Ethanol revisited, again

I have heard several times that ethanol is an energy loser.

Yet the only study saying so was done in the 90"s by a group of College Students from Cornell on the east coast.

I read the results of their study and there were a lot of things that made no sense.

They added up all the energy it took to produce the crop, which is correct. But when they got that corn to the ethanol plant they charged the cost of the corn back out as an energy cost. They double charged for the corn cost. They also charged out the machinery and land cost as a energy cost as well. So yes it was an energy loser by their standards.

Here is a quick break down of how I feel the cost break down.

I have no way of knowing how much energy costs are in Seed, Fertilizer, and Chemicals. But the companys that produce those items make a hefty profit so it can"t all be energy costs.

I will still add all those in at 100% energy cost and still show an energy gain.

This is all based on one acre of corn in Johnson County Iowa.

Seed $100

Fertilizer $225

Chemicals $40

Actual fuel costs to plant, spray, combine and haul to the bin. 5 gallons an acre at $3.50 a gallon. $17.50

Machinery?? here again how much is energy cost. I figure it cost me about $70 an acre for machinery. So we will use $50 as energy cost.

Drying cost. Electricity and LP for 20% moisture corn $35.00

Cost of fuel to get the corn to the ethanol plant. $7.50

I not sure on the cost of fuel and electricity at the plant but we will say .50 a gallon. Bet I am high.

I still say land costs are not energy so I will not include that.

Total energy costs per acre $475 cost to produce 175 bushels of corn.

That corn will produce 490 gallons of ethanol at 2.7 gallons per bushel. The good plants are doing better than 2.7 per bushel. Back in the 90"s it was around 2.3 gallons per bushel. Or 402 gallons an acre.

490 gallons per acre at 2.80 a gallon sale price minus the 50 cent production costs at the plant equals $1127 per acre value.

Take that $1127 minus my $475 energy cost to produce and you have a $652 gain in energy.

Even if I add in land cost of $300 an acre rent I still gain $352 in energy.

And we still have the distillers grain that has a value to feed to livestock. No credit was given for that in the Cornell study either.

If someone can show me what I figured wrong and show a loss of energy please point it out.

Even if you figure BTU used versus BTU produced it will be a gain besides all the value added for jobs in this country.

Gary

I would run the test more directly.

Have all the equipment set up where it runs on 100% ethanol; tillage, harvesting, hauling, dryers...everything that touches or has anything to do with the crop runs on ethanol. Whatever is leftover is your energy gain. You should have some dollar gain too by producing your own fuel.

Sell 100% percent ethanol at the pump and let it succeed on it's own merit. The auto makers will be able to sell cars that run on 100% ethanol if the energy gain vs. cost is better or equal to petroleum.

Well if you are going to donate your shell corn to the ethanol industry for the price of growing it you might have something but when you sell it by the bushel at chicago board of exchange prices not by break even costs your numbers don"t add up. Then add in all government substitutes you get to grow it and the cost is even higher. A major thing to consider that you fail to mention is the food vs fuel problem. The more acres given to corn for ethanol means less for other food crops and cotton etc which means those prices will go up which has the last few years. Also as the price of corn rises with the growing demand for ethanol, livestock input cost rise also which us passed on to the consumer. The biggest downfall of the ethanol industry is the inferior final product. You have a good propaganda machine going though, your industry teamed up with the government is hard to beat!

Not to mention,we're going to farm that ground one way or another anyway. Want to grow a balance of crops that we'll use all of every year or put it in government storage?

you forgot to mention all the tax breaks and incentives and back door deals was done to build all the plants .

You need to figure the total cost to produce the corn so yes you do need to include the extremely high land values in Iowa to get your true cost as well as full machinery cost not partial machinery costs. Don't forget to deduct your crop insurance costs, land taxes, etc ......

It can only compare favorably if you don't count the tax payer's share. Or the reduced milage or the damage to engines, particuallry small engines.

I don't doubt your numbers, it may be energy positive but people still have to be forced to buy it and use it, that is not a sustainable business model. How many plants have closed their doors the last couple years and why did they close? Seems like they shut down as quick as they got built in many areas.

You forgot to mention all the tax breaks, incentives, and back door deals BIG OIL has been receiving since the beginning of the petroleum industry! The oil industry has milked we taxpayers for billions of dollars of tax breaks through the years to build a highly profitable industry that needs help about as badly as Donald nnalert needs food stamps.

Lets look at the cost of drilling oil wells, pumping crude out of the ground and transporting it to refineries. Then lets look at the cost of refining that crude in to the fuel we use in our vehicles. I don't know what those figures are, but they don't do it for free! Also, lets look at the pollution caused by oil spills. how about fires? When a refinery or tank farm goes up in smoke we see huge billowing clouds of black oily smoke. How much smoke do you see in an alcohol fire? None! In fact, it's very dangerous for firefighters because they cannot see the flames when pure alcohol burns. How much environmental damage will an ethanol spill cause? Do you see lagoons by ethanol plants? You don't see lagoons because the byproducts are consumed. I'm no tree hugger by any means but if we want to get down and dirty, lets get true figures on all of the different structures within our energy industry and then make comparisons. Jim

You forgot to add that some vehicles will now run too lean and need a motor job. You for got to add the cost of the Orange County Choppers bike build for the ethanol plant. Your taxes probably paid for that one. The time spent to clean the white junk from carbs when the "new gas" doesn't store well.

If alcohol were such a good product, the Federal Government would not have to mandate its use. Most all other products have had to succeed on their own merits, not by government decree.

The reason we have gasohol is because of the arm twisting and donations to politicians by the National Corn Growers Association. Yes,I grow corn grain for the market, but alcohol should have to sink or swim on its own merits like any other commodity, not by government intervention. Joe

The big errors on those tests:

1. They don't value the high portion feed left over, it appears they think it's thrown away.

2. At leas one of the tests put a value on sunlight used to grow the corn. Well, the sun shines at no out of pocket expense, so that is pointless.

3. The studies use 20 year old data. Ethanol production has risen from 2.5 gallons per bu to 2.8-3 bu per gallon. Plus they have lowered water use in the plants, plus energy use, plus most now extract oil from the corn for another energy-rich product.

4. If you trace it back, the anti-ethanol studies come from the Big Oil states. This is all politics, pure and simple.

5. Ethanol no longer has a subsidy, ended over a year ago. ethanol uses far less of your tax dollars that petrolium does, so if your tax dollars worry you - as they should - be mad at Big Oil, not ethanol.

6. Real studies of actual inputs and outputs of ethanol production from Midwest corn shows you gain a net energy gain of 25 to 30%. That is not awesomely great, but it certainly is a net positive gain in energy, and means less petrolium is used with ethanol.

There really is no argument here. Some folks prefer supporting Big Oil, some prefer supporting a tad cleaner air and a tad more USA created fuels.

Whatever.

Paul

(quoted from post at 07:39:11 09/08/13) If alcohol were such a good product, the Federal Government would not have to mandate its use. Most all other products have had to succeed on their own merits, not by government decree.

The reason we have gasohol is because of the arm twisting and donations to politicians by the National Corn Growers Association. Yes,I grow corn grain for the market, but alcohol should have to sink or swim on its own merits like any other commodity, not by government intervention. Joe

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e have a winner.

IaGary: Ethanol was a net loser on a BTU basis until just recently. You say only one study shows it was a looser but there are others in Europe that show that too. The worrying fact to me is that ALL that studies that show HOW "GREAT" it is are in the mid-west and are sponsored by the corn growers or ethanol business. Do you think they are as pure as driven snow???

As far as the cost of oil. If we could/would use the oil we have here in the US we would have plenty. The treehuggers have just about killed the oil refinery business in this country. I think it has been something like 30-40 years since a new plant has been built.

Here is a FACT!!!! A cheap economical energy built this country. The factories and businesses all use a lot of energy. We will NEVER have a good manufacturing base with high energy cost. Without a manufacturing base the country will not last long term.

The majority of the people that are trumpeting ethanol do not admit it only works if you keep conventional energy cost HIGH. The renewable industry is a JOKE. It is just a big tax dollar PIG. NONE of the renewable energy is cost competitive. So we throw BILLIONS of dollars at higher energy cost so that it can be called renewable.

Here is the issue that is going to make that harder in the future. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS BROKE!!! The money thrown at all of this stuff is going to stop one way or another. I think this economy will crash hard in the next decade. Then all of this renewable stuff is going to crash hard too. ETHANOL is included in this.

As far as the TAX breaks giving the oil industry. 100% of the ethanol plants have been built with tax breaks, grants and cheap federal money. So I think it is funny when the ethanol supporters complain that the oil industry gets tax breaks. The whole ethanol industry is on the gravy train of government money and mandates.

Substities for ethanol ended over a year ago and so did most of the industry. Any payment from FSA for growing corn is still a substity that has to be figured into the price it cost to grow it as its tax payer money that the grower depends on. Saying the ethanol industry is cleaner and big oil is bad gives a warm feeling inside, right out if the pro ethanol propaganda handbook, keep carrying the water for them!

Here's a copy and paste from Bob Goodlatte's web site. It has strong support here. So feel free to pick it apart. We have scattered gas station in my area that have 3 grades of ethanol free gas and no 10% ethanol pumps. Just good old gasoline.

GOODLATTE INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO ALTER ETHANOL MANDATE - April 10, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Bob Goodlatte released the following statement after introducing legislation to alter the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS):

“The RFS debate is no longer just a debate about fuel or food. It is also a debate about jobs, small business, economic growth and freedom. The federal government’s creation of an artificial market for the ethanol industry has quite frankly triggered a domino effect that is hurting American consumers, energy producers, livestock producers, food manufacturers, and retailers. Extreme drought last summer and record corn prices made it clear that the RFS is not working.

“Diverting feed stocks to fuel has diminished corn supplies for livestock and food producers resulting in higher corn prices. Higher prices are then passed on to livestock and food producers, meaning consumers across the nation see that increase reflected in the price of food on the grocery store shelves and in restaurants. At a time when our economy is still struggling to recover, the last thing families and small businesses need are costly government policies that increase their gasoline and grocery bills.

“Today, I introduced the RFS Elimination Act, which eliminates the RFS and makes ethanol compete in a free market. This legislation would give relief to livestock and food producers as well as consumers of these products. Renewable fuels play an important role in our all-of-the-above energy policy, but should compete fairly in the marketplace and not be the beneficiary of an anti-competitive government mandate. American families and businesses should not have to shoulder the high cost of this unworkable federal ethanol mandate.”

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandates that 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels be part of our nation’s fuel supply by 2022. Almost all of this is currently being fulfilled by corn ethanol. In 2011, five billion bushels of the corn supply was used for ethanol – equal to nearly 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop.

Additionally, Congressman Goodlatte introduced the bipartisan RFS Reform Act, which eliminates corn-based ethanol requirements, caps the amount of ethanol that can be blended into conventional gasoline at 10 percent, and requires the EPA to set cellulosic biofuels levels at production levels. This is a common sense solution to make sure that we have enough corn supplies to meet all of our demands.

The RFS Reform Act is supported by a diverse group of more than 45 organizations, including ActionAid USA, the American Frozen Food Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Environmental Working Group, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the Milk Producers Council, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Chicken Council, the National Marine Manufacturers Association, the National Restaurant Association, the National Taxpayers Union, the National Turkey Federation, the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, and Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Big oil does not now and never has recieved direct subsidies, in other words, Kalistia working at Mcdonalds and Pedro mowing the local ehtanol plant managers lawn are not paying in tax dollars that are being transferred to greedy oil exectutives Swiss bank accounts. The so called oil company tax subsidies that liberals and other liars love to wail about are tax breaks granted for any number of reasons, many of which were created by the federal bureacracy in the form of regulations that must be met. The vast majority of the money that is routinely and erroneously referred to as tax breaks for the oil companies is actually the cost to tax payers of patroling the high seas all over the world and keeping trade routes open, guess what?, corn and every other commodity you can name travel these same routes 24/7/365.

A JD dealer is looking to build out on the open here, a new building.

They are kinda shopping between 3 communities, seeing which town gives them the best tax breaks and other incentives, utilities and so forth.

Just kinda the way of things these days, I don't care for it any more than you, but it is the game we are in.

Most governments have found if we think we have cheap food and cheap energy we are happy quiet sheep, so that is the route we go. The game is bigger than any of us.

All the oil refineries, all the oil pipelines, all their infrastructure got the same tax breaks and incentives back when so they could start out cheap as well.

Now no other energy industry can possibly start out and compete, as they have to meet EPA rules that old technologies are grandfathered into.

And so on.

Its a game JD, you play it when it helps you, and you cuss it when it helps your competitors. But your oil companies and your machinery manufacturers all played the very same game, and still do.

Ethanol gets a few crumbs, they play the same game, same rules, same deal.

If you want to discuss the game, I agree with you, it is just a crying shame and will fold like a house of cards some day. Certainly rotten business.

If you want to talk energy production, then we need a level playing field, whatever you do for big oil, windmills, hydro electric dams, you do for the other energy producers as well.

If ethanol is supposed to compete with all the EPA regs and zero govt help, then lets have all the other energy segments pay back the tax breaks and subsidies they got in the last century. So we can compare them fairly, as you want if not, then you don't have an argument.

Which discussion do you want, one or the other? Can't have both sides of them your way.....

Paul

Initially ethanol production made a lot of sense to both reduce our dependance on foreign oil AND subsidise corn producers by creating another market for under-priced corn. Both proposes have been met sucessfully.

Currently, corn is no longer under-valued and is a now high priced input for producing ethanol. The ethanol plant by Buffalo Lake, MN was recently awarded to it's lenders (in forclosure?).

I my opinion, ethanol production will eventually need to shift from consuming high priced corn to using lower cost inputs: corn stover, straw, crops that can be grown and harvested on erosion-subsidised ground, downed trees, leaves, yard waste, moldy hay, road-side grasses, used cardboard, etc. The production process might have to change with the seasons to match the inputs available. Managing a plant using a wide variety of low quality inputs will be much more difficult than using one consistent high-quality input like corn.

So far little progress has been made to use other inputs. That may doom ethanol production in the future.

"If ethanol is supposed to compete with all the EPA regs and zero govt help, then lets have all the other energy segments pay back the tax breaks and subsidies they got in the last century. So we can compare them fairly, as you want if not, then you don"t have an argument."

Fair enough. But that also means farmers lose depreciation on equipment, tax deductions for inputs like seed and fertilizer, mortgages, hired help, etc.

Tax laws should encourage people to start and grow their businesses. But the government shouldn"t be picking the winners.

Paul: I keep hearing about all the subsidies that the oil industry got to start out??? NAME THEM!!!Tell me when they got them too. I would love to read about them. I am not saying they did not get them I just want to know when and where.

I know the wind power and ethanol industry gets them and I can study that. Everyone says the oil industry get subsides too. So name them. Is taking a expense off your income a tax break??? That makes the assumption that the income is the government's to start with. I really have an issue with that.

When the oil industry started the Government did not give out money like it does today. It just did not happen. One of the main reasons was that the Government at the time, late 1800s , did not have the money. No income tax only tariffs for tax income to the government. Still should be that way lots of problems would be solved.

Then the renewable supporters throw up the cost of the Mideast wars and such as a cost for oil. I don't buy that either. We have oil here. We have enough oil here for our use. The mid-east oil is just easier to refine.

The current saber rattling in the White house has zero to do with oil but it will get blamed for it some how.

You can take the entire corn crop and turn it into ethanol and still not met the energy needs of the country. So we are spending billions on something that does not solve much of the problem.

I also had a lot cheaper gas/fuel before the ethanol/renewable industry was around. I lay the blame for much of the higher fuel/energy cost squarely at the feet of that renewable industry. The renewable fuel industry can not compete in a fair market so the supporters have to drive up all the other fuel cost to make their industry work.

Is China doing this??? I think not. We will be in second place in a whole bunch of stuff real soon. The waste of effort and money on the renewable fuel is part of the cause of this.

You want to do just about any business in the USA you have to deal with this crap. Go to China and just build the product/plant you need.

Here is one last thing to check out. There are hundreds of everyday things we use in our lives that are made out of petroleum. There are a few products made out of ethanol. We need petroleum much more than we need ethanol.

The killer in ethanol production is the distillation process and the cost to transform the waste products into saleable form. The economic cost of the corn input stock is easy, just divide the market price by 2.7 gallon of ethanol per bushel of corn. I.e. $5.40 / 2.7 = $2.00 corn cost per gallon of ethanol. Figuring the actual energy cost of this portion is much harder. The first reference deals with this problem in a more or less satisfactory way.

The energy required for distillation is discussed in the second reference. These authors are saying that it takes about 85,000 Btu to completely process 1 gallon of ethanol from corn. However, they then add in 50,000 Btu as the value of the saleable byproducts. That leaves 35,000 Btu to cover the production of corn for 1 gallon of ethanol. If we carefully tweak these production methods it can come out to a positive energy balance by a small amount.

But if corn jumps to $8.10 per bushel, the input is $3.00 per gallon of ethanol and the economic balance is completely shot.

The last reference is just for giggles, as I don’t know as if they know what they are talking about.

I am not starting an argument here, only laying out what is known about ethanol. It is a really close call and if corn were $2.00 / bu it would be a no-brainier. Thankfully it is not, but now we are stuck with the stuff and I guess that’s just life!



How Much Energy Does It Take to Make a Gallon of Ethanol?
https://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/ILSR_energy_balance.pdf

Energy analysis for ethanol
http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/repositoryfiles/ca3406p9-72245.pdf

Ethanol Fuel Production
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/luk1/

Did my own study. Car gets 28 mpg no ethanol and 25 with 10% ethanol. So it has no value as a fuel because I use the same amount of petroleum with or without it.

If you're making money off of it or a greenie then it's the greatest miracle fuel ever. For the rest of us it's a royal, expensive and government mandated wasteful P.I.A.

The ethanol industry should be left to stand on its own, I agree with that, the less the government dabbles in it the better. Maybe the ethanol industry will actually start using products that are profitable to make ethanol(sugar cane or sorgum)for example. this product is more efficient to use. Then maybe the auto makers will someday follow and take advantage of the higher octane fuel so we can get our fuel mileage back. Ask any hot rodder they will tell you what they can do with high octane fuel.

Big oil tax breaks don"t amount to anything when compared with the amount of economic impact the oil and petro chemical industry has om the USA and the world. Various groups estimate big oil tax breaks between 14 and 52 billion per year, keep in mind these are tax breaks for doing a specifiied amount of business or installing infrastructure to comply with federal regulations, in other words, big oils tax breaks are earned just like every other industries tax breaks, except the so called green energy sector. Big oil tax breaks for the past 30 years don"t equal half of what was thrown away on wind and solar power boon doggles in the 2009 stimulas package alone, and those industries recieved money out of your pocket, actual tax payer transfer, not tax breaks which they will never get because they will never post a profit in order to owe any tax. As far as pollution goes, the only lasting damage from any oil spill in history was man made after the fact, the seas will break the oil up and there are bacteria and organisma that eat the oil, all the lasting damage has been man using harsh chemicals and questionable methods, in addition, in the entire history of offshore drilling on the US outer continental shelf there has never been as much oil spilled accidently than what is discharged by natural seepage every single year, including the Deepwater Horizon fiasco of 2010. Drilling and producing oil relieves resovoir pressures and slows natural seepage, just look at California for the textbook case. If you really want the true numbers I think you will be surprised.

Somebody will have a problem with everything. The people complaining last year about high corn prices making it hard to feed their cattle will be the same people complaining about this years lower corn price diminishing the value of their grain this year.

We can debate this over and over and never get anywhere. To much propaganda and money involved to ever have a real discussion.
Take for instance this thread. Who gives a rats patooty what seed; fertilizer; and chemicals cost. Ethanol plants buy corn based on a market price not on your input cost.
Another reason is we do not know what deals have been cut in subsidies to know the real cost of the product. Anyone that thinks big oil AND ethanol plants are not benefiting from government subsidies today need to wake up and smell the roses. Heck Bass Pro; tractor dealers; and corn farmers get government subsidies. They may call it tax breaks or tax incentives but it is still a government subsidized way of doing business.
Another reason is figures can be manipulated to prove your point. Anyone that does not think that is true needs to read the 3 Men check into a motel riddle.

What it really comes down to is how does ethanol effect my life.
For me I do not have a problem with it for my car that I use everyday at a 10% blend.
Where it becomes a problem is with my small engines (but getting a lot better with newer ones) and especially my boat.
Phase separation and MOSTLY the fact that ethanol draws water out of the air is the problem. And yes you guys that get less than 30 inches of rain a year and live land bound can say you never had problems. I call hog wash. Until you walk a mile in my shoes and live in the deep south only a few miles from large bodies of water you have no idea what you are talking about.

So with all that said the real problem I have is mandated 100% ethanol blend gas to where regular straight gas can not be found. Yes we can still get 100% gas but it is getting harder to find.
And with the government pushing for 15% ethanol I only see it getting worse.

Bingo.

Very well said.

Dean

Again, very well said, JD.

Dean

without ethanol , the oil companies would charge as much as they want ,,, ethanol at least gives them some competition ,,I know it has some flaws ,especially poor shelf life ,I use it 100 percent in thre summer monthes , /// all you clowns fuzin about ethanols faultz are playing rite into big oils hands ,, where the powers that be already beintg fondled

(quoted from post at 10:18:06 09/08/13) without ethanol , the oil companies would charge as much as they want ,,, ethanol at least gives them some competition ,,I know it has some flaws ,especially poor shelf life ,I use it 100 percent in thre summer monthes , /// all you clowns fuzin about ethanols faultz are playing rite into big oils hands ,, where the powers that be already beintg fondled

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Ethanol isn't giving them competition. Most of the time ethanol is more expensive for them per gallon than gas is. I'm talking about pre tax gas at a refinery. They are forced to blend that gas with ethanol costing us at the pump. I know the plant near me which didn't open all that long ago was up for sale and the state and county gave them money to keep operating for a while. Part of that money came from the federal government in the form of grants to the state and county.

People have attacked businesses getting tax breaks. OK, you live anyplace you can think of. Company comes in a builds a new plant because of tax breaks (that creates temp jobs building the plant, construction workers pay taxes). Say the bring in 100 new jobs that pay better than most local jobs. Those 100 employees are going to pay income taxes. The need for housing goes up again short term construction jobs. The additional construction for infrastructure. Water, gas, electric and sewage. Those tax breaks the company gets are generally for 5 years. That's a lot of money moving around and that's what the economy needs to be healthy. Now take a local farmer who applies for every program he can get (this is a guy I know). Farms about 1200 acres. Pretty good on maintenance but has a good shop and does most of his own work. May hire one of 2 guys on a temp bases for the max of 2 weeks at a time 2-3 times a year. Yea he spends money at the CaseIH dealer and for fuel but comes no where near what a small factory spends a month just on utilities. Which one is better for the economic health of the community? Now I'm not against farmers, I'm small time but I farm. Ethanol has been great for guy raising corn and employees at the plants but hasn't been real good for the rest of the country.

Rick

I too did my own study and my 97 Chevy Lumina daily driver commute to work car got the same mileage with either fuel.

I agree, Tomh. I agree.

How do we get there?

The Feds, and every state, every county, every city and town, every township has incentives, subsidies, plans, programs, and so on to try to make this or that business or group move in, expand, be here, work there, and so on.

Some of the fellas here think I'f we only cut off ethanol, I guess the entire worlds problems will stop, and we all will live tax free, fat, and happy.

I'm all for less govt, but why should we use our tax money to pick big oil as the winner again, why is ethanol the only thing to be cut?

Lets cut govt, man I'm all for that! A total different subject than ethanol tho, ethanol is about energy and pollution. Govt waste is a bigger issue, we need to cut from everyone, including me. But not -just- me either......

The crop insurance subsidies are getting silly. The money spent on advertising to get more people hooked on more Snap funds for the rest of their lives is silly. The govt money is just silly. But that is a govt spending issue, not an ethanol issue.

Paul

If you want to base ethanol viability solely on an economic platform... there will be times when you can make use of cheap natural gas prices and cheap corn prices in the cycle where ethanol will make a lot of money.
If you want to base it on a thermodynamic platform then ethanol will never break even.

One of the primary rules of thermodynamics is that you can't get more energy from a system than you put into the system. Not only that... but you can't break even either.

With that in mind... corn production by any measure is a petroleum based system. We use petroleum to produce our fertilizer. To fuel our machinery. To move corn around... herbicides. Everything we do consumes energy. When you do that to feed hungry people you shrug that off and do what you have to do... but when you're feeding it into a zero sum equation to feed an engine it really doesn't make any sense.
I know some will jump up and argue that corn harvests the sun's energy and that's added to the equation... which is true... but it doesn't harvest enough as far as I'm concerned. There's always loss of energy in any system and the corn probably only captures enough to mabey cover the losses.
The other argument is that we can feed the DDG's to cattle so that's not a complete loss... and to an extent that is also probably true... but when you get to the point where you saturate the market for DDG's... then what? Then it's a total loss from the energy cycle.
As far as I'm concerned, ethanol is a loser, and a big loser when measured on an energy basis. On an economic basis it will cycle based on the price of corn, natural gas and gasoline.

Rod

What are you talking about?? Oil is a commodity traded on the open market same as any other, corn included, I guess you don't remember oil " $30.00 per barrel in 2009 during the economic meltdown. I don't know how old you are but I can assure you that oil was cheap for most of your life and it will be cheap again if and when the federal government decides to put the citizens economic well being ahead of every whack job with an issue. A few facts that you conveniently overlook, the price of oil rarely exceeded $2.50 a barrel from the end of World War II until the Arab oil embargo in 1973, during the rest of the seventies oil averaged around $10.00 per barrel, it peaked at $30.00 per barrel in 1981 but by 1986 had dropped to around $9.00, throughout the rest of the 80's and 90's it never got above $25.00 per barrel, it was 2002 before oil ever saw $50.00 per barrel. You call others clowns but do you have any idea whatsoever how much it costs to find and produce a barrel of oil?, do you have any idea of the economic impact of the industry and how many millions of people are employed or the taxes paid by the tens of thousands of companies that would not exist if there were no oil business?

Exactly my point. When you make money (either directly or indirectly) from ethanol, you have far more satisfactory results.

That stuff is so bad that even our abundant public TV station produced a half hour documentary on the dangers of ethanol in boats. They showed the damage to boat engines and warned of the dangers of using it, especially on the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean where loss of an engine can cost you your life.

If we use all costs seed fertilizer costs and all other costs that have been listed here to produce corn to feed the ethanol plants... Then those cost should also be used to produce the same corn if it was used to make cornflakes or grow beef.

JD SELLER very well said

There are a lot of things made out of petroleum Gas is 1 thing. What else can be made from Gas ? Ethanol is just 1 product made from corn. There are a lot of thing made from corn.

It is interesting that everyone jumps up and down about using corn for fuel but no ne says a word about using grain to make beer, whisky or other consumable alcohols. I heard once that a significant percent of the US's yearly rice production goes to make Budweiser. I use alcohol blended gas and have no problems. As for the monetary side there is plenty of dirty dealings in most any business.

(quoted from post at 15:26:21 09/08/13) ......................As for the monetary side there is plenty of dirty dealings in most any business.

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You're sure enough right on that! In my opinion the ethanol deal is just another schuck. But, for sure, [b:b17945f844]SOMEBODY[/b:b17945f844] is making a pile of money out of subscribing to the idea and promoting it as some kind of cure-all (kinda like Snake-Oil) :evil: