Re: OT: Rant over "I now bliefe in Gobal Worming"



Eric Jacobsen wrote:


Nebraska and South Dakota also grow immense ammounts of corn and draw
from the Madison and Ogalalla aquifers (which was a big part of my
point). That's sort of moot these days since it's becoming clear
that growing corn is not a good way to produce ethanol, partly because
corn requires so much water to grow.

You make arguments based on your own private imagined facts. Most corn land is
not irrigated so the water falls from the sky no matter what you do. Farmers
have historically grown the corn. They will continue to grow corn. And sure they
have an interest in promoting ethanol, but not because they think it has
anything to do with the temperature of the earth.


Minnesota mandates the use of ethanol more than any other state.

Which is demonstrative of the dichotomy in the policies.

It contradicts your claims yes.


There've
also been studies (like this one, which is a couple of years old now:
http://www.agobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid=89449) where water
concerns in Iowa were specifically cited.

You ignore reality. The corn is going to be grown anyway. IMO it is better
to make ethanol with that corn than to use it as a weapon against small
third world nations or to turn it into animal fat which is how surplus corn
has been used in the past. That is the choice. The consequences of producing
ethanol is not starving people in the 3rd world it is leaner beef and pork
on the plates of fat Americans.

That pretty much abandons the idea of looking at it from a system
perspective and evaluating the larger picture of the resources
required to sustain that model. My point is that when one does so
the argument for ethanol gets very shaky.

How does looking at the factual consequences instead of the imagined
consequences "abandon the idea of looking at it from a system perspective" and
why are you concerned when the corn is used for energy and unconcerned when it
is used to grow animal fat to feed overweight populations.



One of the big issues is the Ogallala and Madison aquifers which have
been supplying huge amounts of corn and grain production for decades.
They're being drawn down at an unsustainable rate, and were (and are)
feeding the grain-based ethanol production. I don't think that's
anything close to a good trade.

Except that the so called "trade" is just your fantasy.



The amount of water used for ethanol plants is insignificant compared to the
total water consumption in the region. Even when US ethanol production
reaches the maximum amount that the Federal law permits there still will be
significantly less acres of corn planted in the US than there were in the
1930's and 1940's.

It's not just the ethanol refining plants. The issue with the plants
is the effect on the local water supply at the plant (as well as the
cumulative effect). The other, larger part of it is the amount of
water required to grow the material that feeds the ethanol production.
The draw to cellulosic ethanol is that it uses material that would
otherwise be discarded from the food production process, which is
clearly a much better idea. But that doesn't address the water
issues related to the refinement, which is still real.

If farmers plant their acres to cellulose crops instead of grain how does that
address your concern about food production or water or anything else? Or where
did you expect this cellulose to come from? Corn is perfect because there is a
huge body of knowledge that has made the process efficient. There is already the
infrastructure in place that allows for a single farmer to plant and harvest a
vast amount of corn with very little labor. That is simple economics. Farmers
are actually pretty dang good at economics and if you would bother to ask one
I'm sure they would tell you why your cellulose idea wouldn't fly.


If one claims that only cellulosic discard material would be used for
ethanol production, then the recovery and transportation costs still
have to be considered as well as whether enough material is even
available or whether it needs to be purposefully grown just for
ethanol production. If the latter, then the water issue for the
material growth becomes an issue again.

You don't seem to understand that the water is falling from the sky. 90% of the
corn used for ethanol is grown on land that is not irrigated. And most of the
10% that is irrigated is grown next to rivers since, in general, unless there is
plenty of water that is very easy to obtain it simply isn't economical to grow
corn on land that is irrigated.


There've been quite a few concerns expressed by regional entities
(e.g., the Minnesota governor's office) about water use related to
ethanol production both for growing raw material and for operating the
plants. The Federal gov't, however, still appears enamored about the
idea since energy independence and "green" issues have a lot of
leverage these days.

Yes the political rhetoric in support for ethanol is based on reducing the
amount of imported oil and meeting goals that have been set by law for clean
air attainment. Are you now changing your argument to say that it doesn't
serve those stated purposes? It has never been based on reducing CO2
production as you previously claimed.

I didn't claim that. What I claimed was that the global warming hype
was being used as an excuse to pour money into ethanol production, and
I think that's true.

You have your chronology all wrong. Back in the seventies after the first oil
crisis, the government did give incentives for investing in ethanol plants. Back
25 years ago when global warming was not something anyone was hyping, you could
get public help with funding an ethanol plant. Now that global warming is on the
scene, the government is no longer helping with the investment for ethanol
plants. The investment in new plant today is entirely privately funded. Those
facts contradict your claim that the government and global warming are behind
the ethanol boom.


There doesn't need to really be a connection
for politicians to make one anyway and use it to sway the public. Ask
a lot of random folks on the street whether they're connected and
you'll find that a lot of folks think they are. That facilitates
public will to fund "green" technologies (including ethanol
production) and "green" technologies are important because we're told
we're killing the climate by using fossil fuels.


The term green has been around for a lot longer than the phrase "global
warming". The Clean Air Act was first passed in the 60's when if anything
scientists were suggesting we were headed for the next ice age. And the Clean
Air Act set goals for reducing air pollution. Reducing air pollution may well
be "green" but it doesn't really have anything to do with killing the planet it
has to with killing people with lung disease - that was very real in some parts
of the country a few decades ago. The EPA has determined that oxygenates are
needed to be added to gasoline to achieve the set goals. Ethanol is not required
to be added to gasoline but any other oxygenate would cost a lot more. That is
one reason the government in the past funded ethanol production. The other
reason is the reduction of foreign imports. But all this pretty much happened
before global warming became fashionable.
Today ethanol is part of the solution that has made it possible to keep the air
clean, but even if you don't believe in that it doesn't have much to do with
global warming. And I wouldn't doubt that their are politicians attempting to
take credit for things they have not done or don't deserve credit for. In fact
as far as I can tell that is pretty much what it means to be a politician.
The large number of ethanol plants being built today are not being built with
public funds as you keep claiming. Your belief in that claim does not change the
facts. Their is no public money available for ethanol plants from the federal
government. The ethanol plants are being built today in record numbers with
private investment.

Whether the planet is being killed is not something I would know, but there is
little doubt that the current generation's consumption is denying future
generations the benefits of everything that is consumed today. We are behaving
as if there is no tomorrow and unfortunately we have created a society that
rewards such behavior.



That really isn't clear at all. The Federal government and EPA has
consistently been pushing MBTE as an alternative to ethanol. They did this
over a 25 year period in spite of the fact that numerous studies showed MTBE
to be a serious hazard to human health and to groundwater resources. It
wasn't until the majority of states banned MTBE that the Federal government
reluctantly gave up on that. The EPA still does not endorse ethanol, but
there is no other oxygenate or octane booster available that can
economically achieve the limits that have been set under the law for tail
pipe emissions. Tail pipe emissions includes things like HC CO and NO2 - it
does not include CO2. So no it really isn't politics it is economics. If you
pull ethanol from the market you are going to have to come up with something
to replace it and that something is going to cost more.
In other words the Federal governments position on ethanol is actually
forced to be pretty neutral - they don't have much choice but to go with the
flow. To remove ethanol from the fuel supply at this moment would almost
certainly mean higher prices at the pump and a noticeable reduction in air
quality in many of the largest urban areas. That pretty much means that
there is plenty of rhetoric like yours bad mouthing ethanol, but no
politician wants to be party to anything that is perceived to raise prices
or foul the air.

I think you went way tangent to the point. Ethanol production has
increased largely because of the presence of subsidies from the
government to advance the technology and production.

Those subsidies are only happening in your imagination.

Those subsidies
are still needed (and might be needed for a long, long time) arguably
because there's not enough market investment money that believes
ethanol is a winner.

What subsidies are you talking about?
Corn farmers believe investing in ethanol plants is a winner. That is where the
investment is coming from - not the government. When the price of corn goes
down the ethanol plant has a cheap input supply. When the price of corn goes up
the ethanol production goes down and they make money selling corn directly. When
production costs go up because energy cost go up the ethanol becomes more
valuable. Owning equity in an ethanol plant is the perfect hedge for a corn
farmer.



Without the government subsidies I think ethanol production would be
pretty small. It's been around for a long, long time. I can
remember buying the equivalent of E10 or E15 in South Dakota in the
late 70s and early 80s. The fact that South Dakota is a large corn
producer had a lot to do with that, but even after all this time it
still requires incentive from the government to try to make it happen.
I think that's symptomatic of a bad idea.

What incentive? The only thing that even resembles a subsidy for ethanol is the
tax reduction that the oil companies get. And congress stated that tax reduction
that they gave to the oil companies was intended to compensate the oil companies
for having to close down their MTBE production facilities. There are no
government subsidies that are given to the ethanol industry - those all ended
years ago..


As much has
been said by a number of financial analysts as well. One doesn't
have to look very far into the financial media to hear that message
pretty clearly.

Yes fat Americans everywhere are complaining - that is indeed clear.

I'm not sure how the availability of investment capital for ethanol
production and American body weight is connected. You think we
should eat less corn?

The effect of higher corn prices is a reduction in the amount of corn used to
fatten cattle and hogs. That is the trade off - Livestock producers buy tons of
corn when it is cheap. There is a direct correlation between the price of corn
and the amount of fat sitting on the shelves in the supermarket's meat section.

-jim
.

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