Ethanol against the World!
by Matt Reese and Dusty Sonnenberg (Ohio’s Country Journal) … “In a life cycle analysis of ethanol and electric vehicles, you have to look at the base load of carbon intensity. Right now, that number is 114 grams of CO2 per megajoule for the U.S. on average. If you took a Tesla 3, you’d be at about 144 grams of carbon per mile. If you were to take an E98 vehicle that was ethanol optimized you would have 114 grams of carbon per mile,” tenBensel (Jan Tenbensel, member of the National Corn Growers Ethanol Action Team) said. “The electric cars will lower over time as more wind and solar comes on the grid. On the ethanol side, however, by better managing nitrogen efficiency, getting credit for carbon sequestration, and carbon capture and storage at the ethanol plant sequestered underground, we are getting pretty close to zero. I believe we could see an ethanol plant be carbon negative at -40 grams per megajoule of energy produced in the next 10 to 15 years.
“There are very specific numbers that take into account the entire life cycle of the corn plant, but they do not currently factor in the sequestration of the corn plant. Ethanol is essentially a recycled product. It is the original solar energy. We take solar energy, recycle the carbon in the atmosphere, use it as fuel, return it to the atmosphere, pull it back into the corn plant, sequester part of it with the plant and turn part of it into fuel as part of a solar powered operation. Corn fields are massive solar panels. Corn production does have a carbon footprint we need to be aware of, but modern farming and modern ethanol production is also a very efficient process.”
Along with the carbon component, the role of petroleum is still a major factor in the future of ethanol as well.
“For over 140 years, ethanol and oil have fought for market share. A lot of people feel like ethanol is not perfect, because ethanol is not perfect. But people sometimes equate not perfect as an enemy of the good. Ethanol is good and it is here now. In the future, we have some zero emission options but we don’t have that today. For now, ethanol checks all of the boxes. It has lower greenhouse gases. It is a domestic fuel. It replaces the most toxic, the most cancerous and most expensive parts of your gasoline. Many people do not realize that gasoline has a number of different ingredients, up to 1,000. You have never had the same tank of gasoline twice in your life,” tenBensel said. “Gasoline is full of saturants, oliphants, aromatics. As we replace the benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, the xylene, the C9 and the C10 aromatics — the really bad ones — we can replace those with ethanol at a lower greenhouse gas emission and a lower cost.”
Food versus fuel is also a factor in the ethanol debate, though tenBensel points out that it should not be.
“A box of corn flakes at today’s prices has 8 cents worth of corn in it. The food expense is fractional at the farm gate. You know what really adds to the price of food? The price of oil and the price of transportation,” he said. “People have suggested eliminating biofuel use to help with food prices, but it would take 2 or 3 million barrels of foreign oil per day to replace the current ethanol made in this country. The bottom line is ethanol is not raising food prices.”
As green energy policy debates continue ramping up in Washington, D.C., these types of numbers and discussions are going to matter. Last summer, Congress reintroduced The Next Generation Fuels Act (H.R. 5089) legislation to transition gasoline and vehicles to low-carbon, higher octane fuel, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and meet future needs of more advanced vehicles. The legislation is sponsored by Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill).
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The bill would require that automakers phase in higher levels of clean, low-carbon octane by model year 2031. The higher the octane, the more efficiently the engine uses energy. As a clean octane standard, the bill requires that sources of additional octane result in at least 40% fewer GHG emissions than unblended gasoline and sets new limits on toxic hydrocarbon aromatics. These requirements will reduce GHG and tailpipe emissions to build on the progress already made to lower emissions with cleaner renewable fuels. Through advanced engine design features that take advantage of this new fuel, automakers will be able to significantly improve vehicle fuel efficiency.
“Today’s ethanol results in nearly 50% fewer GHG emissions than gasoline, and ongoing improvements in farming practices and carbon capture technology can bring ethanol to net-zero emissions,” Linder said. “Corn growers support market-based clean fuel policies that incentivize low-carbon fuels, and the Next Generation Fuels Act would complement these policies, advancing greater decarbonization per gallon.”
While ethanol supporters feel these next steps are obvious choices, there are plenty of ethanol critics out there. Lower ethanol miles per gallon, engine damage concerns and a dislike of RFS mandates have all been cited, numerous times. Some feel the trade-off of increasing livestock feed costs versus fuel are not fair. Others argue electric vehicles, and not more ethanol, are the answer. Yet, ethanol still has real merit.
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“There are amazing numbers for ethanol you do not hear about very often. This is not getting recognized in D.C. as one of the options that we should be putting on the table right now,” said Tadd Nicholson, executive director of Ohio Corn & Wheat. “The electric car has a role to play in the mix, but it is not the only option. … The ethanol market has matured since 2007. Ethanol is cheaper, it is cleaner and made here in America. It is ready to stand on its own. The Next Generation Fuels Act is about making all fuels equal. We should never be dependent on one fuel type ever again. … ” READ MORE
A few ethanol facts… (Ohio Country Journal)
How much energy is saved in producing biofuels vs. gasoline? (RFD TV; includes VIDEO)
Excerpt from Ohio Country Journal: Here are some facts from both sides of the debate to consider as ethanol discussions are sure to continue in 2022.
• At current prices, E15 can save about 10 cents per gallon of gas on average, and many stations sell E15 at an even greater discount.
• Most people see a decrease in fuel economy when running their vehicle on blends with higher ethanol content, such as E85 (which I often use in the flex-fuel car I drive). The decrease in miles per gallon varies based on a number of factors, but it can range from a slight decrease to as much as 25%. The cost of E85 at the pump is rarely anywhere close to a 25% discount so it is often actually higher in per mile cost compared to E10 (standard gasoline mix), even though the fill-up costs less.
• The decrease in fuel economy is due to a lower energy content per gallon of ethanol than gasoline. E85 also burns faster than regular gasoline because it vaporizes more quickly.
• The USDA estimates 2020-’21 corn use for ethanol at 5.035 billion bushels. U.S. corn growers produced 15.1 billion bushels in 2021.
• With a finite global land supply for crop production and a tight global corn supply, it is often argued that corn (especially when supplies are tight) should be reserved for uses including food and livestock feed, not fuel. But if corn is not used for ethanol to relieve supply pressure for corn when supplies are tight, at what point would the resulting corn surplus then be permitted for use in ethanol production?
• Ethanol production results in dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS), which offsets the need to use corn for livestock feed. One bushel of corn produces 2.8 gallons of ethanol as well as 17 to 18 pounds of DDGS which can be fed to livestock. A metric ton of DDGS can replace, on average, 1.22 metric tons of feed consisting of corn and soybean meal.
• We have oil, a bunch of it. Why don’t we use that for our energy? Please see an environmentalist on this one.
• Ethanol-gasoline mixtures do burn cleaner and have higher octane levels than pure gasoline, but they also have higher evaporative emissions from fuel tanks and dispensing equipment.
• The current reality is that a large amount of oil is imported into the United States from other countries. Ethanol is produced domestically with a renewable crop.
• High corn prices (driven by many factors including ethanol use) make livestock and poultry feed expensive, which hurts the bottom line of those farm operations. On the flip side, though, nearly every input cost for corn production is also very high right now.
• I have a chainsaw that can attest to the fact that ethanol is not a good idea for use in some engines.
• By expanding the supply, ethanol does lower fuel costs. Lower fuel costs likely have more of an impact on the price of food (due to shipping costs) than increases in the price of corn, which accounts for about 8 cents of the current price of a $4 box of corn flakes.
• (From the Congressional Research Service) The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requires U.S. transportation fuel to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuel each year. The RFS began with requiring 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel in 2006 and was scheduled to ascend to 36 billion gallons in 2022. Since 2014, the total renewable fuel statutory target has not been met with the advanced biofuel portion falling below the statutory target since 2015. Some folks just do not like these government mandates, and I can understand that.
• (From the Renewable Fuels Association) As is currently the case, there is no specific requirement for corn ethanol in the RFS provisions for years after 2022. It is a common misconception that the current RFS specifically requires the use of corn ethanol. In reality, there is no requirement to use corn ethanol to meet RFS obligations. Rather, corn ethanol is just one of many “renewable fuels” that may be used to meet the undifferentiated volumetric requirements of the RFS — which are limited to 15 billion gallons beginning in 2015. The statute does not contain specific criteria for setting volume requirements for “undifferentiated renewable fuel” post-2022.
• The U.S. Energy Information Administration currently expects U.S. ethanol production to average 1.03 million barrels per day in 2022, up from a U.S. ethanol production average of 980,000 barrels per day in 2021.
• There are cleaner fuel possibilities in the future. Ethanol is a cleaner fuel reality right now. READ MORE
