Some Tentatively Good News on Ethanol
I've expressed some skepticism on ethanol made from corn largely because of the low energy return on energy invested (EROEI). Some of my skepticism has to do with my memories of the 1970s when numerous promises and claims were made about alternative energy and not all that much was delivered. In the 1980s, the money for research in alternative energy was cut as the price of oil dropped. My concern is that alternative energy needs a major national research and development commitment and if we start believing hype about things like ethanol from corn we could find ourselves once again missing the opportunity to take control of our future.
When 60 Minutes over-hyped ethanol and made some poor comparisons with Brazil's reasonably successful ethanol program, I wrote a post criticizing the hype and linked to an article by Robert Rapier that was critical of ethanol. Here's another article by Rapier in The Oil Drum; he suggests that in some cases ethanol may in fact be workable:
In the end, we need multiple experimental approaches to energy. That's going to take some investment from the government. But we're also going to need some honest assessments of all these methods. Various sources of energy, including the oil business, are already getting all kinds of government subsidies. There are cases of some energy companies getting subsidies on projects that require more energy invested in the project than there is energy coming back but they make a profit because of the subsidies. So, beyond projects that are clearly experiments, it doesn't make sense to subsidize anyone on a large scale who spends more energy than they get back from their production. Now we could trust the oil companies to monitor themselves (okay, stop laughing). Or we could have a small agency whose job it is to measure and make certain large scale projects are producing net energy.
One last note. If we are to take global warming seriously as an issue, we need to remember that ethanol also puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In fact, since some ethanol production methods have an EROEI of 1.0 to 1.3, that pretty much means that carbon producing fuel is being burned twice: once to make ethanol (using natural gas) and once again to fuel a car. Even if the US can get its ethanol production methods up to an EROEI of 3 to 4, we still need to think much harder about the longterm solutions.
When 60 Minutes over-hyped ethanol and made some poor comparisons with Brazil's reasonably successful ethanol program, I wrote a post criticizing the hype and linked to an article by Robert Rapier that was critical of ethanol. Here's another article by Rapier in The Oil Drum; he suggests that in some cases ethanol may in fact be workable:
I hope it is clear that my opposition to ethanol has nothing to do with the fuel itself. If we could make sufficient ethanol with little or no fossil fuel inputs, ethanol could be a very important piece of a post-petroleum future. If ethanol could be produced with an EROEI of 3 or 4, as opposed to the current 1-1.3 or so, then ethanol begins to look attractive from a sustainability standpoint.The E3 method still needs to be proven in the real world but Rapier believes the concept is sound. He points out, however, that the newer methods of ethanol conversion are still unlikely to solve our energy problems but they could at least make a dent in our fossil fuel usage and put us on the beginning of a sustainability path. But there's no pie in the sky here. I admit as I read these articles I start thinking that if they put a windmill on those two acres with poor soil, solar panels on top of the production facility, etc., we might develop a system of local answers to local energy problems. There are places in the country, for example, that have small developable pockets of natural gas that are too small to make a profit because they require pipelines and infrastructure to get the gas to a market; but what if ethanol processing plants are built within a short distance of such developed pockets?
My opposition to ethanol is due to the way we typically make it in the U.S., and is specifically focused on grain ethanol. We take fossil fuels and basically recycle them into ethanol in a very inefficient manner....
(snip)
...a couple of months ago a poster referred me to a company that is attempting to produce ethanol in a more sustainable manner. The company is E3 Biofuels. Their concept is this: Grow corn, produce ethanol, feed the byproducts to cattle, harvest the manure, produce methane from the manure in a biodigester, use the methane to fuel the boilers, and use the remaining solids to fertilize the soil. This is ethanol production in more of a Brazilian mold (i.e., byproducts are used to fuel the process).
In the end, we need multiple experimental approaches to energy. That's going to take some investment from the government. But we're also going to need some honest assessments of all these methods. Various sources of energy, including the oil business, are already getting all kinds of government subsidies. There are cases of some energy companies getting subsidies on projects that require more energy invested in the project than there is energy coming back but they make a profit because of the subsidies. So, beyond projects that are clearly experiments, it doesn't make sense to subsidize anyone on a large scale who spends more energy than they get back from their production. Now we could trust the oil companies to monitor themselves (okay, stop laughing). Or we could have a small agency whose job it is to measure and make certain large scale projects are producing net energy.
One last note. If we are to take global warming seriously as an issue, we need to remember that ethanol also puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In fact, since some ethanol production methods have an EROEI of 1.0 to 1.3, that pretty much means that carbon producing fuel is being burned twice: once to make ethanol (using natural gas) and once again to fuel a car. Even if the US can get its ethanol production methods up to an EROEI of 3 to 4, we still need to think much harder about the longterm solutions.
posted by Craig at 2:48 PM
4 Comments:
It seems to me that with your EROEI calculation, you're conflating market logic and requirements with communitarian public-policy interests.
If we were to do that with the health care crisis, we could probably "solve" the problem in about a generation. People unable to pay for needed medical care would be denied, period. That would perfectly satisfy market requirements by strictly adhering to market logic. What's more, Ayn Rand and her disciples would be proud of us.
Of course, the solution would be brutally inhumane, adopting as it would public policy that completely ignores our communitarian interest in not having a whole lot of sick, injured, suffering and dying people in our midst.
It may turn out that a replacement for relatively cheap and plentiful petroleum that meets your market-logic efficiency requirement isn't attainable. What then? Do we just pack it in?
I don't think so. I think we might have to opt for a new paradigm, one that considers affordable vehicular fuel so vital to our way of life that we have a communitarian interest in coming up with a workable next-best thing. It appears to me that could very well be ethanol.
So maybe we have to subsidize it. If society decides doing that is ultimately in everyone's best interest, which seems to me to be the case, it's doable.
I don't see the major hurdle as being technological, economic or logistical. The biggest thing likely to stand in the way is, collectively, the massive, extremely wealthy and politically powerful oil and gas lobby, including related businesses and financial interests.
The games will begin when lawmakers decide it's time to start redirecting subsidies of many kinds and contracts away from the Exxon Mobiles and Conocos, and toward the Archer Daniels Midlands and Conagras.
As for the greehouse gas problem, if it's decided the public interest requires standardizing on vehicular fuel that drastically reduces CO2, add to the vested-interest problem a daunting economic challenge. From what I understand, we can produce good hydrogen-fueled vehicles right now. The problem is that they're too expensive for the mass market.
I'm reminded of the ruminations a half-dozen years ago about what to do if we had actually run up massive surpluses and paid the national debt way, way down. Wouldn't it have been something if we'd managed to do that in time to cover Social Security and Medicare needs going forward, with a tidy sum left over to help people afford hydrogen-powered vehicles?
S.W., I think we're talking apples and oranges here.
I have no problem with subsidizing new sources of energy as long as the subsidies are actually creating new energy. It does absolutely no good to burn fifty gallons of gasoline to make forty gallons of gasoline; that's all the EROIE is about; it's a measuring stick to make sure alternative energy ideas actually work and perhaps to make sure energy companies are actually doing something useful and not just taking advantage of subsidies.
It's too complicated for this comment, but even burning fifty gallons of gasoline to make fifty-five gallons of gasoline isn't accomplishing much though it's a step in the right direction, particularly if you're just doing research. In fact, I want to see a major Manhattan-style investment in alternative energy from the government. And I hope private individuals join in as much as they're able and try their own ideas (some already are, but not nearly enough).
I don't think we want people settling on only one solution particularly if it's not proven that something (like ethanol from corn) is a solution yet.
Right now, energy companies that sell natural gas are thrilled with ethanol and that worries me. When Bush talked about using hydrogen some time back, all he was talking about was stripping it from fossil fuels; that's not a solution to diminishing fossil fuels nor will it lower costs.
As for the health care analogy, the proper comparison would be subsidies let's say to poor people who have trouble paying the high energy bills in the winter. I have no problem with that and I hope some smart people come up with subsidies for better insulation, etc., because they're going to be needed.
As for packing it in, that's exactly what people concerned about our energy future are trying to prevent. We have spent the last thirty years not doing much about alternative energy. I don't believe that we can spend the next thirty years going at the same slow pace. If ethanol is one of the answers, great, but we need other answers too.
Anyway, I hope I answered your concerns. If I didn't, let me know what I'm missing.
Craig, I'm looking beyond just the fuel-producing part of it. I think other factors warrant serious consideration — ones that up to now have been deliberately ignored.
Even if relatively inefficient in strict EROEI terms, factor in the cost of our recurring wars in the Mideast. You could buy oceans of fuel with which to produce ethanol, or whatever, for what our two Iraq wars have cost us.
Factor in the cost of our considerable noncombat military presence in the Mideast, keeping watch on the sea lanes, etc.
Factor in the political game playing that goes on, trying to keep on the right side of sheiks and dictators who run so many of the oil-producing countries.
Ethanol can be made from renewable sources, here in the U.S., employing and paying Americans. I see that as a huge plus.
We've got plenty of coal. Maybe there's a way to employ that cheaply and in a clean enough way to make large-scale ethanol production worthwhile.
One thing we're in complete agreement about is the need for a whatever-it-takes R&D project.
Right now I'm just starting Kevin Phillips' book, "American Theocracy." He starts off with a history of how leading economic and military powers lost their hegemony when their energy strong suit was superceded: the Dutch, in wind and water; the British, coal; and now, quite likely, the U.S., as petroleum must inevitably give way to something else.
Timely and fascinating stuff, albeit nerve wracking.
Craig, you've probably seen the op-ed, "The False Hope of Biofuels."
I must say the authors make a very persuasive case about ethanol being a solution whose time hasn't come and probably never will come.
We really better get busy coming up with alternatives that are workable. We're headed for a crisis that could make the so-called terror war look like a minor nuisance.
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