Eclectic Analyses From Orthogonal Viewpoints

For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. — H. L. Mencken.

Ethanol-based automotive fuels are not, and never will be, a solution to our oil dependence. Besides the simple fact that ethanol has less energy per unit volume, there’s simply no way to get enough ethanol into the system to provide meaningful relief. Attempting to make it so is a recipe for disaster.

The reasons for this difficulty come in two broad categories: Ethanol can’t come fast enough, and ethanol uses too many resources.

You see, there’s a dirty little secret the ethanol proponents don’t tell you. (Several, actually.) To really convert to an ethanol fuel system, we have a lot of pre-work to do. New engine designs, for one. We also need to refresh the infrastructure to get the product from the fomulator to your vehicle; the supply chain.

Why? Water. Ethanol plus water is BAD for engines, storage systems and pipelines. Corrosive to metal systems, for example. And a teensy bit of water in ethanol fuel robs power. Meaning bad performance.

Water makes ethanol-containing gasoline blends unstable over time; you shouldn’t store E-10 or E-85 for more than a few weeks. This includes inside your car. And how will you know how “fresh” that E85 is by the time you get it? Now you need a test kit every time you fill up with ethanol fuels.

(By the way, did you know that over 50% of the fuel available in the U.S. contains ethanol? Providers aren’t required to tell you in all instances. Just thought you ought to know.)

All these issues with handling, shipping, storing and using ethanol fuels means we’ll be a long time renewing our infrastructure to handle lots of the stuff.

Let’s look at the resource load for corn-produced ethanol as fuel. First, I’ve got to admit that the numbers in the reports I’ve read are all over the place. Some claim you burn more energy getting the product to the consumer than they’ll get out of it.

The numbers I trust can be found here. Assuming we’ve moved to at least “Industry Best” in the last decade, we get back about 2 units of energy from corn ethanol for every 1 unit of energy invested. Without getting too technical, this gives an EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) of 2, where break-even would be 1.

What’s the EROEI for petrochemical feedstock fuels? When we first found oil, it was about 100. Over time, it’s slipped to about 3 in the U.S., and about 10 in the prime OPEC states like Saudi Arabia. (Wind power is about 20 these days, but it’s hard to operate your car with a big turbine on top. Canadian natural gas is about 15 right now; they’re printing money!)

So we’re good to go here, right? We have a net gain on energy from ethanol, and oil is getting harder and harder to extract. Combine that with prices and things look really good!

Enter Mencken and his quote. We’ve left out several other important resources. Land is one; water is another.

If we are to use E85 (or similar) to end our dependence on oil, we need to convert approximately 97% of the land surface area of the United States to corn production. This is a number from the Pimentel Report, since debunked. However, he’s only off by about a factor of two, apparently. So that means we’d need about 50% of the surface area of the U.S. to power our cars. Hint: That’s more than we use today.

Pimentel argues that we’re taking food out of the mouths of the hungry when we make ethanol. This is a red herring, as very little corn goes directly to feed the poor. However, a lot of our corn goes indirectly into food, here and abroad (see previous post in this series). So playing the emotional appeal is, well, unappealing. But he’s partially correct again.

Based on some old statistics, it takes 1700 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol. At that rate it would take 2.5 times all the water available at present in the U.S. to make our ethanol from that 50% surface area we talked about.

Nutz.

But of course, the 1700 gallons is misleading, and was calculated by someone with an agenda (Dr. Pimentel, for example). What’s the right answer? Doesn’t much matter, we’re getting water-strapped all over the country these days; corn takes more water to produce than other crops, and corn is hard on the land so we can’t use the same land over and over.

If you’re really an environmentalist, consider this: Corn uses lots of fertilizer to get high yields, and these fertilizers are causing dead zones around our coastline. Growing more corn makes the problem worse over time. (It’s not just about carbon footprint.)

We’re trapped, no matter how we try to get out of this. The only conclusion is, ethanol can’t break out dependence on foreign oil. Does it has a role to play? Surely, but balancing its negative economic effects should always leave it as a bit player, no matter how hard the government tries to mandate it; more on that in a later post.

Seeya ‘Round the Ol’ Corn Watering Tank…

Powered by Zoundry Raven

Technorati : alterhantive fuel, coastal dead zones, corn, e85, eroei, ethanol fuel, fertilizer, food into fuel

Related posts:

1. The Great Ethanol Fuel Boondoggle, Part I: Introduction Table of Contents for Ethanol BoondoggleThe Great Ethanol Fuel Boondoggle,...
2. The Ethanol Fuel Boondoggle, Part II: Economic Havoc is Assured Table of Contents for Ethanol BoondoggleThe Great Ethanol Fuel Boondoggle,...
3. The Ethanol Fuel Boondoggle, Part IV: Driving Cars, Killing Fish Table of Contents for Ethanol BoondoggleThe Great Ethanol Fuel Boondoggle,...
4. We Got Plenty of Corn, and We Need the Jobs and Stuff Table of Contents for Ethanol BoondoggleThe Great Ethanol Fuel Boondoggle,...
5. Run Your Car on Corn Squeezin’s Table of Contents for Ethanol BoondoggleThe Great Ethanol Fuel Boondoggle,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS