Dept. of Energy Rejects Corn Fuel Future

eldavojohn writes "The United States' Department of Energy is stating that corn based fuel is not the future. From the article, "I'm not going to predict what the price of corn is going to do, but I will tell you the future of biofuels is not based on corn," U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said in an interview. Output of U.S. ethanol, which is mostly made from corn, is expected to jump in 2007 from 5.6 billion gallons per year to 8 billion gpy, as nearly 80 bio-refineries sprout up. In related news, Fidel Castro is blasting the production of corn fuel as a blatant waste of food that would otherwise feed 3 billion people who will die of hunger."

three billion?

[Surt]

http://www.starvation.net/ [starvation.net]

Even if you buy their generous estimate of 35K deaths/day, that's over 200 years to reach 3 billion deaths.

Re:No, half the world is not starving.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really that ignorant?

I don't think jobs are the problem, but the supply of food.
Not everywhere is like the land of the plenty were the supermarkets are stocked with food.

Re:I would like to know

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because the EPA hates diesel engines, even though they are cleaner than gasoline engines. Look at what has happened to the light-duty pickup truck diesel, and the OTR diesel engine, beginning with the 2007 model year. Especially pickups. The EPA have managed to get the fuel milage of the diesel down as low as the gas pickups. Effectively removing the benefit of the diesel engine. This is because they wanted to adopt their own screwy emissions standards, instead of going with what the EU and the rest of the world is using. That keeps the oil companies happy, becuase the end result is that we have to burn more fuel to do the same work, but it is "cleaner". They don't understand that having to burn all that additional fuel is probably creating more pollution than if they had just left well enough alone.

Its about time

[AP2k]

...we wake up from this corn ethanol farce. Corn ethanol hasnt gotten close to breaking even and isnt expected to do so. Meanwhile viable alternatives like sweet and brown potatoes which can yeild just as much ethanol as sugar cane per volume are given the blind eye. Potatoes grow easilly, have few enemies, and require next to no fertilizers.

I would really like to see automakers push more diesel engines in America. Bioiesel production per energy breaks even with nearly every method. It also has greater energy than gasoline per volume, unlike ethanol which has about 2/3's as much as gasoline.

Ultimately the defining factor of energy infrastructure is the technology itself and demand for innovation of that technology. Today, automakers are focused on riding out low compression engines to the very end instead of focusing on more efficient and powerful diesel technology. But as already pointed out, it was never about energy independance, but rather kickbacks to the agriculture business. So we will not see soon a Manhattan project for more efficient engines, nor will we see the same fervor put into biodiesel prduction that we currently have for the ethanol pipe dream.

Thanks Congress. You are awesome.

Re:zombie castro said what?

[LoRdTAW]

Actually the mash left over from distillation is useful for live stock feed. You could also burn dried mash to produce power and heat. So its not like the leftovers are waste.

Re:I would like to know

[Anonymous Coward]

why aren't the car engines run like the train engines

Trains run at more or less constant speed. Cars stop and go a lot. Batteries have a hard time handling that. They overheat and operate inefficiently.

That said, it's still a good idea. Chevy thinks so too: check out the Volt [chevrolet.com]. What the world needs is an efficient long lasting battery/fuel-cell that can cope with lots of rapid charge/discharge cycles.

Re:I would like to know

[russotto]

Diesel-electric serial hybrids scale UP very well, but so far they don't scale DOWN to automobile size all that well. To make a serial hybrid, you need an engine big enough to produce enough power to run the car, and an electric motor big enough to produce enough power to run the car.

Re:I would like to know

[0100010001010011]

Because the diesel/electric motors in trains aren't done for efficiency reasons, they're done because of space constraints.

First, trains don't have batteries. It's just:
engine->genset->electric motor.

Diesel engines (especially large ones) work within a very narrow power band. For on highway trucks it's around 1000 - 2000 RPM. This is great when pulling a heavy load, but it means that you're gearing has to be set up accordingly. This is why 18-wheelers have 13 speed gear boxes.

With the amount of torque that trains need to get up to speed the gear box would need to be as long, if not longer, than the train itself. You'd need a 10000:1 (made up number) gear ratio to get the train moving, but that ratio would only be good for 1000-2000 RPM, so you'd have to shift to 9999:1, etc.

The genset -> electric motor works great because the electric motor has a near infinite 'gear ratio' and provides peak torque from 0 RPM.

However there are losses, you'll never get better than a drive where the engine is connected directly to the wheels, this is why some automatic transmissions allow you to lock up the torque converter.

Diesel hybrids are coming, but the gains over a traditional diesel engine aren't as great as over a gasoline engine.

Re:three billion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that's 35k children under the age of 5 per day that die from malnutrition and preventable diseases combined.

Re:Sugar Cane fuel is the current answer

[TubeSteak]

Do you know that the only reason that makes U.S. not to get more ethanol from Brazil is protectionism via subsides and import quotas? Fidel got it right on this one, in order to protect the few (and rich) local corn farmers (not to mention the oil barons), U.S. impedes cheap sugar and ethanol to reach the U.S., artificially increasing the demand of corn for ethanol production, driving corn prices up and, this way, making things harder for poor people on U.S. itself and, indirectly, on Mexico too (thanks Nafta).

You misspelled "sugar industry"

The sugar lobby is the reason that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the main ingredient in [too many products to list]. The sugar industry lobbied for all those import quotas & tariffs to keep the domestic price high. HFCS is cheaper and in greater supply than beet or cane sugar, which is why it is so widely used

Re:I would like to know

[Firethorn]

With the amount of torque that trains need to get up to speed the gear box would need to be as long, if not longer, than the train itself. You'd need a 10000:1 (made up number) gear ratio to get the train moving, but that ratio would only be good for 1000-2000 RPM, so you'd have to shift to 9999:1, etc.

More to the point; the transmission required would be complex, and the torques involved would kill even an incredibly heavy one very quickly.

As you note; even a gear transmission such as what's in a manual transmission costs power.

Electric generators/motors scale well; at the size involved for a train, I can see 98-99% efficiency. So I'd imagine that something around 96% of the power gets to the train's wheels; actually better than most transmissions.

Re:zombie castro said what?

[vivaoporto]

Bullshit! Read the fucking editorial [www.cuba.cu], it is in spanish, if you can't read get someone to translate it to you. I quote here:

"(...) independientemente de la excelente tecnología brasileña para producir alcohol, en Cuba el empleo de tal tecnología para la producción directa de alcohol a partir del jugo de caña no constituye más que un sueño o un desvarío de los que se ilusionan con esa idea. En nuestro país, las tierras dedicadas a la producción directa de alcohol pueden ser mucho más útiles en la producción de alimentos para el pueblo y en la protección del medio ambiente."

Translates (roughly) as:

Independently of the excellent Brazilian ethanol production technology, in Cuba the use of such technology to direct production of ethanol from the sugar cane is nothing but a dream or a fantasy from the ones who have illusions with this idea. In our country, the soil dedicated to the direct production of ethanol can be much more useful in the food production for the people and for the protection of the environment.

So, stop spreading lies and RTF Editorial.

starch ethanol vs. cellulosic ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't be surprised here, but no one seems to have read the article at all. His point isn't that getting ethanol from corn is going to be abandoned in favor of algae sugars or biodiesel , but that getting ethanol from corn sugar isn't going to work out, getting it from cellulose is the way to go in his mind. As several have pointed out ethanol from corn sugar is a very minor improvement, giving a small boost (on the order of 10%) over gasoline in terms of carbon emmission/mile or however you want to spin it. If a cellulosic process can be made to work this changes A LOT. And it applies equally well to sugar cane cellulose, so all you sugar fans can be happy. The goal here is to take material (stalks, leaves and the like) that would otherwise be discarded or burned and turn it into fuel. Corn is a good candidate for that because it can be grown pretty densely, and the yield of food to overall biomass is pretty small.

-sk

Re:I'm more amazed

[vivaoporto]

It's all funny and ha ha, but cut either the summary is lying or TFA is. Here is the piece that mentions the 3.5 billion number, FTF editorial [www.cuba.cu] (in spanish), and he was talking about hunger and thirsty, a much more serious problem in the near future. People like to distort the opposing part statements, but at least have the facts from the original source and judge from yourselves.

Acudo en este caso a una agencia oficial de noticias, fundada en 1945 y generalmente bien informada sobre los problemas económicos y sociales del mundo: la TELAM. Textualmente, dijo:

"Cerca de 2 mil millones de personas habitarán dentro de apenas 18 años en países y regiones donde el agua sea un recuerdo lejano. Dos tercios de la población mundial podrían vivir en lugares donde esa escasez produzca tensiones sociales y económicas de tal magnitud que podrían llevar a los pueblos a guerras por el preciado 'oro azul'.

"Durante los últimos 100 años, el uso del agua ha aumentado a un ritmo más de dos veces superior a la tasa de crecimiento de la población.

"Según las estadísticas del Consejo Mundial del Agua (WWC, por sus siglas en inglés), se estima que para el 2015 el número de habitantes afectados por esta grave situación se eleve a 3 500 millones de personas.

And my (rough) translation:

I'll resort to an official news agency, founded in 1945 and generally well informed about the economic and social problems in the world: the TELAM [telam.com.ar]. Textually, I say:

"About 2 billion people will live, in only 18 years, in countries and regions where water will be a distant memory. Two thirds of the world population may live in places where this scarcity will create social and economic unrest in such magnitude that could lead those people to wars on this precious 'blue gold'".

"From the last 100 years, the use of water has increased in a rate two times superior to the population growth rate.

"According with the World Water Council (WWC), it is estimated that in the year 2015 the number of people affected by this serious situation will increase to 3 500 billion people

Re:zombie castro said what?

[vivaoporto]

"Unless I'm missing something in translated translation, I looks to me that he is saying their soil is better for food and they won't be doing it."
No, he is saying, although their soil is appropriated for sugar cane (and I add, dutch, spanish and portuguese fought for it in the past exactly because of it), he believes the soil better use is for food, because people is more important that everything else. That's the point of the whole article.

Nothing about the GP's stating he wanted sugar cane used so his crops would be worth more.

GP implied that Fidel's interest on shifting the ethanol production from corn to sugar cane is benefitial to Cuba. Fidel's point is that everything ethanol is bad if land that could be used to produce food is used to produce fuel.

In case your wondering, taking the majority of the competitions product off the market makes your prices go up. It is the free market thing."

Yes. Except that there is no Free Market in Cuba. And that, even if there was, there is this little thing called U.S. mandated worldwide embargo on any Cuban export, so they couldn't benefit from it. Don't they teach those things there on history/geography classes?

Re:No, half the world is not starving.

[h2_plus_O]

I don't think jobs are the problem, but the supply of food.

Actually, famine nowadays is rarely a function of food supply alone. per Wiki [wikipedia.org]:

Modern famines have often occurred in nations that, as a whole, were not initially suffering a shortage of food. The largest famine ever (proportional to the affected population) was the Irish Potato Famine, which began in 1845 and occurred as food was being shipped from Ireland to England because the English could afford to pay higher prices. The largest famine ever (in absolute terms) was the Chinese famine of 1959-60 that occurred as a result of the Great Leap Forward. In a similar manner, the 1973 famine in Ethiopia was concentrated in the Wollo region, although food was being shipped out of Wollo to the capital city of Addis Ababa where it could command higher prices. In contrast, at the same time that the citizens of the dictatorships of Ethiopia and Sudan had massive famines in the late-1970s and early-1980s, the democracies of Botswana and Zimbabwe avoided them, despite having worse drops in national food production.

According to Nobel-peace prize winning economist Amartya Sen [wikipedia.org] quoted here [jhu.edu], there is without exception a political component involved that allows the food shortage to progress beyond food insecurity:

I have discussed elsewhere the remarkable fact that, in the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. We cannot find exceptions to this rule, no matter where we look: the recent famines of Ethiopia, Somalia, or other dictatorial regimes; famines in the Soviet Union in the 1930s; China's 1958-61 famine with the failure of the Great Leap Forward; or earlier still, the famines in Ireland or India under alien rule. China, although it was in many ways doing much better economically than India, still managed (unlike India) to have a famine, indeed the largest recorded famine in world history: Nearly 30 million people died in the famine of 1958-61, while faulty governmental policies remained uncorrected for three full years.

Re:zombie castro said what?

[Marcos Eliziario]

There's no such thing as U.S. mandated worldwide embargo. I am from Brazil and had a girlfriend workin for a company which has some factories in Cuba (Souza Cruz Tobacco). You can find Cuban products (not so many of them) in almost every city on Europe (including U.K.), South America and Asia. Also, major european Hotel companies have business in the island. Fidel Castro also receives a lot of oil for free from his ally Hugo Chavez. The embargo applies only to American companies, and it's perfectly just, as american citizens and companies that were expropriated by Fidel's revolution never received compensation for the theft. Don't they teach those things there on history/geography classes?

ethanol from sugar cane

[neomagi]

Actually making ethanol from sugar cane is more than 6x more efficient than corn. it actually has a huge net gain in fuel. the factories in Brazil do an amazing job of creating power both to power the plants that make the ethanol as well as for the general public.

several of the sugar plantations in the states are considering this as well, since it is so much more effective.

DOE is Correct

[cephal0p0d]

Future of biofuels, both diesel and gas replacements, is in random biomass conversion.
Future conversion processes will most likely involve bioengineered bacteria and similar processes to create biofuel from any biomass available, from foodstock leftovers to waste products to... corpses.

Sugary and cellulosic biomass is best for eth.

- Switchgrass

- Sawdust

- Beets, etc

Oily biomass is best for biodiesel.

- Vegetable oils, such as soy, hemp, rapeseed, etc. whether pre-or post consumer (these still leave the seed itself as feedstock after oils are extracted.)

- Tallow/animal fats

- Algae

Ton of Reference materials halfway down this page:

http://squidb0i.livejournal.com/profile [livejournal.com]

As for corpses:

http://squidb0i.livejournal.com/114822.html [livejournal.com]

Re:Its about time

[evilviper]

Corn ethanol hasnt gotten close to breaking even and isnt expected to do so.

The latter is not true. It should more than break even.

Bioiesel production per energy breaks even with nearly every method.

That's not remotely true. There are numerous crops for which it is not a net gain to make into biodiesel.

It also has greater energy than gasoline per volume, unlike ethanol which has about 2/3's as much as gasoline.

Theoretical energy content hardly matters at all, since there is no 100% conversion method. In gasoline engines, ethanol does NOT result in a 1/3rd drop in fuel efficiency. As an additive, the drop is much lower, and in high concentrations, the higher octane means compression ratios can be increased without adverse effects, giving better fuel-mileage than pure gasoline, not worse.

Today, automakers are focused on riding out low compression engines to the very end instead of focusing on more efficient and powerful diesel technology.

The US has practically outlawed diesel cars over the past decade with strict emission controls, and high sulfur fuel. You can't really blame the auto companies.

So we will not see soon a Manhattan project for more efficient engines, nor will we see the same fervor put into biodiesel prduction that we currently have for the ethanol pipe dream.

Ethanol is only a stop-gap measure to begin with. Biodiesel would require everyone buying new diesel cars, then building up biodiesel infrastructure, only for slightly better biodiesel fuel to become the stop-gap measure, before emission-free vehicles come about.

Re:zombie castro said what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, in America we get our Cuba history based solely on the Bay of Pigs fiasco and Cuban Missle crisis. We like our beer cold, our Commies extremist, and our homosexuals FLAMING, to misappropriate a Homer quote.

Re:zombie castro said what?

[vivaoporto]

Hey man, seems like we went to the same schools tho, because I'm also a Brazilian :) Anyway, you may want to read the Helms-Burton Act [wikipedia.org], passed in 1996 by the U.S. congress, and that mandates, among other things:

* International Sanctions against the Castro Government. Economic embargo, any non-US company that deals economically with Cuba can be subjected to legal action and that company's leadership can be barred from entry into the United States. Sanctions may be applied to non-U.S. companies trading with Cuba. This means that internationally operating companies have to choose between Cuba and the US, which is a much larger market.

IF that is not enough an worldwide embargo, what is?

And I know they teach this on Brazilian schools, so, let's cut the "don't they teach this" thing and move on.

Re:Who cares - my gas comes from petroleum

[LarsWestergren]

You can choose a "side", but think about it a bit first.

That is indeed good advice. You should know that there has come some [scienceblogs.com] rebuttals [typepad.com] to "The Great Global Warming Swindle", and at least one person who participated has since come out with a public letter [realclimate.org] where he explains that he is the one who feels swindled by the makers.

"As I made clear, both in the
preliminary discussions, and in the interview itself, I believe that
global warming is a very serious threat that needs equally serious
discussion and no one seeing this film could possibly deduce that.

What we now have is an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which
there is not even a gesture toward balance or explanation of why
many of the extended inferences drawn in the film are not widely
accepted by the scientific community. "

It is also interested to note how the makers react when a couple of noted scientists try to engage him in debate [timesonline.co.uk].

Re:No, they really don't. It's kind of sad.

[Proofof. Chaos]

Actually, I (American) never learned about the EU in high school or college history/geography at all. I never even heard of it until several years later. Also, most Americans could guess the capital of Utah because it is the only city in Utah they ever heard of (Salt Lake City), but I bet most couldn't tell you the capital of Washington. In fact, I bet most recent high school graduates in California couldn't tell you what the capital of California is.
I know, typical comment about how uneducated we Americans are, followed by typical comment about how, no matter how dumb we are, Californians are even dumber than the rest of us.

Locos do it for a different reason

[Viol8]

Diesel electric locos exist simply because of the difficulty of building a mechanical transmission for them. The contortions the driveshafts and gearing would have to make from engine to wheels would be horrendous, not to mention the sort of gearbox required would have to be so robust that the expense wouldn't be worth it. This is why electric and hydraulic transmission is used on locos , not for fuel efficiency reasons. In fact you lose quite a bit of efficiency converting from rotary to electric then back to rotary power again. Hydraulic transmissions are a bit more efficient I believe but if they spring a leak you're screwed plus they're not suitable for high speeds.

Lula Article on Washington Post

[Extremus]

Today, the Washington Post is featuring a article from President Lula addressing this issue. Here is the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/03/29/AR2007032902019.html?hpid=opinionsbo x1 [washingtonpost.com]

Re:ethanol from sugar cane

[indifferent children]

What if it turns out that it's more efficient to produce ethanol from, oh, let's say hemp

Ethanol requires sugar. Hemp produces seed-oil that is very good for biodiesel, but not for ethanol.

Re:corn and switch grass are NOT the way to go

[marcosdumay]

"That said this picture is a little distorted as Brazil subsidizes their sugar crops and ethanol production."

We don't. We used to, but stopped doing that by 97. We just don't have enough money, and much better places to put it.