make ethanol from switchgrass or if it is just an adoption issue that is being slow.

As for the CO2 emissions from ethanol, I'm not sure but I would say that they are very similar. So, since corn ethanol requires near 1:1 petroleum input to make it, corn ethanol doesn't offset CO2. The entire point is to go to something like switchgrass or celluosic feedstocks that give you a higher energy return on energy investment. Because these feedstocks pull CO2 out of the air as they grow and give it back up as you burn it in an engine, it is a bit like 'recycling' CO2. The only new CO2 emitted by the process would be the petroleum fuel you use to make it - thus why you want that 1:1 number to look more like 3:1.

No, the 'entire' point that we shouldn't be using ethanol for fuel at all.

If in a free economic environment it could be done without government subsidies and mandates and people were willing to do it, provided they didn't create hardhips on others or waste other valuable resources then maybe.

As it stands we have raised food prices here in America by not only raising the cost of corn flakes but feed prices took a gigantic upward lead almost immediatly and the whole thing is so idiotic as to be insane.

That's just for us, so far, well off Americans, for others it has meant the brink of if not outright starvation.

 

[TennTradition]

No, the 'entire' point that we shouldn't be using ethanol for fuel at all.

Or...you've just missed the point.

 

[gsvol]

Enzymes: Seems at least to some extent it is being dealt with.


Novozymes gets $28.4 mln tax credit for US plant | Reuters

Yeah, but they might evolve into dinasaurs.

I think it Necessary. So do some of the best scientist and minds that we have. You are propagating a future where we missed the boat to save this planet that we all share.

Should we still use our natural resources, Yes, drill, drill, and drill some more. The ability to tell the everyone else to take there own energy resources and shove them is attainable. Develop every resource we have including alternative energy sources to there logical, scientific, and economic conclusions. It is what we do. It is our nature so to speak.

Also glad to see you are finally worrying about mankind's CO2 emissions and man made global warming.......

Methinks you are suffering from some sort of messiah complex.

The only thing you can do to lessen CO2 emmissions is to stop breathing, thus eliminated about a half ton of CO2 this year........uh, not counting your problem with an overactive flatulance gland.

You could be like me and have it made in the shade, my shade tree breathes in all the CO2 I exhale therefore I am carbon neutral.

Why do I always feel like Private Joe Bauers when I discuss anything with you??

 

[gsvol]

Or...you've just missed the point.

Or you;

Paper suggests that Congress should reconsider biofuels mandates.

The point of the thread is whether we should reconsider the moronic biofuels mandates, :yes: not what material would make the best source to produce biofuels. :no:

 

[TennTradition]

I clearly wasn't talking about the point of this thread, I was talking about the point of biofuels. Again, the entire point of biofuels is not to have something with a 1:1 energy return on energy investment - otherwise, they are useless. The point of the paper that generated this discussion wasn't that biofuels are misguided.

As for corn ethanol:

A paper on the study results, "Fundamentals of a Sustainable US Biofuels Policy," questions the economic, environmental, and logistical basis for corn-based ethanol. The paper’s authors question whether mandated volumes for biofuels can be met.

It points to concerns over other feedstocks - but not the logistics of those, but that the volumes that are mandated can't currently be met (e.g., we need better enzymes, bacteria, etc.).

So, more to the point of the thread, I think you might have missed the point of the article, which was that corn ethanol is misguided and we need to back off on volume mandates on other feedstocks for ethanol until we can actually meet them commercially. The point certainly wasn't that all ethanol/biofuels are misguided.

 

[gsvol]

I clearly wasn't talking about the point of this thread, I was talking about the point of biofuels. Again, the entire point of biofuels is not to have something with a 1:1 energy return on energy investment - otherwise, they are useless. The point of the paper that generated this discussion wasn't that biofuels are misguided.

As for corn ethanol:



It points to concerns over other feedstocks - but not the logistics of those, but that the volumes that are mandated can't currently be met (e.g., we need better enzymes, bacteria, etc.).

So, more to the point of the thread, I think you might have missed the point of the article, which was that corn ethanol is misguided and we need to back off on volume mandates on other feedstocks for ethanol until we can actually meet them commercially. The point certainly wasn't that all ethanol/biofuels are misguided.

Using corn ethanol for fuel is insane on many levels.

The absolute need to use biofuels to the extent that the government demands that they be used is dubious to some, to me it is laughable.

Let's examine the reasons why biofuels were mandated or even needed.

Why are biofuels needed???

You go first.

 

[TennTradition]

Biofuels are not currently needed in our fuel market. There are potential future benefits of biofuels that include an alternative to petroleum if we need it and a potentially less carbon-intensive fuel if we want to limit CO2 emissions. I am not a huge proponent of pushing biofuels into the market at this point. I can see the benefit of pushing up production, which can enhance research and development, but it's hard to make a case at this point for large volume mandates. Of several companies I have recently talked to about this, it seems most are meeting their mandates through using chicken fat, beef products, etc. to make biodiesel.

 

[orangeblooded2]

Why do I always feel like Private Joe Bauers when I discuss anything with you??

Which one?

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