Ethanol too expensive, new processing plants on hold

The price of corn has risen so sharply due to the demand to produce ethanol, that it is not longer cost effective to produce ethanol as a replacement for gasoline. Plans to build new ethanol plants are on hold, and two plants under construction have filed for bankruptcy. Even with the price of gasoline on the rise, it is now more expensive to produce a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of gas, just as it was in the days when gas was 'cheap'.

However, the rise in the price of corn has a multifaceted effect, since when gas rises, the price of anything else rises to a small degree. When the price of corn goes up, the price of anything made with corn also rises to a greater degree, since all producers of any goods using corn have to pay the same price.

Also, GreenPeace is now saying the ethanol is no less polluting than gasoline, but then again, what did we expect from them?

Reply to
Hachiroku
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Apparently, using ethanol from corn to power cars produces less greenhouse than using gasoline, when accounting for the fossil fuels required to grow and process the corn (transportation, purification of ethanol, etc.).

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I have concerns about using the land for growing corn. I can't help but think that the land would better be used for other things, like growing food or restored as a forest.

jeff

Reply to
Jeff

=?iso-2022-jp?q?Hachiroku_=1B$B%O%A%m%=2F=1B=28B?= wrote in news:zSKxj.8794$JU3.5393@trndny04:

It was NEVER "cost effective" to use ethanol in fuel.

The only reason it even appeared that way in the first place is that while you were paying for your ethanol out of your right pocket, the government was taking more money out of your left pocket while you weren't looking and slipping it to the ethanol makers.

Counting solely the pump price is the only way they can claim ethanol is competitive with other additives or with gasoline.

Ethanol was considered as a gasoline additive in the 1920's (Henry Ford was a big booster of it), but it was ultimately rejected -- for the very same reasons it's been questioned for now. What's that famous George Santayana saying?

Reply to
Tegger

Jeff wrote in news:EnLxj.17622$Sw6.5679@trnddc06:

We have more forested acres now than we did in 1920. The reason is that we no longer use animals for transporataion or farm labor. Horses and oxen eat enormous amounts of food, so vast swaths of land were under the plow for animal feed.

With the advent of the motor vehicle, those acres became unneeded, so fell back to nature.

We do not need more acres for food. We already produce an abundance of food, more than we can eat ourselves, even in the face of decades of steadily dwindling farm acreage. Government price supports, and modern biotech and chemistry have seen to that.

I've read that if all the environuts' (and farm lobby's) dreams for ethanol were answered, almost every arable acre of land in the US would have to be plowed up for corn for ethanol.

Reply to
Tegger

Ethanol was NEVER cost-effective.

Reply to
John Q. Public

But it's very good for farmers...

Reply to
Ghislain

If you adjust corn prices for inflation, they are still at depression era levels. And actually the recent rise in the price of farm commodities has more to do with the falling value of the dollar than with corn diverted to ethanol. Crops that have never been used to make ethanol have seen even more spectacular rises in prices. My contract price for peanuts increased by over

30% this year (but still only marginally profitable). Unadjusted soybeans prices are at historic highs (although when you adjust them for inflation, they are still well below the highs of 35 years ago). I've never seen wheat higher (again unadjusted for inflation). Even cotton prices are looking better for next year, after several years of decline. Around my area people are moving away from corn in droves. Corn acreage will probably be down 30% or more this year (in my area). The grain dealer I do business with has been trying to lock up by pitifully few acres for weeks. The fact is, when you adjust corn prices for inflation, we are still below depression era prices. On the other hand - the cost of input has risen even more spectacularly than the price of the crops. Fertilizer is up astronomically. Diesel fuel is at an all time high (even adjusted for inflation). If we have another year like last year (drought problems) more than a few local farmers are likely to go under. Americans have gotten used to low food prices. And even now food is a bargain. How much do you think the wheat in a loaf of bread actually costs? Maybe $0.30....even at today's very high prices for wheat.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

There was a $20/ton rise in the price of pasta in one day. The guy who said this said that a rise of $20/ton in a YEAR was a lot!

Reply to
Hachiroku

It was for a short time. That's why new ethanol plants were built.

Hey, they can always bottle it as Everclear...

Reply to
Hachiroku

No. Those plants were built to collect taxpayer subsidies.

Reply to
John Q. Public

Ethanol has never been an economical replacement for gasoline. It takes the energy equivalent of 1.5 gallons of ethanol to produce one gallon of ethanol. A loosing proposition regardless of the price of corn.

Yes, you are right about that too. Add in the fact that the amount of energy in ethanol is about 15% less than gasoline and you have a greater amount of CO2 released by traveling a mile on ethanol than that same mile using gasoline. Remember that the carbon foot print should be the total amount of carbon produced in the production cycle of the fuel, not just the amount released by burning the fuel.

Since we have now entered a cooling cycle in our global weather, we should be emitting more, not less, carbon to offset the cooling trend. So lets all go out and drive our Detroit Iron to the corner store and leave the rice burners at home.

Jack

Reply to
Retired VIP

Actually, the process has become more efficient over time. The ethanol produced provides a little more energy than the fossil fuels that went into it and does reduce greenhouse gases a bit. But the cost is probably not worth the expense nor the other environmental impact, like all the land used to grow corn.

Plugins are not the best solutions, either:

Actually, it is a little less CO2 with ethanol.

Exactly. Which is why plugin electrics are not so good in many areas.

We have not entered a cooling cycle.

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If we were entering a cooling trend, why should we be emitting more? Would the build up in CO2 eventually come back to haunt us?

And what are we going to do to afford the gas?

Reply to
Jeff

Jeff, you are wrong about CO2 but right about hybrids. You need to find out how much energy is needed to produce the hybrid seed, plant, cultivate, manufacture and transport the fertilizer it needs, transport the seed corn it to the retailer, transport it to the farmer, plant it, cultivate it, manufacture and transport the fertilizer it needs, harvest it, transport the corn to the elevator, dry it for storage, transport it to the distillery, make the mash, distil the mash and transport the ethanol to the refinery. All of this requires energy and if you try to use ethanol to supply the energy, you end up with an energy deficit. That's not counting the energy needed to build the distillery (we can use that for some good Tennessee sipping juice) or the trucks to haul it.

Don't try to tell me that you need to do all that anyway because we produce corn for food. If you didn't produce corn for energy, you won't need all the above energy to produce that corn.

Jack

Reply to
Retired VIP

Why don't you show me where I am wrong about CO2?

I don't disagree. At the University of California at Berkley actually showed that corn-based ethanol provides more energy that the fossil fuels that went into it. And, that fewer greenhouse gases were produced when using ethanol (including all the fossil fuels that went into making it). It's pretty close. Personally, I think there are better uses for the farmland and corn.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

Well, now, they would, wouldn't they?

Reply to
Hachiroku

From what I've read ethanol produces 1/3 less energy than gasoline in an engine. Ethanol will only become viable if they can get the enzyme technology perfected to produce it huge quantities from saw grass etc., rather than from food products. Even then, there is no way we can produce enough ethanol to replace more than a percentage of the gasoline we use tocay. Any combination of alternate fuel that can even come close to replacing half of the gasoline we use today is fifty years away at best. Even then the costs of any replacement will be far greater. If you think not, go price a cylinder of hydrogen today. Even if they could build "pipelines" all aver the county with today's environmental laws and NIMBY mentality imagine thousand of miles of "hydrogen cylinders" underground at

2,500 PSI. LOL

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Reply to
Mike hunt

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