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- Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
- Ethanol Stocks: The Good News and the Bad [view article]
- Ethanol: Our Answer to Reducing U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil [view article]
- Ethanol Stock as Cheap as an Ear of Corn? [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- Is the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed?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]
- 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]
loading ...Recent AVR Articles
- Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing
- Ethanol Stocks: The Good News and the Bad
- 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- Is the Ethanol Mandate Likely to be Repealed?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
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Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Wheels 14: that was in 2005, an a-typical year (thanks to Hurricane Katrina, which shut down the Mississippi ports for several months, thus limiting exports and depressing the domestic price).The point about ethanol subsidies (unlike the crop payments), is that the USA has committed to reducing crop subsidies as part of the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture, whereas in the case of ethanol subsidies, the sky's the limit. And the annual expenditure is growing fast. Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Sub,Farmers were dumping corn for $1.85 and getting reimbursed by the government to a sale price of $2.95. With 13 billion bushels of corn grown, that is $14.3 Billion dollars per year. And that is only corn, are price supports for wheat, soybeans...etc
Starting another topic. The subsidies would be better spent going to companies building infrastructure, than to the blenders. Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Wheels 14, as for deducting the costs of crop subsidies, that is an interesting question. Crop subsidies depressed crop prices, some would say (in the nine years following the 1996 reforms) by 23% below average farm production costs for corn, and 15% for soybeans.www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae...
Rather than speaking of "savings" in crop subsidies, however (which I do not think should be treated as entitlement), when we count the contribution of corn-ethanol subsidies to increases in the cost of corn, we should count only the increase above the price that would have obtained in the absence of crop subsidies -- i.e., which would at least have covered production costs. Sorry, but I can't provide that figure at the moment. Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Don't forget algea - a pond of algea produces much more (like 10-20x) than acres of flooded CRP subsidized land. ReplyStudy Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
michael d - you're mi kind o guy - you're out-of-your-mind processing is no worse than what we're currently doing. What in the world are they smoking in DC and from Houston to Detroit? For years!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ReplyStudy Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
dear lucile,My car gets better mileage when I use 10% ethanol. Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Dear Sub,You still need to subtract the savings of farm subsidies not spent against the ethanol subsidy. If in fact you believe ethanol caused the price of grains to increase.
Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Frflyer, I'm glad to learn that you are "not a big advocate of ethanol unless it proves to be economical and environmentally makes sense." I can agree with that.As for the $84 billion a year estimate from the "Set America Free Foundation", I can't find in the document. The figure I find is $43 billion in lost local, state and federal tax revenues. That figure is $10 billion higher than the $33 billion reported by Freinds of the Earth, and is presumably explained by the inclusion of state and local tax breaks and subsidies.
The report also enumerates numerous other costs of oil, some of which would be hard to confirm or refute without looking at the original studies from which teh data are derived.
But back to the comparison with ethanol subsidies, the figures I referred to above were just federal subsidies for ethanol. Throw in state and local tax breaks and subsidies, and the total value comes to over $1 per gallon currently.
www.earthtrack.net/ear...
Of course, if one were to expand ethanol use on the basis of (U.S. produced) cellulosic ethanol, then you're looking at $1.01 per gallon ($1.50 per gallon of gasoline equivalent) just in federal tax credits, not to mention subsidies for related infrastructure and (at least in the near term) for plant construction. Add to that various state sales-tax and fuel-tax exemptions for ethanol (or E85) and the total cost could exceed $2.00 per gallon of gasoline equivalent in a number of states.
Of course, as the Set America Free Foundation document points out, there are indirect costs associated with oil dependency. So to are there from biofuel use, especially biofuels made from cropland. Higher prices for food and other agricultural materials is just one. Economic losses due to supply disruptions could also be high: witness the panick that preceded this year's corn crop before the floods finly subsided.
Again: the country needs to wean itself off of oil, and stop subsidizing it, but it is hardly a winning strategy to try to buy itself freedom from that dependency by creating a new industry that itself is massively dependent on subsidies. Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Does anyone have idata on the required use of 10% ethanol in gasoline versus the resulting decreased mileage per gallon. Replygordon
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
we can export the hemp leaves to mexico & solve the balance of payments problem> jack Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
My source for the $84 billion in oil subsidies and tax credits comes from www.setamericafree.org...The reason these numbers are not well known is that it takes a Sherlock Holmes to uncover all the tax credits and subsidies that oil and gas have received over so many years, often tucked into bills as earmarks.
I did make a mistake about getting rid of subsidies. I wasn't so much thinking about ethanol. It was just my reaction to the often heard complaints that say "oh but solar and wind can't survive without subsidies". So, I mispoke. I'm not a big advocate of ethanol unless it proves to be economical and environmentally makes sense.
Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Cellulosic ethanol production will have values of 20-30 to 1. A few more years and it will be in production. The best materials will be the stalks of corn. Hemp works very well also, smoke the leaves and ferment the fibre to make ethanol. ReplyStudy Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Mr. frflyer, could you please provide a source for your "$84 billion annually in tax credits and subsidies to big oil"? I provided a source for my number -- Friends of the Earth (hardly an organization that could be accused of being biased towards the oil companies).You equate subsidies for corn ethanol with subsidies for renewable energy generally. When so much non-renewable resources (eroded soil, fossil water in the western Great Plains, phosphate, energy to produce the N fertilizer, fossil energy used in farming and processing the ethanol) are used in its production, calling it "renewable" is stretching the definition. Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Calls to get rid of subsidies for renewable energy are rediculous when we are giving $84 billion annually in tax credits and subsidies to big oil. Nuclear and coal are also heavily subsidized.Nuclear power is the worst choice. Please read the pdf The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy. Please read what cleanwisconsin.org has to say about nuclear power. It as many problems than oil has. In a dangerous world with terrorists and rogue nations, the last thing we need is to build thousands of nuclear power plants all over the world, further spreading the availability of fissionable material. Look at the angst over Iran's pursuit of supposedly peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Argonne national labs says that an airliner crashing into a nuclear power plant could cause a complete meltdown, even if the containment building isn't compromised. Think the twin towers was bad?
Nuclear power plants need billions of gallons of water each to cool. Each reactor will cost over $500 billion to clean up and dismantle when it is used up. Each reactor's share of Yucca mountain storage is $200 million.
The entire process of aquiring uranium has a huge carbon footprint and is generally very dirty. Nuclear power takes much longer to get up and running than solar and wind. Nuclear plants cost three times as much to build per kilowatt than wind farms. If you read the proposals by T Boone Pickens and setamericafree.org and the proposal published in Scientific American called A Solar Grand Plan, you will see that we could easily have 80% of our grid powered by solar and wind by 2050.
We are being dis-informed about the potential of these renewable sources. Don't believe the lies.
Reply
Study Shows Ethanol Energy Efficiency Is Growing [view article]
Um, from where does the "2 to 3 times more efficient than previously thought" come from? The article says "Compared to just five years ago, ... ethanol plants produce 15 percent more ethanol from a bushel of corn and use about 20 percent less energy in the process". It is unclear whether they mean that the plants have reduced their energy use per gallon or per bushel by 20 percent (the latter would then mean a gain of 44% more gallons for the same amount of energy inputs), but I'm not sure how that translates into "2 to 3 times more efficient".I agree with Duude, of course, when he writes, "So then, let's get rid of the subsidy and see how it works." Wheels 14 writes, "Are you willing to get rid of all subsidies? We could start by getting rid of the subsidies oil and natural gas receive."
Of course we should. But let's compare apples with apples. According to a recent study by Friends of the Earth, "Big Oil, Bigger Giveaways",
www.foe.org/pdf/FoE_Oi...
oil companies will receive around $33 billion from the federal government over the next five years. That comes to $6.6 billion per year, divided over 75 billion gallons (1.8 billion barrels) of production, or $0.088 per gallon.
tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav...
By contrast, the federal volumetric ethanol excise tax, starting next year, will be $0.45 per gallon (or $0.67 per gallon of gasoline equivalent). Assuming average production of 11 billion gallons a year over the next five years, that will come to a total of just under $5 billion per year, just for that one subsidy. Add in other federal subsidies (e.g., the small ethanol producer tax credit and subsidies for R&D and demonstration plants), and total federal outlays in support of ethanol will easily come up to parity with oil ... but for 1/10th the amount of energy.
Oil companies do not need federal subsidies. Some ethanol producers might "need" subsidies to survive. But why should we keep them dependent on the public teat? And why should ethanol producers have priority over other sectors for government hand-outs during these austere times? Reply