Mythbusters: Ethanol and Foreign Oil Displacement
Posted by Robert Rapier on August 7, 2007 - 10:00am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: energy policy, ethanol, ethanol myths, ethanol production [list all tags]
As a result of the recent Rolling Stone article on ethanol, I have been getting a lot of e-mails in which the same topics come up again and again. Therefore, I decided to write a comprehensive ethanol FAQ, which will eventually be placed in full here at TOD. Right now, the FAQ is a work in progress on my blog (feel free to provide comments/criticisms), but I will occasionally post various topics here as I work my way through them. Today's topic is the claim:
Ethanol Reduces Dependence on Foreign Oil
It is interesting that this claim is so popular, given that it is so easily shown to be false. From the Renewable Fuels Association's (RFA) "Energy Facts":
FACT: In 2006, the production and use of ethanol in the U.S. reduced oil imports by 170 million barrels, saving $11 billion from being sent to foreign and often hostile countries.
Interestingly, the RFA's page on industry statistics shows that ethanol production in 2006 was 4.86 billion gallons. This is 116 million barrels. Somehow using 116 million barrels of ethanol, with a per barrel BTU value of just over half that of a barrel of oil, displaced 170 million barrels of oil. To be precise, 116 million barrels of ethanol contain the BTU equivalent of 64 million barrels of oil.
The RFA's source on that was the consulting firm LECG, where director John M. Urbanchuk has also been quoted:
The production of nearly five billion gallons of ethanol means that the U.S. needed to import 206 million fewer barrels of oil in 2006, valued at $11.2 billion. This is money that stayed in the American economy.
Source: Contribution of the Ethanol Industry to the Economy of the United States in 2006 (PDF download)
But it gets even better. From DOE Assistant Secretary Alexander Karsner's keynote address to the RFA's National Ethanol Conference in Tucson, Arizona:
Last year, we contributed something on the order of a displacing 500 million barrels of oil, oil that we didn't have to import from regimes that are hostile to our interest or might leverage energy economics over our future.
Here's the same claim by Paul Dickerson, Chief Operating Officer at the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy:
Over 6 billion gallons of ethanol were produced in the United States last year, and we have an additional 5 billion gallons of refining capacity under construction.
That effort means 500 million fewer barrels of oil that we have to import from the Middle East.
That's from the U.S. Department of Energy, folks. That is the department of the U.S. government that is charged with formulating and carrying out U.S. energy policy. And they are clearly delusional about the level of petroleum displacement from ethanol. If I truly believed those numbers, I would be all over the ethanol bandwagon as well. Either they are purposely misleading people, or they actually believe what they are saying. Both options are disturbing, considering the role the DOE plays in influencing energy policies.
How on earth are people coming up with these numbers? Can 64 million barrels of oil equivalent displace 170 million, 206 million, or even 500 million barrels of oil? And recognize that we haven't even touched upon the fact that the 64 million barrels is the gross output, and not the net. To get a true displacement number (for just petroleum), we have to subtract out all of the petroleum inputs that went into making those barrels of ethanol. At least that's what we would do if our goals were scientific, with the intention of getting to the truth of the matter, and not politically motivated.
Since ethanol is a gasoline replacement, this oil displacement should be most pronounced if we look at the gasoline demand curve. As ethanol has ramped up exponentially since 2000, how much gasoline has been displaced? It's not apparent that there was any displacement. As shown in the link, as ethanol has ramped up since 2000, not only has gasoline demand increased by 10 billion barrels per year, but there isn't even any obvious effect from ethanol on the gasoline growth curve. As ethanol has ramped up, we have become more dependent upon petroleum. That is not my opinion. That's what the numbers say, in black and white.
U.S. dependence on foreign oil is a demand-side problem. It is not going to be fixed by producing more ethanol - false claims about the amount of displacement notwithstanding. And it is not going to be fixed unless we confront the reality of the situation instead of the political spin.
And you "aint seen nothing yet." Sen. Clinton is a huge supporter of Ethanol so you can bet your bottom dollar that if elected President we'll see more and more of our tax dollars flushed down the toilet.
I'm curious if the article included the harmful affects Ethanol production has on the enviroment and food prices?
Aw, almost all the candidates tout ethanol as green and a way to energy "independence". It sounds good and that's all that matters to a politician looking for votes. A good policy maker will really look into the issue when they actually have to make a decision (although politics still play a role of course). This is why Mr Rapier's FAQ is so important - the facts on ethanol are pretty compelling against, but against that you have ignorance and a desperate wish to secure fuel to maintain the lifestyle of driving around every where, all the time, for everything.
McCain had been the most anti-ethanol guy, but he changed his tune for Iowa
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/11/13/839313...
Exactly.
Our scientists at the Lemming Institute for Grocking Human Thought (The LIGHT) have discovered that the human species responds best to "sound" logic.
They hold little hope for rational thought taking over.
[humorous-pedantry] I believe the term is 'Grokking' [/humorous-pedantry]
Given that we are strange eggs in the cusp, and often unstuck in time, it is hard to know what spelling to apply to this cognitive activity. Suffice it to say that cognitive appreciation of what goes on in the human mind is illusive if not downright impossible.
Strange eggs in the cusp, often unstuck in time. My favorite post of the day, thanks.
OK. Not fair to have book worm jokes embedded on a public bog. We're speaking in the language of the Stranger in a Strange Land. A classic if you have not read and grokked it.
D'oh! Read it when it was first written, didn't recognize it here and admired the alien quality of thought. (And I would have put down "unstuck in time" to Billy Pilgrim and the Tralfamadorians). (Which, as Dave Barry might note, would be a great name for a rock band).
Yes, you are right. The "unstuck in time" phrase should have been attributed to Slaughterhouse Five. Sorry.
Grokking Kool Aid.
Two years of Oil Drum later, I get the King Corn episode of The West Wing so much better now.
--
Jaymax (cornucomer-doomopian)
I am not sure that is true. I have seen Bill Clinton talk about imminent peak oil. One thing everyone says about Hillary Clinton is that she does her homework and knows the facts. Ethanol is a farm subsidy that also seems to many to have environmental and national security values. Winning farm state support is essential to win a national election.
Politicians like Clinton know that fossil fuels are limited and that they are going to have to do something about it. The media, oil companies and business in general do not want to have the population scared by talk of severe shortages and the economic downturn they imply. This denial cannot be taken on in a national politic campaign until there is wider acceptance of it in society. People vote for the politicians who give them the most optimistic view of the future. Some people, like Matt Simmons, need to get way out in front and change people's minds but a political candidate cannot do it unless they have no chance of winning and are not really trying to win (although sometimes they throw a desperation long bomb). Perhaps it would be better if that were not the case but we need to deal with the world as it is.
And yet it does demonstrate a certain lack of imagination, that no politician can think of a way to sell to the public the need to move away from fossil fuels. If Bush can get up there and admit "America is addicted to oil", and even the most optimistic estimates show that America will be gradually become utterly reliant on the Middle East for its oil supplies over the next decade or so, then surely there has to be way to tap into America's touted patriotic sense of independence and self-reliance.
In war times, governments have been able to rally the public on the need to conserve and become more self-reliant (e.g. victory gardens). We already have government-sponsored ads here in Australia encouraging us and suggesting ways to use less water and less electricity or natural gas. "Use less petrol" is the next logical step. It's not an impossible message to sell. Sounds like the U.S. candidates are simply throwing it in the "too hard" basket. Or, more cynically, they have too much vested interest in the fossil-fuel industries, and are sufficiently selfish and short-sighted to put that ahead of the country's (and planet's) long term needs.
But again, if Roscoe Bartlett can make a stand, so can others.
Well they do all talk about energy independance but that is not a realistic possibility in the short term given the US has only 2% of world oil reserves. What they cannot say is that the world may well have passed peak oil, peak gas will come in only a few years at most and that we will pass peak coal in less than twenty years. That we will face an overwhelming crisis comparable to the World Wars. People would view that as too pessimistic because they do not have the foundation to believe it yet. But I think the most thoughtful candidates, among whom I include Clinton, know what we really face.
Roscoe Bartlett is not running for president with a reasonable chance of winning which is why he has the freedom to say what he does. When people start to listen to him then main stream politicians will also be able to say what he does.
A "crisis comparable to the World Wars" is most almost a given, if Americans start doing nothing to reduce their oil and gas usage.
Of course that's not the way you sell it. Get a crack team of propagandists, marketeers and advertisers in a room together, and I bet they could come up with a campaign to convince Americans that driving big cars is uncool, public transport is "in", and wasting oil is as bad as littering or smoking. And it would cost a fraction of what the alternatives imply, even if you had to pay off compensation to big oil and big auto companies.
Right on. No problem at all. Done in 6 months.
Or a decade.
Actively attempting to sway public opinion takes time, but I don't think there's any question that it can be done.
Mind you, last night I couldn't help noticing that one of our government-sponsored ads for cutting back on electricity usage "to help prevent climate change" was wedged between an ad for a plasma TV and an ad for a 4WD/SUV-type vehicle. The sad thing is that there will be viewers that will buy a new plasma TV and a new SUV, then think that switching off unused lights, or turning the A/C down a little will somehow compensate.
Its taken two decades of constant marketing to get us to being good consumers so I doubt they could come up with something that would convince us otherwise in less time..
Once again we have pointed out to us an example of the putative leadership being either ignorant, moronic or duplicitous. It is as if the general momentum of the political/ economic heirarchy and reality are on diverging or opposite courses.
Is there some motivation here or are they just dumb? It isn't pleasant having to choose between two derogatory options - or saying nothing at all. For those of us who have customarily chosen the latter, it has now got to the point where silence just doesn't seem appropriate anymore. Time's up.
Thanks RR, for putting it and putting it so well.
These insane numbers from DOE just prove, yet again, that it's a really bad idea to hire managers with backgrounds in economics or business to oversee a technically challenging organization. Lately, this approach appears to have become even more distorted, as the placement of these managers has been based on loyalty to the Party, aka., Gee Dubyah.
A large part of the blame for the worsening failure in Iraq can be placed on the selection of people based on ideology, not education or proven skills. Similar distortions have been seen in the actions of the executives concerned with Global Climate Change, where great effort was taken to change the presentation of the findings of scientists. As most people live in a Disney Land dream world, created for them by TV and movie producers, the politicians know that the public's perception is more important than the hard scientific reality. It's been said that the sport with the greatest attendance is auto racing. Nobody cares that the numbers being thrown out by the DOE are wrong, or the books cooked, as long as the oil companies deliver something to make all those SUV's and PU's continue to roll.
E. Swanson
Is there some motivation here or are they just dumb? It isn't pleasant having to choose between two derogatory options - or saying nothing at all. For those of us who have customarily chosen the latter, it has now got to the point where silence just doesn't seem appropriate anymore. Time's up.
Motivation? Yeah, the Dems are in the hip-pocket of Big Agriculture.
Archer Daniels writes them a check for their campaigns and they support Ethanol.
There is your motivation.
This article referred to figures touted by DOE, run by the Republicans. We also are aware that the Republican candidates support ethanol. Another article referred to McCain's flip flops. And yet you choose to rag on the Democrats.
Talk about motivation. Your motivation here seems heavily weighted with your obsession with Democrats when our energy problems are an equal opportunity problem.
Yeh, and I suppose that ADM is just supporting Democrats. Look, there are Democrats on this site that are more than willing to point out and acknowledge the flaws of their fellow Democrats. The whole system is corrupt with a need for campaign reform, lobbying reform, and limitations on the power of the corporations. But do you think the Republicans would support such an effort? Not on your life.
Subsidies for ethanol didn't somehow come from nowhere and emerge in the last year. This upsurge in ethanol occurred under the Bush administration and a congress run by Republicans. And yet, I suppose, we are to believe that it is only the Democrats who support these subsidies both to corn and ethanol.
This article referred to figures touted by DOE, run by the Republicans. We also are aware that the Republican candidates support ethanol. Another article referred to McCain's flip flops. And yet you choose to rag on the Democrats.
Talk about motivation. Your motivation here seems heavily weighted with your obsession with Democrats when our energy problems are an equal opportunity problem.
I'm not sure you understand here, the Democrats are in power. They hold both houses of congress. The Republicans are not in power. They have little input into energy legislation, especially in the House.
My high-lighting the failed Democratic leadership in congress is designed to point out their failure.
You want me to rag on the 2005 energy bill? What will that do for us NOW?
This problem is servere and needs to be addressed now.
Given that Hillary will probably be the next President I think it is important that we demonstrate NOW what a failure she'll be.
Don't pour too much effort into picking apart the Dems and Repubs on this.. clearly, they are both beholden to ADM, farm Lobby, etc..
None of these representatives feel too much 'in power' at this point, it seems to me. The Dems being 'in power' in both houses is by such a narrow margin that the same kind of 'divide and conquer' tactics employed elsewhere in the world is just as effective at stalling any movement in any direction by congress.
Follow the money.. obey your thirst.
Don't feed the ...etc
Ugh - as another pointed out - the complaint was that many groups, including the republican controlled DOE, are grossly distorting the amount of gasoline that is being substituted (if in reality it is any at all) - and you, as always turn it into a Dem bash
show me an energy bill that the Dems have passed, and has been signed by Bush, and I'll be more inclined to listen to your rants that this is a Dem vs Repub problem
and as others have pointed out - BOTH sides of congress take enormous amounts of $ from the ethanol and corn producers - so it's hardly a "Dem" problem
the expansion of ethanol production has occurred first under a Republican controlled White House and congress, and it continues under a Republican controlled White House and a (marginally if you discount Mr Lieberman) Democratic controlled Congress
Bush and his associates have touted ethanol as much as any Democratic candidate for Prez - why don't you point that out?
At this point in the 04 election cycle it looked like Howard Dean would be our next president. 7 months from now Hillary may not even still be in the race.
Democrats are in power. They hold both houses of congress. The Republicans are not in power.
Ummmm who's the president?
Everybody needs to take a breath. Pop some popcorn, grab a drink, and watch "Network" one more time.
"There are no governments, Mr. Beale. Only the International System of Systems. The Ebb and Flow of Capital...petrodollars... There are no Democrats, no Republicans..."
Our consumption created a Monster. That Monster is the Corporatocratic Socialist Union of Limited Liability Entities.
They buy and sell the government like overfed cattle. Hillary is no exception. There hasn't been an exception since Lincoln, and we know what happened to him. Maybe JFK, but same story, different time frame.
If you want Change, keep it in your pocket. Your dollar is your only vote, and when you spend it, you vote for your own demise, unless you spend it very wisely. We don't need Them. They need us.
Well, there we go again.
We humans insist on believing that there is a "one true answer" to a question whose underlying premises are themselves questionable (i.e., questions that present false choice menus).
And accordingly, some here elect to point the one right index finger that Mother Nature gave us, blamingly at the "putative leadership" and others at the "Corporatocratic" animal.
Perhaps the more appropriate thing to do is not fling the blame mud (as we caged apes are wont to do) but rather to step back and appreciate that we each are of limited cognitive abilities.
Scientists discovered that some bird species display brilliant plumages in the UV range, a part of the spectrum that human vision is blind to. So we are simply incapable of directly seeing the bigger picture.
They don't intend to do wrong. They simply can't see all the colors of the wind.
Given that Hillary will probably be the next President I think it is important that we demonstrate NOW what a failure she'll be.
As opposed to the glorious success that the Bush Administration have proven to be so far?
If we divide this problem into Dem vs Rep we are truly screwed.
As a group, society does not like "bad news" particularly as it has been aptly described as the "iron triangle." Spreading bad news is not welcome if your entire system is a reactive (rather than proactive) system.
Even on the subject of peak oil, you see this. Let's take the most recent published EIA presentation on Peak Oil
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/speeches/Caruso061305.pdf
Looking at slide 12...even if these guys believe this and wish that the band will play on, do they understand what those curves mean when constrained by their assumptions of growth, URR and R/P = 10? There is no evidence that they do, but the graphs show very vividly is one thing and one thing only...collapse!
Collapse of supply and collapse of everything dependent upon oil production. These aren't somebody else's curves (e.g, Campbell-Laherrere from Scientific American Magazine in 1998. Then again, Campbell and Laherrere are starting to look spot on), these are the EIA's. Maybe it's about keeping the gravy train rolling until "they" die. Then it's SEP (Somebody Else's Problem) because then they'll be taking the "long dirt nap."
starship trooper,
thanks for that link to the EIA pdf. Its amazing. All I know is I want some of the drug they've been ingesting.
Bob Ebersole
At least the've been consistent(sort of). Other versions can be found at:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/feature_articles/2004/world...
and
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/presentations/2000/long_ter...
{Note: of the three published presentations, this 2000 presentation is the only one that has anything close to what looks "realistic." See slide 14. At the optimistic "mean" URR of 3000 GB and a symmetrical 2% growth and decline curve, governed by the area under the curve, they suggest a peak of 2016. At the "low" URR of 2248 GB, that peak would come much, much sooner (like "now"). It should also be noted that using available EIA data and estimates of past production and production since 1982, the Hubbert linearization is "aimed" directly at 2215 GB URR. To get remotely close to the URR "mean" values would require a significant and sustained departure from production characteristics for the past 15 years.}
The EIA keeps shoving that peak date just a little further away (I wonder what the IEO will look like when the finally approach the edge of their scenarios out 25-30 years or when it finally occurs to them that even these curves useless because the peak passed them by). Will they use the word "collapse?"
Given their history in the yearly IEO, they won't figure out that things really peaked until 6-10 years after the fact (just look at their North Sea predictions, as one example. But even their area by area outlook tends to be very rosy and largely a "cut and paste" job from the previously year's outlook).
Another example of rosiness (for Alaska) can be seen at:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/futur...
Produced in 2001 (with data through 2000, but apparently they did not get the message that 2000 production data was already down to 970.7 thousand barrels per day) they predicted another rosy scenario. All numbers are in thousands of barrels per day:
Year Projected Actual Difference
2001 1065.6 962.9 (-102.7)
2002 1059.8 984.7 ( -75.1)
2003 1061.3 974.6 ( -86.7)
2004 1086.0 908.8 (-177.2)
2005 1058.5 864.5 (-194.0)
2006 990.0 741.5 (-248.5)
2007 916.0 756.2 (5-month average)
Admittedly, they do a reasonable job of tracking and accumulating data. But as far as being useful for a predictive capacity and for making informed policy decisions...questionable. It gives the appearance of someone drinking the kool-aid. Remember Morten-Thiokol giving the "no problem" from headquarters in Utah over the objections of the on-site launch team representative for the launch of the Challenger? We know how that turned out.
I want to add that it was the EIA that placed the peak date of 2004 on Campbell and Laherrere's article (in 1998, the were looking at conventional oil and stated in that article that they thought the peak was going to occur by 2010). Today's IPM shows the highest production month for C+C is still May 2005. So far, it looks like Campbell and Laherrere's miss of 5 months is much better than the EIA's miss by 40 years.
Actually, I remember it, but a bit differently. Thiokol engineers were the responsible ones who wanted to delay the launch, though you may be referring to Thiokol management finally overruling them. Pretty chilling stuff.
Just for historical accuracy:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5175151
Yes, I was referring to the Thiokol management overruling the onsight Thiokol manager.
Wow! So the EIA really believes that Canadian bitumen production can be ramped up to 40 billion barrels per year, at a constant 6% growth rate?
I have to pinch myself to realise that someone actually believes that rubbish. And 60+ billion barrels of oil, all told, at peak. It is just utterly incredible.
Pretty remarkable, isn't it. I guess it's their response to the cover of the H2G2 ("Don't panic") as they try to come up with the answer of 42.
40 billion barrels a year is around 120 million a day compared to about 1-2 million today. Just try to imagine the infrastructure they would have to build to ramp up to that level of production. They are already running our of the gas needed to process it. Companies are currently spending multiple billions to add 100,000 barrels a day in capacity. 60% recovery when much of it must be buried thousands of feet down! That's what happens when you start with a demand number and back into what the supply will have to be.
I understood that the oil sands production was running at about 1 million barrels per day, at the moment. The highest production estimate I'd seen previously was 5 million, though 3-4 million seemed to be the expectation (with huge investment). 120 million just seems laughable, by comparison. Surely, only desperate people would even contemplate such a figure.
A reddit link if you are so inclined:
http://science.reddit.com/info/2d2j1/comments
and here's a link to the /. firehose:
http://slashdot.org/firehose
In the quantity used in 2006, the vast majority of ethanol replaces MTBE, not gasoline. MTBE is made from natural gas. Viewed in this context, the statements about replacement of gasoline are even more questionable.
See my article from June Corn-Based Ethanol: Is This a Solution?
The only useful thing I learned from reading Rush Limbaugh's first book (not mine!) was to NEVER trust the facts of someone with an agenda.
I think the TRICK is that corn-based ethanol can displace OIL but not fossil fuels.
David Morris and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance promote a "carbohydrate economy" which I might believe is possible if we can scale back our energy consumption by 98% and never moved the biomass more than 100 miles.
http://www.ilsr.org/
http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/
I remember a report they had which claimed every gallon of ethanol producted displaced SEVEN gallons of oil, apparently because coal and natural gas were principle energy sources for the growing of corn and processing of the ethanol.
So if you allow coal&NG to replace oil (via ethanol) then multpliers are POSSIBLE - I'm not taking a position on the honesty or accuracy of the claims.
On Mr. Dickerson's comment:
In fairness, I don't think we can definitively say that one is wrong, only greatly misleading. He didn't say the 500 million barrels not imported were saved last year. The time period is undefined. Perhaps he meant the 6 billion gallons of current production plus the additional 5 billions gallons of ethanol production capacity under construction will, over a long enough time period, save 500 million gallons of oil.
He did use the phase "we have to", implying the saving is in the future, as opposed to "we had to".
Not that I buy his claim of course.
That works out to be 4.2 years for the 5 billion gallons straight number to number. If the 64 million Barrels worth of Oil is used then it is 7.8 years for the 5 billion in capcity.
But the numbers won't stop there, if you do an EROEI for the whole lot, you might have to extend the 500 million barrels of Oil saved out for several decades. Which in the end really amounts to chicken feed in reality.
I vote for them knowing what they are saying and that they just hope we don't figure it out till after they put in place the fix on the Corn/Other grains versus food.
What gets me is other nations are going to be using these numbers because of who said them, and then making policy based on them and they are going to get screwed out of food and rain forest because they are listening to a bunch of uncaring liars.
Charles.
I don't know about that. Up until this decade, information put out by the US government was widely considered the least biased, most scientifically accurate information out there, and most countries could use our data with relative confidence. Now we have about the same level of trust as Bagdad Bob. If any country trusts us now, they will get screwed.
Just the mention of the name Baghdad Bob brings a smile to my face.
I think the TRICK is that corn-based ethanol can displace OIL but not fossil fuels.
Incidentally, these are the sorts of comments that will help me tighten up the FAQ. I knew how they were coming up with the numbers, but I hadn't explicitly explained why that is wrong.
I think that by considering how much oil could be displaced if you just found a lake of ethanol is useful. In that case, you have no fossil fuel or petroleum inputs. How much then can 1 BTU of ethanol displace? Only 1 BTU of fossil fuel - that is the theoretical limit unless you are using the ethanol in some kind of alternate end use technology. Yes, if you could feed it into a fusion machine, you would get a muliplicative effect.
My goal for the FAQ is to leave nothing open to the imagination. I am looking to wrap it in a bullet-proof vest.
That is impossible.
Every human being decodes the words and symbols on this web page in a different way. --You can never truly know what weirdness happens in my brain. (Of course, you can imagine.)
Take your word, "displace".
That could mean so many different things to different people. (Yes, I know you meant BTU-wise. But do they? You didn't repeatedly spell it out.)
For some reason this causes me to remember Dmitry Orlov's tale of getting across post-collapse Russia using ethanol:
"Each half-liter bottle of vodka was exchanged for ten liters of gasoline, giving vodka far greater effective energy density than rocket fuel."
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060105_soviet_lessons.shtml
Could be that if you stay drunk enough, you'd have less of a need to drive around. Just because it's a funny notion doesn't mean there's not a deep truth there.
Robert, is it possible that *some* of the inflation in these official stats could be based on the fact that only a fraction of the barrel actually appears as *gasoline* (for which the ethanol is presumably substituting directly). What would that ratio (gallons replaced to barrels replaced) give us?I regret I don't have that ratio - but the calculation is simple.
To clarify: if, as FRA says, 116 million barrels of ethanol was produced (and if, for the moment, we pretend a gallon of ethanol is as good as a gallon of gas), how many barrels of *oil* would be replaced (or, how many barrels of *oil* are required to produce 116 million barrels of *gasoline*)?
Seems to me that things would be clearer if all the numbers were in a common unit... mixing barrels and gallons and BTUs seems to me part of the problem, part of why these statistical statements confuse the unready readers... BTUs mean little to a gasoline consumer, I suspect. Of course the conclusions you draw are still sound, and the lesson important; it would just be easier to see why if we (you) converted everything into the same unit (for your FAQs, I think this would be effective).
Ever grateful for the ongoing education,
Shane
To you and Tom both, yes, this is how they have come up with these numbers - by making some invalid assumptions. They are assuming that since only 1/6th or so of the BTUs embedded in a BTU of ethanol come from oil (the rest are from natural gas or coal), that a BTU of ethanol can actually displace more than 1 BTU of oil.
But consider this for a moment. Consider if none of the inputs into ethanol were from oil. In this case your multiplier would be infinite. How much oil could ethanol displace? No more than the BTUs that are contained in the ethanol. A 1 to 1 BTU replacement is is the best you could get if the ethanol was free of any energy inputs, and just available for pumping out of a well. That is your maximum theoretical displacement.
Yes, exactly, so my question would be, to what extent are the numbers being thrown around *exceeding* that maximum theoretical displacement? It would seem to me that would be where you would want to first aim your critique (it seems they're still very high). Then you could twist the knife, so to speak, by pointing to all those assumptions that are ignored in the initial claims and that reduce the actual displacement further.
My point on the common unit stands, however. I really don't see an audience (student) grasping this without *someone* doing the work of converting the figures... and better the one who presents them, no?
That's the whole point of the statement:
To be precise, 116 million barrels of ethanol contain the BTU equivalent of 64 million barrels of oil.
What that means is that the maximum theoretical displacement if you just found a lake of ethanol containing 116 million barrels would be 64 million barrels of oil.
Hi Robert,
If it is possible to make the argument that we import particular kinds of oil to make gasoline, and we could use domestic sources or "fiendly" sources for the other products that come from the imported crude, then a multiplier could make sense. An energy independence calculation might not always be energy conserving on its face. If this is how they are doing their calculations and they say so, then I think you need to find the flaw in their assumptions by looking at the practices of importers and refiners.
I think it is perfectly OK for them to say that they are doing their part in displacing the imported oil so long as they can point to others who are picking up the other parts such as displacing jet fuel, heating oil and diesel. Together they are all displacing the same oil.
As you point out, they are not displacing fossil fuel consumption, but this is a different calculation.
I love the 'fiendly' sources of oil. I know it's just a typo, but what delightful connotations; you may have been misconscrued.
I knew that didn't look right so I checked that the i was before the e. Thanks for including a typo in your reply. That was a friendly gesture.
The policy seems to be get this point across to the american people that we are doing something about the problem, here is what we are doing, this is why you can spend those hard earned dollars on the nice products that you can buy on credit, this is going to save your collective behinds so don't worry.
That policy seems to be what is going on. We can lie to the dumb american joe six pack, because he won't ask why the numbers don't match up, because he can't figure out what the numbers mean, he was to busy watching american Idol that night and we can just candy coat this all, and still get our leaders elected and our bonus checks in the mail and everything will be just fine for a few more years, then I can retire.
It is summer, it is hot, so don't worry come fall when the temps go down, everything will be normal again and we can settle into a real happy holiday season.
Yay, no worries, we'll all be fine come elcetion time.
--Rant off--
Oil Displacement
1) We have roughly: 168 million cars, 63 million light trucks, and 5 million SUVs that account for 236 million of the 239 million vehicles -- 98.7% of all vehicles (fhwa.dot.gov, yr2000 data).
2) The auto industry sells about 16 million new vehicles per year -- 6.7% of the total, so about 15 years to replace at that rate (Edmunds).
3) "Battery Electric Vehicles" or BEVs require NO gasoline or diesel to operation, and EPRI-NRDC has said that there is "abundant supply of electricity for transportation".
Question: How many BEVs would we have to sell each year to mitigate/match the oil supply depletion? For instance, 2.39 million BEVs per year would replace 1% of the fleet (and therefore 1% of fuel use).
Guys, the numbers are so out of line that I can only conclude that they are meant to confuse the issue until the conference Energy Bill is negotiated. In other words, purposeful deception, or lies.
What's truly scary is that the oil industry lobbying groups are going to concede the Ethanol provisions so they can focus on the injustice of "punative taxation".
Who is going to represent the American people? Once again, the energy situation isn't a partisan issue, its not right or left. I've now officially quit all the parties, I think I'm a wobbly, an anarcho-syndicalist. The whores in Washington represent only themselves.
Just a little note, my Congressman Ron Paul didn't even show up for the vote on these bills. He was too busy campaigning in Iowa and doesn't consider energy important. Source: Houston Chronicle las Sunday.
Bob Ebersole
Robert, as a P.S., I answered your comment on yesterday's API thread, please read it.
Bob Ebersole
Check the guys over at FARK. Mathematically challenged:
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2984240
Heh, PG took the gloves off for those guys. (:
Robert,
It appears as if they simply reversed the ratio (to their advantage, of course):
116 million barrels ethanol / 170 million barrels oil = 0.68
My guess is that this is simply an example of innumeracy, which happens to make the etoh industy look good so it was never fact checked...
Interesting observation, and it makes me wonder. But, most of the BTU value of a barrel of oil is higher than that of gasoline, so if you are talking about BTU replacement, ethanol only equals 55% of oil.
On topic, here's a page from a paper on Renewable Energy Systems I'm currently writing:
The people in the DOE, nor Senator Clinton, are talking about water, land and natural gas limitations to ethanol scaling. This country is really reluctant to believe that certain aspects of our lifestyle are non-negotiable. Conservation and efficiency can fill our energy import bucket 1/4 of the way. Corn ethanol would be a few drops.
A few quibbles.
"EROI" is used by the financial types to mean "Energy Return on Investment", meaning dollars. It is more precise to use "Energy Return on Energy Invested", or EROEI. Also, note that your term "ω" can become negative, as in the case of gasoline, where some energy is used to produce the oil, then transport and refine and deliver it to the consumer.
Also, while it's important to calculate the land and water requirements for biofuel production, remember that water is renewable, even though it's availability is often limited. Many processes require water, but the water will be released back into the local environment after it is used. If the waste is in the form of liquid water, it can be treated and put to use again. Water use in agriculture results in evaporation, precluding it's further use at the time, but one can expect that a similar amount of water will be available again during following seasons. Water is not like a fossil fuel that can only be used once.
E. Swanson
Gasoline technically doesnt have an EROI, since oil has an EROI and gasoline is a conversion of oil. (Just like electricity is a conversion of coal). So gasoline is a combination of the EROI of oil and the efficiency of refining it - this has caused a great deal of confusion. And the energy literature is all EROI, not EROEI. Charlie Hall and Cutler Cleveland cringe when they see EROEI. (To me they're identical - not Charlie and Cutler, but EROI and EROEI)
Our water paper distinguishes between water withdrawals and water consumption. Indeed there is water permanently lost, or at least lost to the specific watershed in many instances. There is also the higher energy requirement to irrigate. Dry land corn has a significantly lower yield than irrigated crops, and at times, NO yield. Plus many areas use fossil as opposed to renewable acquifers and it is unclear if the water makes its way back fully to those underground lakes (Ogallala in NE, CO, OK, KS comes to mind)
I agree water limitations are more nuanced than oil, because the flows are not 'thermodynamic' (e.g heat loss), but its something that cannot be assumed away in an analysis of biofuels.
While you may be technically correct, putting it as EROEI makes it clear that the comparison is totally concerned with net energy rather than some monetary value assigned to it. When it becomes obvious to the general society that you can't print or borrow energy, then we can go to the short form. I like the educational aspect of the long form,and, considering that it is now officially an Approved Acronym, one more keystroke isn't a hardship.
Robert,
as well as showing the [gaping] holes in industry figures, is it possible to start out with a headline figure of how much net gas equivalent HAS been added to the US market via ethanol? (before making the point that this hasn't actually offset petroleum gas one iota)
I'm talking about headline punch - defendable: they say X, actually it's Y - but even Y doesn't contribute...
Like a mini-executive summary to start off with.
--
Jaymax (cornucomer-doomopian)
For what it's worth, I had the same take on it: that it would be better to see EROEI used when possible. There's a simple concept there that is missed by most people, let's change the convention and your article is a fine place to start.
And your paper probably makes the distinction, but it's presumably clean fresh water which is limited. Making a qualitative distinction between that and higher-entropy water mixtures which have fewer uses might be good.
I've been interested in the net energy question for about 30 years. The use of EROEI vs. EROI is important, as most folks in business are going to look at EROI and think about the economic relation of dollars in to barrels (or BTU's) out. It's important to send the proper message and using EROEI does this clearly. Please don't be stubborn.
There is indeed an EROEI for the products of crude, as there is an inescapable energy requirement in both the recovery of oil and in it's processing. The fact that this is less than 1 is part of the message, which is, oil production is not sustainable. As the discussion further down the postings points out, an energy source with an EROEI slightly above 1.0, such as corn based ethanol, sustainability is far from assured. Of course, the energy to produce the corn ethanol may come from another primary source, such as coal or NG or even nuclear electricity, but those energy sources may be useful in their own ways, such as coal generated electricity or thermal energy from burning NG directly, but these other FF's will ultimately be depleted just like oil.
If you really want to get into it, you need to start with the primary energy source, the sun, which causes plants to grow and drives the hydrological cycle. Plants are rather poor at converting solar energy to captured energy as plant materials, which is the main reason for the large areas required to produce biofuels. There are much more efficient techniques to convert solar to useful energy, but they require more structure and cost more. Biofuels may not be the answer, because of food production priorities. Right now, the corn diverted to ethanol production has not made a big dent in food available, although there are reports that we are at the edge of a problem there too.
Lost in almost all discussions about energy is the fact that all civilization is powered by solar energy. That's because people are powered by eating food derived from plants and plant growth depends on sunlight. As Peak Oil becomes a reality and things get tight, the ultimate question for most of humanity may be:
"Which would you rather do, eat or drive?".
E. Swanson
I thought that the EROEI of a derivative should be expressed as
Is this not the usual definition? Besides, if costing energy to produce automatically means an EROEI <1 and non-sustainablity, then AFAIK all energy sources have EROEI <1 and are not sustainable.
Using the above definition, with crude oil EROEI of ≈8 and refining efficiency ≈90%, oil product EROEI ≈7. This means that corn ethanol with (optimistically) 30-60% positive returns is competing against petroleum products with 600% positive returns.
(Although I hear good things about Brazillian sugar-cane ethanol {EROEI = 6?}, this also underscores the disadvantage of corn sugar ethanol.)
Robert, I just got off the phone with Jane Van Ryan of the API. I mentioned this thread, and she said that you've now become the Ethanol Expert, and mentioned the Rolling Stone article.
I'm trying to get API to come to Houston for the ASPO conference. We need every ally we can get, and they have the ear and pocketbook of the big oil boys. And, with any luck a Hospitality Suite full of cold boiled shrimp and free drinks, like at the OTC. Wouldn't it be great if we could get them behind Alan Drake's Electrification of Rail proposal? Its the only practical plan I've heard for reducing our oil useage 10% in the next ten years. I want the majors to see that, because with the admitted energy shortfall from the NPC report we have to start on mitigation right now to avoid economic disaster. If they expect to avoid the axe in 18 months, the big oil boys need to promote a conservation plan right now, and his plan won't hurt their sales.
If the big oil guys immediately get behind positive mitigation proposals they may just avoid being broken up. If they get behind this ethanol nonsense they are going to be blamed when, not if, but when the plan becomes a disaster. The sooner they realise that they are the designated scapegoat in all of this and put their money and minds into a real mitigation strategy, the better chance they have of surviving.
This new energy bill is a disaster. Bush is going to veto it, and it will be 18 months before the US does anything about energy, the worst possible outcome. Ethanol is just one of the terrible provisions.Bob Ebersole
Would it really be so bad if big oil companies got forcibly broken up?
I really don't see Western economies making much serious progress towards a more sensible and sustainable form of existence while we have these vast multi-national companies with mind-boggling profits that will do anything to resist change.
wizofaus,
It happened once before, when Congress busted up the Standard Oil Trust of Rockefeller. I think it would be counter-productive, as we need companies large enough and diverse enough to deal with the national oil companies.
But at that point, Standard had virtually all the US refining and marketing, and the US wasn't nearly so dependent on oil and gas. Now the US companies control only 1/8th of the world production, the rest being controlled by national oil companies (NOC), and even less of the refining and marketing.
The point I'm making is that no matter your beliefs, everybody deserves a fair hearing. The big oil companies have done a piss-poor job of educating the American public about what's required to explore for and develop oil, or the dependence of the economy on oil. They've gotten horrible negative publicity with supporting fake scientists on climate change. That's deserved, but it colors the other info people need to understand, and they've destroyed credibility by backing a lie.
When they get the consequences of this behaviour in "punative taxation" it hurts the independents in the oil patch too. The last time this happened was Nixon's price controls on oil about 1972, followed by the "windfall profits tax". The consequence-the majors went to drilling and producing overseas, and the best US prospects , under old oilfields and deep offshore were never drilled. In the last 30 years most of the good offshore prospects and federal lands prospects have been put offlimits, while the majors have forgotten how to develop deep onshore prospects on onshore producing structures. And, the independents had exactly the same penalties applied to them, deserved or not.
At any rate, if they'd get around ASPO they might get a dose of reality about how their positions have hurt them. They might figure out better ways to get their positions across. They might get a dose of reality themselves, and help us get our message to congress and the American people-they've got the money and the influence that we don't have. And, its not going to hurt anybody to at least talk.
Bob Ebersole
I don't have any particular opinion about your "punative taxation" concerns (though I do believe all fossil fuel processing companies should be paying for necessary carbon permits), but I do not believe that companies the size of ExxonMobil making the profits they do, and weilding the sort of influence they do, are healthy for a dynamic, functional and foward-looking free-enterprise economy. There are always going to be corporations who engage in less than ethical behaviour to protect their interests, but in an environment where they are just one player among many of a similar size, this is unlikely to lead to the situation we have now we the still-strong AGW-denialist (and PO-denialist!) lobby.
If you don't also break up the national oil companies, you'll have accomplished approximately nothing.
Good luck with that.
Glad to see you delving into this issue in more detail than your original post over at R-Squared. Certainly calling out overwrought claims about the benefits of ethanol is important whether you're a supporter or not, and the numbers you sight from RFA and others are silly at best. But conversely, you need to keep your own logic clear.
For instance, you seem to be suggesting that the increase in ethanol production is somehow causing our increase reliance on gasoline rather than just coincidental. As I mentioned in my comments over at R-Squared, the studies of the amount of petroleum that goes into the lifecycle of ethanol production are in general agreement that it's pretty low-- equal to about 5% of the energy in the finish ethanol. You're right to point out that other fossil fuels play a much larger role, which is why I would again urge you to take up GHG displacement as a critical metric.
Also as to why no displacement is evident by eyeballing charts, you have to take into account how we're using ethanol right now. We're using it as an oxygenate rather than for its Btus. Through last year, ethanol was mostly displacing MTBE. (You dismissed this too quickly in your response on R-Squared. As I understand it, MTBE consumption was equal to about 5 billion gallons of ethanol in 2005 and displacement when into high gear after Congress refused to offer MTBE liability protection to the oil industry.) So on the one hand, most of the nearly 5 billion gallons of ethanol produced probably didn't displace any oil; on the other detecting displacement would be very difficult because the displacement isn't on a btu basis. As an oxygenate, ethanol still reduces the btu content of the blended fuel, but provides other value on a volumetric basis.
In the end, I'd just reiterate my basic point: there are a lot of reasons that ethanol from corn has limited ability to scale and there are a lot of exaggerated claims. Most of these claims are about its benefits, but many are about its harmful impacts. The fact of the matter is that we don't use much oil to produce corn ethanol so if there were no other limitations and oil displacement was all that mattered, corn ethanol would be a oil alternative. Rather than trying to attack corn ethanol for one of the things it does well, we should be trying to focus the debate on the issues that really matter such as GHG emissions.
Please visit my blog on clean energy technologies and policies at: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ngreene/
nathanael
The energy balance of ethanol is completely a red herring. What people need to consider is the relative not the absolute energy balance, and this point has been lost in hundreds of debates over whether ethanol is slightly positive or slightly negative EROI.
What matters is the power density of biomass, and the lack of energy gain compared to a fossil fuel infrastructure built on 100+ times the energy gain thrown off from ethanol.
Ethanol and other low energy return biofuels are fine. But not for a planet of 6 billion with high rises, hospitals, shopping centers and other high power density, (low land use) structures. The fact that an energy source is renewable does not magically endow it with the physical characteristics of what its intended to replace. If we can't find comparable fuels, we have to change consumption and infrastructure.
If society runs on 100 fruits, and we are running short of apples, we decide to subsitute grapes. Each apple gives us 10 units but a grape only 1. If we substitute 50 grapes for apples we lost due to orchard decay, we still have 100 fruits, but now only 550 units of usable energy for work instead of 1000. This same principle will hold the more we disguise replacing high energy gain coal, nat gas, and oil with lower energy gain renewables. It's not set in stone due to possibilities of demand infrastructure and consumption changes - but there is only a finite amount of the high energy gain, constantly flowing, energy and power dense, easy to get out fruit.
I am putting up a guest post here tomorrow from Cutler Cleveland on the essential aspects of alternative energy which will discuss this in more detail. Hi to Dan and Wesley.
Nate,
You highlight an important point I want to elaborate on.
Crude oil is a very energy dense material that is refined into gasoline which is a less energy dense material by volume. We don't argue to much about how much energy is lost in this conversion because we can't substitute the crude for gasoline in the tank.
Conversely ethanol is trying to take something that has low energy per unit volume and convert it to something that has higher energy per volume, say cubic foot. Clearly we consume energy in the conversion but again the starting material can't be used in a tank only the end product.
So at the heart of the debate is that with fossil fuels you typically go down hill energy wise to the consumer product but in renewables its all uphill. If this premise is correct one will never find an equivalent energy replacement for fossil fuels. This does not mean that the liquid fuels (or even electricity) from renewables is not valuable in its own right.
What it does say is that we can't ever hope to produce the volume of end products from renewables that we can from fossil fuels. IMHO this is what is missing from the American debate. No