EPA wants you to blow up your car
 

Study: New E15 gas can ruin auto engines | WashingtonExaminer.com


so we can have clean air.

Come on now. That's not for cleaner air. It's because corn lobby.

EPA wants to rape you in your mouth.

Dat spark angle.

It's more about how the communist party has infilrated our gov't.

Simple fix: run e85 full time :)

E100. Drink it

Nobody is stupid enough to think ethanol is a real alternative fuel.

They are well paid to act that stupid.

THEY know this, useful idiots dont.

I like the new "fuel-saving" oils that lack anti-wear properties and viscosity.

yeah, IIRC they use those in the rx8 so it can meet emmission standards and not only do you get even worse MPGs when you use oil that actually lubercates and cools properly, you void your warrenty.

Fuckstick. E10 already destroys my boat/PWC fuel system and carb tuning. Damnit.

A couple of things immediately jump out at me, beyond the obvious fact that a lot of us have been running E85 in otherwise stock Miatas for quite some time now.


The first, of course, is that the sole source of data which the author of that article cites is a report published by the American Petroleum Institute. Given that the API represents producers of petroleum, and one effect of increasing the percentage of ethanol in gasoline would be to decrease the amount of petroleum which they can sell, I would question the objectivity of any paper published by the API concerning the matter of whether or not the government should mandate an increase in the percentage of ethanol in gasoline.


The second is essentially the same as the first, but read aloud in the voice of Mr. Spock from the later Star Trek films, when it started to get really deep and gravelly.

did you mean e10?

No, I meant E85. As in the stuff that comes out of the yellow pump, is rated for somewhere between 95-110 octane (depending on which data you believe), and has been gaining popularity among the owners of MS2 and MS3 ECUs for the past several years.

There is a fairly large body of evidence to support the conclusion that E85 fuel has a detrimental effect on certain materials commonly found in the fuel systems of carbeureted engines. Thus, it is possible that more frequent maintenance will be required of older lawnmowers and chainsaws.

Considerable research, however, exists to demonstrate that ethanol-gasoline fuel blends are not typically harmful to automobiles produced during or after the early to mid 1980s, as the natural rubber components typical of carbeureted engines are not present in high-pressure EFI systems.

Driving my car is racism. That's pretty awesome.

I've heard of these elusive yellow pumps. Ive even seen the only one available in a ~50 mile radius, however, I don't have the badge to be able to utilize it.

:bowrofl::bowrofl::bowrofl:

There is one pretty close to my house...but that's basically the only place on Earth where I can get it.

there are 3 within 5 minutes of my house, and 3 more within 5 miles from my work.

which one to use is my very real 1st world problem, that keeps me up most nights

Without passing any judgement whatsoever on the economy or efficacy at reducing pollution of the use of plant-derived ethanol as a motor vehicle fuel, my thoughts keep coming back to one simple fact:

On the subject of whether or not we should, by governmental mandate, decrease the amount of petroleum used to make pump gas, the sole source of data cited by the report in post #1 is a lobbying agency whose mandate involves fighting against climate-control legislation and promoting the use of petroleum.


I literally cannot grasp how the author of that article couldn't have at least paid his readers the courtesy of attempting to obscure the source of his data.

I'm lucky. There are quite a few E0 Gas stations around here. Most don't even cost more than the e10 crap.

I wonder how much gas would cost if the ethanol industry wasn't so heavily subsidized. I read an article not too long ago about the affects of the ethanol industry on farming. It seems that many farmers are raising less livestock and growing less crops for food in order to utilize more space for corn because it's becoming more profitable to the farmers to do so. (Thanks to the subsidies anyway) That in turn causes prices to be higher on produce and meats. Good one government. It would be an interesting day if the government stops subsidizing ethanol.

On the subject of the possibility of an e15 mandate..... I think I'll look into whale oil as an alternative. Or baby seal tears. One of the two. Government stupidity FTL

Why would they? e10 IS more expensive and worse for the environment.


I think we shoudl all start a lobby based solely on sarcasm and getting ridiculous laws passed just for the irony.

Kind of like the powered wind turbines at the UNT stadium? UNT wanted to appear "environmentally friendly" so the installed wind turbines. Then, they had to feed them electricity to get them spinning during football games because there isn't a lot of wind here in north Texas.

lol

Did they also have to apply for an incidental take permit? AKA a permit that renders them immune from prosecution for killing protected bird species that hit the turbines every year and die. Most wind turbines across the country kill a number of Bald Eagles and other protected bird species but are never prosecuted like an oil company would be for a single bird death because its clean energy.

god damnit I fucking hate the world. Some one kill me.

I'd rather live on the Derelict.

According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the global average price of a barrel of crude oil jumped from $56.64 to $99.67 between 2005 and 2008, an increase of 76%, while the global demand for oil increased by only 1% -- from 84.58 million barrels per day to 85.46MBD. Tight global supplies and supply chains had accelerated the price rise over small volume increases, as producers hit the limit of what they could produce and deliver.

During the same period, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) reports that domestic ethanol production increased 130% (from 3.9 billion gallons per year to 9.0 billion gallons per year) reaching 373,600 barrels of oil per day on an equivalent Btu basis in 2008.

Significantly, this increase in biofuel production was the dominant contributor to U.S. imports of foreign oil falling over that same period, during a period of robust economic growth and falling U.S. oil production. Certainly, anyone concerned about domestic energy security would find that statistic encouraging.

Economically speaking, without ethanol production, the U.S. would have required an additional 1.3% of its total oil consumed, predominantly from abroad, or 0.34% of the global oil supply. Considering a price increase of $43/bbl from the previous 1% rise in world demand, simple but conservative extrapolation suggests that the additional one-third of a percent of the supply that biofuels supplanted would have increased global oil prices by an additional $15/bbl. This equates to a nearly $120 billion of annual savings for American oil consumers, based on a total of 8 billion barrels consumed annually. And this is to say nothing about the jobs that biofuels created, the tax revenue generated, and biofuels' contribution to national GDP as opposed to.

In light of the diminishing supplies of inexpensively accessible oil, it seems likely that biofuels' role in directly replacing petroleum and softening the impact of diminishing crude supplies will become paramount in the coming years, especially as 2.5 billion people in "Chindia" continue to undergo their industrial revolutions, 6 billion people on the planet catch up to the personal mobility mass consumer lifestyles that 1 billion of us take for granted, and we approach the peak of easily accessible conventional oil supplies.

The forthcoming oil shocks will be partially mitigated by higher ethanol supplies -- and for that, we have reason to thank the corn ethanol industry. Yet, the economist in me cannot help but wonder about the opportunity costs that we have incurred over the last several decades. Specifically, by not investing the tens of billions of dollars necessary to scale up second- and third-generation biofuels that could displace 100% of our petroleum consumption with non-food based feedstocks, rather than the investments that were made in first-generation biofuels that have led us to be subservient to an Agricultural Industrial Complex that dictates our national biofuels policy.

I think that because of all the oil we're draining out of the earth, the earth is gonna get lighter and get slung out of orbit like a rock out of a slingshot. yeah.

A lot of seemingly scientific arguments exist to oppose the use of ethanol as fuel. One of the most common is that "it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy which can be extracted from it."

This, of course is true. But it is not a complete answer.

In order to make a reasonable analysis, it's necessary to do two things. The first is to compare the energy lifecycle of ethanol with its alternative (gasoline), and the second is to analyze the sources of that energy.

This chart shows the total amount of energy in BTU required to produce 1 BTU worth of fuel. Green represents the BTU which actually winds up in the fuel, yellow represents the BTU used in the production of the fuel. The last column, "Cell. EToH" represents "cellulistic ethanol", which is fuel made from corn stover, rice and wheat straw, and other products which are either "leftovers" from unrelated agricultural production or crops such as sawgrass which grow naturally in abundance and require no cultivation or fertilization.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1359909095

Pretty bleak, huh? Gasoline requires only about 20% more energy to produce than its yield, as compared to ethanol's nearly 120% overhead.

But there's a catch- quite a lot of that overhead comes to us for free, in the form of Mr. Sun! Yes, most of the analysis which you read that reach the aforementioned conclusion are taking into account the solar energy that went into growing the plant in the first place, relying on the assumption that the reader will not be smart enough to ask the obvious question. So what happens when we strip that off and focus on just the amount of fossil-fuel-derived energy consumed?

We get this:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1359909095

Things are looking quite a bit better now. The amount of fossil energy required to produce one BTU of corn-based ethanol is noticeably less than the potential energy content of the fuel, and for cellulistic ethanol, it's almost disappearing off the scale (remember, it's a waste product- no specific cultivation required.) By comparison, gasoline's total energy picture hasn't budged.


But what happens when you dig even deeper, and start separating out the different kinds of fossil-fuel energy? After all, some fossil fuels (like petroleum) are constantly growing more expensive and more scare in the global market, while others, such as coal and natural gas, are fairly cheap domestic products.

Specifically, let's look at just the energy input which is derived from petroleum:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1359909095

WTF?

Well, as it turns out, a lot of the energy that goes into producing ethanol comes in the form of electricity. And where do we get most of our electricity from in the US? (Hint: not petroleum.) Wanna know how to reduce that number all the way to zero? Build nukes. (And also plugin electric farm tractors. But that's a fairly trivial argument.).

Joe for President.

what about the fact you cant pipeline ethanol and all the additional costs associated with the transportation of ethanol (diesel)? also the decreased output the e10 produces so the increased need to fill up your tank?

For the same reason that you can't pour gravy on top of mashed potatoes.

Which is to say that you can. In Brazil, where ethanol has been a common automotive fuel for years, several pipelines exist. Here's a report on a current proposal to build a 1,800 mile ethanol pipeline in the US, linking the major ethanol distillation plants of the mid-west to the fuel-hungry New England states:

Building the world's longest ethanol pipeline - Mar. 12, 2010

If you meant that Ethanol cannot be transported in the same pipelines presently used to convey petroleum, that of course is partially true. There'd be some rework required, and the industry would also have to adopt the practice of inserting pigs* into the line to separate ethanol from non-ethanol products, whereas current practice is just to shove one product in after another (gasoline directly after diesel, for instance), with the small percentage of commingled product on the far end being used for non-critical applications, such as a dilutant for heating oil.

Milk and sexual lubricant also cannot be transported through existing petroleum pipelines, and yet those commodities do not seem to face hysterical opposition.


* = a "pig" is a torpedo-like device which can be propelled through a pipeline by the pressure of the product surrounding it. They are used for maintenance and inspection of the lines, and in more modern pipelines, are also used to prevent co-mingling of product. Read more about the technology here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging

The same burdened costs existed for gasoline, kerosene, etc., prior to the implementation of dedicated petroleum pipelines. Since the proposed ethanol pipeline makes it all the way to the Atlantic ports, it will also allow for refined ethanol to be transported by ship to the southeastern Atlantic and Gulf ports.

Out here on the west coast, we'll have to continue to be content with rail transport for the time being.


Uhm, I guess you'll just have to fill up your tank more frequently. I know it's a major sacrifice to have to pull into a gas station and waste 10 to 15 minutes of your life an extra couple of times per month, but you're strong- I know you can do it. :brain:

my new cars has a MPG average gauge. my wife hates it; I obsess.

Joe, if we removed your posts from this thread there would be a deficit of intelligent information remaining. Which is to say that a person would know less after reading it than before.

To the rest of you screaming tree monkeys, protesting energy and environmental consciousness is like protesting good hygiene. You're more than entitled to protest any specific method of promoting those things, like laws that are stupid, but protesting the things themselves just makes you look stupid.

This is exactly the point. Is that not what people are questioning? Cost-benefit. Unintended consequences. Etc., etc.

As for Joe's posts, one wonders the source of the data. There are, after all, lies, damn lies and statistics. Joe rightfully points to the source of OP's data as being suspect, but I wonder how much better Joe's data is? What were the calculation methods, what were the assumptions.

I really don't believe anything anymore. My main environmental problem right now is that my brand new longblock is leaking oil and causing an environmental catastrophe on my garage floor.

That's a fair critique. I've been far less fastidious than usual about citing sources, largely because I have been making a concerted attempt to formulate my own arguments, rather than copy-pasting the viewpoints of others (goes back to prior discussions with JasonC involving economic policy and central banking.)

The graphs which I used earlier were taken from a paper entitled "The complete energy lifecycle" written by Dr. Michael Wang of the Argonne National Laboratory, and published by the US Dept. of Energy. Some supporting data was taken from the paper "Overview of biomass pretreatment for cellulosic ethanol production, published in the International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, as well as from an article entitled "Intoxicated on Independence: Is Domestically Produced Ethanol Worth the Cost?" published by Scientific American.



I did cite my sources in the first half of the most recent post, with the exception of the commentary on milk and sexual lubricant. I found no data which specifically disproved that these materials could be transported by pipeline, however they were not among many articles which I read on pipelining as a whole, which discussed pipeline transportation of water, petrochemicals, ammonia, beer, and a few other common products. Given the incidental nature of the comment, and the extreme improbability that milk and butt-lube would be compatible with a petroleum-optimized pipeline, I assume that we can handwave over that.

The second half, beginning with "The same burdened costs existed for gasoline..." is fairly common historical knowledge. I'm sure I can dig up some citations if you don't believe me.

The third half, where I posit that the reduced energy density of ethanol would cause Scott to "waste 10 to 15 minutes of your life an extra couple of times per month" is not supported by published data. This is purely conjecture on my part, based upon my own experiences vis-a-vis the putting of gasoline into cars.

So, moving on.

We have seen that the use of ethanol as compared to gasoline requires less fossil-fuel energy input per unit of deliverable energy across the entire lifecycle. At present, the savings is approximately 60% (0.74 fossil BTU per 1 deliverable BTU, vs. 1.23 fossil BTU per 1 deliverable BTU.)

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1359950220

(source)


Furthermore, these figures assume 100% corn feedstock, using present-day refining and transportation technology. Looking back at 60 years of historical data, the productivity of corn farmers has grown dramatically. In 1950, average corn yields were roughly 38 bushels per acre, while today, an average corn yield is slightly over 150 bushels per acre. And more importantly, this has followed an almost rock-steady trendline which would support the conclusion that productivity will continue to grow in the future.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1359950720

(source)

And improved crop yields aren't the only benny in the equation- ethanol refiners and seed companies have also been doing their part. Improvements in distillation efficiency and the development of high-starch hybrid seeds have yielded a 20% improvement in ethanol conversion (gallons per bushel) just in the past eight years, above and beyond improvement in crop yield.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...3&d=1359953072

(source)

Add to this the fact that pipelining will decrease our reliance upon diesel fuel for transportation of ethanol, and that much of the fossil energy input into the distillation process (typically coal) is already being replaced with NatGas for power generation (and will, in the future, be further supplemented with fossil-free generation) and the efficiency advantage of ethanol will only continue to grow.



But what about its impact on food prices?


Well, for starters, only about 1% of US corn production is suitable for direct human consumption, and an additional 5% of corn production is used for the production of food additives, sweeteners, etc. The rate of corn consumption in the US has remained flat for decades. Furthermore, the price of raw foodstocks represents only about 15-20% of the retail price of food. The corn in your box of corn flakes costs about a nickel. Labor accounts for close to 40% of the cost of food, with an additional 20-25% going into packaging, transportation, energy, profit, etc. Energy prices have roughly twice the impact on food costs than fluctuations in the price of the actual raw materials of food do.

What about the remaining 94% of corn production? That is used for things like making animal feed. And here's the kicker- you can still use the corn for animal feed after you've made ethanol from it. In fact, this practice has been around for at least a century. When corn is used for the production of alcoholic beverages, only the starch portion of the kernel is consumed. The remaining grain is rich in protein and fat, and is sold to livestock farmers as a product called "distiller's grain." Since the production of ethanol as fuel is essentially identical to that of ethanol for whiskey, the "spent" grain from the process is still useful as a feed stock.

All in all, the impact of ethanol production on food supply and food price is almost negligible- the two uses are not contradictory.

(source and source and source and source)




So, is it bad for the environment?

Not according to any definition of the word that I'm familiar with.

Right off the bat, FFV vehicles achieve a 22% overall reduction in greenhouse gasses when run on E85 from DM corn feedstock, and a 64% reduction when looking at cellulosic ethanol.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1359952012

Moreover, particulate-matter emissions (a leading direct cause of respiratory ailment and death in humans) decrease by 50%.

Furthermore, in 2011, ethanol use reduced reduced CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions by 25.3 million metric tons. That's equal to the emissions of 4 million cars- equivalent to getting rid of nearly every single vehicle in the entire state of Alabama. And mind you, this is real data, based mostly on E10. Going to E85, you can easily extrapolate the data upwards to see what a truly radical shift this is.

(source and source and source)




Ethanol is a scam: It's subsidized by the government.

Well, it WAS subsidized by the government.

The federal tax credit for ethanol intended for gasoline blending, first instituted in 1978 and equal to 51 cents per gallon as of 2007 (most recent data I have) expired two years ago and will not be renewed. Put simply, it isn't necessary anymore now that the ethanol industry is up on its feet. And the Fed spends far more subsidizing oil producers today than it ever did on ethanol.

(source and source)

Dang, joe has taught me so much.

But he left out one thing, ethanol plants STINK!! Horrid horrid smell.
And i live right next to one of the biggest midwest oil refinerys that hardly smells at all.

Im not convinced whatsoever.

I dont even need fancy charts that point out a comparison that's unimportant [honestly, are you kidding me with this btu cost crap?], I need this simple paragraph:

http://www.oregon.gov/energy/RENEW/B...ages/Cost.aspx

Of course, you are right, that's the debate. At least on the surface. But then, after Joe provides a short dissertation complete with references and clear explanations using small enough words that any of us can understand, I read this:

Scott, I love you. I'd give you my only roll of toilet paper if you asked for it, but you're embarrassing all of us. This is not debating a stupid law, this is actively, stubbornly clinging to ignorance.

You don't have to believe everything Joe writes, just consider the possibility that there might be some truth in there, then we can move forward.

sure, but i dont care.





guess what else? next year super bowl 33 will be the most watched show in history.

which is offset by the increase in GHG emissions caused during production:

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sl...ol%20chart.bmp

source: Fuel-Specific Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Results


Joe P for president.



oh a fancy chart:

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sl...ol%20chart.bmp

You're quite correct, and I assume this to be fairly common knowledge. In past threads, I have ranted about the need to mentally adjust posted per-gallon fuel prices at gas stations when comparing E10 to E85, based on the energy-density disparity between the two fuels. For FFV engines, the real-world mileage derating, both from academic journals and as reported by actual FFV owners, typically falls within a range of 20-30%. For engines optimized specifically for E85 or E100 (typically higher-compression, direct-injection turbocharged engines), the disparity is slightly lower.

(source and source and source and source and source and source)

That having been said, in the past several posts which I have made, I've been careful to cite only those comparisons made on a BTU-equivalent or mileage-equivalent basis. For such datasets, no density-correction factor need be applied. If one is looking directly at fossil BTU input per deliverable BTU output it is truly an apples-to-apples comparison. So, like the cat pushing the watermelon, your argument is invalid.



What is unavoidable is that the market price of certain commodities tends to be highly volatile, both in the positive and negative directions.

Here is the spot price of corn, in inflation-adjusted dollars per bushel, from 1950 to the present day:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1359999814

(Data source)


And here is the spot price of crude oil, along the same timescale and also inflation-adjusted:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1359999814

(Data source)


As a matter of long-term averages, the historical trend for the price of corn has been generally downwards, while the historical trend for the price of crude oil has been general upwards. It is reasonable to assume that the price of crude oil will continue to increase as a factor both of increased global demand from developing markets as well as the rising cost of extraction due to regulatory changes and the depletion of "easily accessible" oil stocks which has begun to shift oil exploration towards more complex operations (eg: shale oil, hydro-fracking, etc).


TL; DR:

So, in the short-term, we should continue to expect that the consumer retail cost of ethanol vs gasoline will continue to shift back and forth across a certain price continuum, especially now that subsidies on the production of ethanol as a motor fuel have expired, while subsidies on the production of oil remain intact.

Thus, if one is to consider only the short-term, direct economic consequences to the consumer, a clear winner does not exist in the question of E100 vs. E85 vs. gasoline.

If one adopts a broader perspective, and considers the environmental, ecological, human-health, political, and macro-economic consequences of a transportation technology based principally on renewable and domestically-produced fuel as compared to a non-renewable and largely imported fuel, then the arguments against ethanol as a motor fuel seem oddly... non-sustainable.

Don't believe me? Ask a Brazilian- they've been doing this since the 80s.

Ethanol Production in Brazil: Bridging its Economic and Environmental Aspects
The economics of ethanol production in Brazil: A path dependence approach
Ethanol nation: Brazil finds energy freedom with sugar-based fuel

still too much to read !!!!

I'll have to look in to this report in more depth, and compare 2005 - 2008 with 2008 - 2012. Not that it would necessarily detract from the point of corn ethanol reducing crude oil imports, but I think there is more nuance here. I am better versed in the post-global financial crisis US energy scene than the pre.


I might argue with the assertion in the above paragraph, because it seems like an "A/B" choice between crude oil and biofuels, leaving out a number of other options, namely natural gas. If the technology pioneered in the USA with nat gas fracking is able to pass the scrutiny hurdles of China, Australia and Europe, you may find a reduction in global demand for crude oil.

I think biofuels, including "gen2 biofuels" will be a part of an "all of the above" reduction in crude oil. I would question whether there role will be "paramount."

Don't you know "investment" is a euphemism the Obama administration constructed to make "government spending on crony corporations" more palatable?!

Fun trivia fact: Who is the US's largest consumer of next generation biofuels?

An excellent point, but I think it's always dangerous to assume a trend continues unabated, especially over a longer time period. That does not necessarily refute your main points, but it's worth saying.

After all, even if corn crop efficiency did not improve but levelled off, that doesn't mean biofuels more generically can't continue to ramp up as new technologies mature.

Great posts; thanks for taking the time to research and synthesize some of the info.

I am not sure that the bolded section is a good interpretation of the data. The huge spikes in the 1970s were results of political manipulation from the OAPEC Arab oil cartel in 1973 and then the US and Iran in 1979.

I would argue that, unless you are modelling consistent Middle East political turmoil that directly influences US crude oil imports (maybe not unreasonable), interpreting that chart to say the long-term trend for inflation-adjusted oil prices is upward is incorrect.

The problems with Ethanol that I have heard in the past is that we can't grow enough corn to completely replace gas not because of land or yield problems, but because we don't have enough water to grow that much corn. Productivity will of course continue to grow, but does it scale?

breadlines.

The chart which I included in my last post included crude oil up to 2011. The 2012 data is not yet fully compiled, but I do have part-year data available.

Overall, crude pricing across the 2005-2012 followed the trend which you would expect. A sharp downturn following decreases in business activity and consumption, followed by a steady uptick as production adjusted downwards to meet demand along with a partial recovery in demand towards pre-recession levels. Here is the raw data for that timeframe, again, adjusted for present-day dollars:
Since demand for oil in eastern nations (especially China and India) continues to increase in pace with their double-digit economic growth, it seems probable that the price of oil will resume its gradual upward climb.

It is tempting to make comparisons to the oil shock (and subsequent recovery) of the late 70s and early 80s, however it's important to bear in mind that during this period, the "urbanification" of markets in China and the other eastern nations, and the subsequent rise in worker income and car ownership (including Russia) had not yet really taken off. Consequently, demand for oil more closely mirrored the trends of the 1950s and 60s during that time period, in which North America and Europe were really the only players of any consequence.





It is certainly not my intention to make binary assumptions, or to encourage anyone else to do the same. I have often argued that nearly ever major economic, political and environmental decision has consequences which fall along a broad continuum. It is absolutely essential for a reasoned discussion that one specifically avoid the presupposition that all decisions and policies must be of the "either / or" variety.

In the specific context of our present discussion, I have made comparisons between gasoline, E10 and E85. In particular, the inclusion of E10 was meant to demonstrate that even in a very simplistic equation, the participation of ethanol in the transportation fuel landscape has been, and will continue to be, a matter of incremental progress.

On the subject of CNG, I have specifically made the exact argument which you are now putting forth. Specifically, reference These Three Posts, in which I specifically discuss the viability of CNG as an alternative to (or complement for) gasoline / E10 as a motor vehicle fuel, citing its domestic sourcing, health and environmental benefits, ease and low-cost of adoption / conversion, and already existent distribution infrastructure.



I can comment only by observing the distinction between "will be" and "can be."

It is entirely possible that both industry and the consumer will continue to reject the adoption of fuels other than gasoline on a large scale until some cataclysmic event or paradigm shift forces such change to occur. While I don't mean to sound alarmist (and please don't take this as a literal comparison), the underlying scenarios described in such works of fiction as "Red Storm Rising" and "Mad Max" are predicated upon plausible, if massively exaggerated, extrapolation of trends which existed in the 1980s and continue to exist today.

If the entire Chinese economy were to collapse, and lithium battery technology were simultaneously to improve by an energy-density factor of two or more, then I expect that a combination of low oil prices and enhanced consumer-perspective viability of range-extended hybrid vehicles would mean that the near-term adoption of fuels other than gasoline would be almost immediately halted.

By comparison, if recent historical trends (economic, political and technological) continue to hold true, then I foresee that the adoption of biofuels (principally dominated by ethanol) as a fossil-fuel alternative will continue to expand along a similar trajectory to what we have seen over the past two decades, most probably increasing in speed as the cost & yield factors of biofuel production improve and the price of petroleum continues to increase.



Yes. And whether (and to what degree) said "investment" yields direct benefits to the consumer is so complex a debate that I'm not even sure how I'd go about researching it. Certainly, this subject falls outside of a discussion of the technical merits of one fuel vs. another.




I honestly don't know. The UK leads the world in importation of biofuel as a percentage of total fuel importation, but their small size probably makes this irrelevant. I would assume that China and Russia are large consumers of biofuel, however I'm having a difficult time finding an absolute answer to the specific question of whether or not the majority of US-generated biofuel is exported, and if so, who the largest consumer is.

While attempting to research that question, I did run across one interesting article from Reuters concerning the future of second-gen biofuels, and particularly cellulosic ethanol. It is, admittedly, forward-looking in nature (think SEC disclosure), however it cites reputable sources.

In particular:
(source)

Incidentally, take note of the last paragraph which quotes the NYMEX wholesale price of gasoline. So far as I can tell, this data is both accurate and current, and stands in contrast to the uncited price of 90 cents per gallon which Brainey quoted in an earlier post. Specifically, if you look Here, you can pull up current, projected, and historical wholesale gasoline pricing from the California Energy Commission. I admit that gasoline pricing in CA is generally higher than in the rest of the US, but at present, this differential is closer to 10-20%, and not the 300-400% that would be necessary to justify a 90¢ spot price.



Absolutely, it is impossible to predict the future. If it were, there'd be no need for securities and commodities markets.

At best, we can take a combined view of historical data and reasonable predictions of emerging technologies, and attempt to create a projection of future performance.

This is absolutely correct. There is not enough irrigated cropland in the US to completely displace all gasoline consumption, even given the most optimistic estimates of improvements in crop yield and conversion efficiency.

Corn-based ethanol is a transitional technology, based upon present-day feedstock availability and installed conversion capacity. This is why I have cited cellulosic ethanol (part of the "second-gen" technology which Scrappy Jack referred to earlier) in most of my comparisons.

One of the reasons for the significantly improved environmental and economic deltas in cellulosic ethanol production as compared to gasoline and corn-derived ethanol is that it consumes feedstocks which require little to no cultivation or irrigation. In other words, it consumes feedstock materials which occur naturally in large quantities, such as sawgrass and pine wood, in addition to the natural fiberous by-products which are commonly discarded from the production of nearly every grain-type agricultural harvest in the US- not just corn, but also wheat, rye, barley, rice, and so on.

In other words, the production of ethanol from cellulosic (fiberous) feedstock is much more easily scalable than reliance upon corn-based feedstock. It is for this reason that the vast majority of distillation capacity either currently under construction or planned for the immediate future, is of this latter variety, in contrast to the relatively old-tech plants currently in existence which are reliant upon a single crop.

That being said, there is no need for cellulosic ethanol production to radically displace corn-based production. It will evolve alongside it, and as the technology matures and the economies of scale dictate, corn-based facilities will slowly be converted over to consume cellulosic feedstock.

Thanks Joe, that makes perfect sense.

I was surprised that people were still investing heavily in an alternative fuel which literally could not replace gas, but if you can make ethanol from sawgrass and such, then that is obviously less of a problem. It even made me angry that people were still putting money into a dead-end technology. Thanks for clearing that up, you are insightful as always.

Sorry; I meant the details of oil pricing versus oil demand and supply growth, along with the pricing and demand and supply growth of alternatives - including biofuels but also natgas, coal, solar, etc.

That was really more my point: that discrete intermediate trends (1973 OAPEC embargo, 1979 oil crisis, 2008-2009 global financial crisis) should not be confused as one longer-term trend. I think you can make a more compelling case for an upwardly biased intermediate trend over the past several years.

I think we are on the same page, but wanted to spell it out for others that are not as invested research-wise on the topic.


Don't quote me on this until I can cite a source as I may be confusing the most aggressive growth in demand vs largest current consumption, but I am pretty confident it is the Pentagon.

There is obviously going to be capital cost involved in the conversion of existing plants from corn to fiber feedstocks. These will, of course, be relatively small as compared to the initial capital cost of constructing a new plant, and will furthermore be able to benefit from whatever existing supply lines (be it rail or pipeline) are in place between the point of distillation and either the point of consumption or of a major shipping port or terminal.

One benefit of moving to cellulosic production is that it enables distillation plants to be economically constructed in areas which are densely populated but remote from regions in which corn crops are grown. The southeastern US, for instance, is rich in naturally-occuring and easily replenished fiberous feedstocks, and is advantageously located from the point of view of oceanic shipping ports. Likewise, the northwestern US is rich in easily-replenished pine forest, which will benefit consumers in the western US, including regions such as southern California which stand to benefit greatly not just from the lower economic cost of such fuels, but also the significant health and environmental advantages.


Of course, even if no such conversion were to occur, the capital investments which have already been made in corn-based ethanol production are not lost. While these facilities would to be less efficient than newer cellulosic-input refineries, they would continue to enjoy the same reduced-fossil-input advantages over traditional fuels that they do today. And since present-day US corn production is sufficient to feed these refineries at a large capacity, and global demand for corn is not likely to grow at a rate faster than corn-production capacity, they can continue to operate at (or perhaps even above) their present-day capacity indefinitely, or at least for so long as is required for cellulosic production to grow to meet 100% of demand.

Right, it's just without the cellulosic production, I would have called the capital investments made into ethanol a waste, because they could have been spent on something that actually has a chance to replace gas/diesel, like Hydrogen fuel cell or other types of biodiesel which could be produced in enough quantity. Not having known about cellulosic ethanol production, I assumed it was the corn lobby which was the cause of what I assumed was some very short-sighted thinking.

Well, again- nothing is entirely black and white.

I don't think you can exclude "the corn lobby" (or similar) as part of the reason that we have the beginnings of an ethanol infrastructure today. It's important to keep in mind that cellulosic ethanol production is in its infancy, just moving out of the laboratory and small-scale test plants into large production. Even just ten years ago, the capability to perform this sort of refining at an industrial scale simply did not exist. So even if ethanol production in the US did start out as the result of pork-barrel lobbying, I consider that to be just a stepping stone which helped jump-start the technology into what has become an efficient, self-sustaining industry

Nor do I consider ethanol to be exclusive of biodiesel, or vise-versa. The two fuel technologies service entirely different target markets, and can easily co-exist as two elements in a sustainable fuel infrastructure.



I do take issue with the specific citation of "hydrogen fuel cells" as something which have a viable chance of replacing gas/diesel in any useful capacity. Hydrogen is the biggest greenwashing scam in the whole industry.



The problem isn't the fuel cells themselves. Right now they suck, but that's a simple technological issue which can be solved by materials science. The problem is actually the hydrogen itself.


Where is it supposed to come from?


A lot of people seem to assume that hydrogen is a magical substance which is perfectly clean and freely available. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The production of hydrogen at an industrial scale is a dirty business. Even though hydrogen is all around us, it is non-existant in nature in its elemental form. In order to obtain pure hydrogen, you need to extract it from some other material to which it is bound. And there are only two ways to do this which are economical at a large scale.

The first, and by far the most common method, is called steam reformation. This sounds innocent enough, but what it means is that hydrogen is stripped out of some fossil fuel- mostly NatGas, and to a much lesser degree, coal. Not only is this process energy-intensive, but it relies upon fossil fuel as the primary feedstock! From the standpoint of energy output vs. fossil energy input, reformed hydrogen is worse than just burning the fossil-fuel directly in the engine. It generates huge amounts of CO2 as a by-product, and is hugely inefficient. And yet 95% of US hydrogen production comes from this method.

The second method, and the one that most of us learn about in junior high school chemistry, is Electrolysis. Put simply, you run an electrical current through water, and it disassociates into hydrogen and oxygen. Now, this method has the advantages of not directly consuming fossil fuels, and not generating CO2 as a byproduct. There's only one small problem: it consumes massive amounts of electricity. Optimistically, you might expect to get a 50% return on input, and that's just the potential energy output of the process. The theoretical maximum efficiency of a fuel cell is around 65%, and given present-day technology, we're around half that. So from end to end, the process is hideously wasteful.

Now, we certainly have the capability to generate electricity without consuming fossil-fuel or generating atmospheric emissions, but at present we're not doing a whole lot of this. It's not even worth talking about "green" electrolysis until we've first eliminated fossil fuels from the traditional electrical grid, and even then we'd be better off using the electricity to charge batteries than to inefficiently generate hydrogen to be inefficiently consumed.


There are other methods of hydrogen production available. Catalytic thermolysis, algae bioreactors, biomass gasification, etc. At present, none of these are anything more than a laboratory experiment, and none of them can, by definition, ever deliver a "well to wheel" efficiency which exceeds either internal combustion of cellulosic ethanol, or renewable generation of electricity for EV charging, or any of a number of other of methods which are actually possible (and economically viable) given present-day technology.


(deep breath.)

Long story short: It is theoretically possible that in the future, we may have the infrastructure to generate and consume hydrogen in a manner that isn't worse than burning gasoline directly. But the probability that it will ever exceed the efficiency of any of a number of rival technologies (within our lifetime, anyway) is quite small.

The Shell station near me has E10 and I used it. When will my truck die?