Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2642 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:37 pm Post subject: Rethinking Ethanol
Rethinking Ethanol
Quote:
The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill.
This does not mean that Congress should give up on biofuels as an important part of the effort to reduce the country’s dependency on imported oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What it does mean is that some biofuels are (or are likely to be) better than others, and that Congress should realign its tax and subsidy programs to encourage the good ones.
Congress’s guiding principle should be to tie federal help to environmental performance. The goal is not just to stop the headlong rush to corn ethanol but to use the system to bring to commercial scale promising second-generation biofuels — cellulosic ethanol derived from crop wastes, wood wastes, perennial grasses. These could provide environmental benefits and reduce dependence on oil without displacing food production.
Though Congress is unlikely to undo the mandate, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency can. Unfortunately, President Bush is an ardent corn ethanol supporter, and Stephen Johnson, the E.P.A. administrator, is nothing if not a Bush loyalist.
Without reform, rising food prices and increasing damage to the climate could provoke a reaction that could be the undoing of the entire biofuels industry. That would not be helpful to the industry or the planet.
nytimes _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2642 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:58 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Does Every Alternate Energy Source Make Good Sense?
Quote:
The subsidies that oil receives from U.S. taxpayers pale in comparison. As recently deceased energy industry analyst Milton Copulos concluded several years ago, "the price for a gallon of gasoline a consumer pays at the pump is in fact only a fraction of the real cost of the fuel. It does not reflect the enormous burden of external costs that arise from the military, economic, environmental and health outlays directly resulting from our dependence on foreign oil." In 2006 when a barrel of crude was selling for $60 a barrel, Mr. Copulos calculated that the "real cost" for a gallon of gasoline was $10.
Today, ethanol is displacing large volumes of oil. The Energy Information Administration's most recent short-term outlook credited ethanol with cutting gasoline usage by 330,000 barrels a day. Further, Merrill Lynch analyst Francisco Blanch commented in your own paper that without ethanol in the market, gasoline and oil prices would be 15% higher than they are.
Bob Dinneen
President and CEO
Renewable Fuels Association
Washington
WSJ _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 12:20 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
You've been pumping this piss while I've been dumping on this crap for as long as we've both been here. This is precisely why I've earned the coveted Expert' demarcation.
I have an almost prescient predilection for prediction. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2642 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 1:44 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Yes, you're an expert on ad hominen attacks toward anyone who disagrees with you including the President of the Renewable Fuels Assocation. Unless you can come up with a reasoned argument against what is published in the above reputable sites, then your status as "expert" is meaningless. _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Last edited by Graeme on Sun May 11, 2008 2:26 am; edited 2 times in total
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 2:16 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Graeme wrote:
Yes, your an expert on ad hominen attacks toward anyone who disagrees with you including the President of the Renewable Fuels Assocation. Unless you can come up with a reasoned argument against what is published in the above reputable sites, then your status as "expert" is meaningless.
And the consensus of "experts" have been forecasting crude oil prices on nymex to plunge. If only a company could sell enough contracts on nymex to push prices down, but nobody has even with these high prices. Offshore drilling structures takes months/YEARS to be made.
All of the solars panels on Earth is equivalent to 1 and a half coal power plants of power + it takes a lot of energy to produce one. A new coal power plant is complete in China every week.
Oil sands is picking up slack however the price is much higher than $15 a barrel and EROEI is going lower over time. Only the oil sands concentrated with the most oil is being mined first, just as EXXON tried but failed to mine the richest oil shale first.
Corn was picked because it was the cheapest crop, nobody even thought of going to Algae. Ethanol's getting subsidized by $1.45 per gallon. I own a truck and I'm getting hammered here. Next car is an uncool prius
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:57 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
pstarr wrote:
You've been pumping this piss while I've been dumping on this crap for as long as we've both been here. This is precisely why I've earned the coveted Expert' demarcation.
I have an almost prescient predilection for prediction.
It appears that just about every other topic in the Current Energy News forum is a techno-fantasy spam topic by Graeme with absolutely no arguments to back what he is posting. Notice how he just conveniently ignores any posted responses to his topics, then starts another techno-fantasy topic with the same far out crap.. over and over and over. This is called trolling. Looks like he has been given the green light to continue spamming tons of this crap. Oh well.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3655 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 8:26 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
As has so often been pointed out Corn ethanol is a sad sad joke on the taxpayer. The top five ethanol producing crops, Sugar Cane, Sugar Beets, Jeruselem artichoke, Sweet Potato and white Potato all produce multiples of ethanol over corn per acre, and many of them require minimal inputs compared to corn. But corn has a big lobby budget and they do not.
It is pathetic. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 10:38 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Graeme wrote:
Yes, you're an expert on ad hominen attacks toward anyone who disagrees with you including the President of the Renewable Fuels Assocation. Unless you can come up with a reasoned argument against what is published in the above reputable sites, then your status as "expert" is meaningless.
you have to be kidding me? Go back to the Mother of Biofuels Debate thread and see that I have made reasoned, impassioned, hilarious, and constantly correct denunciations of this ongoing boondoggle. I have destroyed the biofool myth from every possible angle--eroei, ecologic, economic, social, and political.
It was and always be a joke. It is beyond me how you can 'rethink' ethanol when no thought ever went into its production in the first place. All the arable land in the United States would only supply us with 19% of our gasoline Then no more corn chips, beef tacos, lemonade, Marie Callender pot pies. No more corn chips, soda, hamburgers, Rice Krispies, no more organic food, no more vitamins, no more natural food, no more food period. No more people period. All for 1/5 of our gasoline needs.
It has always been about eroei and scale. How could this be anything more than an insane joke? _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 3:54 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
pstarr wrote:
...
I have an almost prescient predilection for prediction.
I predict that Graeme will make another post....I honestly don't know where he gets his energy from. (no pun intended)
To: Graeme
Why don't you pick 1 topic and explain in detail the logic of why you think it will work. I think people will respect you more if you did that rather than spam this board with 10 new topics every week.
Take for example The_Toecutter and his position on EV cars. I disagree with the man but I respect him. It is NOT true that people on this board automatically "brush people off" simply b/c they disagree.
Joined: Dec 18, 2004 Posts: 4438 Location: One Mile From the Columbia River
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:18 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
pstarr wrote:
Graeme wrote:
Yes, you're an expert on ad hominen attacks toward anyone who disagrees with you including the President of the Renewable Fuels Assocation. Unless you can come up with a reasoned argument against what is published in the above reputable sites, then your status as "expert" is meaningless.
you have to be kidding me? Go back to the Mother of Biofuels Debate thread and see that I have made reasoned, impassioned, hilarious, and constantly correct denunciations of this ongoing boondoggle. I have destroyed the biofool myth from every possible angle--eroei, ecologic, economic, social, and political.
It was and always be a joke. It is beyond me how you can 'rethink' ethanol when no thought ever went into its production in the first place. All the arable land in the United States would only supply us with 19% of our gasoline Then no more corn chips, beef tacos, lemonade, Marie Callender pot pies. No more corn chips, soda, hamburgers, Rice Krispies, no more organic food, no more vitamins, no more natural food, no more food period. No more people period. All for 1/5 of our gasoline needs.
It has always been about eroei and scale. How could this be anything more than an insane joke?
You could consider two more very important reasons... moral and ethical, which I'm sure have been addressed by many. Burning food's not only a Silly Humans Solution, it's poison, pure poison. _________________ Got Dharma?
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2642 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
PStarr, That's a much better reply. Everybody knows that you have spent considerable time and effort discussing (or denouncing) ethanol (especially corn) in the thread you refer to but the fact is that there is still considerable research continuing on this topic particularly celluslosic ethanol. The major researchers are listed in the link. Whatever you say against ethanol or any other biofuel (e.g. butanol), PStarr, this issue is not going to go away. All the major researchers will recognise the problems you refer to and they will be looking for ways to overcome (rethink) these.
My posts in this area, Cube, are an attempt to bring the latest research or ideas on this important topic (and for that matter other topics). I am not an "expert" in ethanol. In order to cover this issue adequately, full-time research is required. I don't have the time or opportunity to do so. _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
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