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94 comments on The Effect of Natural Gradients on the Net Energy Profits from Corn Ethanol
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94 comments on The Effect of Natural Gradients on the Net Energy Profits from Corn Ethanol
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As I have pointed out many many many times, EROEI is false because of the logic. No other form of energy has to endure this type of analysis. Electricity does not. Imported oil does not. This post is pure anti ethanol propaganda.
EROEI assumes that it possible and relevant to add the various energy contents of different components in the ethanol process. This is logically impossible. Each component has a different price, utility, characteristics such as renewability and as the post points out, availability. Things that are different can not be compared added, subtracted, divided or multiplied. If the are anyway as in this post, the result is silly nonsense.
The same applies to net energy because it is a similarly false concept. Why should we care about net energy when so many forms of energy are almost free such as solar, wind, geo thermal, gravitational, and nuclear which powers our sun and the stars. There can not be an overall shortage of energy in the universe as long as mass and the speed of light exist.
It is the fossil fuel forms of energy that are limited. Why not specify the forms of energy we are talking about? I suspect it is because then the slight of hand fraud of EROEI would be more obvious.
Energy is undefined in EROEI. Energy is an abstraction like fruit, grain or metal. Some energy is free and some is expensive. To lump all forms of energy together is ridiculous. And to single out a specific form to judge on the bases of an undefined abstraction is beyond ridiculous.
It is absurd that we could decide which grain to grow based on bushels of grain returned on bushels of grain invested. Or that we should decide which metal to produce based on tons of metal returned on tons of metal invested. Yet that is what EROEI and this post tries to do again.
Those who persist in this vein will in the end be exposed for the slight of hand fraud that they are perpetrating. They are attaching the invalid EROEI concept to Peak Oil whether they realize it or not.
It will tarnish the valid Peak Oil concept and do damage to our ability to mitigate its effects. It seems few at TOD care.
Fortunately for the country ethanol is now strong enough to withstand this invalid criticism. I am confident that the new administration understands the fraud that is going on with EROEI. I know Vilsack understands that it is false for sure. If Obama gets sucked into the EROEI trap Vilsack should be able to straighten him out.
It's simply criminal to produce fuel from food in a world in which hunger exists. This is the bottom line. Corn ethanol is a BAD idea, and those of heart and mind will continue to oppose it, despite hysterics from misanthropic vested interests that hope to profit from human suffering and environmental degradation.
As I have pointed out many many many times, you are a smart man but utterly clueless on this topic. ALL forms of energy have to 'endure' this type of analysis. Electricity is converted primary energy from wind, coal, natural gas, etc. BEFORE the conversion takes place, EROI is calculated for all those sources and they are all (except domestic natural gas) an order of magnitude higher than corn ethanol.
Its pretty simple. Energy is what we have to spend, not money. If we did a one for one swap corn ethanol for 86 million barrels of oil and kept all other energy sources the same, energy would all become unaffordable except to the very rich, overnight. You still don't get it. Please read my letter to Obama and upcoming piece by David on 'The Minimum EROI for Society'. They should answer your questions, if you have eyes to see them. In the meantime, work out the math on the thought experiment. ZERO OIL and all ethanol. What would happen..?
(*the reason I continue to respond to you is because I find it amazing that an intelligent person cannot see what is one of the simplest things to 'get' about peak oil. I'll keep trying different angles but my guess is that since you are a corn farmer it is ultimately a psychological cognitive dissonance or something that is the issue, not my explanatory ability)
I find it amazing that an intelligent person cannot see what is one of the simplest things to 'get' about peak oil.
"it's hard to get a man to understand something if his livelihood depends upon him not understanding it."
In another thread some months ago, x made one point that made a little sense to me. It was that if you had an abundance of different source of energy (coal, nuclear, solar, wind) but, what you really needed was a particular kind of source like liquid transportation fuels, it might make sense to waste some of the other forms of energy to get the one you really want. My response was that, from my perspective as a native of a tropical island where all non renewable energy sources have to be imported and paid for out of export earnings, the option of wasting one form of energy to produce another does not exist.
There are many weaknesses in x's arguments which I'm sure have been pointed out over the years but just in case this one has not been discussed, there's the question of how we got to this level of dependence on liquid transportation fuels in the first place. It was due to the discovery of a cheap abundant (non renewable) source of a very energy dense type of fuel, petroleum. Just as we have done in the past, the human race latched on to this source and exploited it as much as possible. It has lasted long enough for our civilization to become structurally dependent on it but, it is not going to last forever. In light of that, does it make sense to expend huge amounts of resources on an unsustainable form of energy conversion, when those resources might be better spent trying to reduce our consumption of and dependence on on liquid transportation fuels?
Case in point. It has been pointed out repeatedly that at best, corn based ethanol can only produce a tiny fraction of the current requirement for liquid transportation fuels while, increasing the US average fleet mileage to the level of Europe or Japan would probably save a larger fraction. Increased use of rail for long haul freight is another potential area for huge savings.
I saw a news clip on BBC World News yesterday (Jan 13) that showed a rubber wheeled, articulated bus with a pantograph on top in Ukraine. This is something I never even new existed but, once I saw it, I realized how many solutions might exist for reducing consumption of liquid transportation fuels. This prompted me to do a search which resulted in my browsing of this wikipedia article that says:
The point being that the EROEI in reducing our overall dependence on liquid transportation fuels would probably be greater than
the returns from the energy spent on this whole corn ethanol debacle. Obviously I have no stake in corn farming!
Alan from the islands
Exactly. By the time we are really out of oil, we will also be short on natural gas which is used to create ethanol. It would be much more cost effective to require higher MPG cars.
I have no problem paying farm subsidies. I think we should subsidize organic agriculture with products delivered by electrified rail. And I would be glad to pay taxes to that end.
Ethanol is a dead end technology. It wastes land and resources that could be much better used preparing for low fossil input agriculture.
As a resident of an island, you may be "wasting" a great deal of wind energy by failing to even try to capture it. Unless you are fairly far north like Ketchican or Attu, you're likely throwing away a lot of solar energy also.
"Waste" in this sense is rather academic. Others are less so, but still pertinent.
Vilack understands that he is the Governor of Iowa and that he is in the thrall of the ethanol industry.
Unfortunately, the decision to produce so much corn in this country is primarily a product of corn subidies. Remove those and the industry collapses because most corn farmers would frankly admit that it is all about the subsidy.
But the local CSA growing organic vegetables gets no guarantees, no subsidies, and no help.
Provide a free market for ethanol and the discussions you hate so much about EROEI would largely disappear. In the absence of a free market, however, we are forced to use some methology to provide a comparison between ethanol and gasoline, for example.
At the end of the day, if there are external factors such as renewability that trump a disadvantageous EROEI comparison, then fine. However, it remains the case that there are inputs into the ethanol production process which are clearly not renewable. You chose renewability as a factor that needs to be considered but ignored other issues such as soil fertility, degradation, impacts on the food supply, and the ability of the available land to sustainability produce enough fuel to power our vehicles.
When it comes to comparing an EV vs an ICE, rest assured that EROEI will and has been used to compare to the two modes of propelling a vehicle.
Anyway, I am sure everyone here knew that you would immediately cut and paste your usual rant against EROEI. The energy return on your rant is zero, if not negative. You are just undermining your cause by posting such nonsense.
Personally, I do not come down firmly either pro or con vis a vis ethanol because of the complexities involved. But, rest assured, your posts do nothing to convince me or anyone else that subsidizing ethanol is a good idea.
"Remove those and the industry collapses because most corn farmers would frankly admit that it is all about the subsidy"
Perhaps I am wrong but when corn market prices exceed the government price support floor then there is in effect no subsidy for that commodity(in this case corn).
And therefore they do not request the loans or other aspects of the government support subsidy.
I always sold my corn at spot prices and never desired to make use of my 'basis'.
And if you are not farming your corn 'base' then you do not qualify for a subsidy. When you farm land that has no 'base' for corn then you are 'wildcatting'. You are not going to get subsidies for that crop. Only on your 'base' if you have then and if you put your 'set aside' land in corn then you are defying the government programs. You right to do so but then you might wish when prices drop to the extreme below the support , that you hadn't done this.
The large operators and farmers play the government like a farm. Its called 'farming the soil office'. Yet in these times of high prices many do as they please.
Its a big game. And in times of low prices , yes there are subsidies.
And there are other forms , such as 'cost share' for sowing grassland drainage areas and putting in ponds(that was some time ago) and when you take land out of production you can get money for turning it into pasture.
Right now it seems the soil office ,USDA, is turning a blind eye to 'sod busting' because of ...well because they are. They want a lot of grain to come to market I suppose.
This is how I see that the program works. Others may and can disagree. In fact they most surely will.
Airdale
While I understand EROEI is a hard thing to accuratly gauge, ignoring it or calling it false seems like a bad idea.
While there is a great abundance of energy in the universe, the problem is that this energy is not easily stored or manipulated.
The energy in EROEI is mesured in joules, the universal unit of energy. By using joules you can measure how much energy has to be put in, in the form of fossil fuels, to the amount of energy extracted, in the form of ethenol.
The metaphors that you are using do make it sound absured. What if, though, it took 15 bushels of grain to feed your horse each year. You needed your horse to work your feild that produces an unknown number of bushels of grain each year. If you produce 20 bushels of grain you have enough to feed your horse and 5 bushels left over to feed yourself. If you produce 10 bushels, you don't have enough to feed yourself and your horse. You can not eat yourself and die. You can not feed your horse and he dies, then next year you cannot work your field and you die.
To me, ERoEI seems like the only logical way to look at fuels. While it is very difficult to put numbers on the exact amount of energy input needed to extract an amount of energy, I don't see any alternative.
It seems to me that you don't really understand ERoEI. There is a very good article on wikipedia that I would recommend reading if you haven't. Or, do you have some alternative method for comparing fuel sources?
I see why you were so charitable in your post. You have been here a little over 59 minutes. See how you feel after about 50 repeats of X's post.
We have discussed the EROI of imported Oil, geothermal and many other things found here.
Why not? Cost-benefit analysis, for example, uses money as a common metric by which to compare the relative values of different things. EROI uses energy.
A deeper understanding of the net energy concept would show you that it is usable energy gained at a net energy profit that is of value, not just "energy" per se.
ok enough for now...
If EROEI need not be considered then let us assume you construct a little experimental economy where ethanol is the only form of energy; no oil, gas, coal, wind, or solar panels; just grow corn and make ethanol from it. You must rely on the energy in ethanol to produce everything you need including the energy you need to produce more ethanol, including the infrastructure.
If you use up more than a gallon of ethanol to make a gallon of ethanol, how long would this economy last?
But you say you that this is an unrealistic economy because you can capture energy from wind and solar panels to supplement the input of ethanol to make ethanol, and you can keep ethanol production going. But would not you have more energy left from capturing energy from wind and solar panels if you had not used up some of it to keep the losing ethanol operation going?
If you were running a business based on your understanding of economics and accounting, then I think it would be bankrupt quite quickly. You must be in government, where squander is the operating principle, or in sales where it does not matter if you make a profit, but only that you make the sale.
EROEI matters for everything we do, which is why eventually all fossil fuel extraction will be reduced to the impractical.