I was reading my recent Forbe's magazine and it had an article on ethanol as an alternative or supplemental fuel source. Naturally, the article focused on the investment and financial benefits of this as it is Forbe's magazine. Their bottom line was that investors may come up short as so many people have now bought into the frenzy that they are going to exceed the short-term demand for ethanol. They also mention that it may stabilize as most candidates on both sides are pushing for more legislation that would increase the demand for ethanol.
I'll give them kudos, though, for at least mentioning two vital aspects of all of this:
1 - ethanol mixed with gasoline burns less efficiently than gasoline alone. It's about 2/3's as efficient as gas. So, while you may be burning ethanol instead of gas you still have to burn more gas!!
2 - there haven't been any conclusive studies that show what the potential environmental aspect of all of this are.
Let's back up a moment. The two main reasons to look at ethanol are that it's cheaper than oil, and that it burns cleaner.
But the cost of ethanol is on the rise, and as I've already pointed out you still have to burn more gas. Let's also look at some other factors. The ethanol that we use is made from corn. Corn has a considerable environmental investment: water, fertilizer, and land. How much water and fertilizer does it take to produce any useful amount of ethanol? My dad did some rough calculations and what he came up with is that if we were to try to replace gasoline with ethanol there wouldn't be enough land in the U.S. to support all the corn crops. What about the tractors and combines that are used to plant and harvest the ethanol? Those run on diesel. Then there is the manufacturing of the ethanol, which also burns other types of fuels.
The bottom line is that nobody is really sure what impact this is having on the environment and the economy. The only thing that seems to be sure is that someone, somewhere, is making a lot of money off of the political ramifications of this. It certainly seems like another "benefit" of scaring the crap out of everyone with global warming and the exhaustion of fossil fuels (which really wouldn't happen in our lifetime, our kids lifetime, their kids lifetime, and their kids, kids, kids lifetimes).
2 comments:
It has been well understood for some time that the yield of american crops has been well above the typical farm across the world. This is mainly due to the use of fertilizers and advanced machinery. Since the machines use fuel and fertilizer is typically made from derivatives of oil, there is general recognition that our yields reflect a trade of oil for food. Lest we start talking about advanced american farming, yada, yada...Let's not think that we know more about farming than, say, the Russians. They're yield is almost as big as ours, and they are more organic than we are.
In short, ethanol calculations are based on yields that are based on an oil economy. To sum it up, the question is: Can a farm produce enough ethanol to power itself and have surplus to sell off? Since the only FREE incoming energy is Solar, I think we'll end up with lots of solar cells (as imperfect as that science is).
Excellent comments. I know very little about farming, and almost nothing about mass farming. I suspect that is the case with most Americans.
In answer to your last question, I strongly suspect that they cannot be self-sufficient and have surpless to sell off.
Sugar cane has a much higher yield, and is more effecient to produce, but it doesn't grow well in the U.S. Maybe we should consider importing ethanol from 3rd world countries?
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