The Oil Drum

104 comments on The St Louis Renewable Energy Conference - Day 1

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Valuethinker on October 12, 2006 - 10:37am

I think the Thais are one of the worst offenders for subsidising diesel fuel and kerosene to way below market prices?

rant mode on
I suspect but haven't researched it that sugar cane is a pesticide nightmare? My own take on all agriculture is that if it needs massive amounts of pesticide (and herbicide, and fertilizer) its not a long term solution.

Sugar is this ridiculously controlled market. Agriculture is overprotected and oversubsidised world wide (yet we let people starve), and sugar is amongst the most controlled commodites (or the most controlled).

A sample, sugar costs 4 times as much for a food processor in the US than in Canada. Thank you ADM company and High Fructose Corn Syrup!

Of course then there is Cuba. If the US wanted cheap ethanol, it should go to Cuba. GWB's election in 2000 and a Cuban kid named ?Rafeal Elian? got in the way.

rant mode off

I'm not sure about CO2 ethanol v. gasoline. I'm not sure how one hydrocarbon can have 80% less CO2 emitted than another. Seems to me the CO2 emission ought to be pretty proportional to the amount of energy released? Again my chemistry is too rusty for this.

Ethanol is a Brasilian solution to a Brasilian problem. I'm not sure it generalises.

Corn ethanol is a US political solution to a US problem. We should seek to minimise damage: there is a level of ethanol which all gasoline could take (5%?) without big switching costs, and the US could simply mandate that across the whole country (thus consuming all the readily available corn ethanol).

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Robert Rapier on October 12, 2006 - 12:04pm

I'm not sure about CO2 ethanol v. gasoline. I'm not sure how one hydrocarbon can have 80% less CO2 emitted than another. Seems to me the CO2 emission ought to be pretty proportional to the amount of energy released?

It is true that both would release the same amount of CO2, but the net is lower for sugarcane ethanol because the process heat is provided by bagasse, which took up CO2 while it was growing. In the case of gasoline, the process heat is provided by fossil fuels.

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mjacobspaj on October 12, 2006 - 2:03pm

I think it is fair to say that a significant proportion of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions from burning ethanol were originally captured when the sugar cane was grown.

However, it is important to realize that diesel to run equipment to grow, transport, and process the sugar cane and additives like chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. require fossil fuels and contribute to green house gas emissions. These factors make corn based ethanol far less preferable than sugar cane based ethanol.

Further, the possibility using renewable sources of energy for stationary production facilities, capturing the CO2 and other green house gases, and re-injecting them deep underground could potentially provide a reduction of green house gases to the atmosphere.

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Jack on October 12, 2006 - 8:31pm

Thais have, historically, been one of the worst offenders in subsidizing oil consumption. However, they have rolled back much of that expensive program, which helped make the country one of, if not the, most energy intensive in the world. However, previous Thai foolishness has no bearing on efforts to do better in the future. Thailand has done a great deal with energy efficiency and grid incentive programs to support renewables.

Sugar is one of the most highly subsizdized crops, as you note. But Brazil, Cuba and Australia (if I recall correctly) are market-based and Thailand may lift domestic price caps this year, which they should.

I'm not sure it generalises.

I said it is a niche solution. It does not universalize. I don't think Bulgaria should try to grow sugar cane. But it can reach beyond Brazil to most tropical countries.