The Laughing Wolf

Ethanol vs Petroleum -- the true costs?

This blog is now being hijacked by the English Werewolf for a brief rant.

The English Werewolf has long been an advocate for alternate sources of energy, though for most of the time I've failed to put my money where my snout is. (In my defense, for part of the time I was an underpaid flunky for the State of Alabama, and for much of the rest I've been dumping my revenues into my business, which MAY provide some spendable income by the time I reach my '80's...)

However, ever since one brave (some would say idiotic, I'm sure) gas station owner in Nashville converted one pump station to E85 fuel, I've headed there as often as possible to blend about 20% ethanol into the tanks of both cars I drive. This even though neither of them is considered a "flexible fuel vehicle," which is a vehicle designed and constructed to run on any blend of gasoline and ethanol, up to 85% ethanol. Since most cars and trucks built for the US market since the 1980's have been designed to run on what used to be called "gasohol" -- a blend of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline -- my gut feeling was that a somewhat greater proportion of ethanol would not be likely to cause any damage to the engine, or reduce its life expectancy significantly. And both my 148k+ mile Astromofuzzyvan and the '03 Volvo sedan run just fine with the blend.

In fact, the Astro runs MUCH cleaner on the blend than it does on gasoline alone. In years past, the beastie has just barely passed the unburned hydrocarbons emissions test; in fact, two or three times it took adjustments and a second test for it to pass. This year (after I replaced the cheap airfilter with a "high-performance" K&N filter, and after a year + of running the 20% ethanol blend), the van showed hydrocarbon emissions of only 30% of maximum. On the first test.

This ALONE justifies my using this blend of fuel. Not to mention the option of dropping one grade of gasoline -- from midgrade to regular -- since ethanol is a 105+ octane fuel, and so boosts the octane rating of the gasoline it's blended with. Fuel economy and performance remain comparable to straight gasoline.

But on to the main point for my hijacking of the Laughing One's blog.

I hear, and read, everywhere that ethanol will never "make it" as a significant fuel source for the US because its production "requires" huge subsidies from the government, and because of this the "true cost" of ethanol is not borne by the driver. Arguments are also made that ethanol uses more energy in production than it provides when it is burned.

Argument two first -- Typical production methods, such as those used in the production of drinkable ethanols, DO use a considerable amount of energy; usually provided from fossil sources or electricity (which may itself be fossil-fuel generated). The further distillation required to produce a burnable fuel DOES result in a negative energy balance for ethanol.

Newer, fuel-grade specific ethanol plants do not require nearly so much energy input per unit of output. Since drinkability of the product is not a consideration, other methods of production are now options -- such as enzyme-assisted distillation, waste sources of process heat (crop debris, sawmill waste, even cow patties), and different materials used in the production line which allow more efficient production without leaving trace elements that would negatively affect the final fuel. Factories producing biodiesel, another alternative fuel, can be built using thermal depolymerisation technologies, which allow low-temperature/high pressure processing to turn waste vegetable oils and meat fats into excellent diesel fuel very efficiently. The best factories today can produce over 2.5 units of ethanol energy for every unit of energy put in.

Both ethanol and biodiesel production have the added benefit of reducing significantly some of the waste stream that now feeds directly into our landfills, while producing byproducts of animal feed (brewer's grain and silage from ethanol production) and fertilizers and base chemicals for other products (biodiesel).

Much, much more online on both fuels. Dig around!

Argument one -- ethanol requires federal subsidies, and can never be more cost-efficient than gasoline. Hogwash! Just in the past months, E85 has sold for up to 70¢ LESS than regular gasoline at my local station. With US production of ethanol for fuel use of some 4 billion gallons, and an annual subsidy for the ethanol fuel industry last year of some $1.7 billion, that's a subsidy of about 43¢ per gallon of ethanol. Even with the federal subsidies, E85 was selling for 27¢ LESS per gallon than gasoline. Of course, this was during the price spike following Katrina and Rita, but it shows that ethanol can be equivalently priced (even when factoring in its lower energy content per gallon).

But is gasoline not without its' own subsidies?

How about the several billion dollars Congress tossed to the (formerly) Seven Sisters in the 2006 budget? This in a year when they're ALL reporting record PROFITS in the tens of billions of dollars? PER QUARTER! This subsidy alone is well over three times what the ethanol industry gets.

And the preferential tax treatment the petroleum industry receives -- another subsidy of many tens of billions of dollars, every year. Depletion allowances, expensing of exploration costs, foreign tax credits, foreign income deferrals, and dozens more -- add up to some $9 to $17 billion in subsidies for gasoline production alone. Each year.

Allocate a portion of the Defense budget to petroleum subsidies, too -- the petroleum industry has a unique relationship with our government, in that it is the ONLY industry we'll protect by declaring war.

Were all the subsidies and benefits the petroleum industry gets to be reflected in the pump price, a gallon of gasoline would be upwards of...

$9.00.

So which is the better deal? Let's not even think about where the dollars are going -- do you prefer to send your money to Venezuela, Saudi, Iran, Russia....or Kansas, South Dakota, Missouri, Oklahoma?

I could go on for quite some time with this, but you can find it all online with some research time. A couple of good links:

http://www.drivingethanol.org/userdocs/Real_Cost_of_Oil_Aug_05.pdf

A good summary article. The drivingethanol.org site is fairly new and still growing. Another good entry point is one from the Department of Energy:

http://www.eere.energy.gov

Lots of info on all kinds of alternative energy sources. Amazing the Bushies and their petrofriends haven't shut it down yet...

Ask around your area, and see if you can find ONE good retailer who will add E85 to his fuel offerings. At the moment, there are only about 500 stations selling the fuel in the entire country, while there are upwards of 6 MILLION cars on the road today that are built to use it, and EVERY car can use a 10-20% blend. Blend it into your tank when you fill up -- if you usually get 15 gallons of gas for a fillup, put 3 to 4 gallons of E85 in first, then top up with gasoline to ensure a good mix of the fuels in your tank. If you use premium, you can drop down to midgrade -- whenever you want to -- and save 10¢+ per gallon. You WILL be driving a cleaner car at the end of the day. Emissions-wise, anyway -- mine are still pretty grungy looking...

EW

And now we return you to your regular ranter...