Because I live in Iowa and work at an agency that does advertising for various ethanol-related organizations, I often find myself in conversations about ethanol. Ethanol is an exciting prospect for a sustainable fuel source, but most people I talk to know this already, so I generally spend most of these conversations pointing out potential problems with ethanol.
We tend to overlook potential problems when evaluating something new that promises to solve existing problems, and I get paid to promote ethanol, so I want to add some balance to my own small impact and these discussions by pointing out problems, e.g. ethanol is not polution-free, not all cars can run on ethanol-heavy fuel, and so on. But with all these problems in mind, ethanol is clearly much better than oil as a fuel source.
The biggest problem seems to be that there’s just not enough ethanol to really replace oil. Whenever I point this out, someone asks me how much ethanol there is, and I say "I don’t know." Today, I found out. Someone on NPR said there’s enough corn-based ethanol to produce 15 billion gallons of fuel a year. That’s a small dent in the 140 billion gallons of oil we current use yearly.
I also mention in these conversations that there might be ways of making ethanol other than corn. And then someone asks me more about those alternate ethanol sources, and I say "I don’t know." Today, I found out this too. An article in the Des Moines Register says distilleries that can make fuel alcohol from crop waste, prairie grasses or trees rather than corn should be in operation within five years.
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t say how much fuel we can expect those distilleries to produce. I expect it’s nowhere near the 125 billion gallons needed to entirely replace oil. But I’m a little more hopeful than I was yesterday that between ethanol, solar, other technologies, and reduced consumption, the transition to a post-oil economy need not be very painful.
We should just go back to steam.
GMWeezel, I hope we don't make the same mistake of putting all our eggs in one basket again. How quickly are recharging stations being rolled out for electric cars?
The first thing you have to understand about ethanol -- particularly corn ethanol -- is that it is not a renewable fuel source.
Ethanol made from modern industrial corn farming is utterly dependent on natural gas. In order to plant corn after corn, year after year on the same fields as they now do in Iowa, farmers must use massive amounts of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers -- and unfortunately, over 90% of the synthetic fertilizers used in the U.S. are made from natural gas.
If you think corn ethanol is sustainable, ask your nearest corn farmer what his yield would be if he couldn't use nitrogen fertilizers.
The hard truth is that without natural gas-based nitrogen fertilizers, modern industrial corn farming could not exist.
Also try this thought experiment: If ethanol is sustainable, why are corn farmers and ethanol plants so addicted to fossil fuels? If ethanol was sustainable, both farmers and ethanol plants would use some of the ethanol they make as their source of energy. That they don't (and can't) do that, tells all anyone needs to do about corn ethanol.
Yes it did, but not "corn after corn" as they now plant in Iowa, and the yields were much, much lower. (Even Squanto taught the Pilgrims they needed to plant dead fish with their corn as a fertilizer.)
Ask one of your local corn farmers what his yield would be if he planted "corn after corn" year after year without using synthetic fertilizers.
My Grandfather was a dairy/corn farmer in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. He ran a true sustainable dairy/corn operation that was typical of the time. He rotated crops using oats, alfalfa and corn, and sometimes let a field lay fallow to allow the soil to regenerate, and his fertilizer was the manure from his dairy cows. (Ask your nearest Iowa corn farmer when he last rotated crops or let a field lay fallow in order to renew itself, or used cow manure instead of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.)
My Grandfather's yields were typically 50-60 bushels/acre. A modern industrial corn farmer in Iowa won't be happy unless his yields are in the 180-200 bushels/acre range.
But there is a huge diference in the farm my Grandfather ran and a modern indusrial corn farm. My Grandfather's farm was sustainable -- he kept that operation going for decades and never had to buy synthetic fertilizer made from fossil fuels at a chemical factory.
On the other hand, a modern corn farmer would not be able to survive without huge amounts of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. And as I said (and somethng you apparently missed) over 90% of modern synthetic fertilizers are made from natural gas. And because natural gas is a nonrenewable fossil fuel of which there is a limited supply, corn farming that is dependent on natural gas cannot be considered as either renewable or sustainable.
The bottom line: Ethanol made from corn is neither renewable or sustainale.
Jessica said, "If we could make ethanol distilleries that could be quickly converted to process different plants, like a short term switch from corn to switchgrass, that would save a lot of resources, or are these distilleries already set up in such a way?"
Jessica,
Unfortunately, the processes needed to convert the starch in corn to ethanol and the cellulose in switchgrass are much different. A wise ethanol plant developer would build a plant that could be easily converted from one to the other, but infortunately, most current ethanol plant developers are focused only on turning corn into ethanol.
BUTANOL
There is also another fuel that can be made from corn that is superior to ethanol. That fuel is butanol, a more complex alcohol that has properties much like gasoline and that -- unlike ethanol -- can be shipped through pipelines, and that requires much less energy to distill.
A wise ethanol plant developer would also build a plant that could later be converted to butanol production -- but again they are too caught up in making ethanol. (Making the less efficient ethanol from corn is a centuries old process that even backwoods moonshiners understand.)
I gather it's not common practice now because it's more expensive, but as the problems of not rotating become more expensive, I expect we'll follow the money back to sustainability just like we followed it away from sustainability. I think it's inevitable that we'll adopt sustainable fuel sources just because it's cheaper than switching whenever we run out of a non-sustainable source (and we like money). What worries me is the problems we'll cause before that transition happens, but I think oil is a much more likely source of such problems than natural gas.
Thanks for pointing out butanol. I didn't know anything about that. From what I've just read, ethanol distillation plants can be cheaply converted to butanol distillation plants. It's not clear to me why we're not just starting with butanol, but the lower octane of butanol than both gasoline and ethanol seems to be an issue.
Scott,
Ethanol (or butanol) production doesn't necessarily have to be dependent on modern industrial corn farming. But unfortunately that is the case right now. I'm not going out on a limb very far if I guess that every ethanol plant now in production or being planned in Iowa expects to use No. 2 field corn as their feedstock.
Cellulosic ethanol has potential, but so far, that is all it is -- potential. I hope it pans out, but cellulosic is a lot like fusion power -- one of those things scientists expect to make work, but it's always just around the corner.
It's not clear to me why we're not just starting with butanol
It's not clear to me either. Butanol has several advantages over ethanol:
1. It has a higher energy density than ethanol -- in fact almost as high as gasoline.
2. Butanol can be shipped through pipelines as can gasoline. Ethanol must be shipped by tank truck, train, or barge because it mixes so easily with water.
3. Butanol doesn't require the large energy expenditure for distillation that ethanol requires. It can be separated from water with a filtering process that requires little energy.
4. Any car that can run on gasoline can also run on butanol mixed in any ratio with gasoline. It doesn't require a specially made flexfuel car.
5. The volume of butanol one can get from a bushel of corn is higher than the volume of ethanol one can make from that same bushel. Given the higher energy density of butanol, that means the return on energy invested is much better for butanol.
I suppose part of the reason that ethanol plants aren't being designed to make butanol is that most ethanol plant operators are ignorant of the potential of butanol. Why don't you go to the ethanol plant nearest you and ask why they aren't making butanol instead? My guess is they will look at you with a puzzled look on their faces and say, "What?"
As I said earlier, making ethanol from fermented grain mash is a well-known process that has worked for centuries -- a fairly simple process that even backwoods hillbillies making moonshine understand. Shifting to butanol would require a somewhat different process and thinking outside the box.
What worries me is the problems we'll cause before that transition happens, but I think oil is a much more likely source of such problems than natural gas.
I'm sure you've heard of "Peak Oil." "Peak Natural Gas" is just as much of a problem. If you do some research, you'll find the U.S. has already hit "Peak Natural Gas" and most of the gas we burn in the U.S. now comes from Canada. (But guess what Canada plans to do with their natural gas? Quit importing it to the U.S. and instead use it to cook petroleum out of the trillions of tons of Alberta Tar Sands they have.)
Most of our synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is imported
I mentioned earlier that over 90% of the nitrogen fertilizer our industrial corn farmers must have is made form natural gas. Well there's even more bad news that goes with statistic: Over 60% of the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer our farmers now use is made outside this country from foreign natural gas and imported.
That means that the so-called "renewable" ethanol made from Iowa corn is actually dependent on imported fertilizer made from foreign natural gas.
You tell me: Is being dependent on foreign natural gas any better than being dependent on foreign oil?
Cordially,
Gary Dikkers
I find ignorance an implausible explanation where so much money is involved.
I'd say yes, it's much better. Natural gas is a far less significant factor in the global economy than oil, and it's controlled by far less volitile nations. I don't know how anyone could look at modern events and seriously suggest that our dependence on natural gas is just as dangerous as our dependence on oil.
Gary, you might be interested in an article I just happened on from Iowa State University's Center for Sustainable Agriculture, which says:
OK, then try an experiment: You live in Iowa, so there must be a corn-to-ethanol plant near you. Either visit them or give them a call and ask why they are making ethanol instead of butanol? :-)
I'd say yes, it's much better. Natural gas is a far less significant factor in the global economy than oil, and it's controlled by far less volatile nations.
Sure, such less volatile nations such as Venezuela and Nigeria. Canada is certainly less volatile and a good ally with a long history of cooperating with us, but as I said earlier, they are making plans to use their natural gas to cook oil out of their vast reserves of Athabasca (Alberta) Tar Sands.
Actually, the bigger problem with natural gas is not the country of origin, but the fact that it is difficult to move natural gas into the US from countries with which we don't share borders. It is easy to move gas through pipelines, but we can't build a pipeline to move natural gas here from Nigeria, Turkmenistan, or the UAE.
The answer to that is to build huge insulated cryo-tankers that will move super-cooled liquid natural gas across the oceans. But those cryo-tankers have their own problems -- they are huge sitting targets for terrorists, and no port city in the US wants a cryo-tanker unloading facility anywhere near them.
Speaking of natural gas: As long as we are going to be dependent on natural gas - do you realize it would be far more efficient to convert natural gas directly to a liquid fuel burnable in internal combustion engines, rather than to use natural gas to make nitrogen fertilizer, then use that nitrogen fertilizer to grow corn, then use diesel fuel to harvest the corn, and then use even more fossil fuels (natural gas or coal) to mill and distill the corn into ethanol.
Such a move would be more efficient, but it would also make a lot of Corn Belt farmers (and politicians) very unhappy.
Scott said, "Data collected nearly a decade ago as part of a project funded by the Leopold Center show that crop rotations covering at least five years and which include at least three years of forage crops interspaced with corn and soybean, resulted in higher soil quality ratings than either continuous corn or a two-year corn-soybean sequence."
Thanks, but all I can say is, "Duh!" My Grandfather and all the farmers around him in Northern Illinois in the 1930s and 40s were well aware of that, as are Amish farmers today.
One last thought
When speaking about corn ethanol, always keep in mind that the fact that our farmers grow a new crop of corn each year doesn't necessarily mean ethanol made from that corn is renewable. The people who like to say corn ethanol is "renewable" rarely consider all the resources and energy consumed and the harm to the soil that results from growing that corn. One analogy to consider is that modern industrial corn farming is very much like strip mining -- only instead of pulling coal and other minerals from the soil, the farmers are pulling irreplaceable nutrients from the soil. Modern corn farming could just as well be called 'soil mining.'
Best Regards,
Gary Dikkers
I just did a quick Google search on your name and found that you spend a lot of time criticizing ethanol and suggesting various alternatives (e.g. butanol, natural case, methane) that aren't at all practical today. I'm curious about your motivation for doing this. I know there are a lot of people wary of ethanol, but few of them put so much time into it. Is this a paid gig, or is there some other special reason you feel so strongly about ethanol? I stated my biases up front, and I'd ask that you do the same if you want me to continue taking your arguments at face value.
Fair enough. I am an independent operator with regards to ethanol and do what I do because of personal experience and what I've learned. I do have a full time job, but one that has nothing to do with ethanol or energy. (Last winter I took vacation time to testify before our state senate committee considering whether to make E10 mandatory.)
Background
By profession I am a pilot and engineer. I was a career fighter pilot in the US Air Force (with a combat tour in Vietnam). I have bachelors engineering degree from the US Air Force Academy and a masters degree in engineering from Purdue University. During my time in the Air Force when not in a flying job, I worked as an engineer. Since retiring from the Air Force, I continue to work in aviation and am the Wisconsin DOT's airspace manager.
I first got interested in ethanol because I have always recorded the amount of fuel I bought, how far I drove, and computed my fuel mileage.
Several years ago I noticed a decline in fuel mileage whenever I bought ethanol blended fuels (E10), so I started wondering:
Right now I drive a four-cylinder compact pickup truck with a manual transmission. At highway speeds I normally get 32 mpg when burning gasoline. When I buy E10 the mileage drops to 29 mpg. Doesn't sound like much does it? But here's what that means:
On a theoretical trip of 320 miles I would burn 10 gallons of gasoline. If I burn E10 I would have to use slightly less than 11 gallons to go the same distance. But if I burn E10, 90% of that fuel is gasoline. Q: What is 90% of 11? A: 9.9 gallons. Now here's the kicker: Whether I burn straight gasoline or E10, I burn almost exactly the same amount of gasoline. But when I use E10, I must buy 11 gallons of fuel.
My conclusion is that burning E10 saves no gasoline, and when you consider the resources used to make the ethanol, using ethanol actually means an increased consumption of fossil fuels.
Of course I realized my experience might be unique, so I started asking others who are conscientious about tracking their fuel economy. It didn’t take long to find that many people had a similar experience.
And then I found a large sample size that was revealing: The USDOT keeps statistics of the amount of fuel burned and miles driven in each of the 50 states. That caused me to check the average fuel mileage in Minnesota (which as I'm sure you know has mandated E10), and Wisconsin (which does not have mandatory E10.)
I found that he average mileage in Minnesota is less than the average fuel mileage in Wisconsin in close to the same ratio I personally experienced. Here are the USDOT figures for 2004:
· In 2004 Minnesota drivers burned 2.743 billion gallons of fuel while driving 56.570 billion miles. Minnesota’s average fuel economy was 20.62 miles per gallon (mpg).
· In that same year, Wisconsin drivers burned 2.592 billion gallons while driving 60.399 billion miles. Our average fuel economy was 23.30 mpg.
Using a mandatory blend of 10% ethanol (E10) Minnesota drivers drove fewer miles than did Wisconsin drivers, while consuming more fuel. Minnesota’s fuel economy using E10 was 12.5% worse than Wisconsin's.
That led me to ask, "If ethanol actually saves no fossil fuel, why then is it so popular? Why are ethanol plants popping up in Iowa like daisies after a spring rain, if ethanol actually makes little sense and actually increases our consumption of unrenewable resources?"
Of course you know the answer to that: It's not about the ethanol, it’s about the corn. The problem with corn ethanol is that our corn farmers have been subsidized for decades and have gotten into the habit of growing billions of bushels every year. They have gotten extremely good at growing corn, and for many, that is all they know how to do. The only real reason for making ethanol from that corn is that we have so much of it we have to use it for something.
Think about this: If an engineer started with a blank piece of paper to design a process for making ethanol, people would think him or her out of heir mind to suggest first using natural gas, diesel fuel, and oil to grow corn so you could then use more fossil fuels to turn that corn into ethanol. Anyone interested in efficiency and who understood thermodynamics would never propose using irreplaceable resources to grow corn as the middle stage of a process to make a liquid fuel. It would make far more sense to turn those resources (such as natural gas and coal) directly into liquid fuels.
As I learned more about corn ethanol, I also started to learn the adverse effect that industrial, monoculture, corn farming has on one of our most valuable natural resources -- the rich soil that broad sections of the Midwest have been endowed with. Soil that we are abusing recklessly in pursuit of ever higher corn yields that are only possible by using massive amounts of synthetic fertilizers made from natural gas; and fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides made from oil; all while consuming (and depleting) water from the Ogallala Aquifer in those states not lucky enough to have sufficient rain such as Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, and eastern Colorado and Wyoming.
The only conclusion I could reach is that ethanol -- especially corn ethanol -- is not worth the expenditure of resources we consume to make it.
So you could say I'm on a mission. Sort of like the little boy who pointed at the passing king and said, "But, he's wearing no clothes." as the rest of the crowd told him to be quiet.
Cordially,
Gary Dikkers
I arrived here rather late to the discussion looking for information on the actual density (not the energy density) of 10% ethanol blended gasoline.
I did not find the information I was looking for, but after reading the comments, felt that I just needed to add a little more information to the mix. Perhaps you have already found this information since the exchanges in September but I just wanted to include it for posterity sake.
Biobutanol, butanol made from energy crops, is a fairly good substitute for gasoline straight across, it is very similar in octane and energy density, it also travels through existing pipelines with little difficulty. There really do need to be a few more fuel system modifications to make it fully compatible, but the same can be said for use of ethanol and ethanol blends.
Biobutanol is actually currently difficult to produce though, as in, no one yet has a viable commercial model to make it happen. Just "converting" an existing ethanol plant is pretty involved. The biobutanol comes from a different organism than ethanol. The top contender right now is a bacteria called Clostridium acetobutylicum. It is currently not very efficient and dies when the butanol level produced rises too high in the fermentation vessel, notably, before the typical starch present is consumed. This is an unfinished and wasteful fermentation.
Ethanol fermentation uses the well characterized yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Most ethanol plants are optimized to keep the yeast happy and well fed to produce as much ethanol as possible from the starch fed into the process.
As far as the mileage issue Gary has, the real answer is that your vehicle was not optimized to run on E10.
Ethanol and blends of it offer much of their energy savings through higher efficiency in combustion, but your vehicle has to be built or tuned to take advantage of this. The higher octane rating of ethanol and it's blends allows higher compression ratios, engine temperatures, and more complete fuel combustion. All of these increase the energy efficiency of ethanol burning engines to make them competitive with gasoline engines. If your vehicle is not designed to take advantage of this, you suffer, just as Gary has noticed, but did not really thoroughly investigate.
The overall energy balance of "renewable ethanol" is still a big question. The fertilizer in particular is a good point. However, things like that are being addressed as well. I happen to have been at a water resource conference that was pointing out the need to find a better way to deal with the high nitrogen and phosphate concentrations in manure from cattle that had been fed the distillers feed products from the ethanol plants.
Effectively, the ethanol plant feed products and cattle manure cycle has nearly raised the fertilizer content of the manure to the point that it is actually becoming comparable to imported fertilizer (inter or intra national).
Basically, the unknowns are still bigger than the knowns in much of the overall energy balance. What is the value of more efficient combustion with fewer tail pipe pollutants? what about disentangling our energy sources from foreign sources? is transferring the wealth from foreign oil barons to American farmers a worthwhile change? Physicist and engineers may not care about such things, consumers appear to really only be interested in the dollars per mile it costs to go where they want to go. Unfortunately, much of the dialogue is currently framed in miles per gallon based on the current style of engines offered by the auto manufacturers.
And yes, I do work at an ethanol plant. =)