I just finished watching the 60 Minutes piece on ethanol production. Wow. What a puff piece. I thought at least I might see some attempt at balance. But there was no mention of the disadvantages at all. It makes you wonder why ethanol is the least bit controversial. Let’s break the piece down a bit.
Dan Rather on Brazil
Rather pointed out that Brazil has virtually stopped importing foreign oil by switching to ethanol. He said ethanol is cheaper and cleaner. He had Berkeley professor Daniel Kammen on, who said that Brazil made a commitment to ethanol, and then followed through.
So, if Brazil can do it, why not us? Right? Or was Brazil able to do it for reasons other than making a serious commitment?
First, Brazil uses sugarcane to produce ethanol. It is hands down the best crop for making ethanol. The ethanol yield per acre is twice that of corn ethanol, and the energy requirements for refining the crude ethanol are far lower. Unfortunately, the climate in most of the U.S. is not amenable to sugarcane production.
Second, they showed a brief shot of Brazil’s highways. You know what I saw? No Hummers. No SUVs. No pickups. No large vehicles of any kind. That’s one reason the average annual per capita energy consumption in Brazil is 36.3 million BTUs/person. On the other hand, the average in the U.S. is 209.7 million BTUs/person – almost 6 times as much! Are you starting to get a picture of why Brazil can do it?
Finally, I couldn’t help but notice the absolute irony of one clip showing workers in Brazil out in the field hacking down sugarcane by hand. Then, they showed a clip in the U.S. where they were harvesting corn by tractor. One requires fossil fuel energy inputs. One requires cheap manual labor.
Dan Rather Back in the U.S.
Dan said that 10% ethanol won’t replace much foreign oil, “unless Americans switch to E85”. If Rather had bothered to do a bit more research, he would have found that even if we turned the entire corn crop into ethanol, it would provide less than 15% of the annual motor fuel demand. At the same time, due to the huge inputs of natural gas required to produce ethanol, we would consume enormous quantities of natural gas, driving the price higher, and in turn driving the ethanol price higher.
Rather toured an ethanol refinery. They discussed the distillation step. Where does Rather think the energy for the distillation comes from? Does he think they are creating enough energy to drive the distillation? Frankly, I would love to see someone run an ethanol refinery in this manner – drive the distillation by the energy that was produced. The charade would come to a screeching halt when they discovered that they couldn’t supply the energy needs of the refinery with the energy they produce.
Rather interviewed some corn farmers, who stated “we have raised the price of corn $0.05-$0.10/bushel”. That’s great for the corn farmer, but let’s point out that this also raises the price of everything in the food chain that is based on corn.
Rather asked Professor Kammen “Is ethanol the best way to reduce our importation of oil?” Let me take that one, Dan. No. Conservation is the best, and quickest way to reduce our importation of oil. Hands down. No controversy.
Professor Kammen admitted that the greenhouse gas reduction would be “modest“. Why do you suppose a “green” fuel would only have a “modest” greenhouse gas reduction? Because of the large quantities of fossil fuel inputs required to make the ethanol.
Rather mentioned on a couple of occasions the “multi-billion dollar profits” that oil companies are making. How much does he think ADM has profited, as a result of a government-created and heavily subsidized industry?
Dan Talks Disadvantages
Actually, he didn’t. So, I will. Here’s just a few things that Rather neglected to mention. E85 will significantly reduce your gas mileage: Gas Mileage of Flexible-Fueled Vehicles. Government-run tests documented at this site show the reduction in mileage for various flex-fuel vehicles. A Ford Taurus, for instance, is reported to get 29 mpg on the highway running on gasoline, and 21 mpg running on E85.
The amount of energy created per gallon of ethanol produced is very small, yet ethanol is subsidized on a per gallon basis. This means to displace a single gallon of gasoline requires anywhere from $4.00 to over $7.00 in subsidies, depending on whether you include the corn subsidies.
The cost of ethanol in the U.S. is consistently and substantially higher than the cost for gasoline. The only reason you don’t see this reflected at the pumps is because of the subsidy. But you can see a history of ethanol price versus mid-grade gasoline prices here. Friday’s closing prices on the market, for instance, were $2.77 for ethanol and $2.04 for mid-grade gasoline. Given that ethanol contains less than 70% of the BTUs that gasoline contains, the price per BTU is even more disadvantageous for ethanol.
Rather kept mentioning how clean ethanol is. First, ethanol raises the vapor pressure of gasoline, which increases smog. That’s why ethanol blended reformulated gasoline has to have a vapor pressure waiver. Second, corn farming is certainly not clean. Consider a recent report by Lester Lave and Michael Griffin, from Carnegie Mellon University. They write :
Corn farming is rough on the environment. Soil erosion due to wind and water is rampant. Fertilizer and pesticide runoffs produce algae blooms that result in “dead zones,” including one in the Gulf of Mexico that is so polluted it cannot support aquatic life.
In summary, I would hardly call this puff piece journalism. It looks like something the ethanol lobby put together. It does a disservice to the American public by lulling them into thinking this is a potential solution to our energy problem. Without a substantial effort at conservation, it is folly to suggest that grain-derived ethanol offers anything other than false hope.
Dan has really gotten to be an embarasement.
Ethanol is the new hydrogen.
They must have some serious money behind this.
This is really bad for anyone in the reality based world, that wants common sense in our energy sources.
I still can’t believe that no one is pushing for Biomass To Electicity and electricity to rail and car.
The energy gain of BTE, over ethanol to “huge trucks”, (with one driver) is incredible.
Robert,
I too was disappointed in the 60 Minutes story. It was very one-sided.
Here is the text of the letter I sent Rather and producer Rosenbaum earlier this evening, Their e-mail address is “60m@cbsnews.com”
—————————–
Dear Mr Rather and Mr Rosenbaum,
I watched your story, “The Ethanol Solution” on 60 Minutes earlier this evening with great interest. Sadly, you completely missed two critically important points in your ethanol story:
1. You made no mention of the amount of energy needed to raise corn and turn it into ethanol.
2. You completely glossed over the most critical lesson we could learn from Brazil.
ETHANOL ENERGY INPUTS
Your story did everyone who watched a disfavor by not at least mentioning the huge energy inputs in the form of fossil fuels needed to grow corn and turn it into ethanol. Farmers could not grow corn without nitrogen fertilizers made from natural gas, and it then takes more energy in the form of fossil fuels to turn that corn into ethanol. Your photographer did show the natural gas flame in the Pine Lake ethanol plant while plant manager Scott Dorow mentioned how hot it had to be, but there was no mention of the energy consumed producing those “high temperatures” needed to distill that 15% volume beer into a flammable fuel.
The truth is that because of the fossil fuels esential to grow corn and turn it into ethanol, corn ethanol is really neither renewable, sustainable, or green.
THE BRAZIL EXPERIENCE
You suggested the Brazil experience with cane ethanol is the solution to our motor fuel problems. You are correct; Brazil has had great success in using sugar cane ethanol as a motor fuel. But what you neglected to report, and may not know, is that there are few parallels between Brazil and the United States. Brazil has several advantages in making ethanol that simply don’t exist here:
· It is about eight times as efficient making alcohol from the sugar in cane as from the starch in corn.
· Brazil has the climate and soils conducive to growing sugar cane. (We have the right combination of soils, climate, and latitude in only four states: Florida, Louisiana, Hawaii, and parts of Texas.)
· Brazil has vast tracts of inexpensive, undeveloped land at the tropical latitudes conducive to growing cane. When they need more land, all they have to do is clear more of the Amazon basin, disregarding how that will affect the environment.
· Brazil has a large supply of dirt-cheap, machete-swinging manual laborers. We don’t have or want that in the U.S. Our farmers are understandably reluctant to wade into their cornfields swinging a machete. (You did show two of those machete-swinging workers, but then failed to mention that is how Brazil does almost all of its cane harvest — manual labor.)
· But by far the biggest difference is that on a per capita basis, Brazil uses only 12% as much energy for transportation as we do. If they increased their transportation energy use eight-fold to match ours, they too would have to import oil. (Much of Brazil is still a third-world country. If the standard of living in all of Brazil increased to our level, they could not be self-sufficient on cane ethanol.)
Brazil’s success is instructive, but please understand it for what it is. They are able to be self-sufficient using ethanol only because they use so little energy for transportation compared to us. If we reduced our use of motor fuels to a level 12% of our current rate, we too could be self-sufficient. The lesson to learn from Brazil is conservation.
I must admit my disappointment at the incomplete view you presented of the ethanol story.
Best regards,
Gary Dikkers
Energy Consultant
DiWiDi Technologies
Madison, WI
the focus on e85 was strange. they should have figured out that e5 or e10 everywhere is a lot easier to do, and consumes the same ethanol (“saves” the same oil) as e85 in limited locations, and gasoline everywhere else.
of course, if we all run e5 or e10, GM loses it’s “advantage” right?
this was a GM publicity piece, trying to get the country to skew the infrastructure in their favor.
the focus on e85 was strange. they should have figured out that e5 or e10 everywhere is a lot easier to do, and consumes the same ethanol (“saves” the same oil) as e85 in limited locations, and gasoline everywhere else.
of course, if we all run e5 or e10, GM loses it’s “advantage” right?
this was a GM publicit
“Dan has really gotten to be an embarasement.”
Actually, it’s 60 Minutes series of shows on energy that’s gotten to be an embarrassment. They did the same thing with tar sands, and didn’t they do this with Montana’s coal to liquids proposal?
Excellent analysis…Would you support lifting the rather hefty tarriff on imported ethanol?
Thanks for the piece and all the great comments. 60 minutes used to be the go to show to expose b.s., government and otherwise. Now, it is a pathetic shadow of its former self, just as CBS is a pathetic shadow of its former self. TV journalism is dead in America and 60 minutes is leading the way. Of course, on NBC, you could have listened to a whole show on Tom Cruise.
Anyone with only a passing interest in ethanol could have done a better job on this piece than CBS, with all its resources, did. Rather is a pathetic piece of crap and should stay retired.
“Excellent analysis…Would you support lifting the rather hefty tarriff on imported ethanol?”
No! The $0.51 per gal tariff offsets the $0.51 per gal excise tax credit that the refiners/jobbers receive for blending ethanol with gasoline.
The only thing repealing the tariff would do is subsidize Brazilian farmers.
Hopefully our society can wake up and see that their is no easy solution. Petroleum is the cheapest, cleanest, easiest fuel we have today. Emphasizing ethanol would only make things worse.
Nice work, Robert. Regarding the New York Times puff piece, what do you expect from a paper that publishes lies? “Paper of Record” my ass.
Yes, the 60 Minutes was minute in content, but then this is prime time TV. So what’s new.
As to the process, once the corn has been grown, it requires about 2.5 lbs of steam to hydrolyze/ferment and distill the product to get 1 lb of fuel grade EtOH, as well as about 1 lb of DDGS by product, where the protein content is more than 25 wt%. In a decent boiler, 1 lb of EtOH could make approximately 12 lbs of steam. So this EtOH purification process could produce a net of 0.8 lbs of EtOH from 1 lb of EtOH if the product were used in the boiler to run the purification process.
Of course, much of the energy use in the corn growing process is concerned with powering equipment on farms, as well in making the ammonia that mostly should end up as protein in the crop. There are ways to take out the fossil fuel out of ammonia production that have been practiced for over 80 years, such as the electricity –> H2 via electrolysis of water, —> NH3. The current use of natural gas to make H2 is now getting to be a legacy of cheap natural gas pricing, which have gone the way of the dinosaurs, which helped make that Ngas anyway.
dB
What if Brazil converted the sugarcane husk (?) into cellulosic ethanol and sold the sugar for dietary use? Does that make the process sustainable with EROEI significantly greater than 1?
Sustainable would have to mean that the cultivation can continue without soil degradation and without the need for fossil-fuel generated fertilizer?
What if Brazil converted the sugarcane husk (?) into cellulosic ethanol and sold the sugar for dietary use? Does that make the process sustainable with EROEI significantly greater than 1?
The easily converted sugar is a key reason why sugarcane ethanol has better economics. You would lose the economics if you tried to convert the residue (bagasse) and sell the sugar. The EROI is already better (much better, from what I have seen) than 1 for sugarcane. Sustainability is a different subject. If they are mining the topsoil in order to produce the sugarcane, then it isn’t sustainable.
Yes, sustainability would be the ability to continue producing sugarcane while maintaining the integrity of the soil and without depending on nonrenewable inputs.
RR
As to the process, once the corn has been grown, it requires about 2.5 lbs of steam to hydrolyze/ferment and distill the product to get 1 lb of fuel grade EtOH, as well as about 1 lb of DDGS by product, where the protein content is more than 25 wt%.
That number didn’t look right to me based on my experience with butanol distillation (containing much less water), so I checked it out. According to the USDA studies, it takes 52,000 BTU of energy for what they call the ethanol conversion process to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. Presumably the conversion includes the fermentation and distillation. A gallon of ethanol weighs around 7 pounds, so we have 7428 BTUs/lb of ethanol. There are around 1,000 BTUs in a pound of steam, so it is about 7.4 lbs of steam per pound of fuel grade ethanol. A pound of ethanol will produce about 11,000 BTUs when combusted. If there were no heat losses (of course there will be), then you could use this to drive the fermentation/distillation, leaving 3,500 BTUs to cover all of the other energy inputs. This is what kills the ethanol energy balance. To produce 11,000 BTUs of ethanol, you have to burn 7400 BTUs in just the conversion step.
There are ways to take out the fossil fuel out of ammonia production that have been practiced for over 80 years, such as the electricity –> H2 via electrolysis of water, —> NH3.
Hydrolysis of water to make hydrogen is incredibly inefficient. The only cases in which it makes sense energetically is if you have excess energy available (solar, wind, or nuclear, for example).
RR
I think you’re wrong about ethanol and that EROEI analysis is a waste of time. Somewhere in your education you learned that energy was conserved when it was converted from one form to another. Many people seem to think that this means that the economic value of energy is conserved as it is converted from one from to another. They act as if 1 million BTU of energy was equally valuable regardless of the form it is in. Wrong! 1MMBTU in the form of coal costs about $1.50. In the form of natural gas it costs $6.55 today. In the form of wholesale gasoline you will pay about $16 today. Ethanol at $2/gal works out to be $26 / MMBtu. The high price is likely due to ethanol’s value as an oxygenate and octane enhancer. Using 2 MMBtus worth of coal to make 1 MMBtus worth of ethanol makes sense when you understand that clean transportation fuels are much more valuable than power generation fuels. Although an economic analysis is the best way to evaluate ethanol, if you don’t like capitalism then you could just look at MMBTU’s of transportation fuel consumed versus MMBTU’s of transportaion fuel produced. That ratio is around 1:8 if I remember rightly. Consult the recent article in Science about biofuels if you want the exact number.
There’s another reason I dislike EROEI analysis which is that I have always suspected that it would be very difficult to do such an analysis accurately and fairly. It depends too much on details of farming and industrial practise which are subject to change and for which accurate data is hard to find. It seems that the biggest energy input is the distillation step. As ethanol distillation is a fairly low temperature process, it is a good candidate for the use of waste heat from some other industrial process like power generation. If that became standard practice, then it would make a big difference to the EROEI calculation.
Speaking of power generation, the EROEI for operation of a modern coal burning power plant is about 0.36! Most of the input energy ends up in the cooling water. Maybe we should stop making electricity! I’m sure candle making has a better EROEI than that!
Ethanol at $2/gal works out to be $26 / MMBtu. The high price is likely due to ethanol’s value as an oxygenate and octane enhancer.
Two things. First, the spot price of ethanol is almost 50% higher than $2/gal. Today’s closing price was $2.92, pushing the cost to near $40/MMBTU. Second, the high price is because ethanol production is very labor and energy intensive.
Using 2 MMBtus worth of coal to make 1 MMBtus worth of ethanol makes sense when you understand that clean transportation fuels are much more valuable than power generation fuels.
I have commented a number of times on using coal to provide the energy for ethanol plants. I think because of the economics, this is the wave of the future. However, there is nothing clean about it. Using coal to make ethanol will increase the greenhouse gas emissions, actually making the situation worse that today’s status quo.
But the other thing is that the primary fossil fuel inputs into ethanol production, natural gas, gasoline, and diesel, are all transportation fuels themselves. They suffice just fine. Using 1 transportation fuel to produce another one is just stupid unless you have a very good return on energy.
Speaking of power generation, the EROEI for operation of a modern coal burning power plant is about 0.36! Most of the input energy ends up in the cooling water. Maybe we should stop making electricity!
That’s an invalid comparison to ethanol production processes. They take substances that can be used as transportation fuels to make another transportation fuel. That’s not what you are doing with coal-generated electricity. Electricity generated from coal is also neither clean, nor sustainable, just as ethanol from coal isn’t. You can’t drive a society in this manner in the long run (and it’s not a good idea in the short run).
RR
“60 Minutes – The Ethanol Solution”
The comments I read remind me of the Wright Brothers. People with the same attitude in those days used to say: “If God wanted men to fly, He would have provided them with wings.” And after their first flight, the experts of those days, “This goes to prove that man cannot fly. After a few seconds up in the air, he fell to the ground!”
Personal transportation is our way of life, not an “addiction” for which we have to pay the price imposed at the pump by the oil companies. We have the resources and the ingenuity to become independent from foreign oil. Sure, there are inaccuracies in Dan Rather presentation. The Wright Brothers didn’t start their first flight at Mach 5. But it’s the spin in the right direction. Conservation is not the solution—it’s just like going back to the caves. Sure, we shouldn’t waste unnecessary energy. Conservation comes natural in people under a pinch. There will be politicians and other people taking advantage of the situation. We must see to that that we are not fooled by them. But at the same time, we must demand our government to take steps in the right direction. Ethanol may not be the best solution, but it is the most practical we have on hand. Brazil is showing us the way. There are great differences between the U.S. and Brazil. The net energy gain of Brazilian ethanol from sugar cane is more than 80%; from corn is less than 30%. But we are making progress. Corn, for the long run, is not the best source for making ethanol. But we’re developing methods for alternative, readily available sources such as switch grass, wood residues, and others. I believe we should import ethanol in this interim period to accelerate the process of implanting the infrastructure for E85. Our farmers cannot compete with the price of imported ethanol, if we abolish or reduce the import tariff, but perhaps the government subsidy they receive will serve as incentive. We should tax the oil industry for oil imports above a certain level, and give them an incentive for the ethanol they blend with gasoline. Government measures seldom work for the long run, but they may help in the initial development stage.
“Personal transportation is our way of life, not an “addiction” for which we have to pay the price imposed at the pump by the oil companies. We have the resources and the ingenuity to become independent from foreign oil.”
Well in essence you agree with the government. It is ‘Business as Usual’ and the market will force the innovations you foresee when alternatives compete economically with rising oil prices. We’ll see if that plays out. Of course Cuba/Russian Siberia may be the model to look at, not Brazil. Limited personal car use, localized food markets, availabilty of public transit.
So, will Americans vote with their wallets for the current level of personal transportation? Most are saying yes right now. (Our regional transit was reporting increase in riders, like 10%.) But, even more shocking, will Americans even be players in the game if the dollar collapses in value leading to China and India outbidding for the oil/ethanol). Imagine the irony of them buying American ethanol (assuming no government intervention).
So is it ehtanol the solution? Maybe to the minor problem of continuing the car culture. But not in the bigger picture. To quote RR:
“GTL will play out first, and then CTL, followed by the melting of the polar ice caps, followed by BTL (biomass to liquids).”
The comments I read remind me of the Wright Brothers. People with the same attitude in those days used to say: “If God wanted men to fly, He would have provided them with wings.”
False analogy, Joseph. Nobody is saying we shouldn’t fly. What I am saying is that maybe we shouldn’t strap giant bird wings on and jump off a cliff. What I am saying is that there are far, far better ways of flying than the one we are embarking on now. What I am saying is that we aren’t actually flying. We are standing around flapping our wings. Someone who isn’t looking closely enough might think we are flying, until they see that our feet are still on the ground.
Personal transportation is our way of life, not an “addiction” for which we have to pay the price imposed at the pump by the oil companies.
Of course it’s our way of life. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an addiction. Sometimes, a doctor might give you morphine for pain. That’s OK. On the other hand, taking it every day because it makes you feel good isn’t. That’s the situation with our personal transportation.
Sure, there are inaccuracies in Dan Rather presentation.
Not so much inaccuracies, as huge omissions and selective reporting.
Conservation is not the solution—it’s just like going back to the caves.
That’s where you are WRONG. Our way of life is not remotely sustainable in the long run. Conservation will happen, whether we choose it, or we have to do it because there just isn’t enough oil left to meet everyone’s needs. It would be far better for government to set policies such that we start to conserve more like the Europeans do. That would stretch our oil supplies, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and give us more time in which to work on alternatives that make sense.
Brazil is showing us the way.
Brazil’s situation is not remotely applicable to ours. Maybe Brazil is showing us the way, but not how you think. Their per capita energy consumption is 1/6th of ours. Maybe that’s how they are showing us the way – drastically reduce your energy consumption and you have a chance to be self-sufficient.
RR
Excellent post. Another key fact overlooked by Rather & Co. is the dramatic increase in crude production achieved by Petrobras itself. Brazil is importing less crude in large measure because it has been engaged in an aggressive offshore drilling program that has increased Brazil’s domestic oil production. It is a gross misrepresentation to credit ethanol alone with the decline in Brazilian crude imports.
Dollars to donuts that the guy who posted this:
——————-
Anonymous said…
I think you’re wrong about ethanol and that EROEI analysis is a waste of time. Somewhere in your education you learned that energy was conserved when it was converted from one form to another. Many people seem to think that this means that the economic value of energy is conserved as it is converted from one from to another. They act as if 1 million BTU of energy was equally valuable regardless of the form it is in. Wrong! 1MMBTU in the form of coal costs about $1.50. In the form of natural gas it costs $6.55 today. In the form of wholesale gasoline you will pay about $16 today. Ethanol at $2/gal works out to be $26 / MMBtu. The high price is likely due to ethanol’s value as an oxygenate and octane enhancer. Using 2 MMBtus worth of coal to make 1 MMBtus worth of ethanol makes sense when you understand that clean transportation fuels are much more valuable than power generation fuels. Although an economic analysis is the best way to evaluate ethanol, if you don’t like capitalism then you could just look at MMBTU’s of transportation fuel consumed versus MMBTU’s of transportaion fuel produced. That ratio is around 1:8 if I remember rightly. Consult the recent article in Science about biofuels if you want the exact number.
There’s another reason I dislike EROEI analysis which is that I have always suspected that it would be very difficult to do such an analysis accurately and fairly. It depends too much on details of farming and industrial practise which are subject to change and for which accurate data is hard to find. It seems that the biggest energy input is the distillation step. As ethanol distillation is a fairly low temperature process, it is a good candidate for the use of waste heat from some other industrial process like power generation. If that became standard practice, then it would make a big difference to the EROEI calculation.
Speaking of power generation, the EROEI for operation of a modern coal burning power plant is about 0.36! Most of the input energy ends up in the cooling water. Maybe we should stop making electricity! I’m sure candle making has a better EROEI than that!
2:11 PM
—————–
is Dr. Bruce Dale of Michigan State University, or someone who has been talking to him. I attended an energy seminar in Lansing, MI and he made these exact same arguments in defense of corn ethanol (that EROEI is bogus, that coal and oil are “negative” etc.). The only thing this poster forgot to add was what yummy cowfood the dried distiller’s grain is . . . as if we didn’t need to stop feeding grains to cattle entirely.
This is fine piece with many interesting comments. It is simple to understand that Ethanol is merely the recipient of incredible subsidies that are warping, again, our view of the marketplace.
The point I found most interesting, though, was the acceptance, as a given, that Smokestacks( emissions ) need to exist.
There is technology currently, available “off the shelf”, that can readily put smokestacks out of business.
As many of us already understand, the thermodynamic efficiency of many of our current activities is quite low. By harnessing that, now, lost heat, it is fact that what was once jettisoned to the atmosphere can be turned into multivarious Industrial Gases and additional |Energy|, at the very minimum, with Zero Toxic emissions.
Our Environment is ,literally, littered with waste Hydrocarbons and unused Carbohydrates that can be used as very efficacious feedstocks.
…the only shortage we face is that of the will to de-verticalize our current economic structure–