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- Ethanol: Our Answer to Reducing U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil [view article]
- Alternative Energy Investors See High Oil Prices as Temporary [view article]
- Two Ethanol Plays: Pros and Cons [view article]
- Cramer: "Ethanol Is a Fuel That Doesn't Work" [view article]
- Beware of the Allure of Ethanol Investing [view article]
- Is the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed? [view article]
- Ethanol Stock as Cheap as an Ear of Corn? [view article]
- Majority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
- Ethanol Is Dead: How You Can Still Profit From It [view article]
- Ethanol Is No Field of Dreams [view article]
- Ethanol Is Oversold: Three Bounce Stocks - Barron's [view article]
- Ethanol Producers in Trouble as Corn Sets New Record [view article]
loading ...Recent AVR Articles
- Ethanol: Our Answer to Reducing U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil
- Two Ethanol Plays: Pros and Cons
- Ethanol Stock as Cheap as an Ear of Corn?
- Is the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed?
- Majority of Americans Support Ethanol
- Ethanol Is Dead: How You Can Still Profit From It
- Ethanol Is No Field of Dreams
- Beware of the Allure of Ethanol Investing
- Corn Reaching Record Price Levels As Heavy Rains Continue
- Sustainable Energy Indices Fall, Commodities Up 4.9% (Wk Ending 6/6)
- Full List of Articles »
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Is the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed? [view article]
If we would eliminate the tarrifs on imported ethanol, Brazil is the best choice for imported ethanol if you don't mind converting tropical forests to row sugar cane. As for PBR and I don't mean "Blue Ribbon. Have owned it for about 4 years. Great investment. Lots of offshore oil and ethanol investment to boot. Also don't have the negative climate conditions tha the Gulf of Mexico has, nor the politics of the Middle East or Venz. ReplyIs the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed? [view article]
Re: The study indicated that the ethanol actually caused a 1-2% increase in the overall smog levels in areas tested in California. Actually, that has been scientifically proven to be a lot of hot air emanating from Sacramento as Schwartzenegger and the State battle about how to handle our multi-billion dollar shortfall.Congress is unlikely to upset the Midwest. It seems to me I read that ethanol has just been factored into the new housing bailout bill.
Two answers to the Ethanol issue:
(1) Buy from Brazil. Why not get on the Petrobras/Brazil bandwagon.
(2) Get away from corn. Go to switchgrass and other plant types. (Can't remember the name of the plant (my brother-in-law called it jojoba, and now that's the only name that comes to mind... ) But the results can yield 6 to 8 times more energy and the plants grow in uglier less useful soils, thereby freeing up land needed for food. Remember where the caucuses are held though! Iowa.
Anyway.. This also from Wikipedia:
Added to gasoline, ethanol reduces ground-level ozone formation by lowering volatile organic compound and hydrocarbon emissions, decreasing carcinogenic benzene, and butadiene, emissions, and particulate matter emissions from gasoline combustion.[39]
Combustion of ethanol in an internal combustion engine yields many of the products of incomplete combustion that are produced by gasoline and significantly larger amounts of formaldehyde and related species such as formalin, acetaldehyde, etc..[40] This leads to a significantly larger photochemical reactivity that generates much more ground level ozone.[41] This data has been assembled into The Clean Fuels Report comparison of fuel emissions[42] and shows that ethanol exhaust generates 2.14 times as much ozone as does gasoline exhaust. When this is added into the custom "Localised Pollution Index (LPI)" of The Clean Fuels Report the local pollution, i.e. that which contributes to smog, is 1.7 on a scale where gasoline is 1.0 and higher numbers signify greater pollution. This issue has been formalised by the California Air Resouces Board in 2008[43] by recognising control standards for formaldehydes et al as an emissions control group much like the conventional NOx and Reactive Organic Gases (ROGs).
jegan ;-) Reply
Is the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed? [view article]
Yep, ethanol has actually less than 2/3 the energy compared to gasoline - the ratio is 0.627 [Wikipedia] to be a little more exact.The cellulosic process is proven and starting to be used. Check out Verenium VRNM for example.
I see a gradual move to B99 bio-diesel fuel in the medium future. Also if E85 became more commonly available, ethanol-only engines could have much higher compression ratio which would, to an extent, offset it's lesser calorific value.
We talk a lot about energy balance, efficiency and so forth but, if push came to shove, I would happily drive to town in a steam-powered conveyance burning Yaupon holly from my property!
xpat Reply
Is the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed? [view article]
Energy master- Your are nuts. Anyone the misrepresents the facts to make a case does no one any good. First the 7% is really about 5% when you take lower BTU content into account. Second the energy used to till, plant, fertilize, harvest, transport, process, ship the ethanol to terminals, etc. ends up yielding about 10% energy benefit at best. Therefore at best we may be seeing 0.5% benefit from ethanol. And where does a large part of the energy to do this come from, big oil... As for all of this great research towards cellulosic ethanol or butanol, don't hold you breath. these "operations" are pilot scale plants that will not make a dent in ethanol demand. Oh don't forget that ethanol gets a 50+ tax subsidy per gallon paid for by OUR taxes. Oh forgot to mention the the money TN is is contributing is OUR tax money, Oh forgot to mention we subsidize the farmers with OUR tax money.While the vehicular emissions form "gasohol" is higher, modern vehicles emit very little non CO2 emissions and therefore ethanol is not as bad as on makes it out to be from a regulated emissions point of view.As for repealling the EPACT 2005, it for all practical reasons is history. The 2007 Energy legislation took care of that. We will be at 10% ethanol in every drop of gasoline in 2014, i.e. ~15billion gallons per year. After 2014 our cars designed t run on upt to 10% ethanol will be exposed to greater than 10% because congress "knows" that it will be OK. I suggest we let market forces drive energy. Gasoilne consumption is down between 2-3% this summer in the US due to the high price of fuel. If fuel stays high, people will cut back more and prices will receed. By the way, what did you think of BIG Oil 7 years ago when they were not making hardly any money, gasoline in some parts of the country were less than $1/gal. Remeber when you say big oil you are probably talking about yourself. Do you own any mutual funds??? If so you are "BIG OIL". Most non-national oil companies are owned by their shareholders. SO look in a mirror... ReplyIs the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed? [view article]
I have been involved in research on feed and grain products since 1964, and I give your review of the topic a 'B' on overall content and fairness (the article is not biased, IMHO).Where you fall short is buying into the concept of cellulosic ethanol, as that technology has not been developed, and may never be developed. If you had gone back to the 1970's, and looked at this subject then, you would have seen similar research projects on-going to convert rejected crop residue to ethanol, and those projects were not successful either, and eventually dropped. Developing the bugs to do the conversion, failed.
I predict a similar outcome this time, and like you said, even if it can be developed, the costs are going to be huge. The crop residue from corn is one feedstock being proposed, as it currently is being just left in the field (another is switch grass). How much can one expend in the way of fuels and time in collecting and hauling these very nearly wothless 'crops'? For instance, could one spend days collecting these so-called crops, then hauling them hundreds of miles to a processing plant? The economics simply do not work out, and that is if the process can be developed. I would add, if it could have been developed, after decades of work, it would have already be available. And that does not address your point of the lesser energy output from ethanol, which is a major problem.
Why not just take the subsidy off ethanol and see what happens? If it such a great idea, it will fly on it's own. At the same time, take off the tarriff on imported ethanol, and let Brazilian ethanol come into this country without the 51 cent tax, which would allow it to compete as well. One wouldn't have to completely repeal the original mandate, just take those two steps and give it a chance to survive on it's own. If it works, leave it in. We are going to need all the energy we can get. And if it doesn't work, it will die a silent death, and no one will even notice. Reply
master
Is the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed? [view article]
You sure don't know what you are talking about.Studies by Argonne Laoratories contnue to show the benefit of Ethanol.
THE COEA has old Congess that the availability of Ethanol , priced at 40 cpg below gasoline is helping to stop gasoline from going up at least 30 cpg saving the US consumer about $ 40 billion per year.We are only spending $ 5 biilion a year on the subsidy; so we are getting a great return
Ethanol has taken 7 % of the market away from the oil bandits and they hate the product.The great Dupont has formed a J/V with the best enzyme company--Danisco-- in the world and are rapidly developing cellulosic based technology that will start operations in late 2009. Dupont, Danisco and the state of Tennese have committed $170 to the venture.
Reply
Majority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
Most of you posters are making the authors point. Did you see how many anti-ethanol pro oil people jumped in to voice what is wrong with Ethanol. I have been following Seeking Alpha long enough to see that little real investment information goes on here. How many of you are short ethanol or evan paid bashers for the oil industry?The Mississippi river was closed last week because of a fuel spill. It was not Ethanol. Did the Exon Valdez spill Ethanol on the Alaska coast? Are we buying Ethanol from terrorist or Communist?
When mixed 90/10 gasoline/Ethanol my car gets better mileage than when I use 100% gasoline. Reply
Majority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
Subsidy-Eye I admire your idealism if not your choice of ideal. I would suggest your economic policy be a bit more based in the world that is instead of the world that "should" be. If you insist on being an idealist, might I suggest "brotherhood of man" or "liberty and justice for all" as more worthy of your devotion than "free market capitalism".United States Energy and Economic Policy should be based on what is good for America and the citizens of America and not based on economic idealism or what is good for Brazil, India, and Dubai. To make my point about who is trying to influence our representatives I will quote some of a recent Barron's Commodities Corner dealing with a recent decline in sugar prices:
"The global sugar market has been saddled with a glut for years, since Brazil and India expanded cane output at mid decade. But a longer-term turnaround for sugar prices is expected..."
"Production in India is on the decline, where growers are planting more grains. Meanwhile, Braziliam sugar-based ethanol shipments to the U.S. have surged this year. It would be very bullish if the U.S. decides to reduce the 54-cents-a-gallon tarriff on Brazilian Ethanol. Sugar can in Brazil is grown on vast, contiguous fields, where labor and other inputs are cheaper than in the United States. India is aided by proximity to Dubai..."
P.S. What do you think used to be on those "vast, contiguous fields" of sugar cane in Brazil? (according to you and a recent Time magazine article corn based ethanol is responsible for deforestation...hmmm?)
Reply
Majority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
Sorry, Stoat1004, I missed your question ("Do you advocate growing something other than corn on current corn acreage or using the corn for some product other than ethanol?"), which was burried in your original message.Your question does not make sense to me. I am in favor of revoking the mandates, eliminating the subsidies (or at least letting them expire, as scheduled, and not renewing them once again), and eliminating the import tariff on fuel ethanol. I am not somebody predisposed to central planning, so I do not advocate the government making ANY decision as to what is grown on land that currently grows corn. What I do advocate is the government stopping to so heavily favor corn (and a few other "program crops") at the expense of other crops.
The United States used to be an important producer of oats. Now Quaker Oats and other companies import their oats from Canada. Other grains (wheat and barley, for example) are also being squeezed by the expansion of the two main biofuel crops, corn and soybeans. The high price of farmland in corn country has also hurt a budding organic vegetable industry, because land rents have become too expensive.
If farmers responded to market signals, instead of government subsidies and dictates, who knows what mix of crops they would grow?
In response to your latest question, "Current corn prices $5.25 ish ..... Did we suddenly stop making ethanol?" Corn prices and oil prices are highly volatile. For most of the last two years, ethanol production would not have been profitable without subsidies. For some periods it will be. If so, great. But then the subsidies are only serving to over-stimulate the industry, provide windfall profits, and set it up once again for a boom-bust cycle.
So, no, I'm not saying don't produce ethanol, I'm saying don't mandate its use, subsidize it, and protect it from foreign competition.
In response to bouzerdad, I'm sorry you regard my contributions as "bad pr". I'm trying to provide a perspective that is more data-driven then most of the comments here. Reply
Majority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
I love Subsidy Eye bad pr. It makes for great buying opportunities!Reply
Majority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
Current corn prices $5.25 ish.....Did we suddenly stop making ethanol? That must be the decrease in demand that spurred a 20% or so decline in price.........Subsidy Eye Will you answer my question....Do you advocate growing something other than corn on current corn acreage or using the corn for some product other than ethanol? ReplyMajority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
Make sure to remind me not to employ bouzerdad as a stock analyst. At least two factors (besides subsidies) determine the economic viability of corn ethanol. The price of crude oil (or, more accurately, of gasoline) is one. The other is the cost of the corn feedstock, and of the natural gas used to process the corn into ethanol. Just because the price of crude oil has risen ain't sufficient.According to numerous press articles the ethanol industry is not exactly making money hand over fist at the moment. Take this recent report, for example:
jamestownsun.com/artic...
"We’re disappointed but not surprised that construction of the ethanol plant in the Spiritwood Energy Park is on hold. But it’s also true that other plants in the country have been delayed. VeraSun Energy Corp. said Tuesday that it has started up a plant at Hankinson but it also has two other projects on hold. With current corn prices reaching as high as $7 a bushel, Harold Newman of the Newman Group said the plant would lose 26 cents per gallon if it were operating now."
That's losing $0.26 per gallon, DESPITE, the federal volumetric ethanol excise tax credit, and the various state subsidies on offer:
forbes.com/feeds/ap/20...
ampc.montana.edu/polic...
What does it take for you guys to wake up and smell the coffee? Reply
Majority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
On diverting 30% of the USA's corn crop....to my knowledge there are basically four uses for corn grown in the US.....the least of which is human consumption (almost negligable)....#1 Animal feed...this has been mentioned what has not been mentioned is what percentage of animal feed actually results in animals for human consumption a large percentage of that feed is for pet food...#2 Alcohol (not all of which is fuel grade some is food grade alcohol (Sky vodka anyone?)...#3 is corn sweeteners and corn starch.....ALL let me repeat ALL corn grown in the United States not used for the production of PET food contributes to the Human food chain....whether the starch is used for corn syrup, vodka, or ethanol....Now I am not an expert on world hunger but it seems to me to be quite a leap to talk about ethanol without talking about worldwide pet ownership...hmmm something tells me the more affluent china, india, and russia become the more pets their gonna keep (just a guess)....Commodity prices are result of monetary policy and demand issues (Ethanol playing a somewhat smaller role then critics claim)...I am seriously curious if Subsidy Eye is recommending that corn acreage be used for other crops or if corn grown be used for other products? I am also curious why subsidies for ethanol (which are a net tax gainer and not a "drain" on tax payers) are so honerious but the Oil depletion allowence...which is basically an accounting gimic which allows for write offs for Oil produced by treating it as an asset loss (which is several times larger then subsidies for ethanol) is not? The tariff on Brazilian ethanol equals the subsidy on domestic corn ethanol so that the U.S. tax payers do not subsidize Brazil (Ya'll are hearing the same talking heads I am who want to remove that)....If anyone doubts the tax benefit of mandates and subsidies just take a look at the plants built and employees hired....these are manufacturing jobs (remember those?).....anyway as I have said corn based ethanol is good for America not the Globe....Global issues are debated by the WTO and the UN....Our congress, president, and citizens should concern themselves with a somewhat smaller picture. As far as Carbon and CO2 go...something tells me Peak Oil and the indebtiness of the World's largest producer (US :) is going to take care of alot of that. ReplyMajority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
Great info!Ethanol was feasable at far less than 130$/barrel. It makes better, not less, sense than it did 2 years ago. Reply
Majority of Americans Support Ethanol [view article]
Make that, "You must think the rest of us are so stupid that we do not know the difference between field corn, white corn, and sweet yellow corn" in my previous comment. Reply