The biofuel's bipartisan support isn't about science, but politics:
Two decades ago, when the world was wising up to the threat of climate change, the Bush administration touted ethanol — a fuel usually made from corn — for its threefold promise: It would wean the country off foreign oil, line farmers' pockets, and reduce carbon pollution. In 2007, Congress mandated that refiners nearly quintuple the amount of biofuels mixed into the nation's gasoline supply over 15 years. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, projected that ethanol would emit at least 20 percent fewer greenhouse gasses than conventional gasoline.
Scientists say the EPA was too optimistic, and some research shows that the congressional mandate did more climatic harm than good. A 2022 study found that producing and burning corn-based fuel is at least 24 percent more carbon-intensive than refining and combusting gasoline. The biofuel industry and the Department of Energy, or DOE, vehemently criticized those findings, which nevertheless challenge the widespread claim that ethanol is something of a magic elixir.
"There's an intuition people have that burning plants is better than burning fossil fuels," said Timothy Searchinger. He is a senior researcher at the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton University and an early skeptic of ethanol. "Growing plants is good. Burning plants isn't."
Given all that, not to mention the growing popularity of electric vehicles, you'd think ethanol is on the way out. Not so. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continue to tout it as a way to win energy independence and save the climate. The fuel's bipartisan staying power has less to do with any environmental benefits than with disputed science and the sway of the biofuel lobby, agricultural economists and policy analysts told Grist.
"The only way ethanol makes sense is as a political issue," said Jason Hill, a bioproducts and biosystems engineering professor at the University of Minnesota.
Although the 15 billion gallons of ethanol mixed into gasoline each year falls well short of the 36 billion that President Bush hoped for, the number of refineries in the U.S. has nearly doubled to almost 200 since his presidency. Between 2008 and 2016, corn cultivation increased by about 9 percent. In some areas, like the Dakotas and western Minnesota, it rose as much as 100 percent during that time. Nationwide, corn land expanded by more than 11 million acres between 2005 and 2021.
"A quarter of all the corn land in the U.S. is used for ethanol. It's a land area equivalent to all the corn land in Minnesota and Iowa combined," said Hill. "That has implications. It's not just what happens in the U.S. It's what happens globally."
Journal Reference:Jan Lewandrowski, Jeffrey Rosenfeld, Diana Pape, et al. The greenhouse gas benefits of corn ethanol – assessing recent evidence [open], Biofuels (DOI: 10.1080/17597269.2018.1546488)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09, @05:19PM (15 children)
I've heard the one place where ethanol makes any sense at all as a fuel is Brazil. It's because they can use sugar cane, which requires no malting stage and has a very high yield.
At best, ethanol production can absorb agricultural surplus--malt expired grain, the grain having been stored as a strategic stockpile for emergency use, and turn it in to industrial ethanol.
I think it's ridiculous to encourage it for going straight to fuel. The fossil fuel input doesn't provide enough return. You're better off using that fossil fuel to help build solar farms, wind farms, and hydro power.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday May 09, @06:08PM (7 children)
The problem is that biofuels don't balance out at any level so if you don't pass a senseless law to mix it in fuel, industry won't use it since it will just waste money and eat away at their carbon quotas.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Wednesday May 10, @08:42AM (6 children)
Biofuels balance out very well at the PR level. Just look at the name, it begins with "bio", it's got to be good.
That's actually a serious point, when I travelled in Europe I was astounded at how many food products had the name "bio" in them. What had been milk was now bio-milk, plain old cheese was bio-cheese, everything got a magic sprinkling of bio-dust to make people more likely to buy it and/or believe in it. It could be bio-asbestos, as long as it begins with "bio" it'll win public approval.
(Score: 2, Informative) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday May 10, @10:12AM (5 children)
Well, there is a formal definition of "bio" in Europe which implies that the so-labeled food products pass certain standards. For example, bio-milk has to come from bio-cows, which are made so by the fact that their diet is strictly vegetarian (and probably some more criteria), you get the idea. Whether the definition is meaningful is a debate for another day.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday May 10, @10:40AM (2 children)
There's a a lot of details around homogenized and ultra-pasteurized milk I'm not familiar with but I'm guessing it's to differentiate from the reconstituted milk that went through fractionation (skimming to QC the fat content) and the stuff that was only pasteurized.
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(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday May 10, @10:51AM (1 child)
I've bought bio-milk before and it had an expiry date something like two weeks in the future, they must be doing something pretty non-bio to it to make it last that long.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday May 10, @11:57AM
Well, assuming "bio-milk" stands for organic milk (cattle fed on "organic" fodder whatever that means...), there's nothing additive about skimming/homogenizing and pasteurizing so it probably passes. e.g. an additive process would be to skim the cream but then, instead of homogenizing by reintroducing it at a controlled fat ratio, you'd replace it with cheaper (non-organic) vegetable oils.
The wikipedia entry is a bit thin on details but suggests it's nuanced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_milk [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday May 10, @10:53AM (1 child)
We have something similar here, milk and meat is advertised as coming from grass-fed cows... I don't think we actually have anything other than grass-fed cows. Sort of like advertising a bag of sugar as "Now 100% fat-free!".
(Score: 2) by helel on Wednesday May 10, @11:23AM
Cows on feed lots are grain fed, not grass fed. There simply can't be enough grass on the feed lot for all the animals and harvesting and transporting grass isn't calorie dense enough to be efficient, to say nothing of the price of corn after subsidies are factored in. That said, grain fed is a bit of a misnomer because they also eat allot of soybeans.
Grass fed though is a bit fuzzy since it's sometimes used for creatures who got to eat grass when they were little calves and then moved to a feed lot so sometimes you'll also see grass finished to indicate the bovine continued to consume grass up to the point of slaughter. Or milking, in the case of dairy products.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by higuita on Tuesday May 09, @07:50PM
Exactly, all depends of the process used to produced ethanol ... using corn is a stupid idea, while sugar cane is a good idea, as long you use existent fields, please do not burn more forest to plant sugar cane!!
while sugar cane can not grow in many places, sweet potato can also produce good ethanol quantity in a easy way and can use planted in lot more places.
Just like all renewable energies, we need many sources and spread all over the place, this is the only way to make sense ... the good small localized productions vs the bad industrial and massive corporate production (that will grow in to problems sooner or later)
(Score: 5, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday May 09, @09:26PM (5 children)
I'm not ready to say sugar cane is the only viable ethanol feedstock on the planet. That said, corn should NOT be used for fuel; Federal subsidy programs are the only reason we do. Sugar Beets make twice the ethanol per acre with half the water, and there are more exotic feedstocks that beat beets.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 10, @02:51AM (4 children)
I'll tell you who loves corn as an ethanol source: Western Nebraska. Land values shot up tremendously when ethanol was mandated in auto fuels, they're cultivating non-irrigated lands that used to lie fallow, jobs and profits all around, spreading some of that energy money out to the farmers.
Is it good for the environment? I'm sure the farmers in Western Nebraska find it's excellent for their environment, and they'll buy some science to back them up.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday May 10, @03:29AM (1 child)
You jest, but that's a capital P Problem. Science is supposed to be about experimentally discovered truth, not which "truth" gets more funding.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 10, @12:37PM
I do not jest, I mourn my childhood when I believed my (science teachers, ecology club members) parents that science found unbiased truths. You see, my parents themselves were still young and naive at the time.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10, @03:52AM (1 child)
Just like the renewable palm oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, etc. Typically there were forests growing historically where the sunflowers, soybeans, oil palms are now growing... So whether it's renewable or green depends on how strong your brainwashing, propaganda and backers are... The palm oil bunch have weaker/zero influence on Western Media so their stuff is more evil than soybean oil from the USA...
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday May 11, @01:31PM
You'll never hear it out loud because good news doesn't drive clicks, but here in the US we turned the corner on deforestation a while ago. We have about 10% more forested lands today than we did 100 years ago, and that number is growing at a very small rate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zdammit on Tuesday May 09, @07:08PM (10 children)
How is it possible that by burning something that grows using carbon from the atmosphere you end up with more carbon emitted into the atmosphere than by burning something that you dug up?
(Score: 4, Informative) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday May 09, @07:20PM
Making fertilizer can be energy-intensive. Being an inferior fuel, it takes more energy to transport it from field to gas tank, because there is more corn/alcohol mass per unit finished fuel energy.
(Score: 4, Informative) by RS3 on Tuesday May 09, @08:12PM (2 children)
Adding to ChrisMaple's post: it takes energy to process the corn: harvesting, transporting, milling it, mixing and heating it for fermentation, then heating for distilling, etc.
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee439/node/673 [psu.edu]
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday May 10, @10:17AM (1 child)
you can use green energy for that!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday May 10, @03:03PM
I like your blend of truth and sarcasm. I notice, in almost everything, that people look at things as if there were no timeline. Right now we're still making too much CO2, but as we build up solar, wind, maybe better implementation of nuclear, and whatever else is "green", maybe someday in the future the energy required to produce ethanol will be a net reduction in CO2.
We (USA) have large deserts. We could, if we had enough collective determination, build ethanol processing plants in the desert where we can use solar energy to power the plant, and preferably railroads to transport the raw ingredients to and products from. Locomotives could run on ethanol.
(Score: 2) by corey on Tuesday May 09, @10:37PM
I came to say the same thing. Fundamentally we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground, burning stuff on the surface is reemitting what was already there. But I get the energy cost due to production. The mandate that the companies reduce their carbon emissions and they’ll build solar plants to power it.
We just need to electrify cars, skip this step.
(Score: 2) by higuita on Tuesday May 09, @11:10PM (1 child)
The problem is that corn transformation to ethanol will produce x energy
but for transporting and producing that ethanol you spend y energy, as the process is much more complex than, for example, sugar cane... x is still larger than y, but by very little, that makes this inefficient... it is actually only possible because the US support the corn production, in much other countries, they would lose money trying to do the same.
This was just a agriculture lobby, pushing way to justify the money they got from the states and wishlist from some politicians that a scaling corn to ethanol production would make the process more efficient, but they are wrong, corn is not a good base product to produce ethanol
(Score: 3, Interesting) by higuita on Tuesday May 09, @11:29PM
read this:
https://grist.org/article/biofuel-some-numbers/ [grist.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 10, @11:51AM (1 child)
That's a big improvement on a decade ago where it took about two barrels of crude oil to manufacture one barrel of ethanol.
There are thermodynamic limits such that it'll "probably" always be a net loss, but it MIGHT improve over time. Maybe.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday May 10, @03:08PM
Excellent point. Above I posted the idea [soylentnews.org] that we could build ethanol processing (or anything) in the desert where we can easily harvest solar energy to power the process.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday May 10, @12:01PM
The ratio you don't know to google for is "EROEI" or Energy Returned on Energy Invested.
For old oil wells last century it ran above 100:1. Gotta burn about 10 barrels of crude to drill and pump out 1000 barrels of crude, back in the old days. Much worse ratio now, LOL.
The energy returned on a field of tulips is about zero, the energy invested is endless barrels of diesel used to plow, harvest, transport, enormous amounts of natgas turned into fertilizer and pesticides, don't forget processing and storage costs, etc. The energy returned on cucumbers and apples is also zero.
You can VERY inefficiently turn corn into ethanol. Not unsurprising an uneconomic plant like "corn" could generate maybe only 1 barrel of crude equivalent for every 2 barrels of crude burned. Apparently a propaganda piece from 2022 claims you have to burn 1.24 barrels of crude to create the equivalent of 1 barrel of crude in the form of ethanol, which I find hard to believe but "maybe" under ideal conditions with spherical cows etc.
You can see why "big oil" strongly supports ethanol production. Ethanol means burning more oil.
For a good laugh check out food. You eat crude oil. It takes about 10 calories of crude oil to get 1 calorie of food on your dinner plate. So thats one problem with the zero-carbon greenwashing goal, zero carbon means zero food for most of the population.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday May 09, @07:56PM (12 children)
You don't get the option to buy gas with 0% ethanol (unless you want to buy racing gas).
I wonder how the market would shake out if consumers had the chance to buy ethanol free gas. My guess is ethanol would quickly die out.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday May 09, @08:32PM (5 children)
I haven't done a nationwide study, but in my area there are (supposedly) a few gasoline retailers who sell E0 (zero ethanol). I know of one for sure, but it's 30+ miles from me.
Airplane gasoline (avgas) supposedly has no ethanol, and that might be more commonly available (any small airport).
A big factor in all of this is that many older cars don't adapt well to the ethanol, so you end up with (much) worse MPG, which kind of greatly defeats the purpose in the first place.
But remember- the original reason for ethanol was to reduce emissions (NOx, CO, HC) - not necessarily CO2. Previously MTBE Methyl tert-Butyl Ether [cdc.gov] was being used to increase oxygenation in gasoline to reduce some emissions and it helps increase octane (detonation resistance) but it turns out to be really bad for humans.
Also, many / most small engines, esp. chain saws, string trimmers, leaf blowers, etc., have rubber and plastic parts that severely deteriorate due to the ethanol. So that's adding to atmospheric CO2 because they have to be repaired or replaced, transport costs and associated emissions, etc.
There is a very effective additive that seems to protect the plastic / rubber parts from the ethanol- if you know of it, and then bother to buy and use it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Tuesday May 09, @11:07PM (1 child)
Avgas has lead, which ruins your catalytic converter.
The other good source of ethanol is beets. Too bad neither beets nor sugar cane grow in any state with an early primary.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday May 10, @01:33AM
OMG, you're absolutely right. Long ago I used it a few times in a pre-cat car. I knew it doesn't have ethanol but I forgot about the lead. Nevermind.
Ouch. Case of the truth hurts.
(Score: 2) by higuita on Tuesday May 09, @11:22PM (1 child)
That is the key, a old engine was build for gasoline and even lead, they don't like ethanol because they were not designed for it
newer cars already did, they are already finetune for accepting ethanol and should not take any damage.
AS per MPG, ethanol have lower energy density than gasoline, so yes, a small decrease is normal... 30 miles seem a lot to me, but that also depend how many miles you have done in total and probably how heavy your car is ... but usually also, gasoline with ethanol is cheaper, so miles per dolar should probably side with the ethanol one
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday May 10, @02:00AM
I'm thinking of middle-age cars- ones that are computerized fuel injected, but have the older "narrow band" oxygen sensors. Ethanol causes the exhaust O2 reading to be higher than it would be with E0 (ethanol zero). So then the O2 sensors tell the computer that the engine is running lean (not enough fuel) so the computer incorrectly sprays excess fuel. Ask me how I know...
In case anyone doesn't know, the O2 sensor is in the exhaust stream. The engine computer relies on the O2 sensor to determine if the air-fuel ratio is correct, and is constantly compensating fuel delivery based on the O2 sensor's output. It is not adjustable per se. The older "narrow band" ones are not a linear device, but rather the output switches from rich to lean in a very narrow range of residual oxygen in the exhaust stream.
Newer cars have wide-band sensors which work over a much wider range of air-fuel ratio operation. They are therefore much more tolerant and adaptable to non-ideal operating conditions, such as ethanol in the fuel.
So I'm looking into using a wide-band O2 sensor. They make and sell an adapter that allows you to use a wide-band O2 sensor with a narrow-band computer / fuel injection system. There's an adjustment which allows you to find the correct setting. Or I might build my own system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09, @11:43PM
Not if the purpose is to force you to buy a new car... Opportunity knocks
(Score: 3, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday May 09, @09:15PM (3 children)
I was at a RaceTrac yesterday in Tennessee that offered 0% ethanol gas for a price premium over the normal E15 gas. It's state and chain dependent.
Racing fuel here has a large quantity of methanol added to it to raise the knock rating to an equivalent of 115 octane. It runs about a $3 premium over 87 octane "normal" gas. Again, state and chain dependent.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday May 10, @02:11AM (2 children)
Oh, so like if I need it for a chain saw?
Sorry, I couldn't help myself. It was just sitting there. :-}
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday May 10, @12:05PM (1 child)
LOL funny you mention that, you can buy premium cans of chainsaw fuel "guaranteed" to be shelf stable and not to gum up the carb. Expensive but if you need reliability its available.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday May 10, @03:19PM
I haven't used it yet but I know people who will only use it, as it saves them much time and aggravation.
BTW, I don't know if you know, but one place the ethanol is a problem: many small engines use "Tygon®" tubing in the fuel system, including the fuel line and inlet inside of the fuel tank. Tygon is super tough stuff. Even a skinny 1/8" tube is much stronger than I can pull and break by hand. But you should see what the ethanol does to it. Ethanol turns Tygon into a very hard dry brittle crumbling garbage. With the "ethanol shield" and other fuel treatments, Tygon stays tough and strong. Organic chem is so interesting.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tekk on Tuesday May 09, @09:43PM (1 child)
E0 gas is pretty commonly available, at least in North Carolina. It's usually considerably more expensive, but you can pretty much always get it because boats and older small engines (lawn mowers, chainsaws, etc.) aren't built to take ethanol.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday May 10, @02:08AM
True, but as I posted above, there's an additive that neutralizes ethanol's destructive powers. I've been using it for years and have no more problems with small engines. It is a bit annoying to have to do it though. I wish E0 was widely available. I understand the reason they don't want everyone using it, but I'd rather a lottery system - something where you can only buy so many gallons (liters) a month for small engines, older cars, etc., rather than simply charging much more $ per gallon to discourage its use. As too often, the higher price hurts lower / working class people much more. Wealthy people don't usually have chain saws, string trimmers, etc.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday May 09, @08:09PM
"The biofuel's bipartisan support isn't about science, but politics"
Thanks for this 100 percent accurate acknowledgement. Now, if people would simply realize the same about solar and wind energy.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Tuesday May 09, @08:14PM (3 children)
It replaces chemical anti-knocking agents, like lead and the more modern MTBE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiknock_agent [wikipedia.org]
So how does this sound now? Replace crap that polluted ground water and our brains with something neutral.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tekk on Tuesday May 09, @09:45PM (1 child)
It's an additive we treat as fuel, shown in the article. Originally it was for anti-knock but over the years the amounts they wanted kept creeping up right up until the turn of the 2010's, I feel like. back then it feels almost every gas pump had a "flexfuel" E85 nozzle. I can't remember the last time I saw one, though.
(Score: 2) by crm114 on Tuesday May 09, @10:13PM
Utah.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday May 09, @10:39PM
Ethanol also adsorbs small amounts of water that sometimes gets in gasoline. That is especially prone to happening during cold winter months. Moving a car from a relatively warm and humid garage to the cold outdoors will cause water to condense out of the air in the gas tank. An additive that's been around for decades, brand name of Heet, mostly is alcohol, and adsorbs water. Really don't need Heet any more with E10 gasoline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10, @06:52AM