The problem with ethanol

I only saw a few snippets of President Trump's speech in Iowa, and he was criticizing DeSantis' lack of support for ethanol, a big deal in corn-growing Iowa. He needs to do more research and change lanes. In my blog in 2007 I wrote about how ethanol degrades the environment based on information published in 2003. I had become interested in that topic when I worked in the Ag Library in the 1980s. I assume the technology and efficiency have changed in 20 years, but the basics are the same.

"But let's look at the ethics of ethanol.

 . . . about 29% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy in a gallon of ethanol. Fossil energy powers corn production and the fermentation/distillation processes. Increasing subsidized ethanol production will take more feed from livestock production, and is estimated to currently cost consumers an additional $1 billion per year. Ethanol production increases environmental degradation. Corn production causes more total soil erosion than any other crop. Also, corn production uses more insecticides, herbicides, and nitrogen fertilizers than any other crop. All these factors degrade the agricultural and natural environment and contribute to water pollution and air pollution. Increasing the cost of food and diverting human food resources to the costly inefficient production of ethanol fuel raise major ethical questions. These occur at a time when more than half of the world’s population is malnourished. The ethical priority for corn and other food crops should be for food and feed. Subsidized ethanol produced from U.S. corn is not a renewable energy source." Abstract, "Ethanol Fuels: Energy Balance, Economics, and Environmental Impacts Are Negative," Natural Resources Research, Volume 12, issue 2 (June 2003), p. 127-134.

And he doesn't even mention the bioterrorism of a well-placed fungus that could wipe out the Americans' dependence on corn for fuel the way the potato blight sent the Irish running for a new country in the 19th century. Also, when so much of the world suffers from hunger is it even moral to use land to grow crops to run your cars? There's more:  Collecting My Thoughts

https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/corn-ethanol-bad-farmers-consumers-and-environment?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323826704578354260914712792?

Got tofu?

Each lecture should have a take-away, just like a good sermon. Last week's lecture at Lakeside Chautauqua about commodities and South America: soybean production is contributing to rainforest destruction in Brazil; China is the world's biggest user of soybeans and now the #1 trading partner for South America. My thought: as America's farmland is used to create ethanol as an alternative to fossil fuel, there is less land for soybeans so the rainforest is destroyed. So can we thank environmentalists for this?

http://www.ozy.com/acumen/south-americas-soybean-revolution/3401.article

http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/secret-dirty-cost-obamas-green-power-push-1

“past studies showing the benefits of ethanol in combating climate change have not taken into account almost certain changes in land use worldwide if ethanol from corn — and in the future from other feedstocks such as switchgrass — become a prized commodity.

"Using good cropland to expand biofuels will probably exacerbate global warming," concludes the study published in Science magazine.” http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-02-08-ethanol-study_N.htm

RFS needs to be repealed

Repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard. It's bad for the environment and even worse morally, when many in developing countries are hungry. Ethanol made from corn is taking agricultural land and using it for fuel. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved, without adequate testing, E15 — a blend of up to 15% ethanol in gasoline — for sale to consumers. This decision wasn't based on consumer demand, but simply to meet arbitrary ethanol mandates in the flawed Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). E15 fuel can cause serious damage and potentially ruin many types of engines, even ones approved by the EPA to use the fuel.

This cannot be blamed on Obama--although he hasn't stopped it. "April 10, 2007--In step with the Bush Administration’s call to increase the supply of alternative and renewable fuels nationwide, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today established the nation’s first comprehensive Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. . . “The Renewable Fuel Standard offers the American people a hat trick – it protects the environment, strengthens our energy security, and supports America’s farmers,” said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. “Today, we’re taking an important first step toward meeting President Bush’s “20 in 10” goal of jumping off the treadmill of foreign oil dependency.”

That was hogwash in 2007 and is even worse now. The ethanol push is welfare for farmers--it actually harms the environment and causes hunger, not security. If one administration makes a mistake, the next one can correct it.

Yes, we can blame Bush for this—the ethanol mess.

In 2007 the Bush Administration and Congress [Democratic] mandated how much ethanol the oil and gas industry must purchase each year to be blended into gasoline. . . but gasoline consumption went down, not up and if the blends get any higher, they destroy engines.  So now we’ve got a ridiculous, complicated system of buying renewable energy credits, plus we’re damaging the environment and burning corn when people are hungry while raising the cost of gasoline.  The smartest thing to do is repeal it—and now we can blame Obama, because we know he never does the smart thing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323309404578611842837454104.html

“By dramatically raising the price of corn, the federal corn ethanol mandate has, in just the last four years, contributed to the conversion of 23 million acres from wetland and grassland – an area the size of Indiana – to cropland. In fact, thanks to the corn ethanol mandate, we have lost more than wetlands and grasslands in the last four years than in the previous 40.

By encouraging farmers to plow up wetlands and grasslands, the mandate is causing more carbon to be released into the atmosphere, consuming more water to irrigate crops, causing more fertilizer to wash off farm fields and destroying more habitat that supports wildlife – and millions of jobs.

What’s more, burning corn ethanol in gasoline releases more benzene, a known carcinogen, and other toxic air pollutants that have been linked to asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory ailments.”

http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2013/02/corn-ethanol-bad-farmers-consumers-and-environment

How to lower the price of gasoline—immediately

“Abolishing the ethanol mandate requiring ethanol to be blended with gasoline at the pump or waiving the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) would: (1) lower gasoline prices by millions of dollars; (2) result in billions of miles of free travel annually; (3) prevent millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide from being emitted into the air; and (4) improve national security and the energy picture since it is impossible for US ethanol to ever replace foreign oil imports. PolitiFact was asked to fact-check this but would not do so; therefore, it must be true.”

Read more here.

Remembering why I hate coupons

Generally, I refuse to play games with my food--coupons, sweepstakes, loyalty cards, filling out forms on the internet, etc. But this week we got a coupon for our favorite pizza place up the road. Well, it's not really our favorite--that one is in Grandview and since we moved in 2002, it takes too long to get there. But this one is pretty good. Anyway, there was a "$1.00 off any size" coupon. So even though we really didn't need a pizza tonight (we ate out last night), I called one in. The price had gone up about $3! That's the primary use of a coupon--to cover up a price increase. And I know that because I used to write and interview about these scams, but it still makes me mad. Based on other price increases, it shouldn't have gone up more than $.40. It's you global warminists doing this, you know--putting corn in our gas tanks instead of our cows.

The ethics of corn ethanol

We were told by the TV reporter last night that Easter eggs will cost $.34 more a dozen this year. Corn ethanol is the reason, but reporters probably don't want to look on the down side of Al Gore's movie theories. Such as, China has now caught up to us in emissions (a decade ago we were told it would be 2025), so we could burn water in our automobiles and it wouldn't make a bit of difference in the global temperature, assuming that emissions are causing warming, which many scientists say is a bunch of cow poop. Being Americans, we not only think we are God, but that only what we do to the atmosphere matters, and the only hurricanes that hit land, are the ones we see here.

But let's look at the ethics of ethanol.

" . . . about 29% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy in a gallon of ethanol. Fossil energy powers corn production and the fermentation/distillation processes. Increasing subsidized ethanol production will take more feed from livestock production, and is estimated to currently cost consumers an additional $1 billion per year. Ethanol production increases environmental degradation. Corn production causes more total soil erosion than any other crop. Also, corn production uses more insecticides, herbicides, and nitrogen fertilizers than any other crop. All these factors degrade the agricultural and natural environment and contribute to water pollution and air pollution. Increasing the cost of food and diverting human food resources to the costly inefficient production of ethanol fuel raise major ethical questions. These occur at a time when more than half of the world’s population is malnourished. The ethical priority for corn and other food crops should be for food and feed. Subsidized ethanol produced from U.S. corn is not a renewable energy source." Abstract, "Ethanol Fuels: Energy Balance, Economics, and Environmental Impacts Are Negative," Natural Resources Research, Volume 12, issue 2 (June 2003), p. 127-134.

And he doesn't even mention the bioterrorism of a well placed fungus that could wipe out the Americans' dependence on corn for fuel the way the potato blight sent the Irish running for a new country in the 19th century.

and the CO2 emissions of corn ethanol

"Proper mass and energy balances of corn fields and ethanol refineries that account for the photosynthetic energy, part of the environment restoration work, and the coproduct energy have been formulated. These balances show that energetically production of ethanol from corn is 2–4 times less favorable than production of gasoline from petroleum. From thermodynamics it also follows that ecological damage wrought by industrial biofuel production must be severe. With the DDGS coproduct energy credit, 3.9 gallons of ethanol displace on average the energy in 1 gallon of gasoline. Without the DDGS energy credit, this average number is 6.2 gallons of ethanol. Equivalent CO2 emissions from corn ethanol are some 50% higher than those from gasoline, and become 100% higher if methane emissions from cows fed with DDGS are accounted for. From the mass balance of soil it follows that ethanol coproducts should be returned to the fields." "A First-Law Thermodynamic Analysis of the Corn-Ethanol Cycle," Natural Resources Research, Volume 15, issue 4 (December 2006), p. 255 - 270

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Global warming and Ohio

We're all back in our winter clothes and coats today (it's below freezing). Isn't it interesting that those banging the warning bells the loudest about global warming have chosen to live in sunny climes or along the coasts where they prefer constant danger from storms which have been ripping up the sand and rocks for centuries, eating away the cliffs where they want to build their mansions and summer homes? Except Al Gore from Tennessee, who inherited his money for high living from tobacco sales, simultaneously stripping the land of all nutrients while killing thousands.

Then after they've polluted the air and cut off everyone else's view through punishing regulations which closed down industries that then moved to Asia, they want those of us who live in the "heartland" to fritter away our inheritance of good soil and water resources on even more acres of corn (which has already made the nation fat as a cheap sweetener). Corn to burn in our gas tanks as ethanol, taking more inputs to create a profit than coal or oil ever did. They've barely started this scheme and already food prices are inching up.

Way to go liberals--you've found yet another way to hurt the poor. Are we Americans insane, smug or just shameless--or all three?

Fact sheet comparing ethanol inputs.

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