John Stossel on ethanol
realclearpolitics.com
May 23, 2007
The Many Myths of Ethanol
By John Stossel
No doubt about it, if there were a Miss Energy Pageant, Miss Ethanol would win hands down. Everyone loves ethanol.
"Ramp up the availability of ethanol," says Hillary Clinton.
"Ethanol makes a lot of sense," says John McCain.
"The economics of ethanol make more and more sense," says Mitt Romney.
"We've got to get serious about ethanol," says Rudolph Giuliani.
And the media love ethanol. "60 Minutes" called it "the solution."
Clinton, Romney, Barack Obama and John Edwards not only believe ethanol is the elixir that will give us cheap energy, end our dependence on Middle East oil sheiks, and reverse global warming, they also want you and me -- as taxpayers -- to subsidize it.
When everyone in politics jumps on a bandwagon like ethanol, I start to wonder if there's something wrong with it. And there is. Except for that fact that ethanol comes from corn, nothing you're told about it is true. As the Cato Institute's energy expert Jerry Taylor said on a recent "Myths" edition of "20/20," the case for ethanol is based on a baker's dozen myths.
A simple question first. If ethanol's so good, why does it need government subsidies? Shouldn't producers be eager to make it, knowing that thrilled consumers will reward them with profits?
But consumers won't reward them, because without subsidies, ethanol would cost much more than gasoline.
The claim that using ethanol will save energy is another myth. Studies show that the amount of energy ethanol produces and the amount needed to make it are roughly the same. "It takes a lot of fossil fuels to make the fertilizer, to run the tractor, to build the silo, to get that corn to a processing plant, to run the processing plant," Taylor says.
And because ethanol degrades, it can't be moved in pipelines the way that gasoline is. So many more big, polluting trucks will be needed to haul it.
More bad news: The increased push for ethanol has already led to a sharp increase in corn growing -- which means much more land must be plowed. That means much more fertilizer, more water used on farms and more pesticides.
This makes ethanol the "solution"?
But won't it at least get us unhooked from Middle East oil? Wouldn't that be worth the other costs? Another myth. A University of Minnesota study [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/103/30/11206] shows that even turning all of America's corn into ethanol would meet only 12 percent of our gasoline demand. As Taylor told an energy conference last March, "For corn ethanol to completely displace gasoline consumption in this country, we would need to appropriate all cropland in the United States, turn it completely over to corn-ethanol production, and then find 20 percent more land on top of that for cultivation."
OK, but it will cut down on air pollution, right? Wrong again. Studies indicate that the standard mixture of 90 percent ethanol and 10 percent gasoline pollutes worse than gasoline.
Well, then, the ethanol champs must be right when they say it will reduce greenhouse gases and reverse global warming.
Nope. "Virtually all studies show that the greenhouse gases associated with ethanol are about the same as those associated with conventional gasoline once we examine the entire life cycle of the two fuels," Taylor says.
Surely, ethanol must be good for something. And here we finally have a fact. It (SET ITAL) is (END ITAL) good for something -- or at least someone: corn farmers and processors of ethanol, such as Archer Daniels Midland, the big food processor known for its savvy at getting subsidies out of the taxpayers.
And it's good for vote-hungry presidential hopefuls. Iowa is a key state in the presidential-nomination sweepstakes, and we all know what they grow in Iowa [http://www.iowacorn.org/]. Sen. Clinton voted against ethanol 17 times until she started running for president. Coincidence?
"It's no mystery that people who want to be president support the corn ethanol program," Taylor says. "If you're not willing to sacrifice children to the corn god, you will not get out of the Iowa primary with more than one percent of the vote, Right now the closest thing we have to a state religion in the United States isn't Christianity. It's corn."
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John Stossel
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Latest From this Author
* The Many Myths of Ethanol
* The Tax-Cut Myth
* The Public Trough Is Bigger Than Ever
* Tales from the School-Choice Wars
* Environmental Alarmists Have It Backwards
May 23, 2007
The Many Myths of Ethanol
By John Stossel
No doubt about it, if there were a Miss Energy Pageant, Miss Ethanol would win hands down. Everyone loves ethanol.
"Ramp up the availability of ethanol," says Hillary Clinton.
"Ethanol makes a lot of sense," says John McCain.
"The economics of ethanol make more and more sense," says Mitt Romney.
"We've got to get serious about ethanol," says Rudolph Giuliani.
And the media love ethanol. "60 Minutes" called it "the solution."
Clinton, Romney, Barack Obama and John Edwards not only believe ethanol is the elixir that will give us cheap energy, end our dependence on Middle East oil sheiks, and reverse global warming, they also want you and me -- as taxpayers -- to subsidize it.
When everyone in politics jumps on a bandwagon like ethanol, I start to wonder if there's something wrong with it. And there is. Except for that fact that ethanol comes from corn, nothing you're told about it is true. As the Cato Institute's energy expert Jerry Taylor said on a recent "Myths" edition of "20/20," the case for ethanol is based on a baker's dozen myths.
A simple question first. If ethanol's so good, why does it need government subsidies? Shouldn't producers be eager to make it, knowing that thrilled consumers will reward them with profits?
But consumers won't reward them, because without subsidies, ethanol would cost much more than gasoline.
The claim that using ethanol will save energy is another myth. Studies show that the amount of energy ethanol produces and the amount needed to make it are roughly the same. "It takes a lot of fossil fuels to make the fertilizer, to run the tractor, to build the silo, to get that corn to a processing plant, to run the processing plant," Taylor says.
And because ethanol degrades, it can't be moved in pipelines the way that gasoline is. So many more big, polluting trucks will be needed to haul it.
More bad news: The increased push for ethanol has already led to a sharp increase in corn growing -- which means much more land must be plowed. That means much more fertilizer, more water used on farms and more pesticides.
This makes ethanol the "solution"?
But won't it at least get us unhooked from Middle East oil? Wouldn't that be worth the other costs? Another myth. A University of Minnesota study [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/103/30/11206] shows that even turning all of America's corn into ethanol would meet only 12 percent of our gasoline demand. As Taylor told an energy conference last March, "For corn ethanol to completely displace gasoline consumption in this country, we would need to appropriate all cropland in the United States, turn it completely over to corn-ethanol production, and then find 20 percent more land on top of that for cultivation."
OK, but it will cut down on air pollution, right? Wrong again. Studies indicate that the standard mixture of 90 percent ethanol and 10 percent gasoline pollutes worse than gasoline.
Well, then, the ethanol champs must be right when they say it will reduce greenhouse gases and reverse global warming.
Nope. "Virtually all studies show that the greenhouse gases associated with ethanol are about the same as those associated with conventional gasoline once we examine the entire life cycle of the two fuels," Taylor says.
Surely, ethanol must be good for something. And here we finally have a fact. It (SET ITAL) is (END ITAL) good for something -- or at least someone: corn farmers and processors of ethanol, such as Archer Daniels Midland, the big food processor known for its savvy at getting subsidies out of the taxpayers.
And it's good for vote-hungry presidential hopefuls. Iowa is a key state in the presidential-nomination sweepstakes, and we all know what they grow in Iowa [http://www.iowacorn.org/]. Sen. Clinton voted against ethanol 17 times until she started running for president. Coincidence?
"It's no mystery that people who want to be president support the corn ethanol program," Taylor says. "If you're not willing to sacrifice children to the corn god, you will not get out of the Iowa primary with more than one percent of the vote, Right now the closest thing we have to a state religion in the United States isn't Christianity. It's corn."
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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John Stossel
John Stossel
Author Archive
Latest From this Author
* The Many Myths of Ethanol
* The Tax-Cut Myth
* The Public Trough Is Bigger Than Ever
* Tales from the School-Choice Wars
* Environmental Alarmists Have It Backwards
0
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I knew some of this already. It's completely blown out of proportion. Uninformed people believe it will save the planet and deliver us from foreign oil.
I read an article in the paper the other day about ethanol and I learned quite a bit. They were producing it back when Model-Ts were rolling off the line. They could use either/or back then! Since then, it's been on and off as an important issue, depending on the price of a barrel of oil.
IMO, they need to invest the money in developing other sources of renewable energy. Like the article says, it simply takes too much land, resources and effort to produce, which ends up not being a cost savings at all anyway.0 -
...Anyone with a lick of sense knows that ethanol made from corn is not the answer to our energy needs. Things look a little better when using biomass.
...Here is a company that is trying to buck the odds and give the country an alternative. Their process can use off-grade grain and oil crops to produce fuel. When you have time, check out the site and voice your opinion....viable or another pink sheet scam?
http://www.ussec.us/0 -
There are also corrosive effects on fuel system components. 0 -
That is a very narrow view of ethanol!
The fact is that Brazil has eliminited the need for oil by growing ethanol. Citizens go to the gas station and have a choice between regular oil based gas or 100% ethonal. The ethanol is cheaper.
They make it from sugar cane and that crop is more productive.
We have several problems in this country as I see it. First thing is if we allow the oil companies to buy up all of the ethanol refineries, corn crop, production facilities and distribution facilities they will make sure it never works. They will stop research and development and prevent this from competing with big oil. They are already doing this in a big way with their excess profits.
Second: If ethanol is allowed to be produced we will find more efficient ways to refine it cheaper, as we have over the years with big oil.
Third: Ethanol can be produced from many crops, sugar beets, hemp, saw grass, and many other sources. We need to use the vast land resource that we have to begin finding alternative crops to produce ethanol. Wood chips work also.
Sugar cane will grow in Florida. Sugar beets in the midwest and other areas, etc.
I agree that limiting the arguement to one of "corn" based ethanol will show a inefficient process. But we must move beyond that crop and move to other fuels that are not food sources and are much cheaper to produce.
If we allow this industry to grow and have government promote its growth within 10-15 years I would bet the farm that we have our solution in hand. Even if its more expensive than oil all the money goes into our pockets and creates thousands of jobs in this country, not Mexico or the Middle East! We can produce enough of all these crops to eliminate all of the middle eastern oil, remember we only inport maybe 1/3 of our oil from that area.
We will find ways add additives to ethanol to make it more efficent, to make it more portable, and to make it more stable. Its worth the effort.
Couple this effort with solar farms, wind turbines, nuke power, wave action power generation, coal, oil shale, we can get off middle eastern oil within ten years.
Look at the money government spent in the space program or in the research and development that went into the production of the nuke bomb. Is it not just as important that the government pump some money into this industry to insure that we stop being controled by a bunch of radical muslims.0 -
quote:Originally posted by vess1
I knew some of this already. It's completely blown out of proportion. Uninformed people believe it will save the planet and deliver us from foreign oil.
I read an article in the paper the other day about ethanol and I learned quite a bit. They were producing it back when Model-Ts were rolling off the line. They could use either/or back then! Since then, it's been on and off as an important issue, depending on the price of a barrel of oil.
IMO, they need to invest the money in developing other sources of renewable energy. Like the article says, it simply takes too much land, resources and effort to produce, which ends up not being a cost savings at all anyway.
But remember ethanol was not a factor back in the days of the model T because the price of oil was dirt cheap. Heck gas was 17 cents a gallon when I was a boy. Those days are gone and oil will be gone in our childrens lifetime. Time to spend the money to find the alternatives.0 -
Ethanol, I don't believe, is the answer.
I was involved with several different race cars that buned it, and let me tell you, to get equivalent power levels to gasoline powered engines you had to use LOTS more alky. This would also be true of fuel economy.
Fuel tanks and fuel delivery systems would have to be radically, and expensively, modified.
There is also the question of the "legacy" 250 to 300 Million gasoline powered vehicles. How long would it take to replace all of them?? Maybe 25 to 30 years. In the meantime, we would have to add a totally different infrastructure to deliver ethanol to the vehicles that will use it.
It is NOT cheap or easy to convert an existing gasoline engine to ethanol.
If we are going to invest in new infrastucture, I think that gaseous Hydrogen is the answer. Not fuel cells using Hydrogen.
Doug0 -
Personally I'd be really worried running flammable alcohol on a car with a Lucas electrical system.... 0 -
Why don't we get serious about harvesting the oil resources in Alaska?
I guess that wouldn't look good if you were running for president though.0 -
It is less than accurate to call ethanol subsidized by the government. Ethanol is not taxed like gasoline. Is this an unfair competitive advantage? Is the corporate welfare? In theory this is the kind of tax incentive that socialists like Al Gore talk about when they refer to using taxes to promote positive economical growth.
The anti ethanol data is old and much of it was provided by oil companies that tried to promote their own fuel additive MTBE which is cancerous and been food in water supplies.
Ethanol production is also much more efficient than it was 15 years ago.
Now having said this in favor of ethanol. I find it amusing that most of these small ethanol mini-refineries have cozy "green" names for the corporations. It makes me ask myself "who is the real money behind this operation?" ADM? Cargill? ConAgra? Staley? Off the top of my head Illinois has new plants in Lena, Rochelle, Beardstown, Charleston with more on paper for Hennepin, Streator, Gilman, and a dozen other towns in Illinois. Yet, ADM is is not building new ethanol refineries. Why?
Is Decatur, Peoria, Clinton and Cedar Rapids enough facilities for ADM? Yes. ADM never built a river terminal and only one country elevator in Hereford, Texas. Their business model is to grow by acquiring the competition during hard times.
Ethanol is in a period of high profit and high growth. The bubble will burst. The price of oil will come down. Demand for ethanol will decrease as alternatives become more economical. These smaller ethanol companies will be acquired by the big boys.0 -
quote:Originally posted by sig232
But remember ethanol was not a factor back in the days of the model T because the price of oil was dirt cheap. Heck gas was 17 cents a gallon when I was a boy. Those days are gone and oil will be gone in our childrens lifetime. Time to spend the money to find the alternatives.
Well sig, I agree that I would much rather be paying our own people to produce ethanol than the arabs to produce 12% more oil for us.
I don't believe it should be abandoned but it isn't the magic bullet that everybody makes it out to be. How many motor vehicles are in Brazil compared to the U.S.? They can do that because it's achievable. I don't believe we could ever come close to satisfying our needs year round with 100% ethanol.
I just don't think we should be putting all our eggs in one basket. Like you say, everybody knows the reality that the oil will run out eventually. And we're using it up faster and faster to ensure it will run out. By the time it runs out, ethanol will barely be able to scratch the surface for what we need, IMO.
If they can't develop viable options using sun, wind, water or nuclear to power all vehicles and use no oil eventually, we're screwed. Then everyone's beloved SHTF scenario comes into play as everything grinds to a halt. Billions will starve to death and the ones that know how to hunt for food, will hunt everything to extinction before starving to death themselves. You'd think there might be a little more urgency on this subject but there isn't.
It's just too easy to keep doing the same old thing. Building cars to the tune of the same old ideas, with the same old inefficient combustion engine.
You'd think people would worry about it and only buy cars that get 40-50 mpg, to at least conserve what we've got. But status is much more important right now. If you can show people you drive a Hummer burning a gallon every 10 miles, than you're somebody. If they made a bigger one that got 5 miles to the gallon, people would be snapping them up too, just to out-do the others.
If a billionaire wants to buy a Boeing 787 for personal use instead of using public transporation, so be it. All that matters is right now. Whatever happens in the future is their problem.
I do worry about having kids to be honest. I worry that they'll hate me for bringing them into the world at this juncture. Our time is running out and somebody's generation is going to suffer badly.0 -
BTW, Peoria makes ethanol out of #2 yellow corn, sample grade damaged corn or anything else. They buy damaged corn on a half discount table. If the discount for damaged corn is 2 cents for everywhere else, they discount it 1 cent. All the discount is additional profit to them. Damaged corn is not a problem for this facility to make the ethanol and vodka. Others here can correct me if I'm wrong.
Their export houses in the gulf takes the grain dust and pelletizes it. Barges of mixed grain dust are shipped to Peoria and blended with the corn to make ethanol and vodka.0 -
...but, but, but....it's a "green thing"!!! The latest cause celeb don't you know. The bleeding heart global warming whackos like it so it MUST be good...[xx(] 
0 -
quote:Originally posted by bigtire
Why don't we get serious about harvesting the oil resources in Alaska?
I guess that wouldn't look good if you were running for president though.
The oil reserves in Alaska are on borrowed time. I have no idea how much oil is left to be found in the world. I doubt the experts know with any certainty either.
Once it starts running out, people will get desperate to acquire new areas to obtain it. If we haven't tapped into it by then, we'll probably have to fight a war to protect it, and eventually use it anyway. I mean, someday, they're going to drill. I'm all for leaving it the hell alone but eventually, given our needs, you run out of options.0 -
This ones an oldie but a classic.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html
Archer Daniels Midland:
A Case Study In Corporate Welfare0 -
Back during World War Two (the big one) gasoline was rationed and right pretty hard to get. People would mix 190 proof drinking alcohol (bootleg before it's cut) with the gas. That stretched the gasoline ration a couple hundred percent or better.
As soon as the gas rationing ended, almost everybody who was burning alcohol went back to 100% gas. I think if alcohol were as great as people are saying now, the old timers would have stuck with it.
You can make alcohol out of anything that will rot. What's so sacred about corn?0 -
What's so sacred about corn?
Best we have until scientists create something better.
Can't grow sugar cane in Iowa.0 -
quote:There are also corrosive effects on fuel system components.
And on the manufacturing plants. The local one is in a CONSTANT state of repair. Just the steel walls and roofs are being replaced every 5-6 years due to corrosion. I live in sugar beet country. Our plant tried them for about a year and went back to corn. Considering there were lots of beets and little corn in the area they still found corn to be more economical. They also went to coal power for processing which dropped production cost. it probably would be more cost effective to produce if bio fuels were being used in all stages of production but that is not likely to happen for a while.
My experience has been that ethenol or ethenol mix fuels are not as good good ol oil base fuels.0 -
Hydrogen and fuel cells are the answer.
Stir, stir...[}:)]0 -
Buy a horse, they run pretty good on corn. 0
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