The federal requirement to blend ethanol into gasoline on the theory that it will reduce the hypothetical global warming that hasn’t appeared yet has been a joke from the start.
By adding a huge amount of demand for corn, it did push up prices for that commodity, and made vast swaths of the rural Midwest prosperous, though it has injured poor Mexicans and others who depend on corn for a substantial portion of their nutrition and driven up the price of feed used for animals, raising meat prices.
The net energy balance of ethanol production – subtracting the amount of energy necessary to grow the corn, transport it to refineries, and then transport the ethanol to gasoline producers has been controversial.
But owing to improvements in cultivation techniques (which have caused increased agricultural runoff – see below), the US Department of Agriculture estimated in 2015 that the balance is positive:
Ethanol made the transition from an energy sink, to a moderate net energy gain in the 1990s, and to a substantial net energy gain by 2008.
Unlike oil, which is produced in large amounts at the wellhead, corn production is widely dispersed, so pipelines can’t be used to transport it.
Corn is trucked to the ethanol refinery, and then the ethanol is normally shipped in tank cars to oil refineries, where it is blended into gasoline. All of this transportation uses energy and imposes a cost from accidents, including derailments. Pipelines are more efficient and safer.
Now, the EPA has finally issued a new report, one that it is required to issue every three years but which has been delayed by four years, and admits that the ethanol mandate comes at a considerable environmental cost. The Public News Service summarizes:
Federal law requires the EPA to assess the environmental impact of the fuel standard every three years, but the new report, issued in July, was four years overdue. According to David DeGennaro with the National Wildlife Federation, the report documents millions of acres of wildlife habitat lost to ethanol crop production, increased nutrient pollution in waterways and air emissions and side effects worse than the gasoline the ethanol is replacing.
“In finding that the Renewable Fuel Standard is having negative consequences to a whole suite of environmental indicators,” DeGennaro said, “the report is a red flag warning us that we need to reconsider the mandate’s scope and its focus on first-generation fuels made from food crops.”
Jaz Shaw points out at Hot Air:
Some of the negative effects aren’t specific to ethanol, such as the loss of wildlife habitat from expanded corn production. That would happen no matter what you were growing or building in formerly forested areas.
But the increased runoff of nutrients and chemicals used in this type of farming are impacting water supplies far beyond anything caused by the occasional oil spill from a tanker car or pipeline.
The bigger surprise is the fact that ethanol production and combustion significantly increases the production of nitrous oxides (Nox). This combines with oxygen in the atmosphere when exposed to sunlight, producing ozone.
Now, when we have ozone far up in the atmosphere it helps shield the planet from the sun’s natural radiation, which is a good thing. But ground-level ozone produces no such benefit and actually contributes to the formation of smog and leads to respiratory ailments for many people.
Those vehicles that feature cuddly images like a new leaf and righteously proclaim themselves to be “flex-fuel vehicles” are actually aggravating some people’s respiratory problems, far more than gasoline-powered vehicles.
None of this speaks to the excessive costs that ethanol forces on drivers and auto manufacturers.
Alas, the mandate is so popular with corn farmers in Iowa, home of the first round of presidential nominations, that President Trump (and other politicians) that they not only maintain the mandate, President Trump just last week “told an audience in Iowa that he was “very close” to having EPA issue a waiver to the Clean Air Act to allow year-round sale of E-15.”
The madness continues.
Read more at American Thinker
What Jay said.
Plus, American corn acreage is down nearly 10 million from its peak. We’d grow more if you’d pay what it costs us.
The article is full of BS.
You don’t mention a significant cost increase related to putting 40% of our corn supply into the fuel system. Every animal that’s in the food supply, chickens, pigs, cows, and others, feed on corn. The cost of those finished products has also increased substantially.
Before corn ethanol was added to the fuel supply, a beef brisket would cost and average of $0.25 a pound. Those now run $3-3.50 a pound. That’s a big deal.
William,
Perhaps the cost of a brisket is more related to its demand points. As both a livestock producer and avid weekend “smoker” I can tell you that the farm to retail spread is as wide as it’s ever been….ie, the price the farmer receives has not changed dramatically from pre-ethanol production days. Ask any butcher, demand for “smoking” cuts is surging and thus prices have increased. As for other grocery store items, I offer this. When corn traded to over $7 in the drought induced markets of 2012, food manufactures took steps to either raise prices, decrease the amount of product offered (think potato chips), or both – blaming ingredient costs and transportation costs (Gasoline was $4/gallon). Corn has returned to surplus conditions and prices have retreated to $3 per bushel or less. Grocery prices have not. Fossil fuel costs at the pump remain higher ($3), despite ethanol prices of $1.40/gallon or less fob ethanol plant. One does not have to be too big of a detective to realize where the margin in the chain rests. As a national trucker shortage mounts and transportation costs continue to escalate, I do not expect the spread to get any better. I urge all of you to understand the true underlying issues of this. The above article is fraught with shoddy logic. Ethanol is a good thing for the U.S. It is the first new, real fuel refining capacity built in the U.S. in 30 years. It is working, don’t let the propaganda of big oil lead you astray.
Let’s face it. Ethanol, windmills, and solar panels are all very expensive failing concepts, because they were (and still are) stupid ideas thrust upon us by a horde of radical zealots who actually believe the ridiculous propaganda concept that CO2, a beneficial trace gas in our atmosphere is somehow (although there isn’t a shred of proof) causing worldwide global warming. Literally tens of thousands of climate scientists say it isn’t true, but world leaders choose to believe the organized groups whose stated purpose is to redistribute (Amerian) wealth and destroy (American) capitalism which created that wealth. The time has come for us to let the wind mills fall apart (which they will in about 15-20 years) and return to reliable, inexpensive, and practical fossil fuels which have served us so well for the past 100 years.
Too much corn is making it through to our food chain. It hurts my eyes, all those over-stuffed stretch pants.
The corn/ethanol business uses the starch and sugars in corn.
Distillers dried grain is a high protein by – product fed to livestock.
Anyone who comes on this site and claims that ethanol drives up the price of food, I’ll take them on. Ethanol subsidizes the American food supply.
Brazil runs on ethanol from sugar cane. Boy, sure has driven up the price of do nuts and a cup of joe.
There is a surplus of farmland and a cornucopia of nutritious food for all. An American dumpster eats better than Africa. Figure out why.