I sometimes have to pause and remind people that I am not anti-ethanol. I think I first made that clear over two years ago with my support for E3 Biofuels' attempt to produce corn ethanol in a more sustainable fashion. They were attempting to create a closed-loop system that minimized fossil fuel inputs into the process, but they ultimately went bankrupt (the move toward sustainability isn't cheap). But politics being what they are, corn ethanol is not going away. So I do appreciate it when efforts are made to push the process toward higher sustainability. I believe corn ethanol can be sustainably produced, but probably not on a massive scale. It will also take a radical shift away from the way most corn ethanol is produced today.

What I want to focus on in this essay is one particularly compelling argument for ethanol as a fuel, and to address some common misconceptions. Ethanol has a high octane rating (103), which means it does not easily pre-ignite. This has the potential to translate into higher fuel efficiencies than can be obtained with gasoline – despite ethanol's BTU deficit versus gasoline.

The suggestion was made to Oil Drum staff that some of us might want to write recommendations relating to President Obama's energy policy. It seems to me that several steps come before energy policy: we need to get the worst of our financial problems behind us and we need to understand where we are, before we can make intelligent decisions going forward. Also, the issues are really broader than energy policy--they include agriculture, education, commerce, and a broad range of other areas affected by reduced energy supplies.

In this post, I offer a few ideas regarding what needs to be done. My ideas not chosen from a point of view of what is practical; instead, they are chosen based on what logically needs to be done, regardless of the practicality. Also, these ideas assume a fairly high level of understanding, and a desire to implement the best long-term solution, without consideration of the politics involved. In the real world, I doubt that these ideas have much chance of being implemented.

In case you are just venturing out of your cave for the first time in a week, you are probably aware that President-elect Obama has announced his new energy team:

Obama names energy team

The team includes Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy, former EPA head Carol Browner to fill the newly-created job of Energy Czar, and Lisa Jackson to head the EPA. The focus of this essay will be on Dr. Chu, but I will comment briefly on the others.

Lisa Jackson is trained as a chemical engineer (as was the outgoing Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman). It should go without saying that I like to see technical people in roles like this, where understanding science and data are both critical. Carol Browner, while not trained as a technical person, has a lot of administrative experience within the EPA. Incidentally, I once met Mrs. Browner, as she was the person who presented my research group with the 1996 Green Chemistry Challenge Award at the National Academy of Sciences for our work on biomass conversion to fuels.

Barack Obama has said that energy is going to be one of his top priorities. I believe he is completely sincere about this and that energy will get a lot of attention early on in his administration. I believe he is committed to moving the U.S. toward energy independence and a greener energy future. However, one can recognize energy as an important priority, yet sharply differ on the policy direction that is needed. For instance, some may have energy as a high priority because they feel that gasoline is too expensive. Their priority may be to keep gasoline prices low so people's budgets aren't adversely impacted by their fuel bills. Some can see energy as a top priority, and yet promote solutions like suing OPEC for more oil.

On the other hand, someone else may see energy as a top priority, but think low gasoline prices are not the solution, but instead a big part of the problem. This is the nature of my disagreement with some aspects of Obama's energy plans: We broadly agree on the big picture, but differ on how to get there. And since I recently heard him say “I may not agree, but I will listen”, here is my attempt to highlight what I feel are the flaws in his energy proposals.