And you "aint seen nothing yet." Sen. Clinton is a huge supporter of Ethanol so you can bet your bottom dollar that if elected President we'll see more and more of our tax dollars flushed down the toilet.

I'm curious if the article included the harmful affects Ethanol production has on the enviroment and food prices?

Once again we have pointed out to us an example of the putative leadership being either ignorant, moronic or duplicitous. It is as if the general momentum of the political/ economic heirarchy and reality are on diverging or opposite courses.

Is there some motivation here or are they just dumb? It isn't pleasant having to choose between two derogatory options - or saying nothing at all. For those of us who have customarily chosen the latter, it has now got to the point where silence just doesn't seem appropriate anymore. Time's up.

Thanks RR, for putting it and putting it so well.

A reddit link if you are so inclined:

http://science.reddit.com/info/2d2j1/comments

and here's a link to the /. firehose:

http://slashdot.org/firehose

In the quantity used in 2006, the vast majority of ethanol replaces MTBE, not gasoline. MTBE is made from natural gas. Viewed in this context, the statements about replacement of gasoline are even more questionable.

See my article from June Corn-Based Ethanol: Is This a Solution?

The only useful thing I learned from reading Rush Limbaugh's first book (not mine!) was to NEVER trust the facts of someone with an agenda.

I think the TRICK is that corn-based ethanol can displace OIL but not fossil fuels.

David Morris and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance promote a "carbohydrate economy" which I might believe is possible if we can scale back our energy consumption by 98% and never moved the biomass more than 100 miles.
http://www.ilsr.org/
http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/

I remember a report they had which claimed every gallon of ethanol producted displaced SEVEN gallons of oil, apparently because coal and natural gas were principle energy sources for the growing of corn and processing of the ethanol.

So if you allow coal&NG to replace oil (via ethanol) then multpliers are POSSIBLE - I'm not taking a position on the honesty or accuracy of the claims.

Robert, is it possible that *some* of the inflation in these official stats could be based on the fact that only a fraction of the barrel actually appears as *gasoline* (for which the ethanol is presumably substituting directly). What would that ratio (gallons replaced to barrels replaced) give us?I regret I don't have that ratio - but the calculation is simple.

To clarify: if, as FRA says, 116 million barrels of ethanol was produced (and if, for the moment, we pretend a gallon of ethanol is as good as a gallon of gas), how many barrels of *oil* would be replaced (or, how many barrels of *oil* are required to produce 116 million barrels of *gasoline*)?

Seems to me that things would be clearer if all the numbers were in a common unit... mixing barrels and gallons and BTUs seems to me part of the problem, part of why these statistical statements confuse the unready readers... BTUs mean little to a gasoline consumer, I suspect. Of course the conclusions you draw are still sound, and the lesson important; it would just be easier to see why if we (you) converted everything into the same unit (for your FAQs, I think this would be effective).

Ever grateful for the ongoing education,

Shane

The policy seems to be get this point across to the american people that we are doing something about the problem, here is what we are doing, this is why you can spend those hard earned dollars on the nice products that you can buy on credit, this is going to save your collective behinds so don't worry.

That policy seems to be what is going on. We can lie to the dumb american joe six pack, because he won't ask why the numbers don't match up, because he can't figure out what the numbers mean, he was to busy watching american Idol that night and we can just candy coat this all, and still get our leaders elected and our bonus checks in the mail and everything will be just fine for a few more years, then I can retire.

It is summer, it is hot, so don't worry come fall when the temps go down, everything will be normal again and we can settle into a real happy holiday season.

Yay, no worries, we'll all be fine come elcetion time.

--Rant off--

Oil Displacement

1) We have roughly: 168 million cars, 63 million light trucks, and 5 million SUVs that account for 236 million of the 239 million vehicles -- 98.7% of all vehicles (fhwa.dot.gov, yr2000 data).

2) The auto industry sells about 16 million new vehicles per year -- 6.7% of the total, so about 15 years to replace at that rate (Edmunds).

3) "Battery Electric Vehicles" or BEVs require NO gasoline or diesel to operation, and EPRI-NRDC has said that there is "abundant supply of electricity for transportation".

Question: How many BEVs would we have to sell each year to mitigate/match the oil supply depletion? For instance, 2.39 million BEVs per year would replace 1% of the fleet (and therefore 1% of fuel use).

Guys, the numbers are so out of line that I can only conclude that they are meant to confuse the issue until the conference Energy Bill is negotiated. In other words, purposeful deception, or lies.

What's truly scary is that the oil industry lobbying groups are going to concede the Ethanol provisions so they can focus on the injustice of "punative taxation".

Who is going to represent the American people? Once again, the energy situation isn't a partisan issue, its not right or left. I've now officially quit all the parties, I think I'm a wobbly, an anarcho-syndicalist. The whores in Washington represent only themselves.

Just a little note, my Congressman Ron Paul didn't even show up for the vote on these bills. He was too busy campaigning in Iowa and doesn't consider energy important. Source: Houston Chronicle las Sunday.
Bob Ebersole

Check the guys over at FARK. Mathematically challenged:

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2984240

Robert,

It appears as if they simply reversed the ratio (to their advantage, of course):

116 million barrels ethanol / 170 million barrels oil = 0.68

My guess is that this is simply an example of innumeracy, which happens to make the etoh industy look good so it was never fact checked...

On topic, here's a page from a paper on Renewable Energy Systems I'm currently writing:

Liebig’s Law of the minimum states that the production of a good or resource is limited by its least available input. In layman’s terms something is only as good as its weakest link. This form of ecological stoichiometry will loom large in the procurement of energy alternative to fossil fuels. Water, land, soil, greenhouse gas emissions, and specific fossil inputs themselves will potentially limit scaling of alternative energy.

EROI is generally measured as the ratio of the gross energy return to the amount of energy invested. However, it has been argued that this can give a false indicator of the desirability of a process because of the increasing cost of non-energy requirements as EROI approaches 1 (Giampietro et al. 1997). Following Giampietro et al. (1997), let ω = EROI/(EROI – 1) be the ratio of gross to net energy produced. ω equals the amount of energy production required to yield 1 MJ of net energy. From an energy perspective, this is not worrisome since all costs have been covered. However, for non-energy requirements the perspective and the implications, change.

Let EROXI be the energy return for 1 unit of non-energy requirement X. Then 1/ EROXI is the number of units of X required for 1 MJ gross energy production. From the above, it is easily seen that ω/EROXI units of X are required, or more generally, the net energy yielded per unit of X is equal to EROXI/ω. Since ω increases non-linearly (approaching infinity) as EROI approaches 1, a relatively small change in EROI can produce a large decrease in the “net EROI” for non-energy requirements. For energy production processes with significant non-energy requirements such as biofuels, this suggests a low EROI can imply strong limitations on their ability to be scaled up (Giampietro et al. 1997, Hill et al. 2006)

If we assume the Intermediate Boundary EROI for non-cellulosic ethanol from corn is in the neighborhood of 1.34 (Farrell et al. 2006), this implies net energy of .34 for every 1 unit of energy input. The ethanol Energy Return on Land Invested (EROLI) = 11,633 MJ/ha gross energy production (equivalent to 3475 liters per hectare). However, the net energy per unit of land is only 2,908 MJ/ha. At 2004 levels of gasoline consumption for the United States, this is equivalent to consuming the net energy production of 42 hectares of cropland per second. If the EROI of ethanol is reduced to 1.2, a decrease of only 10%, the net return on land decreases by 33% while the amount of land required to achieve this same net yield increases by 50%. Conversely, an oil well requires equipment access, roads, etc. but pulls its bounty out of a comparatively small land area. This contrast has significant implications for the potential scale of biofuel production (Giampietro et al. 1997). In effect, due to significant power density differentials, replacing energy-dense liquid fuels from crude oil with less energy dense biomass fuels will utilize 1,000- to 10,000-fold increases in land area relative to our existing energy infrastructure. (Cleveland, 2007)

Land is one limiting factor, but water may be another. In a forthcoming paper, we use Multicriteria EROI analysis to define and quantify the EROWI (Energy Return on Water Invested) for various energy production technologies. Since water and energy may both be limiting, we care about the “Net EROWI”, which is a combined measure of EROI and EROWI for each technology. With the exception of wind and solar which use water only in indirect inputs, the “Net EROWI” of biofuels are one to two orders of magnitude lower than conventional fossil fuels. We also determined that approximately 2/3 of the world population (by country) will have limitations on bioenergy production by 2025, due to other demands for water. (Mulder et al. 2007)

Furthermore, biofuels, especially the ethanols, require large amounts of natural gas for fertilizer, pesticides and primary electricity to concentrate the ethanol. In areas that have natural gas fired electricity plants (as opposed to coal), fully 84% of the energy inputs into corn ethanol are from natural gas (the nitrogen, a portion of the pesticides, and the electricity). (Shapouri 2002). Were the math on corn ethanol somehow scalable to 30% of our national gasoline consumption, in addition to land and water, we would use more than the entire yearly amount of natural gas currently used for home heating as an input.

The people in the DOE, nor Senator Clinton, are talking about water, land and natural gas limitations to ethanol scaling. This country is really reluctant to believe that certain aspects of our lifestyle are non-negotiable. Conservation and efficiency can fill our energy import bucket 1/4 of the way. Corn ethanol would be a few drops.

Robert, I just got off the phone with Jane Van Ryan of the API. I mentioned this thread, and she said that you've now become the Ethanol Expert, and mentioned the Rolling Stone article.

I'm trying to get API to come to Houston for the ASPO conference. We need every ally we can get, and they have the ear and pocketbook of the big oil boys. And, with any luck a Hospitality Suite full of cold boiled shrimp and free drinks, like at the OTC. Wouldn't it be great if we could get them behind Alan Drake's Electrification of Rail proposal? Its the only practical plan I've heard for reducing our oil useage 10% in the next ten years. I want the majors to see that, because with the admitted energy shortfall from the NPC report we have to start on mitigation right now to avoid economic disaster. If they expect to avoid the axe in 18 months, the big oil boys need to promote a conservation plan right now, and his plan won't hurt their sales.

If the big oil guys immediately get behind positive mitigation proposals they may just avoid being broken up. If they get behind this ethanol nonsense they are going to be blamed when, not if, but when the plan becomes a disaster. The sooner they realise that they are the designated scapegoat in all of this and put their money and minds into a real mitigation strategy, the better chance they have of surviving.

This new energy bill is a disaster. Bush is going to veto it, and it will be 18 months before the US does anything about energy, the worst possible outcome. Ethanol is just one of the terrible provisions.Bob Ebersole

Glad to see you delving into this issue in more detail than your original post over at R-Squared. Certainly calling out overwrought claims about the benefits of ethanol is important whether you're a supporter or not, and the numbers you sight from RFA and others are silly at best. But conversely, you need to keep your own logic clear.

For instance, you seem to be suggesting that the increase in ethanol production is somehow causing our increase reliance on gasoline rather than just coincidental. As I mentioned in my comments over at R-Squared, the studies of the amount of petroleum that goes into the lifecycle of ethanol production are in general agreement that it's pretty low-- equal to about 5% of the energy in the finish ethanol. You're right to point out that other fossil fuels play a much larger role, which is why I would again urge you to take up GHG displacement as a critical metric.

Also as to why no displacement is evident by eyeballing charts, you have to take into account how we're using ethanol right now. We're using it as an oxygenate rather than for its Btus. Through last year, ethanol was mostly displacing MTBE. (You dismissed this too quickly in your response on R-Squared. As I understand it, MTBE consumption was equal to about 5 billion gallons of ethanol in 2005 and displacement when into high gear after Congress refused to offer MTBE liability protection to the oil industry.) So on the one hand, most of the nearly 5 billion gallons of ethanol produced probably didn't displace any oil; on the other detecting displacement would be very difficult because the displacement isn't on a btu basis. As an oxygenate, ethanol still reduces the btu content of the blended fuel, but provides other value on a volumetric basis.

In the end, I'd just reiterate my basic point: there are a lot of reasons that ethanol from corn has limited ability to scale and there are a lot of exaggerated claims. Most of these claims are about its benefits, but many are about its harmful impacts. The fact of the matter is that we don't use much oil to produce corn ethanol so if there were no other limitations and oil displacement was all that mattered, corn ethanol would be a oil alternative. Rather than trying to attack corn ethanol for one of the things it does well, we should be trying to focus the debate on the issues that really matter such as GHG emissions.

Please visit my blog on clean energy technologies and policies at: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ngreene/

Robert,

Excellent post but I have a suggestion. You note that ethanol has not changed the oil consumption trend noticeably. The reader might infer that you are making the argument that ethanol has therefore not at all decreased oil consumption relative to the counterfactual (in which we were not producing ethanol). As you know, of course, this argument does not necessarily follow. It is a common tool of persuasion to state that action X has not reversed the trend of function Y and therefore that action X cannot have had any effect on function Y. Just watch politicians for a few minutes :) I fear that readers may think that you are using that tool to persuade toward your position rather than simply reporting the facts objectively, as you intend. It seems to me that if you want to avoid being accused of bias, you need to be careful in avoiding these kinds of potential traps.

I don’t personally find your reference to special pleading to be very compelling in this case, because any effect of ethanol so far may be modest relative to the noise in the graph.

I will also note that, looking at the graph you linked, there is a slight fall-off from the linear gas demand trend in the last few years. If you fit a line up to 1999 – about the time the ethanol ramp up began - the extrapolated prediction would be above the actual data. You can see this clearly just putting a pencil over it. This really is the appropriate way to fit the data in this case. Fitting a line to the entire data set visually masks any potential effect. It seems possible that the real net ethanol BTU contributions could account for that pattern (if one were willing to assume an underlying linear BTU demand increase model), though I agree that the effect may not be practically significant, may just be noise, and would not prove anything.

By the way, I’m not sure the linear gas demand fit through 2006 would survive a test for randomness of residuals, though I’d have to see the actual data to know for sure. Also, why stop at 1991? Is the trend historically linear going further back? Is there strong a priori reason to expect a linear relationship?

Please note that I am no fan of corn ethanol.

There was a debate yesterday on CNBC between Jeff Goodell, Larry Kudlow and Lou Ann Hammond:

video

Let's keep things in historical perspective. In the US, politicans and ethanol go WAY back. They have ALWAYS used ethanol as a ploy to win votes. The only difference is that whereas in former times the ethanol came in a bottle and went into voter's stomachs, now it comes in service station pump and goes into an automobile gas tank. Other than that relatively trivial difference, things haven't changed all that much over the years (except for that little experiment with Prohibition).

Robert,

Thank you for your contribution. Excellent as always. You make the point that the BTU content is significantly less. Previously we have seen numbers for the EROEI which show that where Oil Production may take anywhere from 5 to 100 barrels produced per barrel consumed, when the EROEI is determined was that using barrels of oil or barrels equivalent? If a barrel of oil produces 1.5 barrels of ethanol and then the energy content of the ethanol is substantially lower...

So besides the point that the energy content is less, we also have an increase in demand to account for production required components of the energy. A ramp up to increase production (gross) by a 116 million barrels of ethanol would have an substantial increase in consumption needed for the production, so the net production would be substantially less than the 116 Million, and then the energy net on what is left would be reduced even further, if I understand this correctly. Unless the portion needed to promote the production is already taken into account by your numbers. could you kindly confirm if this is correct?

Respectfully,

EJ

Well beyond the comprehension or concern of the members of Congress is the simple science fact of the alternative fuel EROEI scale for oil replacement. If you look at just how much more alternative fuel must be made to net us the energy that oil is giving us, you get this:

Most sources give an EROEI for corn ethanol at around 1.3 with even its advocates rarely claiming more than 2.0 and detractors claiming it at 1.0 or worse. At face value, you'd think that an EROEI of 1.3, a 30% return on energy invested, would be worthwhile. But it actually works out that you have to make over 23 times the ethanol barrels by BTU content (38 times the physical barrels) more than our oil usage to replace our oil usage. It's WORTHLESS in replacing our oil usage. Considering that the energy content of a barrel of ethanol is a little more than half that for a barrel of oil, and that about 70% of oil is burned in mobile fuel tanks, the world would have to produce about 2275 million barrels of ethanol per day to replace our 60 million barrel/day auto/oil habit. We could all starve to death and it wouldn't make a dent in this use of corn. Anything that has an EROEI of 2 or less isn't going to make any difference. This is borne out by the gasoline production vs ethanol production chart. It shows no impact being imposed on gasoline production by ramping up ethanol production. This is exactly what you would expect to see if it's EROEI was 1.0 and why corn ethanol is a dangerous waste of precious time and money. A copy of the above chart should be taped to the forehead of every congressman in the U.S.A.

I believe that the corn would have been grown even without the ethanol industry or more realisticly, other crops would have been grown.
So the energy used for fertilizer and irrigation would have been used anyway. The only wasted energy is the energy used in the process of making the ethanol.
If we don't count the energy use in making the corn I believe the EROEI for ethanol will look a lot better.
( might even be positive :-) )
Corn might need more irrigation, but I will try to limit the scope of this post.

My point is just that when they state that 11 Billion is saved "from being sent to foreign and often hostile countries" they need to make it clear that it is not a saving for the US, as they have probably missed AT LEAST 11 billion in exports of corn and other grains.

I first heard this onesided view of ethanol in Bartlets presentation to congres, when pro ethanol representatives kept stating that the US daily used 20 billion on importing oil. They tried to present the ethanol as being a savior of the US trade deficit and repeating "TWENTY BILLION A DAY" would make you feel like Ethanol was a savior of the trade balance. But they completly missed to mention the loss of exports when using corn. Or to mention that all the ethanol would only replace a tiny share of the imports.

I dont believe this ethanol industry will do ANYTHING to help the US trade deficit.

You might reduce OPEC revenue with those 64 million BOE, or approx 4 billion USD, but at what cost?

Corn price up 70% paid by consumers! Dont even dare to calculate the burden they have put on consumers.
A 70% increase to the cost of ALL corn. How many billions is that, paid by consumers? 30 billion?
I wont even count the priceincrease of ALL other grain but I believe this would be a few billion too.

My point is that foodprices are very inelastic, and when you remove just a few percentage of the food crop (less than 10?) the remaining 90% of food will rise massively.

THIS IS THE REAL COST OF ETHANOL

The fact that the farmers will benefit greatly really just show how this is just a tax/subsidy.

On a countrywide scale the fact that consumers of food (everybody) will pay more and the farmers will recieve more is not a net cost.

The real looser in this game is Mexico, as they are the ones who need to find corn elsewhere.

Making Ethanol is just a way of paying 200$ for a non-midle-east barrel of oil

Rune

Being from Denmark it is hard to be against global warming :-)

How could politicians run on a serious long term program addressing energy use, and an unpopular one at that (less consumption), on such a short term elective cycle? Besides the obvious cynicism (and often pure ignorance) permeating politics, I am sure a number of politicians are aware but fear losing ground on such a difficult issue, so they resort to make-believe demagogic solutions, to be addressed later.
Car use, and truck transportation are the main obstacles for any efficiency since such an abundance of fossil energy has allowed societies incredible mobility and complex infrastructures depending on an increasing flow of this finite energy.
Getting some form of public transportation, electric or otherwise, on a large scale working in the US depends entirely on land-use reform. I don't see servicing the suburbs and the last exurbanization trend being easy or even feasible. Land-use reforms could attempt to cluster populations in villages, towns and small cities and use arable land for farming, as locally as possible. But this kind of solution runs in the face of American individualistic values for now and would be totally unpopular… But yes, IMHO land-use determines how we use energy (and how much).

And I forgot to mention, if I understood correctly one of Robert's arguments is that any increase in energy flow, green, yellow or otherwise, has the immediate effect to "grow" the way we use energy now. It's akin to the enormous progress made in housing insulation after the oil shocks of the '70, it only has allowed people to build bigger houses when energy prices went down.

But I haven't worked through the numbers myself but I thought I'd ask a question on one point.

When used in E10 I believed that ethanol improves the burn of the gasoline, so the lower BTU per volume is offset by improved efficiency of gasoline use.

Can this make up part of the difference?

Hi Robert,

And many thanks, as always.

Just as an aside, last night I happened- (very happenstance, as I *never* watch TV!) - to see approx. 60 sec. of regular, US TV, which happened (or was it TOD-kismet?) to be a commercial (I've tried to find it on the internet, but no luck after a bit of googling.) As follows:

Shot looking toward back end (from POV of car following) of a flat-bed pickup going down the road, with bags of corn (and for some reason- was the tailgate down? I can't remember!). On the side of the road are cornfields.

The bag(s) break open, little corn kernels spill on the roadway.

The little kernels quiver, jump and then spring to life!

Where they quickly assume existence as full-blown quite large vehicles (trucks and ? SUVs?) (My memory for 60 sec. commercials is on par w. my music memory.)

Which begin to zoom down the road.

Everybody happy, is the mood. I'd have to see it again to figure out just how they convey this emotion, but they do.

Or maybe TOD members of the TV-watching public has seen this?

This comment is not on foreign oil displacement, but it is relevant I think to the policy implications of grain ethanol for the U.S, so perhaps it might be reflected in the FAQ.

(1) Style points, as in "How does the rest of the world perceive the US?". In developing corn ethanol as a motor fuel, we have seemingly found a way to make SUV's actually run on the starvation of the foreign poor.

Any of the foreign poor who are not strict Malthusans will not appreciate that this may ultimately minimize human suffering.

Of course, it will also make beef more expensive, making Clara Peller's early '80's "where's the beef?" line into a prophetic koan. But outside the U.S, the starvation thing will resonate; particularly in Mexico as their economy largely collapses following Cantarell's failure.

(2) Medium of exchange, as in, how long will people be crazy enough to accept U.S. dollars for oil? Exportable grain totals will, due to 'export land' and 'receding horizons' reasons, decline similarly to oil. Increasingly, food, armaments, industrial raw materials and energy may be increasingly subject to what is effectively barter solely between nations which possess them. If you squint hard enough, you can see it starting already. Once we get past the point when no sane nations would export any of these basics at all except for the others, corn will probably fetch a good exchange rate for oil and ethanol may return to its traditional use as an intoxicant.

So ethanol proponents are not as truthful as RR thinks they should be. Poor baby. Why not take a look at the lies coming out of the oil industry that are chronicled here nearly every day. The exaggerations of the ethanol lobby are no worse than the "there's plenty of oil" type statements from the the likes of CERA and other representatives of big oil. Seems to me there is a double standard when this is not pointed out.

As regards the EROEI religion and the supposed scientific analysis involved, there is no end to the debate. This is because none of it is relevant to the real world where decisions are made on market prices and not some abstract construct that few, if any, understand. All EROEI does is provide an idea for those who have nothing better to do to fart around with and try to intimidate ethanol supporters. IMO the whole thing was the result of an Exxon-Mobile grant to the U. of California in an attempt to hang onto market share by providing a plausible distraction. There is big talk here at TOD and little do. At least ethanol is an attempt to do something to mitigate PO. Those who want conservation so badly should do it. And not just talk the talk but walk the walk. By that I mean not just talking about what others or the government should do, but actually doing it. Kuntsler is the prime example of this. His life style doesn't reflect the dystopian future he predicts. As near as I can tell, the alternatives to biofuels are pretty limited and impractical. Nearly all involve a large element of coercion. Market incentives are largely ignored and group think reigns supreme.

Any news on the butanol front?

Ethanol from starchy plants has been around since the dawn of agriculture. But come on people, let's be honest and call it alcohol. Why the euphemism?

If alcohol made from starchy plants confers an energy surplus anywhere competitive with wood / coal / oil, why was there never, ever an alcohol-powered society in history? Why was over 99.9% of it consumed as entertainment? Why did everyone choose to burn wood instead?

For one thing, those starchy plants have more energy than the alcohol so produced ever could. Because alcohol is the waste product from when yeast eat starch. The yeast use most of the energy to move around and reproduce.

Anyone who wished to harness the energy of starchy plants, could have simply dried and burned the plants! The plants are a lot easier to store and transport, anyway. Alcohol requires an airtight container.

If throughout history, simply burning rice, corn, and wheat was never economic, how could it ever be more economic to burn the waste products of something that eats rice, corn, or wheat?

And, alcohol waste from yeast never reaches concentrations greater than 15%. That won't even burn! Unless you burn some other fuel to distill the alcohol out. Nobody in history ever burned wood to distill alcohol, and then used the alcohol for fuel. Because there's more energy in the wood.

The whole alcohol debate is so transparently silly. I'm tired of thinking about it. Nobody will even call it alcohol. Geez.

"America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting." William S. Burroughs

$10.0000/acre of farmland in Illinois because people are betting on ethanol production:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/us/08farmers.html

I think that if we had cellulose ethanol, E85 nationwide and the flex fuel hybrids to use it, we could reduce our oil consumption. With enough biomass to make 100 billion gallons of ethanol to replace some of the 140 billions of gasoline the U.S. uses each year, I can not see how this would NOT have an impact on oil consumption. We can do it, but are not doing it.

Hi Robert, (again)

Just a couple cents, FWIW:

re: the RFA quote:

"FACT: In 2006, the production and use of ethanol in the U.S. reduced oil imports by 170 million barrels, saving $11 billion from being sent to foreign and often hostile countries."

1) Who do you want your audience to be? I'd suggest writing your response as though you were speaking to an uninformed audience. (And, after all, considering the RFA mistakes are on this level, might as well not assume.)

So, if I was attempting to address this quote above, I'd start with the number that represents the U.S. actual oil imports in 2006, along with the dollar amount.

So, how many barrels *were* imported and how many billions *were* spent/sent? (Just to give context.)

2) One thing that strikes me as misleading (also) about the RFA quote, is that the $11B seems so high...until one compares it with say, military aid. This might be an interesting comparison.

Like, okay, we allow so many billions to be paid to foreign and "often hostile" countries. And then, on top of this, we also deliberately send them another XX billions in fighter planes, etc. etc.

3) In any case, back to the RFA quote. The reason I'd suggest starting w. a sentence or two about what the actual import numbers and amounts were, is that the naive person reading this has no feel for what the numbers represent.

So, whether it's 170M or something else, doesn't really mean much. Perhaps percentages would be meaningful, which is perhaps why the RFA doesn't use them. (But you could.)

eg. "Even if it was the case that the amount of ethanol US drivers consume did replace an equivalent amount of oil imports, this would still represent only X% of the total imports."

4) Perhaps...are you thinking to offer some speculation about why this demand/consumption graph didn't change?

Is the hype over ethanol having some psychological effect that makes it okay to consume ethanol (as fuel)? So, by consuming ethanol, one is being a responsible citizen? (This could have the paradoxical effect of increasing consumption even more?)

In other words, if you're meaning to write something up, I'd suggest start with your last paragraph, and then expand on what you mean. eg. what does "demand-side" mean? (Consumption increases, this is the problem.) etc.

Then just say X amount ethanol consumed in year Y (use 2006 as an example), for an oil equivalent of Z. But...then add on all the other points, it replaces MTBE, not gasoline, etc. or whatever.