Corn-Based Ethanol Production...

Have you considered the energy and costs going into crude to end up with fuel? One has to compare apples with apples.

Refining crude also delivers by products, fortunately these products can also be sold.

A country with oil reserves would not need to produce fuel from other sources but it can be viable in oil dry countries.

It seems the US does not need ethanol- we just are trying to come up with ways of delaying the inevitable. Resources must be used or they are useless. I just wonder how it will all wind up in this world. So many factors- so many needs- in so many places.

It seems the best we can do is have our politicians make more laws- more taxes- and more restrictions on it all until a break point. I like conservation and research on alternative fuels- but there are more than a few around that are seeming to suffer and sacrificing food and other vital things for heating/fuel costs.

How is energy there in South Africa?

In the US ethanol is purly the result of Corn state senators and congressmen playing politics. When it was found that MTBE was leaking out of fuel tanks at gas stations and leaching into ground water, these politicians took advantage of the fact and banned MTBE instead of insisting that the fuel tanks be fixed and preventing fuel leaks. As a result the fuel tanks still leak, but a big part of our fuel supply is gone causing the price to go up.

The ban of MTBE made it necessary to come up with something else, and ethanol was it. Putting money into the pockets of Corn state politicians.

Corn ethanol is the best example I know of science being perverted by politicians for political gain. There are plenty of other things you can make ethanol from - garbage, for instance.

Flailing is the correct answer. Is there hope? Not a lot, because we are simultaneously trying to deal with several over-lapping issues, and virtually all solutions will meet determined resistance from those who profit from the current mess:

1. The US has had a long run of success as top dog. We all sense on some level that this, like all 'good' things, must end. Payback is usually a bitch. This leads to fear, and fear is the enemy of reason.
2. Our massive use of energy is costing us vast amounts of money, just when our ability to make real money is declining (see #1).
3. The money spent for fuel is only part of the problem. There is also the huge cost of periodically fighting wars to protect the Middle East oil supply.
4. The huge amounts of money accumulating in the pockets of the oil producers wreaks havoc on the global political and economic framework.
5. Lots of this money is being used to fund political and military operations that are problematic to the developed world.
6. Lots of this money is being used to fund political operations in the developed world that thwart attempts to move toward alternate energy and energy independence
   
7. The huge amounts of fossil fuel byproducts such as carbon dioxide, are leading us toward an environmental catastrophe.
8. Our crummy education system, combined with our crummy new as entertainment media keeps enough people dazed and confused to continue electing politicians who are either themselves clueless, or worse yet, conspiring with the deep pockets of the energy industry to wring that last few trillion dollars out of us.

So is there any hope?

1. Science and engineering are trying to do their part. Costs for solar panels continue to drop, and efficiency increases. Other sustainable energy sources are also becoming competitive with fossil fuels, even without considering the hidden costs of war, pollution, and political shenanigans.
2. Fuel efficiency for the vehicle fleet is starting to increase (finally). While much of the engineering has already been done, more manufacturers are starting to roll out products.
3. Whether you like Sen. Obama or not, his campaign organization has shown that serious political campaigns can be funded by ordinary citizens, independent of the normal deep-pocket crowd. This at least suggests the possibility that the strangle hold of the military-petroleum-financial-medical-entertainment-industrial complex can be loosened. At this point, solving this snake-pit of problems will require both technical and political efforts.
   

Agree with you on most points of this post and I gave it a GA, but I suspect that even if we had 100% efficiency for solar cells they would not make a dent in the energy needs because the available distribution of sunlight across the lighted face of this planet is quite low and we would require immense light-blocking arrays of such panels to even supply a single small city. Energy concentration for such a source is woefully inadequate.

I also believe the way to address the issue of carbon dioxide emissions is through removal of same from major sources (eg: power plants) and through increased fuel efficiency for vehicles. I find it totally unacceptable that automakers provide vehicles capable of achieving 60+ mpg in foreign markets, while barely able to achieve 30 mpg in the3 States. The latter scenario maybe brought about by pollution regulations on the autos. Do we really benefit as a country if we set emissions requirements in opposition to vehicle efficiency?

I think you are right about a conflict between mileage and emissions. These regulations were developed when few of us thought that mileage was the issue - the issue was millions of city dwellers choking on exhaust fumes. If we had a rational legislative process, obviously they would now be looking into regulating emissions per mile driven, not per vehicle. HA!

I Like ethanol and solar. I don't buy the fact that ethanol production is driving up food prices. It sounds good if you are an oil barron, but considering the fact that the government in its infinite wisdom is paying billions per year to farmers for sit aside acres, it just doesn't hold water. The government should be subsidizing farmers to grow more corn. More corn, cheaper food, cheaper ethanol, it could be win, win for everyone.Ethanol is theoretically cleaner burning than gas, so the more we use to offset gas the better off we are. Imagine solar power to produce the etanol and burning ethanol in our power plants,electric vehicles even less emissions. The problem we face in the good ole usa is greed. I do agree with the education system quote, it stinks.

The politicians have for years been pushing ethenol because there are a lot of votes tied to it. Along with all of the votes there are also a lot of political dollars in the form of subsides, grants, etc. A politician's number one goal is to get re-elected. The best way to do this is to bring home projects and funding.

President Bush mentioned the development of alternate feed stocks to produce ethenol, namely switch grass. At the time he was labeled a cook. In reality switch grass and other feed stocks which are not part of the food supply would be the best choice.

The real question that should be answered is is ethenol the best fuel supplement or replacement? Likely it isn't given the current infrastructure in the US. Brazil was able to run their vehicles on straight E100 made from sugar cane. They were able to achieve this wholesale change largely because when the decision was made to switch from petroleum based fuel to ethenol based fuel their established petroleum infrastructure was a fraction of what now exists in the US.

The answer for what will (or will not) replace petroleum based fuels should be a market based answer not a politically based answer. If a fuel has to have a government subsity to survive it is a poor choice.

Travis

True, except that petroleum already has a huge federal subsidy. Billions in direct subsidies, billions more in tax breaks, hundreds of billions to fight wars in the Mid East, and the probably unmeasurable cost of a fraying global environment. When the true cost of petroleum is considered, the price we pay at the pump is only a small part of the picture. When the oil companies, out of their own pockets are willing to foot the bill for global warming, the oil wars, when they pay taxes on their incomes, etc., then we would have a level playing field. Until then subsidies for alternatives are only fair.

Ethanol cannot replace oil-based fuels. There is not enough farmland. Environmentalists wanted renewable fuels like ethanol until they got them and saw that there were problems. Democrats think they can solve the high fuel cost problem by asking OPEC to please pump more oil. OPEC hates us, so fuel prices will continue to rise. When the Republicans try to get us to pump our own oil the Democrats block it, licking the feet of the environmentalists. Too many politicians in both parties are owned by their greed and special interests. If taken as a whole and carried to the extreme the environmentalists want what is left of humanity to be organic vegans, using no animals for food, clothing or labor, grubbing out their organic vegetables with stone tools and eating them raw because there cannot be fire. Too many politicians are concerned with power and getting rich.

Go ahead and make ethanol, it is good to reduce our dependence on OPEC oil, but don't be deluded into thinking it or any other combination of alternative energy sources will replace oil, coal, hydro or nuclear. At best they can only make a small dent in the total of our energy usage. We want to make the biggest dent possible, so keep on working at alternatives, energy conservation and such, it can't hurt.

You can expect miracles, but be happy for small blessings.

Hi Taganan,

1. I couldn't agree with you more that 'Ethanol cannot replace oil-based fuels...there is not enough farmland'. Ethanol is not 'the' solution. It is doubtful that it is even 'a' solution. It seems that unless you can get your 'vegan' friends to till the corn fields with their stone tools and water it with their spit, and carry it to market in their backpacks, you need to burn just about a gallon of ethanol (or diesel) to make a gallon of ethanol.
2. I also agree that for the most part OPEC hates us, but if my memory serves me it wasn't the Democrats who went begging to OPEC to turn up the spigot. It was George Bush who has now at least three times, most recently last week, gone with hat in hand to ask his dad's friends in Saudi Arabia for more, only to be told to 'run along', and stop pestering the grownups.
3. Most Dems in congress oppose more drilling, but that is because they represent the people who vote for them, and these people also oppose more drilling, particularly on the north slope. But it should also be pointed out that (Rep) California Gov Schwarzenegger also opposes drilling of the California coast for the same reason - the people of his gas guzzling state like their beaches clean. If we had a king or tzar things might be different, but Americans are at least for the moment still hung up on this democracy thing.
4. I think that we can agree that there are some crazy people in the environmental movement, and that they often lack the mental discipline needed to think some of their ideas through. In my experience this is true of any movement. But unless I am reading you wrong (and of course this is clearly possible) it seems that you attack envrionmentalists in one sentence for their 'greed', and in the next sentence describe them 'grubbing out their organic vegetables with stone tools and eating them raw'. This seems like a stretch. Any argument taken to its extreme becomes ridiculous. Thats why this particular logical fallacy has it's own (reducto al absurdum) name. I think its pretty clear that you have decided that Democrats and Environmentalists are, if not the root of all evil, at least a huge problem. Personally think what is worse is when intelligent people on either side of a debate decide to create a cartoon version of their opponents, and then attack the caricature that they themselves have created. (Straw Man).
5. I again agree with you that the shotgun approach is best. There is no one solution. We need to do as many of the things that will work as we can, each according to their own circumstance. About two years ago when it became clear to most of us that energy prices had nowhere to go but up, I sold my beautiful house in the Sierras, and moved my family and my business into town. My gas bill has dropped from $600 - $800 per month to less than $200. My heating and electric bills have dropped from $500 - $600 per month to less than $150. With the money I'm saving I'll be able to park my pickup, buy a Prius and probably cut the gas bill by another $100. My new home is nowhere near as beautiful or peaceful: I have neighbors right outside my bedroom window instead of deer and raccoons, I listen to police and fire sirens all night instead of crickets and owls, but I can adjust. Obviously I'm lucky to be in a position to make these changes. Many people are trapped in a house they can't sell in a suburb 40 miles from a job they can't quit. But almost everybody can make some adjustments. With rising gas prices they will have to.
   Developing new energy sources, and adopting new technologies are all critically important, but these solutions all take time. I think that conservation is the only solution that can be effective in the short term.

Johnfotl - I don't consider George Bush to be a real Republican, he was just not as bad as the other choice. Check and see what the Democrat's solution for high gas prices is. They will ask OPEC to pump more oil. Schwarzenegger is from the left/liberal side of the party even more than Bush.

There are sensible conservative environmentalists too. We want to preserve wildlife too. They taste good and we like to hunt and fish and we want to be able to hunt and fish for many generations. We love trees because they take CO2 out of the air and make oxygen so we can live and because wood makes nice houses, furniture and fires in fireplaces. That is why we favor forest management that will prevent forest fires and not a hands-off let it go natural policy that allows natural fires.

Yes, I was making a cartoon of the environmental extremists, because they have so much influence on politicians. While none of them are likely to go that far, taking their ideas to the absurd extreme does point out that their ideas are often absurd and should not be taken seriously. I do not think Democrats like Zell Miller or Lieberman are the root of all evil, just the ones who think that anyone who disagrees with them should not speak or be allowed to speak are evil and there are too many like that. It was just to poke fun at them.

Why not use solar power to make ethanol? There is a need for a liquid fuel that is easy to use. Why not make synthetic gas from coal? Who says that drilling for oil must be polluting, just because it is oil? Another bunch of environuts? The technology of oil drilling has improved greatly.

I despise living in the city, been there, done that. The view of the sunbathing neighbor did not make up for the stress of all the noise, obnoxious people in the neighborhood, lack of space and privacy. I am glad you can agree with some of what I said. I do tend to poke very pointed barbs as humor and unfortunately some of those targeted take offense at what is meant to be absurd. I hope you are able to adjust to the stress of city life, but if or when you snap, remember it was OPEC and those who blocked every attempt to make us self-sufficient in fuel that caused it.

I can understand why many conservatives don't consider President Bush to be a real Republican. I'm not sure I consider him to be a real President. To put it the snarkiest possible terms, I would say that to me he seems more like an affable but mildly detached child of wealth and privilege, acting as a front man for a group that believes that government is the problem, and is using his administration as an opportunity to provide an object lesson. They seem to have used these last seven years to demonstrate that government is unaccountable, incompetent and venal, and also to loot our national treasury by stuffing box-car loads of federal dollars into their own pockets. (I could be wrong about this: maybe they are greedy and incompetent, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt). But enough with the pot shots. By contrast I think that true conservatives are concerned with the survival of the Republic, and recognize that part of that survival is based on effective (if limited) government. My conservative hero would be Teddy Roosevelt, who recognized that if our economy was left to the whims of the worst aspects of Capitalism, it would not serve the needs of all of our citizens, and would be brought down by popular discontent. Better to share a bit more of the pie than to see the whole pie trampled by an angry mob.

As far as forest management is concerned, I tend to agree with you. But I think that the environmental movement at first reacted honestly to the excesses of the timber industry. As the battle lines hardened and the rhetoric heated up, emotion and absolutism drove out reason, and argument degenerated in the sloganeering. Meanwhile, out in the woods, the results of many decades of successful government forest fire prevention (fostered initially by the timber industry) had been dramatic. Forests grew to unnatural densities as a result of this success. I first remember hearing about this in the early 90's, when a group of researchers at UofA in Flagstaff compared old photographs of forested areas to more recent ones. In the old photos, the forests had a park like look, with lots of open space between the trees, while the new photos showed the trees standing shoulder to shoulder. In areas that had been clear-cut and then reforested, it was monoculture shoulder to shoulder. The obvious solution from a scientific view-point would be to thin the forests, but the timber industry had no interest in thinning – it was all or nothing (the economic argument for this position may very well be valid). But as I said, the battle lines were drawn. The timber industry tried to present the misguided fire suppression as a creature of misguided environmentalists. Many environmental groups saw the research as a propaganda ploy by the timber industry. It has only been in the last few years that this position has begun to soften. But to 'blame' the environmental movement or the timber industry for this is dishonest. This is just how society works, the old swing-of-the-pendulum. Somebody does something 'wrong', some other group reacts and then over-reacts. Whatever correction was originally required takes a long time, and by the time 'cooler heads' prevail, the moment is past. This is why I get so ticked off about over the top rhetoric. Against all evidence to the contrary I still believe in the power of reason, and reason suggests that arguments designed to 'preach to the choir' just to make it harder to solve real problems.

Ethanol from solar power? Why not hydrogen? The storage problems seem to be mostly solved (use blocks of permeable ceramics to avoid catastrophic release and explosions), and it of course contains no carbon (just in case anthropogenic global warming is not just part of a left-wing hoax to destroy our economy).

I don't blame OPEC for our current energy problems, nor do I blame the environmental lobby. I guess I thank the post WWII decades of American power for providing me the opportunity to live a privileged life for a while. I got to live the life of a high-tech entrepreneur in a place more suited to the lumberjack and the fur trapper. I still know that I have it pretty damn good. But that era is coming to an end. The people of the Middle East, and China, and India have as much right to strive for the good life as you and I do. We made hay while the sun was shinning on us, and now the sun shines on them as well. If they make a lot of the same mistakes we made, so be it. No, I blame us all. The amount of oil in the world is finite, the rate at which new oil is being created is by most accounts much slower than the rate at which we are using it, but the growth of our human populations is staggering, it is accelerating, and our appetite for creature comforts is apparently infinite. To be able to sustain a decent quality of life will require unprecedented levels of research and development, some reasonable self control by those of us who have had the good luck to be part of the developed world, and some long range planning. Our willingness to make some voluntary sacrifice of personal comfort is limited, and our ability to plan rationally for the future is problematic. It is made more so when we allow honest debates to degenerate into old fashioned Texas style pissing contests.

So the Republicans, generally, began to behave like Democrats "unaccountable, incompetent and venal, and also to loot our national treasury by stuffing box-car loads of federal dollars into their own pockets." This George Bush is the son of his father who was not a real conservative either. After seeing this Congress I am sure that the Dems are incompetent and venal, love spending on pork and are more concerned with the Party than the good of the country. I think about 80% of the people have no one they can really count on in politics anymore.

You are right that Capitalism without rules and responsibility can lead to an economic tyranny, but conversely an overreaching government can destroy the economy and lead to political tyranny.

Hydrogen still takes a lot of energy to make and provides too little. You would have to cover hundreds of thousands of acres with solar collectors just to make the equivalent of one cubic mile of gasoline [5 cubic miles of H]. The figures I have seen do not show H as being that viable a solution yet. The new storage tech is also still in the laboratory stage and some of it is not likely to be economically viable for many years. It may slowly replace oil or coal based fuels in a few decades, but what do we do about next year? Keep dreaming about pie-in-the-sky solutions or begin drilling for our own oil and making our own synthetic gasoline from coal?