Courtesy/Climatechangedispatch.com

The case against ethanol….

By Jim Gschwind, PHD

The National Academy Working Group and other notable scientists have finally done the right thing by denouncing the viability of ethanol as a substitute for increasing gasoline prices.  Al Gore has even come out and said that he “regretted endorsing ethanol” after finding out more about it.  Trouble now is that all government agencies are on the bandwagon as well as congress and to turn around or stop what started out to be a “good thing” and redirect our efforts is probably a worse scenario than turning an aircraft carrier around in less than 50 feet, but we have to try.  Nobody thought about the law of “unintended consequences” but saw the “quick fix” only as a good thing for American farmers (it turned out it wasn’t good for all farmers either) and the American people.

A recent study conducted by researchers at Stanford University has revealed that ethanol fuel produces more ozone than regular gasoline.  When ethanol is burned through combustion, it produces emissions that are substantially higher than gasoline in aldehydes, the carcinogenic precursors to ozone.

Much of the fuel dispensed at pumps in America is a blend of both ethanol and gasoline.  E85, a typical gasoline blend that is 85 percent ethanol, was found to emit more ozone pollutants than gasoline, especially during warm, sunny days.  Diana Ginnebaugh, a doctoral candidate who worked on the study explained that even on cold days when ozone is typically not a problem, E85 could result in problematic levels of ozone.

E85 emissions contain several other different pollutants including ones that cause throat and eye irritation and lung problems.  Crop damage may also occur from aldehydes emitted from the burning of ethanol.  In worst case scenarios, E85 was found to potentially add 39 parts per billion more ozone into the air a day than normal gasoline.

One should also remember that food prices are already soaring due to government push to have our farmers raise more corn for fuel.  Just remember for every bushel of corn diverted from food chain, we will have fewer dairy cattle, beef, and other livestock that use corn as a feed including chickens.  The first hit I noticed on a trip through Texas a couple years ago was cattlemen complaining they were closing down since they couldn’t get enough grain (corn) for feed even at highly inflated prices.    The only blessing in the government sponsored push for everyone to get on the E85 band wagon is that farmers are finally getting a fair price for their products after decades of subsistence farming.   I have had backyard flocks of chickens and geese and on occasion had difficult times obtaining grain for even my small flock and the prices were rapidly rising.  I anticipate at least a 25% rise within 12 month of food prices, all directly related to our diversion of resources to fuel rather than food.  For all those who care about the poor in emerging nations, they are already finding themselves hard pressed to purchase food at current prices.  Since a large portion of emerging (especially Latino) nations regard corn as a “staple” food and the price has exploded in the past could years we are increasing hunger in the world at an alarming rate.  I have previously warned in other editorials that we face a food shortage in the future and I believe the future will see this to be a starkly realistic prediction.

We are not that far behind even though North American economies can absorb the food cost inflation much better than our southern neighbors, when we will finally be forced to make such decisions as “will I eat or drive?”

Ethanol actually increases the price of gasoline approximately .04 cents and is 4% less efficient.  This means you are not really saving any fuel as you will have to gas up more frequently.  You would get the same energy savings by forcing automobile manufacturers to increases mileages by 4 miles per gallon which hardly seems worth the billions the federal government is throwing at this program.

Automobile manufacturers will tell you also that in present, modern engines E85 will corrosively eat away at cylinder walls much quicker and ruin your engine.  Vehicle life spans will decrease from an industry benchmark of 3 years to less than 2 years.  You’ll be buying new expensive vehicles faster which I’m sure will make our auto industry “giddy”.

Ethanol has to be refined somewhere just as oil has to be refined into gasoline and we just started to build the first refinery in 30 years in North Dakota.   All the cities that have mandated ethanol such as Chicago, NY, Milwaukee, etc are located in the Northern US and much of the corn is grown in the Mid-west so we have to truck the corn to refineries along the Gulf Coast where they wait their turn to be refined right behind the oil (keep in mind we just spent energy just to get this corn a long distance to a refinery).   This is because all of these cities want ethanol but they certainly don’t want the unpleasantness of a refinery in or near their cities!   Refineries in Louisiana and East Texas and Mississippi, Alabama and NW Florida send the refined oil back up north either by tanker truck or by one of only two existing north/south pipelines.  This whole process is inefficient and costly.

So what is the alternative?  As a “conservative greenie” (a strange beast) I tend to look at the problem logically and not jump on the first “quick fix” that comes along.  We as humans are not very good at this as we never look at the “law of unintended consequences” that states you shouldn’t rush into something no matter how good it sounds unless you look at the long term consequences also.

Logically I cannot condone electric mix fuel for our vehicles or what we are calling “hybrids” today.

Why?    Simple really…our objective is to lessen the load on our coal and gas fired energy generating plants not increase the load.  Installing “recharging stations” sounds convenient and fair until you think about the fact you have to generate the electricity “somehow” don’t you?  Guess where that will come from?  More coal and gas fed generating plants!  Kind of defeats the purpose now doesn’t it!  It might be added that for your home energy needs, the all electric NASCAR racing circuit has finally helped get  battery technology to the point where it is a lot more feasible now to generate wind and solar at your home and store enough for emergency use.  Battery technology is what has held up wind and solar for so very long and they are finally making breakthroughs.  Not enough for vehicles and we can’t outfit each vehicle with a windmill and enough solar panels to make it feasible.

I personally know of a scientist who has developed a device  that connects to a modern car engine much like a catalytic converter, that can and does separate hydrogen and oxygen from H2O (water) based upon hydrogen fuel cell principles.  We have used this technology in our manned space probes and long range unmanned probes to the edges of the solar system for decades and the technology is improving rapidly if only they would concentrate on it instead of these “quick fixes”.  Problem is refilling your fuel cell is very difficult presently, but can you imagine pumping water into your gas tank and heading on out perhaps in the near future?  This is NOT science fiction but it is not really “quite ready” yet.

One of the most viable right now is natural gas which is used in many mass transit vehicles and construction vehicles today as well as farm vehicles.  It is cheap and plentiful and burns clean.  The US can easily be “self-sufficient” in natural gas in short order if everyone who is jumping on the ethanol band wagon now did the same with natural gas.   America has vast natural gas deposits that would ensure we are not dependent upon foreign sources of oil.   Louisiana and Texas oil rig workers recently have been swarming Pennsylvania due to a massive natural gas boom in that state within the past year.  What a coincidence that Pennsylvania was also the site of the first oil strike in early America.

Our newly elected congress will have to wade through a mess of bureaucracy to try and turn this mighty ship of state around.  This is just one of the matters they have to tackle, but an important one.   I wish them luck as others have tried to reverse our bureaucracy on various matters and failed.    Once bureaucrats in our government have been given their “marching orders” they are persistent and hard to stop.