60 Minutes Missed on Ethanol

There have been a few posts on the blogs explaining that the story on ethanol that was done by Dan Rather on 60 Minutes somewhat misstated the case for ethanol, particularly for E85. I'm not fully up to speed on some of this but it's clear that there's a vast difference between Brazil's sugarcane industry that's used for ethanol and the story of corn and ethanol in the United States. Before the politicians drag us into 'solutions' that give us a false sense of our energy situation, everyone needs to inform themselves more thoroughly about the problems we face and what it's going to take to find realistic solutions.

Burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow is no solution. The two oldest nieces of my wife each gave birth within the last two weeks, first a girl, then a boy. There's a fair chance the boy and the girl will live until the 22nd century and they and their children and their grandchildren will see the consequences of our policies. They will either thrive because of our energy decisions or they will suffer because of our energy decisions. These are real issues, not abstractions. Here's a post by Robert Rapier, a chemical engineer, on his blog, R-Squared:

I just finished watching the 60 Minutes piece on ethanol production. Wow. What a puff piece. I thought at least I might see some attempt at balance. But there was no mention of the disadvantages at all. It makes you wonder why ethanol is the least bit controversial. Let’s break the piece down a bit.

Dan Rather on Brazil

Rather pointed out that Brazil has virtually stopped importing foreign oil by switching to ethanol. He said ethanol is cheaper and cleaner. He had Berkeley professor Daniel Kammen on, who said that Brazil made a commitment to ethanol, and then followed through.

So, if Brazil can do it, why not us? Right? Or was Brazil able to do it for reasons other than making a serious commitment?

First, Brazil uses sugarcane to produce ethanol. It is hands down the best crop for making ethanol. The ethanol yield per acre is twice that of corn ethanol, and the energy requirements for refining the crude ethanol are far lower. Unfortunately, the climate in most of the U.S. is not amenable to sugarcane production.

Second, they showed a brief shot of Brazil’s highways. You know what I saw? No Hummers. No SUVs. No pickups. No large vehicles of any kind. That's one reason the average annual per capita energy consumption in Brazil is 36.3 million BTUs/person. On the other hand, the average in the U.S. is 209.7 million BTUs/person - almost 6 times as much! Are you starting to get a picture of why Brazil can do it?

I don't think Rapier has given us the final word on ethanol but Dan Rather clearly didn't do his homework. Come to think of it, the Bush Administration and most members of Congress haven't been doing their homework either.

Some critics argue that we're getting less energy out of ethanol than we're putting in to produce it from corn in the first place. If we're putting a 100 units of energy into producing ethanol from corn and we're getting 99 units of energy back, we're going backwards. We're not accomplishing a thing. Even if we put a 100 units of energy into producing ethanol and get 110 units back, it would still require a huge amount of land to make even a small dent in our total oil consumption. Americans are going to have to be very careful about what the politicians call solutions.