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Ethanol Blend E85 Case Study: Iowa
Posted by Robert Rapier on September 1, 2010 - 10:28am
Iowa - The Saudi Arabia of Ethanol
Iowa is to corn ethanol what Saudi Arabia is to oil. At present Iowa has the capacity to produce 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol per year, which is 26% of the nation’s total (Source). This is of course due to the large amount of corn production in Iowa, enabled by ample rainfall and rich topsoil.
But Iowa differs from Saudi Arabia with respect to energy production in one very important detail: Saudi Arabia satisfies their own energy needs with the oil they produce, and exports the excess. Iowa on the other hand exports the vast majority of the ethanol they produce while importing gasoline as motor fuel.
Gasoline consumption in Iowa is presently around 1.6 billion gallons per year (Source). This is the energy equivalent of 2.4 billion gallons per year of ethanol. Yet amazingly, Iowa does not have an E10 blend mandate (that is, a mandate for a mixture of 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol) that is so common in many other states. Of the 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol Iowa produces each year, only 100 million gallons is consumed in the state (less than 3%!). Perhaps even more amazing is that Iowa — seemingly the best candidate in the U.S. for biofuel self-sufficiency — ranks in the Top 10 consumers of gasoline per capita in the U.S. (Source).
Iowa is a state that by all accounts should be able to satisfy their own liquid fuel needs with ethanol, and still have some left for export. They are perhaps unique in the U.S. in that respect. Instead, petroleum continues to supply over 90% of the motor fuel in Iowa, and virtually all of the fuel used in the farm equipment for growing all of that corn. Something is wrong with this picture.
Why Isn’t Iowa Self-Sufficient?
That is a perplexing question. If ethanol is a real alternative to gasoline, why hasn’t it taken over the marketplace in Iowa? Ethanol should have a greater advantage over gasoline in Iowa than probably in any other state. And in fact, the price spread between gasoline and E85 (the 85% ethanol blend) is consistently higher in Iowa than in other states (Source). The reported price spread in Iowa as of July 2010 was 30.1%, which should be large enough to drive consumers to E85 over gasoline. So what is the problem?
There are three possible problems that I can identify:
1). Perhaps there isn’t enough E85 infrastructure in place.
2). There aren’t enough E85 vehicles on the road;
3). The price is still too high relative to gasoline.
Regarding infrastructure, as of January 2010, there were an estimated 136 service stations in Iowa selling E85 (out of 977 total service stations) and a total of 2,233 Stations selling E85 in the United States (Source). Iowa also has an incentive program in place to install new E85 infrastructure (see below), but with 136 stations across the state (and growing), availability doesn’t seem to be a major limiting factor.
The availability of E85 vehicles may be a more serious impediment. As of 2009, there are reportedly around 8 million vehicles on U.S. roads that are E85 capable (Source). Given a total vehicle population of around 250 million, that means that only around 3% of the cars on the road are E85-capable. (I could not find statistics specific to Iowa). This would seem to be a limiting factor at present for E85 penetration; E85 can’t capture 10% of the market if only 3% of the cars can burn it.
Yet even with some E85 vehicles on the road, sales of E85 in Iowa have been falling and sales of ethanol in general lag the rest of the U.S.:
Final 2009 Iowa Ethanol Sales Figures Show Step Back for State
JOHNSTON, IA – The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) today announced that Iowans chose E10, a 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline blend, only 73 percent of the time during 2009 according to Iowa Department of Revenue (IDR) figures. According to the Des Moines Register, Iowa ranks 32nd in ethanol sales despite being the leading ethanol producer.
“Iowa’s ethanol sales did not reach the 2009 goal of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Standard,” said Monte Shaw, IRFA Executive Director. “These are figures based on mandatory reporting of taxable gallons to the State of Iowa and the IRS – not an incomplete, voluntary report. Obviously, IRFA members are disappointed in the results. The state has also released E85 sales for the first nine months of 2009. During those three quarters, E85 sales were down 15% compared to 2008.”
The number of E85 vehicles has been slowly rising, so if E85 sales are falling then there is also apparently a cost factor that is coming into play. For much of 2008, the price differential between E85 and gasoline was 15-20% (historical pricing available at E85prices.com). For the first half of 2009, that price differential had fallen to only 10%. Clearly, if E85 is ever to become the dominant fuel in Iowa, the price differential will have to properly reflect the fuel economy difference of E85 versus gasoline. E85 contains about 25% less energy than gasoline on a volumetric basis. Owners that experience a 25% reduction in fuel economy will expect to pay 25% less for their fuel. In fact, they may expect to pay 30% less due to having to refuel more often.
But, a real game-changer could be ethanol-optimized engines such as that touted by Detroit-based automotive engineering firm Ricardo. While their engine is projected to cost more, they project that they will deliver fuel economy from E85 that is comparable to what can be achieved with gasoline. (I reported on this concept in some detail in All BTUs Are Not Created Equally). In that case, consumers may be willing to buy E85 at a lower differential. The caveats here are that the engine is still in the lab, and the higher engine cost will determine the E85 differential that consumers will expect.
Recommendations
Before making recommendations, it is important to clearly set out the objective. As I have said numerous times, corn ethanol may not be a sustainable solution that is broadly applicable across the U.S. However, I do believe that it could be a very good solution in specific regions. Ethanol made from irrigated corn and shipped to California is in an entirely different sustainability category than ethanol produced and used locally in Iowa. In fact, despite my reputation as an enemy of ethanol from people who are careless with their interpretations, I have used Iowa for years as an example of what sustainable corn ethanol could look like. I have long believed that Iowa is in a good position to lead the way forward.
So from my perspective, the objective would be to increase the sustainability of ethanol — starting in Iowa — by increasing local consumption. This would decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil more than if we have to transport oil from the coasts inland to Iowa while transporting ethanol from Iowa to the coasts.
Pump infrastructure in Iowa does not appear to be the limiting factor. Plus, Iowa already has good incentives in place that support rolling out additional E85 pumps (See Current E85 Incentives below). Iowa also already has a tax credit in place that is specifically directed at E85 sales (which is on top of the national ethanol tax credit). Ultimately, additional incentives may be required, as evidenced by falling E85 sales in the past year. Incentives could be in the form of direct E85 tax credits or fuel tax reductions or waivers. But the real issue seems to be lack of E85 vehicles.
According to automakers, the vehicles are on the way:
US automakers on track for more ethanol vehicles
U.S. automakers also expect to meet a goal of making half their vehicle production flex-fuel by 2012, up from around 30 percent now. But they warn that they could pull back if there aren’t enough gas stations with ethanol pumps.
On the other hand comes news that people may not be interested in buying them:
Flex fuel vehicles may be on the way out
When it comes to buying cars, Americans are still using the price of the vehicle as the primary deciding factor. A well-priced, fuel-efficient vehicle is the car of choice for Americans and this is bad news for the flex fuel vehicle industry. In a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, only 5 percent of respondents said they would be extremely likely to purchase a flex fuel vehicle, even if it only added $250 to the base price of the vehicle.
So it would appear that consumers may need some convincing before they are ready to take the plunge on an E85 vehicle. There are several ways to incentivize sales of E85 vehicles. The worst is probably just to mandate that vehicles sold in the state of Iowa are E85-compatible. (I think this is the worst because mandates often have unintended consequences; hence I prefer incentives over mandates). Probably the most manageable would be rebates or expanded tax credits — at the state or federal level — for the purchase of an E85 vehicle. Instead of a Cash for Clunkers program (which I was not a fan of), we would have been better served to have a cash for E85 vehicles program.
Such a program should probably be driven from within Iowa. After all, they arguably stand to benefit from using the ethanol they produce and moving toward true energy independence. Transportation costs cited in the recent DOE study on the proposed ethanol pipeline (that I discussed here) suggested that railing ethanol costs $0.19/gallon (shipping via pipeline was cited at $0.28/gal). Imagine that only half of the ethanol produced in Iowa is used in Iowa; there is a potential shipping savings of over $330 million per year. (However, under the present system these costs are passed through to consumers out of state, so it might be hard for Iowa to justify a program on the basis of savings for Iowans).
Beyond personal transportation, corn growers should be pushing for tractors that can run off of ethanol. They can be built. In 2006 the Saskatchewan Research Council unveiled a tractor modified to operate on 100 per cent hydrated ethanol. More on that development here:
From late December 2006 to late January 2007, the 120 horsepower ethanol-fuelled tractor clocked 60 hours of running time and got fuel mileage of 24 litres per hour. It takes about 15 bushels of wheat to create one tank of hydrated ethanol for the tractor, says Rueve, explaining that the fuel consists of 94 per cent alcohol and 6 per cent water.
As farm input costs increase, both the tractor and the truck are examples of developments that may make farm operations more sustainable in the future. Meanwhile, biofuels in general offer one option for those who are looking for ways to revitalize the rural economy.
So often we hear about how ethanol is providing homegrown fuel for automobiles, and yet the tractors that produce the homegrown corn run off of petroleum. I think it would be in the best interest of Iowa and of the country as a whole (given Iowa’s importance as a food producer) to break the petroleum dependence of Iowa’s farms by building tractors that can run off of ethanol (or biodiesel).
Conclusions
Iowa could be self-sufficient with their ethanol production if certain policies are supported. Some policies are already in place that are meant to address E85 availability and cost. However, the availability of E85 vehicles and the willingness of consumers to buy them is probably the key limiting factor. Ultimately, building up an E85 market in Iowa and eventually in the rest of the Midwest could solve a number of issues for the ethanol industry. If the Midwest adopted E85 as its flagship fuel, there would be no blend wall to be concerned about, nor would an expensive ethanol pipeline be needed to export ethanol out of the region. The potential market across the Midwest is triple the nation’s current ethanol production, giving ethanol producers an ample opportunity to grow without forcing national mandates that put E15 into cars that aren’t designed for it.
Current E85 Incentives
Iowa has tax credits in place specific to E85 sales:
E85 Retailer Tax Credit
A tax credit is available to retail stations dispensing E85 for use in motor vehicles in the amount of $0.20 per gallon for calendar year 2010, and $0.10 per gallon in calendar year 2011. After 2011, the tax credit decreases by $0.01 each year and expires after December 31, 2020. Taxpayers claiming the E85 tax credit may also claim the tax credit available for retail ethanol blends for the same gallon of fuel and tax year. (Reference Iowa Code 422.11O)
And toward blending infrastructure:
Biofuels Infrastructure Grants
The Renewable Fuel Infrastructure Program provides financial assistance to E85 and biodiesel retailers. Cost-share grants are available for up to 70% of the total cost of the project, or $50,000, whichever is less, to upgrade or install new E85 or biodiesel infrastructure. Applicants may also qualify for supplemental incentives for up to 75% of the cost of making the improvement, or $30,000, whichever is less, to upgrade or replace an E85 fueling dispenser that has not been approved by an independent testing laboratory. The supplemental incentive is available only to applicants who made the improvement no later than 60 days after the date of the publication in the Iowa administrative bulletin of the state fire marshal’s order providing that a commercially available fueling dispenser is listed as compatible for use with E85 by an independent testing laboratory.
Biodiesel distributors may apply for a cost-share grant for infrastructure upgrades and installations at biodiesel terminal facilities. Facilities blending or dispensing blends ranging from B2 to B98 are eligible for up to 50% of the total project, or $50,000, whichever is less. Facilities blending or dispensing B99 or B100 are eligible for up to 50% of the total project, or $100,000, whichever is less. The Renewable Fuels Infrastructure Board was established under the guidance of the Iowa Department of Economic Development; this 11-member board has authority to determine the eligibility of applicants. (Reference Iowa Code 15G.202-15G.204)
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Are E85 Vehicles Destined for Extinction?
E-85 is essentially a way for American makers of vans, SUVs and pickups to game the CAFE standards. However, as we have seen, it wasn't enough to keep GM and Chrysler afloat.
whats not to understand? A gallon of ethanol produces only 2/3 of the energy of a gallon of gasoline. Thus on an energy basis it needs to be at least 2/3 cheaper than the cost of gasoline- probably more like 50% cheaper to pay for the infrastructure costs associated with dispensing ethanol. Gasoline futures are trading at $1.90 compared with $1.76 for ethanol i.e a discount of less than 10%. Only an idiot would use ethanol in preference to gasoline.
The folks in Iowa like successful drug dealers are smart- get other idiots to buy your product (courtesy of Federal mandates and tax subsidies) but don't touch the stuff yourself.
This all depends on the efficiency of the individual engine. A 8.5 to 1 compression ratio gasoline engine and a 10.5 to 1 hydrated ethanol engine will likely get similar fuel consumption in miles per gallon because the higher compression engine is more efficient. But you can't use the higher compression engine with gasoline because of detonation (gasoline igniting because of the heat of compression before it is supposed to be ignited) which will destroy the engine. Hydrated ethanol has a much higher octane rating which allows it to be used in the higher compression (and higher efficiency) engine.
There also additional benefits in burning hydrated ethanol in internal combustion engines in that the lubricating oils last longer and engines last longer when running hydrated ethanol rather than gasoline. Also, hydrated ethanol does not deposit gums and varnishes on critical parts like fuel injectors, fuel pumps and carburetors so they last much longer significantly reducing maintainence and repair costs on the automobile. These savings need to be factored into your total cost scenario.
If the hydrated ethanol is used in the 8.5 to 1 compression engine it will then get a lower fuel consumption rating in miles per gallon than gasoline.
I don't know what special infrastructure you are thinking about, but hydrated ethanol or E-85 are both put in the same type of tanks regular gasoline (E-10 in Minnesota) are put in and pumped by the same type of pumps and hoses. You could just switch the seldom used high-test (92 octane) gasoline tanks and pumps to either E-85 or hydrated ethanol.
Some of the new custom blend pumps let the customer select the gasoline/alcohol blend from E10 (mandated minimum ethanol content in Minnesota) to E100 (hydrated ethanol - 95% ethanol + 5% water). $0 infrastructure cost?
My Honda Insight has a 1L 3 cylinder engine with 10.5::1 compression ratio and runs fine on gasoline. It ran better and more efficiently on straight 89 octane gasoline than it runs on E10 that is all we can get in Oregon.
It doesn't make sense to compare compression ratios between disparate engines. The 8.5:1 vs 10.5:1 was just an example. With a given octane fuel, different design parameters and technologies will let you run higher compression ratios. In terms of design small, compact combustion chambers are better. Direct fuel injection and variable valve timing also let you run higher compression ratios.
If your Insight engine were designed for 95 octane fuel and used the equivalent technology, it could run higher compression and be even more efficient. The extra efficiency from high compression makes up for the lower energy content of ethanol. That's the idea anyway.
I believe that many stations have only two storage tanks, 87 octane (regular) and 92 octane (hi-test) and the mid grade is simply a blend of the two. In this case a switch would be problematical.
I think you are still talking more tank sand pumps, and the price I have heard for a new storage tank is $60,000.
Another issue is that these stations are not close by for most customers. If there is say, one station selling E85 per county, a typical customer might have to drive ten miles out of the way (20 miles round trip), and waste a half our of time. This needs to be considered in the cost difference as well. I looked my own location in Georgia, and it looked like the nearest E85 station was 20 miles away.
Unless you get E85 stations nearly as widely distributed as "regular" gas stations, it is hard to see how there will be much use. People cannot be expected to drive miles and miles to an E85 station.
I is my understanding that while currently installed service station infrastructure will serve reliably dispensing e10, it will not withstand e85 and might not last out its expected service life dispensing e15.
I could be wrong of course.
The problem with Iowa fueling its fuel ethanol production with fuel ethanol is that it would rapidly become apparent that there is no net gain in energy. It is just an expensive way to convert diesel fuel into gasohol. If you fed the outputs back into the inputs, the production of ethanol would use up all the ethanol and there would be nothing for Iowa to sell.
So, of course, the only solution is to use diesel fuel as an input and sell the ethanol produced to other people. There are a lot of hidden subsidies on both the input and output side, and that is what makes the whole process profitable for farmers.
There is no net benefit in fuel alcohol production for US consumers and taxpayers, it's all done for the benefit of the farmers. If it was intended to benefit consumers, they would import ethanol from Brazil, which can produce it much more cheaply and efficiently.
The only benefit to ethanol is as an octane enhancer and as an oxygenated additive for those areas which need it to meet air quality standards. Gas sales in Iowa appear to be about 75% E10, compared with about 80% nationally. So E10 sales in Iowa must be driven by octane enhancement, since I doubt they require it to meet EPA air regs.
Since they are a big ethanol producing state, but E10 is needed all over the country, it stands to reason that they would export the lion's share of their production.
That's true. The oil companies like ethane as an octane enhancer, because most of their other octane enhancers have been banned. It saves money because they don't have to refine the gasoline as hard to get the octane rating they want, and of course the subsidies help the bottom line.
Running a tractor on straight ethanol makes little sense because not many tractors require 129 octane fuel.
Tractors don't run on race car gasoline or aviation gas because it is very expensive;if it were cheap, the manufacturers would build tractor gasoline engines with twelve or thirteen to one compression ratios.
If new spark engines are built to run on straight or nearly straight ethanol, we can expect them to be very high compesssion engines, thereby increasing thier efficiency considerably.
Yes, that's true, farmers are not going to run tractors on alcohol or avgas because it is just too expensive, and will continue to be too expensive under almost every scenario.
Running farm equipment on ethanol produced from corn is completely non-sustainable given the energy intensive nature of US corn production. It takes nearly as much energy to produce the ethanol as you get from burning it in vehicles. Cane sugar ethanol from Brazil is much more practical because they use far less energy (but more labor) in producing it. The EROEI of Brazilian ethanol is around 8:1, versus closer to 1:1 for American ethanol.
If a farmer runs short of diesel fuel, he can blend vegetable oil into the diesel and keep on running. Kits exist to modify a diesel tractor to run on straight vegetable oil, and you probably don't need to divert much more than 10% of the soybean crop into the farm equipment.
Even in Brazil, it would probably be more efficient to run tractors on soybean oil than ethanol, since the Brazilians have modified soybeans to grow under tropical conditions on land that historically was considered unfit for agriculture. However, even the Brazilians are probably going to keep running on diesel fuel because they have those big new offshore oil discoveries, and oil supply is not a problem from their perspective.
Corn ethanol fuel is an American solution to an American problem. Everyone else would prefer to eat the corn or drink the ethanol.
Merrill wrote; The only benefit to ethanol is as an octane enhancer and as an oxygenated additive for those areas which need it to meet air quality standards.
Actually, that is not quite true. Ethanol, as a fuel, can be used, in appropriate engines, to get a thermal efficiency equal to that of diesel engines (i.e. 40%), something that gasoline simply can;t do.
Here are some charts from a test done using a modified VW Jetta diesel engine, using spark ignition and port fuel injection of ethanol and methanol.
(full report can be found here; http://www.methanol.org/pdf/2002-01-2743.pdf);
First, on diesel
Then E100
And methanol (M100)
So the efficiency, and the efficient operating range, of this 19:1 compression diesel, get better going to straight ethanol, and better still on methanol. Compared to any gasoline engine, that is a huge advantage.
Not only that, but the two most expensive parts of a modern diesel are eliminated - the high pressure common rail injection system, and the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) emissions control system, so it wouldn't cost too much more to produce these things.
Given that a farmer can produce much more corn (and thus ethanol) per acre than canola/soybeans and biodiesel, this would be a viable way to run a farm, or a farm state.
There are a couple of problems. First, if people buy high compression alcohol burning engines they have to continue using alcohol, whether it is cheaper than gasoline or not, i.e. they are not "flex fuel".
More importantly, it is probably hard to make an engine that optimizes efficiency for ethanol and won't burn methanol equally well. Therefore, since methanol can be made more cheaply from natural gas than ethanol can be made from corn, you would eliminate the corn ethanol industry and subsidy to agribusiness. So any proposal in this direction would be opposed by all the farm state Senators.
But yes, the old Offenhauser engines that powered the Indy 500 cars for many years burned methanol exclusively. The IRL has recently switched to ethanol.
Merrill,
You are quite correct about not being able to use gasoline, but when it is such an inferior fuel, and IF ethanol/methanol/mixed alcohol were available everywhere, why would you want to?
If you added the port fuel injection to the diesel engine, you then have a diesel/alcohol flex fuel engine - just an expensive one!
Could also be a CNG/LNG alcohol flex fuel.
As soon as you give up on gasoline altogether, everything becomes more efficient.
Therefore, since methanol can be made more cheaply from natural gas than ethanol can be made from corn, you would eliminate the corn ethanol industry and subsidy to agribusiness. So any proposal in this direction would be opposed by all the farm state Senators.
Hmm, the ethanol industry (not corn) would have to justify its existence, yep, clearly a concept that the farm state senators just don;t grasp!
And, you can make methanol from methane, which can be produced by anearobic digestion of almost any organic material, and you can also make it by gasifying just about anything that burns -"cellulosic" fuel made far easier than ethanol!
The Offy engines must have been something to drive. A 4cyl, 2.65L engine that got up to 1000 HP on methanol!
Much safer for auto sports than gasoline (or E85) as you can put out a methanol fire with water.
Indycar switched to E85 ethanol because of pressure from said farm state senators, and now they have much more dangerous fires again.
Even better, you can forget about the gas-to-liquid conversion and just run the vehicles on natural gas. I worked for several oil companies that ran their truck fleets on natural gas. It was cheap because they produced it themselves and didn't have to buy diesel fuel from someone else.
It was really simple for them because oil companies already have the infrastructure in place to handle natural gas. It is produced as a by-produce of oil production, and they used it as fuel gas for most of their oilfield equipment. For the average consumer, the infrastructure is not in place to handle it and they probably don't happen to have a home natural gas compressor to refuel their car. They could buy one but it would be more complicated than driving up to the gas station and flashing their credit card.
However, I think that, as you say, the biggest impediment is the farm state senators. Fuel ethanol requirements really have nothing to do with energy self-sufficiency and everything to do with farm subsidies.
2002 Jetta 1.9L TDi...If we did not introduce Tier 2 emissions, these babies would be still sold and match Priuses for fuel economy, but with some Fahrvergnugen included.
I am actually amazed that they can use pure alcohol...
I think Robert's point is that it theoretically would be more efficient to use the ethanol locally, rather than ship it around the country, and incur those costs as well. I am not sure this approach can work without big subsidies, because there really aren't enough E85 vehicles (as Robert points out), the E85 stations are rarely next door, and the cost is at best equivalent, so there is not much motivation to drive some distance to find the stations, or to buy a new E85 vehicle. (But it is not clear E85 can work anywhere without big subsidies--the subsidies might be a little less if the program were limited to Iowa, as Robert suggests.)
There is a second way that ethanol could be used locally, but I am not sure it would work any better. One concern is how to keep farm equipment operating, long term. One approach would be to make farm equipment that runs on ethanol, and then make the ethanol locally, with locally grown corn. To the extent that the ethanol would be sufficient to grow other crops besides the corn needed for ethanol, we would be ahead, even if the energy return was poor.
The drawbacks of this plan that I see are
1. New farm equipment would be needed which runs on ethanol. This would require redesigning and building new equipment. Farmers would need to sell existing used equipment (if buyers can be found), and need to buy new equipment--likely an expensive proposition.
2. There would still be no way to transport the food crops to market, unless trucks transporting the food crops could be replaced with ones using ethanol as well (same issues with selling and new cost).
3. Somehow, the ethanol plants would need to be kept operating, so all of the oil based inputs, including fuel for the cars for workers and transportation of replacement parts, would need to be redesigned to operate on ethanol.
4. This system would only work until the ethanol using equipment wears out, unless more new equipment can be manufactured (using non-oil inputs).
So ethanol really just acts as an oil extender. If there is enough oil to keep the system going, ethanol can perhaps extend the time a bit, by converting some energy (natural gas plus some petroleum and sometimes coal) to a liquid fuel, by going through the intermediate step of corn. Some folks have thought that even if the EROI of corn ethanol is low, we are ahead on the arrangement if our real shortage is oil, and we can use this system to effectively convert natural gas or coal (plus a small amount of oil) to a liquid fuel.
Gail-
Might be just as easy to convert everything to electric (car/truck/rail) and power everything using Iowa wind and/or dotting the cornfields with nuclear power plants.
Kwik Trip here in Wisconsin makes a point of selling a gasoline WITHOUT ethanol. Its quite popular with boaters and other small engine users. I know i'm using it in my chainsaw. Most of Kwik Trip's gasoline i believe is derived from oil sands.
Farm equipment and trucks are not going to convert to hydrated ethanol. They will switch to using biodiesel in their existing diesel engines. The biodiesel runs just fine in the existing engines. Some of the older rubber components will not last quite a long before failure, but once replaced with new biodiesel resistant rubber parts they will last just as long as the old parts with petroleum diesel fuel.
Cold weather will require some changes to use the biodiesel fuel which has a much higher cloud point than petroleum diesel fuel. But, all of the technology has already been developed and proven in Alaska on diesel trucks where it gets so cold that even petroleum diesel will stop flowing. Essentially, all one has to do is insulate the fuel tanks, fuel lines, injector pump and injectors and put a small electric heating tape under the insulation to heat the fuel system for starting. Once the engine is running the heat generated in pumping the fuel and the excess running back to the tank will keep the fuel system heated. Block heaters on the engine also make a big difference in cold starting.
This is all existing technology.
And even if the farmer wanted to use hydrated ethanol, he does NOT have to replace his equipment. The diesel engine can be replaced with a gasoline model or the head on the diesel engine can be replaced with a head containing a spark plug and a spark ignition system added (and the diesel injection pump removed) to complete the conversion for under $1000.
As to replacements, oil is not necessary to melt and cast metals nor is it necessary to machine metals. Most cast iron today is produced in electric induction furnaces and almost all machine tools are run by electric motors.
I believe Jon is right about farmers switching to biodiesel in preference to ethanol in any form;I don't use much fuel myself, but I would be willing to pay a considerable premium when all is said and done to stick with my diesel engines as they exist at this minute.
Converting an old little used gasoline fueled utility (small ) tractor to run on ethanol might be a worthwhile proect.
Incidentally, anyone who might be relying on anything I have posted about the long term storage of gasoline should realize that my remarks do not accurately to apply to e10 or any ethanol blend;recent personal experience and that of some of my acquaintances indicates that you can't expect to store e10 very long at all in drums unless you are willing to very carefully siphon off the top eighty or ninety percent of the drum and examine the fuel (in a transparent container) after allowing it an hour to settle ;you may see a watery mix of alcohol and water at the bottom.
So far we have successfully used the gasoline above the line of seperation, but I have only put it in machines such as a riding mower that are easily drained and refilled-late model cars are definitely a no no!
We have recently found it necessary to discard about four or five gallons out of the bottom of a fifty five gallon drum after four or five months..This may in some way be related to the excesssively humid and hot summer as we have not had this problem in previous years.
It's back to jerry cans for the small amounts of gasoline needed every week on this place.
So far as I can tell so far from personal experience, water adsorption in sealed fuel systems such as are used on late model cars and trucks is not a problem and you can use e10 stored in the tank of such a vehicle for a very long time.Of course getting it out is a pain in the axx, but if you get just the right long skinny siphon hose and are patient you can usually do it.
Jon,
I think you are right about farmers wanting to convert to biodiesel before ethanol. We don't make much biodiesel at this point, though. I was thinking about a fuel that is currently available in quantity.
Also, you are probably right that it is "only" the engine you need to swap out, not the whole machine.
Engines are easily swapped but very expensive to buy, and modern engines also have dedicated auxiliary systems such as the computer controls, exhaust system, and fuel tanks and lines that would have to be swapped too.
The idea of installing new cylinder heads on existing diesels to convert them to other fuels is technically well within the reach of any good garage.I could do it myself.But to the best of my knowledge, nobody is manufacturing such cylinder heads and the numerous associated parts that would have to be changed in addition to the heads.
Simply adding the spark ignition system alone to an engine designed to run without one might cost a couple of thousand bucks.
The biggest problem with such schemes is that there are so many different makes, models, and sizes of engines out there-and a seperate kit would be needed for each variation, driving costs thru the roof.
There was something to be said for the old soviet standardization system-if you could work on one truck or tractor, you could work on them all.
You don't switch or change them, you simply stop making new one's (ASAP)
I think Robert's point is that it theoretically would be more efficient to use the ethanol locally, rather than ship it around the country, and incur those costs as well.
That's exactly what I am saying. The energy balance for ethanol is probably better in Iowa than in any other state. They have a demand for motor fuel that ethanol in theory could meet. We spend fossil fuels getting the ethanol out of Iowa and into other markets, while we send fossil fuels into Iowa for consumption.
If ethanol can work as an alternative to gasoline, Iowa should be the first place we really see it working.
My motto -- and one thing we strive for in my company -- is to make sure that energy production first fills local needs. If we do a project in Africa, our first priority is to make sure the product is meeting the needs of the local citizens. Once that is achieved, only then do you determine if there is any exportable energy.
So this Iowa situation is not something I just throw out there so we can poke fun at Iowa foisting their ethanol off on everyone else. Local usage of energy is something I strongly believe in.
There is a major risk underlying our ethanol policy, though, that I don't think is given enough consideration. If we have a major crop failure and see skyrocketing ethanol prices at the same time we have skyrocketing food prices, that might cause support for ethanol to dry up completely. That is the black swan that could destroy the ethanol industry, IMO.
Robert- I think the more appropriate way to phrase your question is
"if ethanol can't substitute for gasoline in Iowa what are the odds that it is cost efficient for it to happen anywhere else"
Ethanol is shipped from Iowa to other states by rail.
Rail fuel consumption is 457 ton-miles per gallon of diesel fuel. So you might have to spend $5 to move a ton of ethanol to its destination on average.
A ton of water would be 2000/8.34 = 240 gallons.
The specific gravity of ethanol is 0.789, so a ton of Ethanol would be 240/.789 = 304 gallons. So transporting the ethanol has a fuel cost of about 1.6 cents/gallon. This is not a lot, considering that its main value is to raise octane and reduce emissions, rather than as an energy source.
When transported evenly across the country and blended as E10 you get all three benefits: raise octane, add oxygen, and contribute energy.
Actually Paul Nash -- who posts here as well -- worked up some numbers on my blog for shipping ethanol:
The Costs of Shipping Ethanol and Importing Oil
If ethanol is able to support the machinery needed to produce it and other food crops (corn used to distill ethanol is not human food but is a crop nonetheless) it will be benificial when other fuels are unavailable.
The crop- failure vulnerability only has to exist in abstract to render ethanol production at scale a fantasy; see what 'intermittancy' does to wind power promotions.
Yup, and back in the good old days when farmers had to grow oats and hay to feed their horses to work their farms it took 110% of their farm land to grow the horse fuel and the farmers had to import food from the cities to survive! (tongue in cheek!)
Actually, it only took about 1/3 to 1/2 of their land to product the fuel for their draft animals. Today a farmer can produce enough fuel with only 1/4 to 1/3 of their land to farm the entire farm.
However, that will cause a significant grain shortage which will cause the grain prices to raise quite a bit and the farmers will still be making about the same income but will not be having to pay 10's of thousands of dollars for petroleum fuel. Farmers are going to do very nicely with a severe shortage of petroleum fuels, but a lot of city folks are going to starve to death. Not pleasant to think about, just ugly reality.
We're up to a range from 33 to 50 per cent of farmland for draft animal support! In this TOD post http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5796 we were informed that it was 25 to 33 per cent of farmland. Ben Bernarke would be happy to see inflation of this kind, given that nightmares of deflation are haunting him now.
It would be nice to see some actual evidence to support this claim. Is there any evidence and does it distinguish farmland used to raise oats for the horse pulling the urban milk wagon, or for any other beasties of burden ferrying human or freight off farm, from the farmland used to raise oats for farm working beasts?
Does the claimed percentage of farmland employed to support draft animals have any relationship with the actual and/or potential productivity of different parts of the farmer's land? In other words, is the 25 to 50 per cent of farmland reportedly supporting draft animals as productive as the land actually in human food production?
Somebody with the time and money needed to innvestigate this question of how much land was needed to support draft animals might come up with some reasonable average figures for a given locality at a given time-say for example central Iowa in the last decade of the nineteenth century-by plowing thru old farm account books.
But I don't believe a GENERAL answer as such can be found;there would simply have been too much variation from place to place;for instance my maternal grandfather's horses and mules were partly pastured on land ALSO used to grow crops, but mostly on some steep hillside pasture totally unsuited for any crops except possibly apple trees;we raised apples back then on some land so steep it was impossible to operate any sort of machinery at all on it, except a small wagon or tractor on VERY narrow bulldozed or hand built roads running horizontally across the hillside-every fourth row of apple trees.
He would have been able to say how much land he devoted to raising corn and hay for feed, but he couldn't have given a good answer as to the amount of other land devoted to maintaining his draft animals.How does grazing a horse for several months in the autumn and early winter in a harvested cornfield get computed?
I don't buy the doomer scenario, but if I did, I would say that you've got it almost backwards. Almost, because as in the past city folks would use superior numbers, organization and technology to ensure the penury of farmers, but would leave enough oats for a daily intake of porridge.
However, the probability is that agricultural productivity will continue to increase. Agriculture will be able to afford hydrocarbons long after the last barrel of conventional oil has been extracted, but will be using less hydrocarbons as fuel or in chemicals than today, in response to rising hydrocarbon prices.
In Iowa there is no need for irrigation. If anything there might be an energy cost involved with draining the fields of excess water like one of my neighbors did. Those reports of a negative net energy balance come from growing corn in areas where irrigation is necessary like west Texas and Colorado. As RR has often said ethanol is a way of turning natural gas into a liquid fuel due to its use to make fertilizer and as distillery fuel. If organic methods are used then the energy inputs on the farm shrink considerably. One report I read said that the cellulosic and lignin parts of the kernal could provide the distillery fuel but it is more profitable to sell those parts to make DDGS.
Not all Iowa farmers are backing ethanol because it raises prices of swine and cattle feed. Makin bacon has a very negative net energy since so much corn is needed to fatten those critters up.
I have heard by promoters of Brazil ethanol that it can be produced there for much lower cost than in Iowa. I have also heard that tropical soils (in contrast to glacial soils such as in Iowa)are rapidly depleted, not that glacial soils don't eventually also deplete. I was curious if anyone could speak on how long it takes for a Brazilian field to turn into hard baked clay or something similar.
Nice, thoughtful piece. I have argued for years that we must and will see a 'localization' of energy soon. If you have abundant sunshine then more electrification and more PV etc etc. The old days of "one barrel fits all" are done for. The US is such a large market that this approach is still economically viable. Also by evaluating ethanol's cost/demand picture right where it is produced you get a much less distorted picture of true longer term desirability.
The bottom line is that even in Iowa it is cheaper to import oil from overseas than to grow corn and make ethanol from it. That says something for the EROEI of ethanol.
I can envision a future when Iowa farmers will run their farm machinery on locally-produced ethanol (or perhaps biodiesel), but oil will have to get a lot more expensive for this to make economic sense. Farming is not exactly a high profit margin business, in spite of all the reports of factory farms making vast profits at the taxpayers' expense. The long term profit margin[PDF] of Iowa farms is 5.5%. A typical large bank, J. P. Morgan Chase, currently has a net profit margin of nearly 20%; ExxonMobil has a current profit margin of 8.7%.
Farmers are generally scratching to make ends meet. They aren't going to buy new equipment which runs on ethanol unless the economics are clearly favorable and they can get loans. J. P. Morgan Chase is not making its handsome profits by lending to marginally profitable businesses like farming.
Strong Exports Lift U.S. Agriculture Sector
As other country's economies continue to grow, while ours remains roughly static, the global demand for food will raise prices of agriculturaly products to the point that farmers won't need ethanol production to rais prices and use surplus crops.
As I understand it, 70% of your arable crop is turned into animal feed. With a bit of luck, you get about a 1kg of animal for about 10kg of feed. If there is more profit in making ethanol than animal feed, what will the animals eat? More importantly, the next time I visit Colorado, what will happen to the price of ribs at a Hickory House?
One of these days, you guys are going to wake up and realise that nuclear electric is the only way to go for; desalination for drinking water; charging electric vehicles and generating hydrogen to replace natural gas.
Most corn is used for animal feed. Only a small percentage is milled for corn flakes, grits, corn oil, HFCS, and other products for human consumption. Even exported corn more likely ends up in the trough than on a plate in the importing country.
The price of the corn used in production, whether meat, eggs, milk or foods for direct human consumption, does not affect the end consumer price of the food very much. There is about 5 cents of corn in a $2 box of corn flakes.
Therefore, the use of corn for food will always out-compete the use of corn for energy. The only corn available for ethanol production will be the surplus that food producers, domestic or foreign, cannot use at the corn price where ethanol and gasoline prices are equal.
Regardless of what liquid fuel we are talking about, none of these programs are going to get us on a path to a world that is both sustainable and livable, for homo sapiens and what few other remaining species will be left. We need program to radically reduce the consumption of that which is burned, whether it be ethanol or gasoline.
IMO, the bottom line is that Iowans continue to consume/export their NPK and other minerals to be burned elsewhere...not to mention their water (squandering their birthright?). It's only a matter of time.
Burn, Baby, burn.
Ethanol contains no NPK. That all stays in the distillers grains, which, if fed to livestock and used in a reasonable sustainable integrated crop/livestock operation where the manure is spread mostly by cow power, puts all the nutrients back on the land. We are exporting Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen, of which the weather provides plenty of. Generally we have a too-much-water problem.
Exporting ethanol and keeping all the NPK and cellulose within the state is about the most sustainable thing we could probably do with that cropland. Now if we make ammonia from the *other* large-scale iowa crop (wind turbines), then have plenty of nitrogen, then it's just a matter of keeping that N in the soil, and not exporting it down the river as nitrate runoff.
Feeding the world corn consumes our NPK. Fueling the world and feeding it bacon does not.
If you did not come across it during your research, attached is a recent Swedish report under the EU BEST initiative (3MB file). http://www.best-europe.org/upload/BEST_documents/info_documents/Best%20r...
The French are running an E10 fuel option at a lot of stations, they don't like it. You can't use it in pre 2000 manufactured vehicles. I don't know what winters are like in Iowa but the Swedes found E85 was a bugger to get going in the cold. I think they re-spec the fuel to 25% petrol (gasoline) in November for the winter period now. Steel fuel tank corrosion was a problem.
I hate to admit HERE in THIS forum that x might be right about a few things occasionally, but since there is a lot of good livestock feed left over after the starches best suited to fermentation are used up, there simply is no way to come up with apples to apples, oranges to oranges honest figures that are truly disinterested unless we make some somewhat arbitrary assumptions concerning the embedded energy associated with the feed.
I am not interested enough in this subject to dig up relevant figures, but assuming we are going to keep on eating beef, pork chicken, not to mention feeding our dogs and cats,I suppose the best way to arrive at such figures would be to use a wieghted average of the prices/energy/protein content of equivalent amounts of delivered feed derived from other sources such as soybeans, fish byproducts,hay, other grains or whole corn, and so forth.
Having said this,I have written here many times that my personal opinion is that corn to ethanol is a very big mistake on environmental and political grounds.
Unfortunately random chance has altogether too much to do with such affairs, and the cards fell in such a way that several various pressure groups which ordinarily are not on speaking terms fell into bed together and the result of thier little group orgy is our ugly little ethanol orphan-which is very well cared for by its collective foster parents- the corn farmers, the distillers, the oil companies that get a sweet price on a product good for profitably diluting thier own product, the car companies gaming the CAFE starnards, and the politicians paying off on thier bribes.
I expect the CROBI-cash return on bribe invested- of ethanol is a very good one.
A small ethanol and biodioesel industry capable of supplying on farm needs might be a good idea-just in case there is a much more sudden and rapid drop off in oil supplies than we expect.We haven't seen the end of history yet;I will bet that there is at least one hot but localized fight capable of causing such a disruption going on at least fifty percent of the time for the next couple of decades.
It definitely appears to be feasible to produce alcohol fueled engines-but I doubt even Iowa farmers are interested in buying them,given the fact that they look to be low volume and therefore high priced engines.
Some overseas manufacturers are doing some serious work with diesels intended to run on ethanol plus a small amount of diesel -5 percent or so.I invested an hour or so on the phone recently inquiring about these engines, and apparently they will cost about twenty percent more than a comparable conventional diesel -if they are manufactured in large numbers.We would not see any noticeable increase in the price of food at the farm gate as the result of adopting such engines for production work.
Nonsense! All gasoline in Minnesota has 10% anhydrous ethanol mixed with it and all of the cars and trucks and tractors I own are made prior to 1990 and they all work just fine on the 10% blend - As long as they don't sit too long and have the anhydrous ethanol hydrate and separate from the gasoline, but that is a problem regardless of the year of the vehicle.
Minnesota gets every bit as cold a Sweden and we are one of the bigger users of E85 and I haven't heard any significant complaints of hard starting with E85 in a vehicle designed to run it. If it was a problem, all you have to do is add an air pre-heater like they do for starting diesel engines in cold weather.
I think the problem with high ethanol mixtures in older cars is that it dissolves the fuel lines and seals, and washes the lubricating oil off the cylinder walls, resulting in a rather short engine life. Of course, you can always design a car to run on high ethanol mixtures, but if it wasn't designed for that you should be careful.
The hard starting probably results from the fact that the fuel systems were not calibrated for starting on ethanol. Of course, you can always calibrate modern fuel injection systems for ethanol, but not necessarily the older ones that were not designed for it.
The fact is if E85 is going to rapidly gain market share, it will have to run in a lot of converted vehicles that were not designed to use it. That was the point of the report I posted above. New vehicles built for E85 are not the problem. Modern lube oils can handle ethanol. Nobody I know is going to fit air pre-heaters to the family car and if the tech savvy families convert to another fuel, it will be LPG. And, only because it has much lower tax on it (currently) in the EU. Biodiesel, up to B20 at least stands a greater chance of adoption in the EU; because we have had a much bigger diesel car market for years.
Dream on with B20. Biodiesel is a handling disaster, and I would rather it was kept out of my vehicles. Biodiesel contains up to 25x times more water than normal mineral diesel and the straight chain olefinic backbone is perfect for biological attack. Thermal stability sucks as well. Many fuel retailers have suffered problems with blocked filters due to biological growths and there are many cases of blocked fuel filters in vehicles reported. Then there is the problem with Group 3 lubricating oils and the not insignificant issue of jet fuel contamination; and not to mention the swelling of rubber seals.The EROEI is marginal to say the least. A ghastly product if ever I saw one. Esters are not good fuels.
Hydrotreating veg oils is a better option as at least the cetane number is high.
Carnot. Would not disagree with what you say. You left out the bit about Bio-diesel contaminated containers full of hand wipes and similar, spontaneously combusting.
One reason is gasoline prices are only slightly higher than
straight gasoline(and Iowa is hardly a RFG urban smog zone).
If the price of gasoline is $2.75 and the price of E85 is $2.3 (83.6%) then the consumer is wasting money as E85 has 72% of the energy of E0.
If the 'nation of Iowa' wants people to buy E85 they should put a $.45 cent per gallon tax on gasoline;
($3.20=($2.75 + $.45)/$2.3 = 1.39.
http://e85prices.com/illinois.html
As production of ethanol increases, the price of E85 will decrease and as the price of gasoline decreases due to Peak Oil(which I know R^2 believes in) increases E85 will
be more competitive.
If the price of gasoline is $2.75 when there is $74 per barrel oil then at $90 per barrel, E85 will be cheaper if
ethanol prices remain the same, which seems likely as production increases).
Another problem is the number of E85 compatible vehicles on the road. Detroit is pledging to make 50% of their 2012 car offerings with a E85 compatible option. Detroit really should be forced to make 100% of their fleet E85 compatible.
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/ethanol-startup-coskata-launches-backed-by-g...
You really need to review why we use ethanol to begin with.
It reduces air pollution per RFG standards(now replaced with 'renewable energy standards')--which is not a problem in rural Iowa.
It reduces the national need to import oil slightly(by ~3%).
It also reduces greenhouse gases slightly(22%).
http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/synopsis.aspx?id=1068
majorian said...
"...It also reduces greenhouse gases slightly(22%)."
I thought I'd update that slightly;
It also starves the trees & vegitation slightly(22%).
Remember, CO2 makes trees & vegitation greener. They cannot survive without it.
Jeff
Yeh, and before the industrial revolution, we had no trees or vegetation. I don't think we are in danger of having a co2 shortage anytime soon.
More CO2 is not a good thing for all plants.
Recent work at Stanford, UC Davis and other places has shown many food crops produce less protein or have other issues in increased CO2 environments.
Rising CO2 levels threaten crops and food quality
http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9479
Higher Carbon Dioxide, Lack Of Nitrogen Limit Plant Growth
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060412204831.htm
And plants tend to down-regulate their leaf's stomata to conserve energy and water when CO2 is high - if high CO2 levels persist long enough, the plants evolve to have fewer stomata - saves them energy, survival of the fittest, ...
Here's a paper on PNAS about reconstructing past CO2 levels from plant leaf fossils:
An atmospheric pCO2 reconstruction across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary from leaf megafossils
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/12/7836.full
It's not just the relative availability of CO2 that matters to plants, but note that increase concentrations dissolved in the plant fluids alter the pH (CO2 is what makes soda water acidic - forming carbonic acid when dissolved in water), thus altering the chemical environment inside the plant, affecting reaction rates and activation energies.
Vegetation is green due to chlorophylls, which are metal-organic compounds, not the presence of CO2 itself.
While it is true that plants cannot grow & reproduce (long term survival) without CO2, it is fallacious to suggest that more is better.
People cannot survive without water, yet drinking too much water at any given time will cause potentially fatal water intoxication.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
"Vegetation is green due to chlorophylls, which are metal-organic compounds, not the presence of CO2 itself.
While it is true that plants cannot grow & reproduce (long term survival) without CO2, it is fallacious to suggest that more is better.
People cannot survive without water, yet drinking too much water at any given time will cause potentially fatal water intoxication."
Yes, Yes, I understand chlorophyll is the green in the vegitation, but chlorophyll is contained in the plant structure provided by the CO2. The more CO2, the more plant structure, so the more chlorophyll, so the more green.
"While it is true that plants cannot grow & reproduce (long term survival) without CO2"
Long term survival??? Place a seed in properly nutrient soil in a tent of 100% oxygen & see how long it survives.
"it is fallacious to suggest that more is better."
At the CO2 levels we are at now, it is also fallacious to suggest more will do more harm than good. Trying to make an association with water intoxication is laughable. I noticed you did not make any relation to people's survivability in 100% oxygen. Oh...that's right, because they can.
Please explain why greenhouse growers enhance the CO2 levels in the greenhouses & get larger plants. It's obviously the fertilizer.
Double win on redirecting Iowa corn: put Americans on ethanol, and get them off of the high fructose corn syrup diet.
I plan to get heavily into ethanol as a result of this discussion, which never ends.
I plan to get ethanol heavily into me. It helps.
E85 is a really bad choice in my opinion. To mix ethanol with gasoline you have to produce anhydrous ethanol - ie 0% water in the ethanol. The best you can get from distallation is about 95% ethanol + 5% water. To get rid of that 5% water is difficult and expensive.
So, you could supply hydrated ethanol (95% ethanol + 5% water for a good bit cheaper than anhydrous.
Additionally, when you mix anhydrous ethanol with gasoline the anhydrous ethanol starts absorbing moisture from the atmosphere and when the percentage of water reaches its critical point the (now hydrated) ethanol separates from the gasoline and you have a bit of a mess in your gasoline tank. This is exactly why I have quit storing gasoline in my farm tank. It will no longer last the 4 to 6 months before it is all used.
If we went to an all hydrated ethanol fuel we would eliminate considerable cost from producing the fuel. It would be storable for very long periods of time with no degradation of the fuel quality. If it absorbed more water over time than the user liked it is a simple job to re-distill the alcohol back to hydrated ethanol. You can not re-distill the mess created when E85 hydrates and separates.
Brazil has been running hydrated ethanol in vehicles for quite some time with no problems. And all of those vehicles are made by the big auto makers from the USA, Europe and Asia. And, I have been told, that any vehicle that runs on E85 will also run on hydrated ethanol also. You just have to make some provision for cold weather starting.
Setting up an engine to start in cold weather with hydrated ethanol is not any more difficult than setting up a diesel engine to start in cold weather.
This is all functional with existing technology!
Plus 1 for the ethanol boondoggle.
Iowa isn't self-sufficient because there are no costs included for swapping out the cars, trucks, farm machinery, and fueling infrastructure. And also because ethanol isn't a substitute for gasoline.
Haven't we been down this lane before?
Something about EROEI?
Something about energy density?
Something about peak phosphorus?
Something about the morality of using food production to propel obese americans in their SUVs to the corner store to buy Lite Beer and cigarettes, or getting in their SUV to walk the freakin' dog?
Something about the ethics of squandering topsoil on transportation?
OR, am I missing something and someone waved a magic wand and all those issues disappeared recently?
Or was I just not paying attention and someone actually figured out a way to cheat the Laws of Thermodynamics?
It's a fast moving world, so I'll admit I might have dozed off and missed something...
Stuart
One thing the alternative energy folks are very, very good at: Beating dead horses!! Rarely, and I do mean rarely, do I see an article that truly examines an alternative energy source that gets beyond an extremely simplistic solution. I think it's because the issue is far, far too complex to be dealt with in a half page comment. What we are doing is solving problems over a cup of coffee on Sunday morning. I once built a two story house in a single morning. I'll know we're getting serious when I start seeing, what will be, all too depressing articles about the life style changes that are going to have to be made. But then I have a neighbor that rants about Obama being Muslim, another that saves wayward dogs as she doesn't like the "woes of the world", another that still believes Saddam was going to destroy the world with his weapons of mass destruction and to quote Kurt Vonnegut "and so it goes".
"Haven't we been down this lane before?"
Yes and that lane to techno-salvation is littered with used envelopes, napkins, and excel printouts--testimony to the persistence of the human doodle. Now if we could just collect all that fluttering cellulose, and convert it to a fuel source? Where to start? Dumpsters behind Stanford engineering? Coffeehouse garbage cans across from MIT?
Hell! Let's skip the conversion inefficiencies and just tap the heat from all these big brains, pencils and keyboards.
Yes. "Something" IS very wrong with this picture. WE and our government are supporting a "biofuel" that is at THE very bottom of the alternative energy "food chain". For all the disadvantages ethanol has, CORN ethanol has even more. We need to be supporting THE biofuel and the engines that can use it. More and smaller diesel engines and biodiesel can solve SO many more problems than any kind of ethanol. And this comes from an ADM stockholder. To see how "two-faced" this problem is, look at ADMs website for NA and EU. As has been pointed out repeatedly, corn ethanol is a perfect way to turn perfectly usable diesel fuel into an inferior vehicle fuel. Rube Goldberg would be proud.
BTW, Saabs biopower engine uses the exact same crank, rods and pistons as the regular engine so I dont see how its compression can be 12% higher. It does use a different Trionic box that allows for higher turbo boost.
Yes, indeed, there is something very wrong:
“On the demand side of the food equation are three
consumption-boosting trends: population growth, the
growing consumption of grain-based animal protein, and, most
recently, the massive use of grain to fuel cars.
At a time when excessive pressures on the earth’s land and water
resources are of growing concern, there is a massive new
demand emerging for cropland to produce fuel for cars—one
that threatens world food security. Although this situation had
been developing for a few decades, it was not until Hurricane
Katrina in 2005, when oil prices jumped above $60 a barrel and
U.S. gasoline prices climbed to $3 a gallon, that the situation
came into focus. Suddenly investments in U.S. corn-based
ethanol distilleries became hugely profitable, unleashing an
investment frenzy that will convert one fourth of the 2009 U.S.
grain harvest into fuel for cars.
From an agricultural vantage point, the world’s appetite for
crop-based fuels is insatiable. The grain required to fill an SUV’s
25-gallon tank with ethanol just once will feed one person for a
whole year. If the entire U.S. grain harvest were to be converted
to ethanol, it would satisfy at most 18 percent of U.S. automo-
tive fuel needs.”
Lester Brown - Plan B 4.0; pp.5,48,49
Does The Oil Drum believe that feeding cars is more important than feeding people?
TOD is a remarkably open forum, compared to any others I know of that cover the energy scene.
At least half the comments in articles about ethanol, long term, are from people who oppose ethanol based fuels.
Perhaps you can point us to other forums that are more realistic and open minded?
I've read Lester Brown, and while his heart is in the right place, his ideas and plans are too long a stretch to become reality in this nitty gritty world we live in.
Farmers don't grow food to give it away for free.
Besides the corn grown for ethanol is animal feed corn--people can't eat it.
Maybe Brown thinks we should use the land for growing cattle feed and instead send steaks and ice cream to the starving Third World?
Tractor speed mph 6 (est'd)
Km per mile 1.609344
Tractor speed kph 9.66
Machine operation width feet 16
Feet per meter 3.1
Machine operation width meters 5.16
Sq meters per hectare 10000
Acres per Hectare 2.47105381
Machine hectares per hour 4.98
Machine fuel ethanol per hour gallons 24
Litres per (US) gallon 3.8
Machine fuel ethanol per hour litres 91.2
Machine operations per crop 3.5
Gross Wheat production bu per acre 20 (est'd)
Wheat production bu per hectare 49.42
Tractor fuel tank size litres 150
Tractor fuel tank size gallons 39.47
Bushels wheat required to fill tank 15 (from referenced article)
Bushels wheat required per hour operation 9.12 (calc)
Cultivation / harvesting fuel requirement bu / hectare 6.40
Gross crop production bu / hectare 43.02
Net crop production bu / acre 17.41
Percent of crop into farm fuel 12.96%
I have long been a sceptic of ethanol-from-food-crop efficacy, but ASSUMING the article AND my estimates are fairly accurate, it looks like ethanol from dryland Canadian prarie wheat MAY BE a viable process. Only 13% of a (very low estimated) 20 bu / acre crop required for 3.5 operating passes on the field, typical for a dryland wheat farm. (est'd) No irrigation, process leftovers providing excellent feedlot suplements, feedlot manure going back onto land .....
Beyond E10, ethanol is not a real alternative to gasoline, even in Iowa. Iowans looking to buy a small reliable car have almost no choices for a vehicle capable of burning anything with an alcohol content higher than ten percent. Honda has said officially that they have no interest in flex-fuel with the exception of Brazil. Ditto for Kia and Hyundai. Toyota has a flex-fuel option for their full-sized pickup trucks, but not for their cars.
In at least one sense, there are two mileage penalties associated with E85. The first is the obvious lower energy content. The second is that, in general, you have to buy 25 MPG vehicles instead of 35 MPG vehicles in order to burn it.
Note that Honda and Hyundai can meet their CAFE fleet standards without the gimmick of E85.
GM, Ford, and Chrysler have to make their SUVs, pickups, and large sedans E85 in order to take advantage of the break that they get on fuel efficiency standards.
Note that Toyota Tundra and Sequoia, Nissan Armada and Titan, Mercedes C300, Isuzu Hombre and Mazda B3000 are on the List of Flex Fuel Vehicles.
E85 is not for cars. It is for light trucks with poor fuel mileage. It is a Washington / auto maker / agribusiness fraud.
My unmodified 2001 Toyota Prius has over 80,000 miles driven using minimum 40% Iowa ethanol. I either fill up with E40 or E50 at a blender pump, or put in 6 gallons of E85, and 4 gallons of gas. Due to what I can only assume are strange tax incentives for pricing, I can get under $22 per fill-up with the 'self-blend' of E85 and regular (10%) ethanol, and filling up at a blender pump is more expensive.
I get at least 380 miles per fill-up this way, depending on how fast I drive, and how often I'm driving into the wind.
That is great that you are running E50 with no problems at all, but is there any mileage penalty and/or performance difference you have observed running on E50? How far do you get for your 380 miles?
Ummm?
NAOM
Quite so.!
You and he should have been able to read my mind and known that I meant much much fuel do you use.
Does remind me of the drunk who gets into a cab, and tells the driver to just drive around town for an hour, until he sobers up, and then asks the driver to step on, because he's in a hurry!
This is an interesting article, but is anybody seeing the big picture, and putting 2+2 together?
In order for this to happen-in order for energy production to be local, and satisfy the needs of a state's or region's citizens first, with only the excess being exported...the United States must collapse as a political entity.
We'll have civil war long before ethanol is only for Iowans.
It's kind of like currency...would, say, California be better off issuing its own, and separating itself from the NYC/D.C. axis? Absolutely. But in order to do that, they would have to secede.
This is the major flaw in the article's premise-it makes too much sense. And if there is one consistent thing to life in American Empire these days, it's that nothing makes sense. Nothing is done for the betterment of American citizens.
Nothing is wrong with this picture of Iowa. No matter where the ethanol is consumed, it does the same replacement of other fuel sources, except for the pipeline costs, which are modest. 'Consuming our own ethanol' rather than 'selling it to rich easterners' is autarky, an economic approach that has often not been entirely successful. Selling it to whoever will pay the most, and raking in the profits, is the enormous economic advantage of living in a single country having a unified market.
No matter where the ethanol is consumed, it does the same replacement of other fuel sources, except for the pipeline costs, which are modest.
Wrong. Ethanol isn't pipelined; it is railed and trucked. Further, it could be pipelined, but a recent DOE study found that the $4 billion pipeline would add $0.28 per gallon to the price.
So why would we do that? This isn't a free market. We are mandated to use ethanol. Why -- instead of mandated E15 for the entire country -- aren't we first focusing on the more efficient route of using it close to home?
Robert,
I really don't understand why you're concerned with "import substitution". Someone living in Illinois doesn't worry about whether they're buying a car made in Illinois. Someone living in Sacramento doesn't worry about whether they're buying a washing machine made in Sacramento.
There are very, very big economies of scale involved in consolidation of production in certain places. These economies are much more important than the minor savings in transportation costs. Think of Fedex: they ship all of their overnight packages to a central hub. In theory, they're overspending on transportation costs, but I guarantee you that they've examined the economics and efficiencies involved. There are also economies related to location, such as workforce, climate, local transportation, etc, etc, that contribute to creating what economists call "comparative advantage".
Why isn't the overall balance of exports vs imports the important thing?
Why isn't the overall balance of exports vs imports the important thing?
Apples and oranges. What is the purpose of ethanol in our energy policy? I would say to reduce dependence on foreign oil. Yet shipping ethanol out of the region and then having to ship in gasoline when they could use ethanol, increases our dependence on foreign oil. As I mentioned above, I believe strongly in localized energy use. It is far more efficient, and in a peak oil world that is going to be very important.
Let me ask you: Why on earth would we ship ethanol halfway across the country when there is a huge untapped market right outside the gates of the ethanol plants?
For the same reason Fedex transports everything roughly 50% farther than necessary, via their hubs: because it's much cheaper.
I don't know why, precisely, but we can be pretty sure that it's the case. For instance, where does the blending of ethanol and gasoline happen? Does it make sense to build new facilities in Iowa to do this, when it can be done far more efficiently elsewhere?
Actually Nick, it is not transported everywhere because it is cheaper, it is because there is a mandate requiring 10% ethanol use. And since people in Iowa do not use it all, (in fact, as a poster pointed out above, they use less than the national average) there is no choice but to transport it all over the country so it can be sold ( the average rail transport distance is 1207 miles!).
Most producers of any commodity product (i.e. same price everywhere) will sell locally first, and only export when the local market is saturated, or because they can get a higher price elsewhere.
In this case the mandate has cerated a market everywhere, but given that the real purpose of ethanol fuel is to displace oil, why do it in a way that uses more oil/energy ( for transport) in the process, when you can use it locally, and use less?
If there is anywhere that can become a model for an "ethanol economy", (i.e. using ethanol because it makes sense, not because it is mandated) it should be the heart of corn country. If it can't be done there, where can it be done? And if it can't be done, what is the point of pursuing more and more ethanol?
For an answer to that, we need look no further than the preferred direction of the ethanol lobby - higher mandates.
Most producers of any commodity product (i.e. same price everywhere) will sell locally first, and only export when the local market is saturated, or because they can get a higher price elsewhere.
I don't think that's really true. Do Nissans made in Tennessee go first to Tennesseeans? Does Iowa corn go to Iowans? Do we even know, and if not, what does that say about the importance of the question?
Well, Nissan produced cars in and for Japan before they ever went anywhere else. I can't think of a single carmaker in the world, that did not sell in its home country before moving to export markets.
As for the Iowa corn, I'll bet most feedlot operations and ethanol distilleries in Iowa are using Iowa corn, and unless the growers can get a high enough price by shipping elsewhere, they will sell locally first.
Well, Nissan produced cars in and for Japan before they ever went anywhere else. I can't think of a single carmaker in the world, that did not sell in its home country before moving to export markets.
Sure, but that's just part of an historical growth pattern. They don't work that way now.
I'll bet most feedlot operations and ethanol distilleries in Iowa are using Iowa corn, and unless the growers can get a high enough price by shipping elsewhere, they will sell locally first.
Ah, but do we know? Is any one keeping statistics? If not, what does that say about the importance of the question?
Yes, I'd say that animal feed and ethanol plants are examples of locally fed operations. OTOH, there are a lot of examples where that doesn't happen. When I asked that question, I was thinking of Iowans as end consumers of food. They eat things that are more processed, and that processing doesn't happen in Iowa, it happens in central plants in Battle Creek MI, or other food processing locations. It's just more efficient, and that efficiency trumps minor transportation efficiencies.
Nick, if it is truly more efficient to use the ethanol elsewhere, or the customer is willing, not mandated, to pay a higher price, then that's fine.
But a gallon of ethanol used in LA displaces no more oil than the same gallon used in the midwest, but we have used oil getting it there. So, it is not more efficient.
And by diluting it, instead of using it as straight ethanol, we hold back the production of ethanol optimised engines, and that (see my graphs up the top) would certainly be more efficient.
What it IS very efficient at is getting money to flow back from LA and elsewhere to flow back to the midwest, and if that, as I suspect, is the real goal, then of course they should say so.
But a gallon of ethanol used in LA displaces no more oil than the same gallon used in the midwest, but we have used oil getting it there. So, it is not more efficient.
That's unrealistic. Look at Canada, which imports to the East coast, and exports to the West coast. Should they tunnel through the mountains in quest of energy savings? What about Mexico, which exports crude, and imports refined fuel? No, this idea of energy localization is unrealistic and counter-productive: far better to think in terms of a healthy balance of trade, combined with eliminating oil & FF consumption ASAP.
if... the customer is willing, not mandated, to pay a higher price
Sadly, subsidies for alternatives are more acceptable than carbon taxes. If oil was properly taxed then ethanol would be viable, price-wise.
Look at Canada, which imports to the East coast, and exports to the West coast. Should they tunnel through the mountains in quest of energy savings?
False analogy. The same regions don't export so much oil they have to import to make up the difference. That is what is happening in Iowa.
If oil was properly taxed then ethanol would be viable, price-wise.
I am all for taxing oil at a higher value, but the truth of your statement depends entirely on how fossil-fuel intensive a particular process happens to be. For instance, Nebraska's ethanol is barely at break even EROEI, as evidenced by various USDA reports. Because of their heavy dependence on fossil fuels, taxing them at a higher rate won't necessarily help make Nebraska's ethanol more cost effective (especially if it is being shipped to the West Coast).
. The same regions don't export so much oil they have to import to make up the difference.
The "region", in this case, is Canada as a whole. The country could, in theory, reduce the cost of transporting both crude oil and refined products by not sending them to distant refineries, but instead sending them cross country. Perhaps more importantly, they could also reduce their dependence on other countries, but it doesn't make sense to do so.
Nebraska's ethanol is barely at break even EROEI...Because of their heavy dependence on fossil fuels, taxing them at a higher rate won't necessarily help make Nebraska's ethanol more cost effective
Diesel is only about 20% of the energy inputs to ethanol - most of ethanol's energy inputs have prices that are decoupled from the price of oil: nat gas and coal. Right now BTUs from nat gas are roughly 40% as expensive as oil BTUs, and coal BTUs are even cheaper, perhaps 20% (of course, everyone would prefer nat gas to coal to minimize CO2, but it seems likely to be used to some degree). Even if nat gas and coal prices were to double along with oil (unlikely, given the supplies of both), there would be a wide margin to make ethanol more than competitive.
The country could, in theory, reduce the cost of transporting both crude oil and refined products by not sending them to distant refineries, but instead sending them cross country.
But again, this a false analogy. If a region produced heavy oil and didn't have the refineries to process it, then it may make sense to export that oil and import refined products. After all, what is the alternative? Build a refinery?
Iowa isn't like that. They can use the ethanol they make. They have just chosen not to. Shipping it to distant states while having to ship in gasoline isn't a good model for a world in which oil is depleting. We have to do things more efficiently. Iowan ethanol for California is less sustainable than Iowan ethanol for Iowa.
Diesel is only about 20% of the energy inputs to ethanol - most of ethanol's energy inputs have prices that are decoupled from the price of oil: nat gas and coal.
They aren't entirely decoupled; note that both rose sharply with the price of oil as oil prices skyrocketed in 2008. Further, I expect as oil depletes there will be a lot more pressure on both natural gas and coal prices. Further, natural gas is usable as a transportation fuel, so for states like Nebraska with a poor EROEI due to needing to irrigate corn, shipping the ethanol out of state just makes a bad energy efficiency situation worse. They would be better just to use the natural gas directly as transportation fuel.
They aren't entirely decoupled; note that both rose sharply with the price of oil as oil prices skyrocketed in 2008.
Gas rose temporarily, and fell much more than oil. Gas is more decoupled than it's ever been before. Coal didn't really rise: spot prices rose, but most coal isn't priced through spot prices, unlike oil.
I expect as oil depletes there will be a lot more pressure on both natural gas and coal prices.
Perhaps on gas, although I have the impression that there's a lot of gas available at higher prices. OTOH, there's really no reason for domestic coal prices to rise: the marginal cost of production curve is very flat.
They would be better just to use the natural gas directly as transportation fuel.
When gas supplies appeared more limited, and we were importing more gas, that might have made sense, but I think it's out of date now. We appear to have more than enough gas for both in the medium-term.
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Let's say, for simplicity, that ethanol contains 100,000 btus per gallon, and that producing ethanol requires 25,000 btus of diesel and 75,000 btus of gas.
Diesel costs about $1.30 per 100k btus, so the diesel input costs about 33 cents. Gas costs about $.40 per 100k btu's, so the gas input costs about 30 cents. That's a total of 63 cents.
So, we can see that energy costs are less than half of the price of ethanol.
Now, if were were to properly price oil the price of diesel and gasoline would probably roughly double, to about $6 per gallon, depending on taxes. Let's assume the price of nat gas and diesel inputs double also: their price would go up by 63 cents, presumably raising the price of ethanol by 63 cents.
So, the price of gasoline would rise by $3,and the price of ethanol would rise by $.63. I think it would be competitive...
Nick, on the Canada oil thing, there is more to it than just geography. Not only is there limited refining capacity in Alberta (one), the refineries in eastern Canada can't process the heavy crude. It would cost more to retrofit them than to build new ones. So, the east imports oil, and the west exports it to the midwest (which can handle heavy crude) or to China (who will take anything that burns).
It is possible we may see the oil refined in the midwest, and products piped to eastern Canada, but the economics does not favour this, at present.
The economics for ethanol being transported everywhere only exist because everywhere is mandated to use it. Otherwise, California would just use more oil.
On your example above, plug in the real numbers and see how it changes. Ethanol is 76,000btu/gal, and diesel is 129,000 btu. NG is trading on the Nymex for more than $0.4/100k, so the distilleries will be paying much more, closer to $6-7/mm btu.
The direct energy costs are less than half the cost of ethanol, but as the price of energy (oil) rises, so will the cost of the corn itself (the biggest cost component), as it not only costs more to produce, but there will be more demand for it as ethanol feedstock. The cost of building and operating distilleries will also rise, as will the cost of rail freighting it, as will most other costs when oil goes up. This is the "law of receding horizons".
That said, at $6/gal for diesel/gasoline, ethanol should be very competitive. If it isn't then it never will be and we should stop now.
Paul, regarding Canada - thanks for the info. My point was simply that the economics for oil imports/exports in Canada don't support "localizing", despite the potential energy savings from reduction of transportation. Energy often isn't the most important factor in operational decisions.
The economics for ethanol being transported everywhere only exist because everywhere is mandated to use it.
Yes, we have a mandate because it's politically unpopular to take the direct route of taxing oil & FFs - that would be too simple and effective.
Regarding the numbers: if ethanol contains 76k BTUs, then we need 57K of NG BTUs and 19K of diesel BTUs. If NG is $.65 per 100K BTUs, and diesel is $1.94 per 100K btus ($2.50 per gallon divided by 129k BTUs), then we need $.37 of NG and $.37 of diesel, for a total of $.74.
Now, that's current costs. The additional costs if we were to double gas prices with a federal tax would be just the $.40 per 100k BTUs (the rest is admin, transportation & distribution, local taxes, etc), so the additional cost would be $.23 of NG and $.37 of diesel, for a total of $.60.
so will the cost of the corn itself (the biggest cost component), as it not only costs more to produce
We've already included the farm diesel. The cost of corn will only go up if ethanol succeeds in being competitive.
The cost of building and operating distilleries will also rise, as will the cost of rail freighting it, as will most other costs when oil goes up. This is the "law of receding horizons".
Not very much - the cost of energy is only a small % of these costs, and all businesses are under enormous pressure not to pass through costs as price increases.
at $6/gal for diesel/gasoline, ethanol should be very competitive.
That's all I'm sayin'.
Well, we do agree on the main problem - fuel is too cheap !
My point is that the mandate is a distortion that is achieving negative results. $6gasoline would change many things, for the better. It would be interesting then, if there is no ethanol mandate, whether the fuel would get used locally, rather than suffer the (increased) expense of transporting it out and oil in.
That would depend on how much rail freight charges change when oil prices go up. How much of rail costs comes from fuel?
Would carriers raise rates? Would they electrify? would they switch to CTL (at least one carrier is doing so)?
Because it's convenient to disguise US agricultural policy in a national security cloak.
You don't actually expect that extollers of the benefits of free enterprise want to admit to the world that American agricultural policy is about subsidized overproduction and mandated/subsidized consumption, do you?
The EU spotted that you were dumping subsidised Bio fuels last year!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29661313/
Robert,
The only answer to your question as to why we would ship ethanol further is that the only way to get people to buy ethanol without even larger subsidies than we have now is as a mandated additive to all fuel (or very close to that). If people don't have a choice, they will buy the product, even if it is higher priced.
But if you separate it out into E85, the price problem becomes more apparent. It is also hard to keep up enough service stations to sell it, so people end up having to drive a long way, wasting fuel and time.
Gail,
Wouldn't you agree that the price of oil and gasoline ought to be much higher in the US? After all, there are large external costs that aren't captured in the price right now: oil wars, pollution, spills, etc, etc?
If the price of gas were to, say, be twice as high, wouldn't ethanol be more than competitive? After all, diesel is only about 20% of the energy inputs to ethanol - most of ethanol's energy inputs have prices that are decoupled from the price of oil: nat gas and coal. Right now BTUs from nat gas are roughly 40% as expensive as oil BTUs, and coal BTUs are even cheaper, perhaps 20% (of course, everyone would prefer nat gas to coal to minimize CO2, but it seems likely to be used to some degree). Even if nat gas and coal prices were to double along with oil (unlikely, given the supplies of both), there would be a wide margin to make ethanol more than competitive.
Last year Iowa produced about 2.5 billion bushels of corn which could be converted into 6 billion gallons of ethanol. There are only 3.5 million people in Iowa. That is over 1700 gallons per Iowan. We only produce about 2 billion gallons of ethanol per year which is 566 gallons per Iowan. Could we possibly use that much ethanol? Not yet. I propose as an economic stimulus provision to give Iowa 1,000,000 flex fuel vehicles to be distributed to each household free.
I've been weaning my family off of oil for several years and made some short videos showing how we're preparing for Peak Oil. I attached one here....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHmXhgBhtWk
Future Ethanol policy goals must assume we'll be importing all of our food so we can grow fuel....
Why is it that American citizens believe that every new idea originates in the US. Ricardo PLC is a UK based company based in Shoreham UK with an office in Detroit. It was founded by Sir Harry Ricardo and remains a leading innovator of IC engine design.
Quite why we are wasting our time with ethanol-gasoline belends is a mystery to me. Like biodiesel it creates more problems that it solves. The best solution is to use it either as 100% ethanol or as an ethanol/methanol mixture in a hybrid high compression (16+:1), direct injection, spark ignition engine. This will provide a solution to the handling issues and give a near diesel like fuel economy.
However I am still to be convinced that making ethanol either from corn, ( an environmenetal disaster) or from biomass ( an even bigger disaster) will ever be viable. The EROEI is marginal to say the least.
Haven't we been here before? Earlier articles in TOD have shown that there is only about one state in USofA where the EROEI for ethanol beats even. Even if Iowa is that state, then the margin is very slim, and basically even with break-even its just making oil and other supporting energy (electricity from coal etc) go around in circles isn't it.
B85, B15, makes no difference, Ethanol is just not a viable thing to do. No matter how its produced the best we can do with biomass fuel as a useful replacement for liquid mineral energy is deceive ourselves that it is a saviour, when all it actually does for us is put up a smoke screen that stops us from seeing the approaching peak oil train.
We're done here. Move on.
Biomass fuel can be used effectively in high efficiency burners to generate heat and electricity.
I believe, to paraphrase Mark Twain, that the reports of ethanol's death have been greatly exaggerated. However, in order for it to survive I believe we need to introduce more SUGARCANE ethanol to the US market. Regarding corn-based ethanol, in spite of its poor EROI, I believe that in the rear-view mirror of history it will be seen as having had an important role in establishing the biofuel industry and addressing the "chicken and egg" infrastructure problem that all new transportation technologies face (granted there still aren't many e85 pumps out there but this is changing). It has been able to establish a (debatably) viable market for fuel ethanol, and there are already many flex-fuel vehicles on the road. Thus, in the USA it is leaps and bounds beyond other competing renewables with the possible exception of biodiesel. In any case, regardless of the poor EROI, it provides a diversity and flexibility in our portfolio of fuels that is necessary for national security reasons. Ultimately, I believe it will be a niche fuel alongside sugarcane ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, biobutanol, synthetic non-renewables such as coal-to-liquids, methanol from coal, and CNG. Eventually, the EROI of biofuel production will improve and it will take its place comfortably among the other transportation solutions, including electric vehicles, and, hopefully a large expansion in mass transit. Things will change incrementally, with the usage of gasoline for personal transportation gradually declining over the course of decades. The "happy motoring" age will eventually die, but probably with a whimper, not a bang, and hopefully in a few decades a substantial percentage of commuters will use electric trains or fuel-cell buses or electric bicycles to get to work.
In the short term, IMHO, corn ethanol can be considered a viable "first-generation" biofuel but ONLY if it can compete with sugarcane ethanol. Thus, if e85 ethanol is to survive, I believe we need to reduce (not eliminate) subsidies to corn and remove tariffs on imported Brazilian ethanol. Only then can the free market start truly setting the price of ethanol. With the addition of sugarcane ethanol to the US market, the corn ethanol industry will either sink or swim, but the end result will be lower cost ethanol that can be priced competitively relative to gasoline. Only when it is allowed to compete directly with gasoline will we truly be able to see if ethanol is viable as a transportation fuel.
Regarding the poor availability of e85 pumps, I wonder if the infrastructure problem might be solved by opening the door to the Brazilian ethanol industry. If Brazilian ethanol producers are allowed to compete in the US market, I wonder if Brazilian companies might willingly invest in the infrastructure (e85 pumps, distribution, etc) necessary to distribute their product.
even the whiskey in iowa is adulterated, here is an "e85" made with, not corn ethanol ,but cane sugar. (read the label)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templeton_Rye
one sip will tell any rye drinker this is more rum than rye.