The Problems With A Lot Of The Glib Answers

Longtime readers know that I have a background in the electric power industry. I have pointed out the problems with the pie in the sky, money from nothing reasoning that a lot of people use to promote wind power. (Then had major media outlets that are not exactly noted for their conservative views vindicate what I had written not long after I started this blog).

Now Donald Sensing has taken a hard, number crunching look at the myths surrounding ethanol. The results are not pretty for that particular boondoggle.

Transporting E85 will require diesel fuel and lots of it. That aside, replacing 109 ounces of gasoline per gallon with ethanol results in less usable energy than 128 ounces of of plain gasoline. Because of the inherent system costs of growing and transporting ethanol, simply comparing the fuel economy of flexible-fuel vehicles using ethanol with that of plain gasoline vehicles yields an incomplete, hence incorrect, answer of whether E85 is more efficient than plain gas. But it's still informative to compare the energy and economy of a gallon of gas with a gallon of E85 once they are in the consumer's fuel tank. Wikipedia reports,

E85 has an octane rating of 105, which is higher than typical commercial gasoline mixtures (octane ratings of 85 to 98); however, it does not burn as efficiently in traditionally-manufactured internal-combustion engines. Additionally, E85 contains less energy per volume as compared to gasoline. Although E85 contains only 72% of the energy on a gallon-for-gallon basis compared to gasoline, experimenters have seen slightly better fuel mileage than the 28% this difference in energy content implies. For example, recent tests by the National Renewable Energy Lab on fleet vehicles owned by the state of Ohio showed about a 25% reduction in mpg [1] (see table on pg 5) comparing E85 operation to reformulated gasoline in the same flexible fuel vehicle. Results compared against a gasoline-only vehicle were essentially the same, about a 25% reduction in volumetric fuel economy with E85.]]

Car and Driver magazine reports,

We did a comparison test of two fuels, regular gasoline (87 octane) and E85 (100 to 105 octane). Our test vehicle was a flex-fuel 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe 4WD LT powered by a 5.3-liter V-8 hooked to a four-speed automatic transmission.

Their result?

[T]he fuel economy on E85 was diminished more than 30 percent in two of the three tests, about what we expected. The EPA’s numbers suggest that fuel economy worsens by 28 percent on E85 compared with regular gas. On any Tahoe equipped with a 5.3-liter V-8, the E85 flex-fuel feature is a no-cost option, but running E85 reduces the driving range from roughly 390 miles a tank to about 290.

So why are automakers jumping feet first into producing E85-burning vehicles? Because for meeting federal CAFE standards, ' the government counts only the 15-percent gasoline content of E85."

"But," one may well respond, "the real measure for fuel efficiency as far as the consumer is concerned is not miles per gallon achieved, but the cost per mile driven." So, even if ethanol fuel does result in fewer miles per gallon, are those miles less costly each than those driven using only gasoline?

He has a lot more over there and I would urge people interested in the energy debates howling right now to take a good, hard look at what he says. One of the big problems with trying to explain some of these things to true believers is that they start from the middle, so to speak. The proponents of ethanol completely neglect the energy required to produce the corn (or whatever crop is used) in the first place. There is also a complete silence on what effect the loss of all the corn as food will do to the world's hungry.

The same with wind power. There is never an accounting for the energy required to produce the equipment used to produce the energy. A lot of these supposed savings these various "solutions" will produce are illusory. Can they be of some use? Certainly. Are they a silver bullet? Well, let's put it this way. They just made an all solar house. Most people won't think the $500,000 price tag is a good, cost efficient solution. (Even reduced to $100,000, the costs exceed the GDP of the US to make a total conversion of every house in the US).

Go over and read all of what the good reverend wrote.

UPDATE: Here's another thing to consider. The US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service has a lot of data on crops grown in the US and on consumption of those crops. Here's what they say about corn:

Corn is the most widely produced feed grain in the United States, accounting for more than 90 percent of total value and production of feed grains. Around 80 million acres of land are planted to corn, with the majority of the crop grown in the Heartland region. Most of the crop is used as the main energy ingredient in livestock feed. Corn is also processed into a multitude of food and industrial products including starch, sweeteners, corn oil, beverage and industrial alcohol, and fuel ethanol. The United States is a major player in the world corn trade market, with approximately 20 percent of the corn crop exported to other countries. ERS analyzes events in the domestic and global corn markets that influence supply, demand, trade, and prices.

Some projections put around 50% of the US crop going to ethanol production. Who is going to starve? How much more will your food cost? How much more will meat cost because feed prices rise dramatically? Wheels within wheels, folks. There are a lot of things not being considered at all by the advocates of single solutions to complex issues.