Study Says Ethanol Not Worth the Energy

While it is counterintuitive, yes, it DOES make sense. It may be worth a negative energy balance to produce an easily storable and transportable fuel.

See, for example, the Andress Report, which calculates a negative energy balance for gasoline, but a positive balance for ethanol. (I have not gone back to transcribe the tape of the talk I heard, but it was by an Associate Director of NREL, and I think gave similar numbers.)

Many have challenged the report that ethanol has a negative energy balance, saying that this report was flawed. See, for example, these unofficial comments from NREL.

Unfortunately, the estimates on energy balance seem to be all over the map, depending on how the calculations are done and what is included. Some say it is postive for gasoline, others say it is negative. Most say it is positive for ethanol. Whatever the assumptions, almost all researchers seem to calculate a better energy balance for ethanol than for gasoline.

Kirk

 

Sigh. Again, you're just quoting some meaningless number in a paper paid for by the Ethanol lobby. If it said that mountains were large bodies of water, would you believe that too? Once again, I ask, do the numbers make sense? Can you do the math?

Why would we bother to extract and refine so many millions of barrels of oil per day if it we got less than one unit of energy out for each one we put in - and continue to do it? We'd be better off consuming those energy inputs directly rather than using them to extract and refine oil. Given how much of our energy comes from petroleum sources, where do you think that extra energy is coming from to turn 1.25 barrels of oil worth of energy into one barrel of oil? Nuclear, natural gas, and hydroelectric? You really think we've devoted that much energy into extracting and refining oil? Those claims are ridiculous to anyone capable of critical thinking.

One barrel of oil = 5,848,000 btus (http://www.energy.state.or.us/industry/ECF.htm)

Amount of energy to extract one barrel of oil out of the ground in California (which is going to be a lot higher than it is in the middle East): 12-14kilowatts, plus about 9.5 therms of natural gas

http://www.energy.ca.gov/pier/iaw/industry/petro.html

Amount of energy to refine that barrel of oil: 23kw of electricity, plus abougt 3.5 therms of natural gas

http://www.energy.ca.gov/pier/iaw/industry/petro.html

So to extract and refine a barrel of oil in CA, it takes about 35-35kw of electricity, plus 13 therms of natural gas (I may have counted part of the natural gas twice)

(35 * 3412) + (13 * 100,000) = 119,420 + 1,300,000 = 1,419,420 btus, or less than 25% of the energy contained in the barrel of oil

1,419,420 / 5,848,000 = .247

24.7% represents the amount of energy in a barrel of oil that has to be consumed to extract it and refine it. Or an "energy balance" (as the Ethanol lobby likes to call it) of over 400%. I put in one barrel of oil, I can extract and refine four barrels.

If the oil has to be transported through a pipeline or across an ocean there are additional energy costs, but you can see there is a big gap between the 400% calculated here, using real numbers, and the 80% claimed by the Ethanol lobby.

My guess on what methods might have been used to create the misleading numbers in that report:

1) Ignore the other half of products that come out of that barrel of oil, such as diesel fuel and jet fuel. That alone would halve the amount of energy output.

2) Use some dried-up oil well as the measure of how much energy is required for extraction.

3) Use some old, extremely inefficient refinery as the measure of how much energy is required for refining

 

So the US government and our national science laboratories are now the "Ethanol lobby"?? This is hard to believe!

And why all of the flames and inuendos in your replies? Have I unintentionally attacked your sacred cow? Why are you trying to politicize and polarize what should be a technical discussion?

Your own figures answer this. About 90% of the energy you figure for production and refining comes from natural gas. The remaining 10% is electric, which in CA is ALSO largely natural gas. Very little of this energy is from petroleum.

I don't see any problems with your calculations, as far as they go. I suspect that transportation costs are significant. Other things may be missed, but I can't think of what they would be. Since this is not my field of research, I would lean more heavily on the experts who do these calculations for a living at the national laboratories, are funded by the national government (NOT by "lobbies") and who publish in peer-reviewed journals. The 80% number apparently comes from Argonne National Lab's GREET model, a comprehensive transportation energy model they've been working on for 10 years. I'll try to take a look at it and see what else is included.

[If someone were to restrict the discussion to gasoline (not the other oil products), this includes only about 40% of the energy of the whole barrel of oil, and your 0.247 goes up to about 0.6 or so. This is still a positive energy balance (about 160%). I doubt that GREET does this, though.]

Argonne also has a good comparison and analysis of the various energy balance estimates for corn ethanol here. It again describes the problems with Pimentel's research which finds a negative energy balance for ethanol.

But I don't see a lot of point in dwelling on all this energy balance stuff--it's too subjective. It is more pertinent to look at the economics. If ethanol is presently about $2.50 per gallon, as I understand, it is cost-effective at the present. As its use increases, it should get cheaper as the industry is made more efficient.

 

If they are ignoring the other products produced from that barrel of oil in calculating their "energy balance" as I suspect, they they are intentionally trying to mislead.

My figures also only account for 1/5th of the energy claimed by that report. There's still another 80% of that 125% to account for.

And if farmer subsidies are eliminated, then what is the cost per gallon? And what percentage of the land area of the USA would have to grow corn in order for ethanol to replace, say 25% of the gasoline consumed by cars? Is there even enough arable land in the USA to grow enough corn to replace 25% of the gasoline we consume? Where would we get the water to grow all that corn?

 

Guys, guys, whoa! Time out.

Companies will supply energy, in whatever form, as long as they can make the most profit.

If our government wants to pay companies to make energy (farm subsidies, paying for nuclear plant designs and approvals, riders on bills for drilling, etc.) then of course the businesses will take advantage.

There are always high costs to any form of energy production, especially if you take environmental costs into consideration. We mindlessly consume, at our own peril. There are no cost-free ways to produce energy on a mass scale.

If you want to support local corn farmers (and the use of water and acreage in corn growing), vote for ethanol. If you want to leave the majority of oil pumping and refinery pollution overseas and in the air, use petroleum.

 

You obviously didn't read those postings from that guy in Sonoma County who promised several months ago to be demonstrating a Zero Point Energy device by this time.

I can understand why there might have been delays though, I think General O'Neill traded a partially charged ZPM to Baal as ransom to get Teal'c, Carter, and Jackson back. :lol:

 

I believe the $2.50 per gallon figure excludes subsidies. Until recently, ethanol was NOT cost effective without subsidy, but as I understand, it is now just on the verge of being so.

I agree with the tenor of your comments. Long term, there are better things to use than corn, but this takes time to develop and still displaces other crops that could be grown on the land. I doubt that we can ever get to much above 10% ethanol nationwide. Ethanol is not a long term solution to transportation energy; it can only replace a portion of gasoline in the short term as longer term solutions are developed.

 

I've given more thought to the Energy debate, particularly the Ethanol thing.

Here in Manitoba, the Ethanol produced is from farm land that would otherwise go unused. Hard to believe with people starving overseas that many small-scale farmers right here have to go to a Salvation Army and get food baskets.

I'm going to discount outright any mention of "free" energy, even solar or wind. True it's usually there "for the taking." It still requires massive capital expendiature, large-scale infrastructure development, and a large change in consumption habits to make it work.

Some countries are in the right place to fully take advantage of under-utilized energy sources. Eg Brazil and sugarcane: mostly a tropical climate, does anybody know how much yield you can get from sugarcane? Just one harvest a year, 4 or more a year, etc?

In my climate, using sugarbeet, wheat, corn, etc, you're limited to one harvest a season. The growing season is fairly short here, typically May to August. For the past two weeks we've already had routine hard frost.

There is a lot of potential energy sources being wasted, ignored, or way underutilized. Folks don't think about a lot of them because - quite frankly - they're disgusting.

Sewage from municipal sources can be put into a digester and turned into methane. This is strictly an organic process, and "free" once you go through the capital and building process.

The end result is a mostly odorless sludge that is good for fertilizer, asuming it hasn't been contaminated by heavy metals or industrial chemicals. Most municipal sewage is unfortunately contaminated by heavy metals and chemicals. Careful thought has to be given to how to handle the sludge.

Agricultural waste is also a good potential source of methane. The SE corner of Manitoba has many hog barns that stink up the landscape. The hog waste is usually washed down in the barns with a lot of water, for ease of cleaning, and sent off to a lagoon.

The exterior lagoon is a poor compromise: heavy rains can and have caused lagoon failures, contaminating potable water sources. The odor truly has to be experienced to be believed. An operation of 5,000 "units" produces waste similar to a city of +150,000.

A digester operation would eleminate most of the odor, the methane could either be captured for distribution or used to run microturbine power plants. Ironically, hog barns are large consumers of electricity. The onsite microturbine power plant would make the hog operation self sufficient, with the excess power tied in to the grid.

Many studies have indicated a 3-5 year ROI at current energy prices.

In the pulp and paper industry there is still a lot of underutilization from fiber source (The trees) to the pulp mill. Once the trees are actually in the chipper, the mill is pretty good about making sure all the fiber is put to use.

In the felling/bunching process, there is a lot of waste. The trees are trimmed of all limbs by a rig that pulls the trees through, and the leftover limbs, bark, sawdust, etc, is usually burned in situ. If the limbs, bark, and sawdust could be collected and digested, that would be another "free" energy source.

I don't foresee that happening as there is already a glut of fiber on the global market, and we shouldn't hold our collective breath waiting for pulp and paper companies to shoot themselves in the foot.

In the end, Ethanol will probably be no more than a niche solution to a real problem. The math is fairly straightforward to illustrate that unless you want to dedicate most of the airable cropland to fuel personal transportation, it simply cannot be more than a niche.

 

I think it should be pointed out that something like 66% of the corn grown in this country (the US) is used to feed animals, not people. Second, the ethanol production process produces distiller grains, which is a quality animal feed, as a byproduct. So the feedstock used in the process is basically dual use. Couple that with the fact that at least some of the new plants coming on line are being fueled by cow manure and it's even better.

Cellulose ethanol looks like a promising approach to producing a lot more ethanol without really increasing the agricultural foot print of the fuel. I don't know how many gallons it could contribute but the impression that I get is that it's probably 10's of billions of gallons. That is, of course, what the cellulose ethanol folks are saying so it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Doesn't automatically mean that it's not true either.

I doubt ethanol will ever be the 'complete' answer but let's face it, regardless of oil's energy balance it's becoming a more and more scare resource. Right now biofuels are a viable means of slowing the rate of depletion. Also, don't forget that as oil get's more scare the only oil left is going to have an even worse energy balance.

Jay, I don't know the sugarcane efficiency but I do know that the Brazilian produce a LOT of ethanol. Flex-fuel vehicles are out selling conventional ones there now.

Cheers,

Tripp

 

I think there are many novel solutions out there simply from unutilized or underutilized sources.

The reason the majority of corn production is for animals is because we like to eat critters. You know the old saying "dead, red, and corn fed."

Unfortunately, we will have to wait until we are in a serious crisis before even exploring alternative and novel sources. Joe Q. Public has had cheap and easy energy for so long it will be difficult to change habits now.

 

actually reducing the appetite for meat will go a long way towards conserving energy... but that is also a pipe dream

 

David:

Oh boy have you got that right. Might as well start believing in the Easter Bunny and Zero Point Energy!

jay

 

finman was correct in the beginning of this thread. The problem with modern agriculture is that it uses massive amounts of petroleum to produce any food, including corn. Petroleum is where pesticides and fertilizer come from, for example. It doesn't surprise me that ethanol is a negative energy. There isn't any source of evergy that gives even close to the same bang for the buck (or barrel) that oil produces. That's why the best thing that we can do is conserve what there is.

 

Everything that I've read out of the DOE and National Labs contradicts the Ethanol/Negative Energy arguments. These were true 25 years ago. My understanding based on reading the DOE white papers, which taking into account the fossil fuel and other energy inputs is that Ethanol comes out positive. Gasoline is negative and over time will get more and more negative as all of the easily produced oil peaks and declines. Gasoline produced from tar sands is probably quite negative because of the massive energy inputs. Also, if more new ethanol plants are run of cow pooh, as at least three new ones in Colorado and Texas will be, then the fossil balance inproves further still. The anerobically digested manure is a high quality fertilizer so that's another profit stream to help reduce the cost of the ethanol, just like the distiller grain that are a byproduct of the distillation process.

Cellulose ethanol from agricultural residue (stalks, husks, roots) will probably become the primary source of ethanol in the coming years. This is the best source because you're basically reclaiming fuel from waste. How cool is that?