Ethanol article

[David]

Here's an article I just read from Turbomachinery that sheds some light on the ethanol issue:

Somebody's been smoking switchgrass
INPUT-OUTPUT ANALYSIS SHOWS THAT MORE ENERGY FROM FOSSIL FUELS IS SPENT IN PRODUCING ETHANOL THAN CAN BE EXTRACTED FROM IT
I am intrigued by the recent endorse¬ment of ethanol as a vehicle fuel, both in the recent U.S. State of the Union address, and by General Motor's pro¬motion of its E85 vehicles. I have been aware of the concept for quite some time, and like others, believe that it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it contains.
It does not take very long to realize that there are two sides to this discussion and that they have been going at each other in a variety of public and technical forums. On one side you have the corn industry companies and their associations along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, while on the other, a host of academic and research professionals.
There were a series of papers and reports in the 1999-2001 timeframe, fol¬lowed by a 2003 analysis by David Pimentel, a Cornell university professor, in which he declared ethanol produced from corn to be an "unsustainable subsi¬dized food burning."
This did not sit well with the corn industry or its advocates. No surprise here!
The industry responded with a series of critical analyses of its own, declaring that Pimentel's work was outdated, did not properly account for improvements in crop yield or process efficiencies, and included energy consumed by processes beyond the boundaries of normal analy¬ses. Their claims played to the national desire to reduce oil dependency, embrace renewable alternatives and the use of "readily available coal and natural gas." They dismiss the input-output analyses and their authors as "BTU counters."
I too am an avowed "BTU counter," and considering entering a 12-step pro¬gram to cure my own addiction.
In response, Pimentel and Tad Patzek, a Berkeley professor, revised their work in 2005, updating their original assump¬tions on agricultural yields and process efficiencies, but they did not alter their conclusions [1]. The paper is challenging to read, but conclusive in its assessment: • Ethanol production from corn grain requires 29% more fossil energy to pro¬duce than is contained in the ethanol fuel
• Ethanol production from switchgrass requires 50% more fossil energy to pro¬duce than is contained in the ethanol fuel Factoids influencing these negative outcomes:
• The fermentation process limits ethanol concentrations to 20% ethanol because the yeast cannot survive at higher con¬centrations
• Fractional distillation of this mixture yields a difficult-to-separate 96% ethanol, 4% water azeotrope
• 99.5% purity is required for blending E85, requiring further and more complex dehydration schemes involving interme¬diate compounds
• 1 liter of ethanol produces 13 liters of wastewater
• 30% of the energy input to grow corn is for natural gas-derived nitrogen fertilizer
• Corn production uses more nitrogen fer¬tilizer than any crop produced and is a major contributor to groundwater and river water pollution
• Natural gas accounts for 90% of the fer¬tilizer cost
• A reported 22% of the fertilizer capacity in the U.S. has been shut down and 50% of the nitrogen fertilizer is now imported
• Corn and soy crops cause topsoil loss that is 10 times the sustained rate
• Recovering corn stalks as it is called increases this by another factor of 10
Since natural gas is no longer consid¬ered "readily available" or affordable, the industry focus is now turning its empha¬sis toward the use of coal as its energy source and the feedstock for fertilizer, and the ethanol economics are now much more dependent on "co-products."
The theory on co-products is that we would be doing this anyway, so only the incremental costs need be included in the analysis. Ethanol is also "supported at the pump" through a variety of subsidies that mostly benefit the fuel producers, not the farmers.
We do not have a limitless supply of coal. We all talk about a 250-year supply, but this is at current consumption levels. This could easily be reduced to a 50-year supply if we implemented all the ideas
based upon the use of "inexpensive" coal.
I feel like we are running side-to-side on the Titanic! I don't think we want to turn coal into subsidized ethanol fuel. Rather than to pursue what seems to be special interests driven by the moment, we need to build fuel feedstock flexibility into our strategy. This is why the U.S. needs a real energy policy, divorced from short-term commercial interests and truly focused on long-term energy security and supply.
The various gasification and liquefac¬tion type processes (p. 8) seem to offer this ability, and at the same time, seem to be consistent with the technologies cur¬rently under development as part of the clean coal efforts.
I think we can all agree that security, energy and environment are the critical issues facing us today, but we need to be pragmatic in our analyses and conclu¬sions. The E85 seems to be driven more by special interest than science, whether derived from corn or switchgrass. CO
PS: The so-called Cape Town Convention has just become effective. This 10-year effort by the Aviation Working Group and led by archrivals Boeing and Airbus makes it easier for creditors to seize air¬planes from deadbeat carriers. I guess that legacy carriers worldwide will now feel the pressure of start-up competition on their routes (See column in p. 40, Nov./Dec.).
Reference
[1] Natural Resources Research, Vol. 14, No. 1, March 2005
Author
Peter Baldwin is an industry consultant (www.base-e.net) and former executive of Ingersoll-Rand Company's Northern Research and Engineering Corp. (NREC) subsidiary. Reach him at pete_bald-win@base-e.net.

[gaijindabe]

A lot of corporate welfare and farming lobbies at work here. Just when the stuff is proven to make no economic sense - it is marketed as an emissions lowering alternative to MBTE.

And why can't we buy it from Brazil on the cheap? So much for free trade.

[legion]

Yep. We'd be much better off not using it.

[R Wilco]

I've worked for a major chemical company for 26 years. Our main chemical produced is acetic acid. Its feedstock is butane. The process involved in making the acid is like a controlled explosion. The technology is very old and I think we are one of 2 plants in the world that use it. We can do it because we buy our butane a gas byproduct from the worlds largest inland refinery only 30 miles away from us.

Like everyone else we have a new plant in China that is supposed to come on line in a little over a year. I personally hope the Commies just take it and tell us to GTFO.

Coal is our means to produce power and steam to heat all the re-boilers, HE's etc. We use about a million gallons of water a day in our process. One of the byproducts of all that effluent which is treated in an anaerobic reactor is methane which is burned in the boilers, and we are able to use the waste water to grow some really good cattle feed grass.

Our plant is being courted by many of these new ethanol conglomerates springing up. The consensus is it costs about 50 cents to make a gallon of ethanol if coal is your power source. Of course the main byproduct is the leftover corn mash. Bonus is we are located in one of the biggest areas for feed yards, dairies, and hog farms. That stuff is pure protein and all those feed yards are clamoring for it.

So there are more benefits than many people are aware of. I hope our plant pulls the trigger before the China plant becomes an issue. That way I can work out there until I am good and ready to retire.

[red-beard]

Don't forget, when you switch to E85, your "Gas" mileage will drop by almost 39%!!!!

You need 1.623 gallons of Ethanol to go the same distance as 1 Gallon of Gasoline.