Corn ethanol have some problems even if you consider them just a energy conversion. Besides, converting natural gas and oil into ethanol isn't that usefull, is it? Both can be used for transportation near the same way.

But your main problem is that you didn't say where the energy that we transform into ethanol comes from. That is the bigest problem, not how to make liquid fuels.

"How is it that fossil fuel is only a small fraction of the costs for me to produce corn as compared to land, seed and labor and surely is a small fraction of the cost for ethanol producers compared to the purchased corn, labor, plant, finance and management costs?"

One, because Fossil fuels are artificially cheap here, so your measurement of ROI based on Dollar Inputs is skewed to Oil and NG's clear advantage.

Two, 'Surely a small fraction of the cost for ethanol producers' - are you sure? The energy required for processing, drying and refining that corn into ethanol is where the greatest energy inputs are required, right?

Still, your argument that this is simply creating a value-added product is my main concern. While we do need Transport Liquids, this uses gas and diesel to produce an LTF that is un-pipable, subject to water contamination, and complicates our Transp fuel reliance towards products that hinge on Harvest Times, Weather and Irrigation conditions, and compete with crop space (and aquifer reserves) for food crops. Every expansion of this industry will make that competition more intense, and I don't see how it would be a healthy contest for the country.

ps, is the .50 subsidy on Ethanol basically providing the profit-margin that makes this seem like a value-added product?

Bob

Ethanol from corn has huge problems. Read my article:

Corn-Based Ethanol: Is This a Solution?

This is the crux of the error's being made here at TOD. How is it that fossil fuel is only a small fraction of the costs for me to produce corn as compared to land, seed and labor and surely is a small fraction of the cost for ethanol producers compared to the purchased corn, labor, plant, finance and management costs? Yet here at TOD this all gets ignored and changed into "ethanol is made entirely from fossil fuel inputs" with the sun's inputs almost dismissed. The bias is breathtaking.

1) your fertilizer costs might be in units of fossil fuel
2) corn isn't ethanol, and turning it into ethanol requires substantial additional energy, most of which is fossil fueled.

What is the power and transportation costs for an ethanol plant?

Practical, I won't sidetrack this thread with arguments on EROI and ethanol other than to say I agree with you that EROI is not a panacea and said as much in my recent post. More important than the energy return of an alternative technology is the energy return of what its replacing, which gets back to demand, CAFE, speed limit, carpooling, electric train arguments, etc.

Also, my reply to you there, shows that ethanol DOES use a huge amount of non-renewable inputs. Natural gas this summer is cheap but the forward markets 2009 and beyond are making all time highs this week. If you have to pay triple for seed and fertilizer in a few years, how good of idea will ethanol be? Or what if you can't buy fertilizer at all?

By developing low energy gain renewable energy that has a majority component that is fossil, we are squandering opportunities using existing fossil reserves to develop high energy gain renewable systems. This is why ethanol is a bad idea. We will switch from one perceived bottleneck (oil) to another one (natural gas, or greenhouse gas emissions from more coal). If all the energy inputs (and NON-ENERGY inputs, like soil and water), were abundant, then I totally agree that the energy return of ethanol wouldn't be as relevant. But thats not the case with bio-ethanol.

I will put up a separate post on this issue in the next week or so and we can debate this until we come to some agreement, if possible.

This is the fallacy behind EROEI which is a near religion at TOD.

It's a "near religion" because it is the crux of the biscuit. If I spend $200 to get to my job where I earn $200 per day, I have nothing at the end of the day. Ethanol is not much better than this scenario.

Robert posted an excellent look at the "solar" gain of ethanol here http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2812#more.

Trying to stop those who are attempting to mitigate peal oil because their method doesn't suit the EROEI religion is a dead end.

It's not that the method doesn't suit a "religion", it's that it Just. Doesn't. Work. in any meaningful way for mitigation of oil. There have been countless computations on what the potential mitigation is, and has been shown countless times that it is a drop in the bucket. I'd love to see anything that shows otherwise.