Will ethanol E85 catch on in the US? Will we Live Green and Go Yellow?
Ethanol is creeping up in the news more and more. Not the 10%, but 85% or E85. A number of manufacturers have E85 compatible vehicles on the market. Fueling stations are slowly being opened.
There are environmental, business and legislative questions. At the end of the day - will consumers embrace ethanol similar to the adoption of hybrids?
There are environmental, business and legislative questions. At the end of the day - will consumers embrace ethanol similar to the adoption of hybrids?
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I don't think they will. Maybe in the corn growing states. Even with a big subsidy it is more expensive than unleaded. It is also about 25% less efficient. If people think it is hard to find Diesel. There is only one station in California that sells to the public. The E85 price today is $2.79 per gallon. It should be kept in the midwest where the corn is grown. Until they can make it without huge subsidies to the mega-Ag corporations, it is not viable. Corn is far from an earth friendly crop.
Of course, if gasoline gets more expensive (maybe double what it is now), or scarce, then the whole picture changes for ethanol.
I believe E85, along with biodiesel and hybrids, are just flavors of the month. Its like putting a band aid on a broken leg, they won't even come close to solving our energy problems. We need to find another energy source and fast.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
The core problem with E85 is that there is no "wow factor" for the consumer, just no compelling reason for the consumer to seek it out. Toyota was smart to make its first hybrids into a showcase of technology, which created a sort of hybrid chic that motivated the earlier purchasers to buy them, despite the high cost. Honda's approach of simply enhancing gas motors gets the improved power and fuel consumption, but also doesn't make the technology very sexy for the end user.
Not specific to cars, but I would recommend Geoffrey Moore's excellent book on technology marketing called Crossing the Chasm to get some general insights that could applied to seeing why Toyota has succeeded in making hybrids catch on. In essence, there is an adoption cycle for technology that determines whether products will or will not survive the mass market, beginning with "innovators" who are tech enthusiasts, followed by "early adoptors" who serve as visionaries to the buying public. If you can make the leap over the chasm from those two groups to the pragmatic "early majority", then you have a winner. Toyota has worked diligently to appeal to the first two groups, and is now working on getting things established to appeal to the pragmatists who help drive the spike in sales.
I don't blame GM or Honda for trying to take more subtle approaches, based upon past failures of electric cars, but they missed the boat on how to generate public interest. Now Toyota has the advantage of first mover advantage, which means they will be able to license their proven and popular model to other automakers, who will find their best pitch to the customer is that they use Toyota's hybrid technology. I don't see any automaker that is currently pushing E85 being able to pull off a similar coup.
What I found funny as well was when the president gave his speech back in February about utilizing E85, the prices shot through the roof, so it's now gotten even more expensive. That just tells me it's all a game.
I think for it to make an impact:
E85 has to be more energy-efficient than an equivalent amount of gasoline (or by hella cheaper)
If less-efficient, can't be no more than 10% than gasoline
Can't be volitale like gasoline pump prices (constantly going up, then sliding down a penny, then back up by a dime a week later)
Readily available like gasoline - why drive out of your way to save a nickel when gasoline fuel is available darn near every corner
Determine what happens when there's a drought, bad crop, etc - a la Katrina
Control the gouging
I could go on but the post is long enough
May I ask where you are at? I am in the Midwest just outside of Chicago. There are enough E85 stations to make using it no real hassle. The last time I checked prices were around 50 cents less than regular unleaded. But still with the loss of mileage the E85 would still be more per mile.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
The basic point is that there is no way to replace gasoline with corn. Even if it were possible to double or triple corn production.
Further more, corn is an extremely earth friendly crop. It produces food for the masses, livestock and can create renewable resources, fuels, packing materials, byproducts and other products we use in our daily lives. I have no idea where you get the idea it is an earth unfriendly crop - perhaps you need to visit the midwest before putting down a very important resource we can produce right here in our own country.
I happen to own a farm in MN. I know exactly how much chemical is required per acre to get a decent crop of corn. I know how many years of Alfalfa has to be grown on the land before I can grow another crop of corn. Corn requires more chemicals than most other crops. These are chemicals that leech through the soil into the water table. These are some of the reasons I let my farm go to natural pasture. It is not good for the environment. It is not cheaper than unleaded when you consider we are adding a dollar or more to each gallon by way of subsidy.
How do you get it out of the midwest to market?
In Massachusetts, an estimated 250,000 flexible-fuel vehicles stand ready to run on E85 as easily as gasoline without mechanical adjustment. Yet because New England has no ethanol production facilities, transporting E85 from the nearest producer in South Bend, Ind., was cost-prohibitive until gas prices reached the $2.50 per gallon range.
Still, unless the Commonwealth is persuaded to subsidize an ethanol infrastructure, fuel specialists say, pumps stocked with E85 are unlikely to spring up here.
Chief among the skeptics is Cornell University ecologist David Pimentel. In analyzing how much fossil fuel and other energy goes into planting, fertilizing, harvesting, and then converting corn into a liquid fuel, he concluded in a 2005 paper that the process isn't economically or environmentally advantageous.
''Actually, we're contributing to global warming [by using E85] because it takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than you get out of that gallon," Pimentel said.
E85
How far just outside Chicago are you; I've probably been there.
I know there is a station just North of Wrigley field on Clark that sells E-85. A lot of the burbs have one. Most places I have seen that sell it is Gas City. I will be going by one place later on and I will check the prices.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Second, the Cornell energy balance scenario is a.) wrong b.) assumes that the sun doesn't count c.) ignores the fact that we run on a liquid fuel economy (i.e. coal has a MUCH higher balance than regular gas but I don't think we're going back to steam powered cars).
So, what does E-85 have going for it?
1.)Sunsidize a farmer instead of a terrorist or several other groups of people that would rather you just die.
2.)It IS cheaper per gallon if your local station doesn't rip you off. It SHOULD run about 25-33% cheaper.
3.) Higher octane means more horsepower.
What needs to be done?
1.) Auto manuafacturers need to designs vehicles that capture the HP boost via turbos, ignition changes, etc. AND change the gearing in the drivetrain to boost the mileage while keeping the drag-racing performance equivalent to the regular vehicles. The Bio-Saab did all of this EXCEPT the gearing change so the fuel economy is still less.
2.) More stations need to be made available.
3.) Bio-mass conversion to ethanol needs to be put into production.
I hope nobody feels flamed, just wanted to add some food for thought and dispel some irritating myths.
Oh, one more thing, to commercially produce ethanol under today's technology costs $1.30-1.80/gallon while bio-diesel (to spec) costs about $2.70-3.10/gallon. So yes, the last too years, ethanol plants could have stood alone without government subsidies but the spring of '05 would have been rough with ethanol trading in the $1.05/gallon range.
Cheers,
Boiler
It would be cheaper but not by that much, factor in the loss of mileage it becomes more costly to run your car on E-85
3.) Higher octane means more horsepower.
No it doesn't
just wanted to add some food for thought and dispel some irritating myths.
Just how do you dispel irritating myths by putting out more irritating myths?
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Ethanol consumption is not 25% higher but about 10 to 15%(my personal experience). Engine power is increased, but very slightly (less than 5%) so you hardly notice the difference.
I agree that the main factors for ethanol adoption would be the economics and availability. Here the wrong assumption is that prices will be stable in the next future. Prices are not frozen and I think the only guarantee is that they will change.
How much? You would need a crystal ball. But nobody expects that oil will be cheaper in the future, the trend is only to increase. There will be a price level that will make ethanol attractive.
Wrong assumption: ethanol production does not depend on just corn. There are several different ways to "grow" ethanol. It can be extracted from corn, sugar cane, beets and other cultures. Each one gives a different cost. The price of these commodities depend on supply and demand, that's why prices are always changing. Besides prices also affect production. The higher the price more area is dedicated to that culture.
Oil does not offer this choice. There is a ceiling on the production level and the world is very close to this ceiling, with comsuption increasing, the price tend to go higher.
Regarding availability, it is also an economic issue. It is not difficult for the gas stations to offer ethanol. If there is demand and oportunity to make profit on selling ethanol, I am sure they will start offering it.
There is also the political issue on whether government will subsidize ethanol or impose more taxes on gasoline which would affect the balance between both.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Better let the EPA know, their tests show anywhere from 20 to 30+ percent less fuel economy. I had a car that could use E-85 and my MPG with E-85 was a little more than 70% of what I got with gas.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
If that is a fact which I doubt. Where does the $1.00 per gallon subsidy fit in. It seems E85 is selling for about $2.05 in the production area. It should be about a dollar less. I think it actually costs about $2.30-$2.80 to produce.
I do agree supporting terrorists is a bad thing. Too bad the little farmer is left out on the ethanol corporate welfare scam. A little farmer would have a hard time making any money growing corn at 2 bucks a bushel. They are better off chopping it for silage and feeding their cattle. Remember if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. That fits Ethanol.
Biodiesel is also subsidized and about the same price as Ethanol to produce. The difference I see is that biodiesel is being produced by a lot of small operators. Biodiesel has at least 50% more energy than ethanol. E85 in CA is the same price as B20 biodiesel. B20 is more readily available.
Why do you think that ADM is actually selling ethanol to the Sunday morning talk shows? That subsidy is going into deep pockets, so much so that some are talking about removing the subsidy. Whether this involves removing the tariff I do not know. Either way, ADM is trying to make you feel better about there making obscene profits right next to Exxon-Mobil.
Now, the pity party about the farmers. Actually, the farmers who DO own many of the farmer-owned ethanol plants are doing quite well. You don't have to believe me, just go to the SEC.gov site and look at their financials and realize that alot of these are Co-Op owned. The two largets gorrillas in the ring, ADM and Broin, still have to share the market with the 10,20, and 30+ million gallon plants scattered throughout your state (Minnesota I believe), Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa where the basis was so low that farmers were better off sending a processed commodity and then feeding the waste product, Distillers Grains, to the local feedlots where they were readily consumed as an animal feed. So, while they have struggled for year, many Co-Op shareholders will be investing into new pick-ups, tractors and other on-farm niceties thanks to the profits their plants have made the last two years.
Sustainable? That's one I won't tackle. I don't predict the weather, either. As for $1.80 ethanol, those record corn yields for the last two years have influenced that (which you probably already know so don't be offended by the obvious). Scale and process is also a factor.
U.S. gasoline is facing a major change in the way it's manufactured and distributed. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 repealed the 2% oxygenate requirement for reformulated gasoline, the cleaner-burning blend used in the country's smoggiest regions.
Due to hundreds of pending groundwater contamination lawsuits against makers of MTBE, the primary oxygenate in most reformulated blends of the fuel, and the fact that the energy law didn't protect producers from past or future lawsuits, many gasoline marketers are planning to eliminate their use of MTBE once the oxygenate requirement lapses on May 5. In addition, the new Renewable Fuel Standard establishes for refiners a baseline use of renewable fuels such as ethanol measuring 4 billion gallons in 2006 and expanding to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012.
While the shifts have been well flagged to the industry, concerns about the switch come from the different properties of MTBE and ethanol that can impact not only gasoline production but its distribution and storage - and ultimately the prices consumers pay at the pump.
Ethanol, unlike MTBE and MTBE-blended gasoline, can't be transported by pipeline. It has to be moved and stored separately from the base gasoline mixture to which it is added just before delivery to retail stations. This is a a huge change for an industry that has long relied on pipelines to supplement local gasoline production and imports.
Ethanol Market Watch
"Frankly, I believe that it is egregious to require this nation to use more ethanol than we need in our fuel supply. This is terrible public policy. It amounts to a wealth transfer of billions of dollars from every state in the nation to a handful of ethanol producers. I believe this mandate amounts to a new gas tax."
Feinstein objected to the mandate on the grounds that: Read More
Biodiesel is also made in much smaller quantities at these plants as well. This, however, is about to change:
Biodiesel Plant in Indiana
So, when you site information, even over-hyped political rhetoric from EITHER party, realize that the landscape does change.
I guess she would rather fund another yacht for a prince in another country...she just won't let them buy the port to park it in. :shades:
C'mon lets leave the politicians and movie stars out of a semi-rational debate.
I would pay $5 per gallon for fuel for my car if the source was domestic!! Then, we could just blockade the entire Middle East and let the fanatics just kill each other instead of us.
Fair enough! I am not totally against Ethanol. I think in the midwest it is a viable option. I just don't trust the government to govern it's use. Seems when they get involved we end up in a bigger mess. I kind of put it in the same arena as CNG. It has very specific advantages to a very specific demographic. I get the feeling that Washington has just discovered it and want to push it on the public. Another thing having grown corn, I do not believe a small farmer will make money selling corn to a co-op for ethanol. It is cheaper now than it was in 1978 when I last planted my farm in corn. I got between $2.60 & $3.00 per bushel. How much is that in today's dollars. And I was losing money at that price.
Or turning coal into diesel and gasoline.
Considering the US has some of the world's largest reserves of coal... we could easily wean ourselves off foreign oil without having to plow under new farmland to do it.
But for some reason, no one wants to consider it.
:confuse:
They still won't become a good idea until a way to use less becomes available. After all, reduction is the key. Simply switching to an alternate fuel only puts a new bandage on an old problem.
That's where ethanol comes in. All the hybrids are capable of 10% usage already. And some owners have been fueling their hybrid that way for years now. Both emissions & consumption are reduced.
Once that 10% infrastructure becomes well established, the percentage blend can be increased. Until then, this E85 nonsense is just greenwashing.
At the same time, the evolution of plug-in hybrids continues. With that comes introduction of a third fuel to the mix... gas, ethanol, and electricity. That last one can be far cleaner than any other source of energy, plus its renewable.
In short, the solution is more than just E85 alone.
JOHN
I hate to burst your bubble but E85 cannot be in the solution. Even if everyone used plug in hybrids that ran on E85 (an event that will never even come close to happening) we would not be able to produce enough ethanol.
The solution has to come from another fuel source. One that isn't in a finite amount and one that doesn't need huge tracks of land to grow it on.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Now, the government and why they are involved...at least on the local level (possibly the national level).
When you invest $40-150 million dollars in a plant in a community, bump the price of corn 7-12 cents/bushel for several surrounding counties, hire 20-40 people, put a load on the local infrastructure in the form of water, power and gas/coal use: (p/P)olitics will be involved.
On the national level, the DOE and USDA have been working for decades on alternative energy uses. Through taxation and regulation, congress and other entities can steer (not drive) industry to favor certain technologies. Sometimes this is good (clean water, clean air, etc.). Sometimes this is bad (clean coal & gasification being lumped into "coal"). The reason that politicians are involved is because of you and me.
This is most easily seen at the local levels, but believe me, the same rules apply at national level.
One more thing, the government can afford to seemingly "waste" money that industry cannot afford. There are several energy projects that would fall in this category. Cellulosic would fall into this category EXCEPT they now have the yeast and enzymes to convert biomass to ethanol the problem now lies in lining up the 2,000 plus farmers, with new equipment, to provide the biomass to a plant to produce the fuel.
It is possible, but it will take public support for these initiatives. Political support and funding is nothing more than indirect public support.
If you don't believe that, think of the absurd opposite: a politician at a rally chanting "bring us the landfill" Doesn't happen on a national level? One acronym: DPW
If plug-in hybrids (like an augmented 2004 Prius) deliver around 70 MPG for real-world averages and a majority of their driving is within the recharge distance, how much ethanol do *YOU* think would actually be needed?
Since you already drew a conclusion, please share with us how you were able to determine that.
JOHN
You have clearly fallen victim to the "E85" marketing.
Just because E85 is the maximum the current systems will support does not mean it is the only blend ratio that works.
Any percentage up to 85% works just fine in a FFV system. So if the supply is running low, you just use whatever the heck they can deliver to the pump at that time. If it is only 60%, no big deal.
Remember, FFV means "FLEXIBLE Fuel Vehicle".
JOHN
Now let use presume we could triple the mileage using battery and hybrid technology. That would mean that we would need 52.89 Billion gallons of Ethanol. It would take over 22 billion bushels of corn to make that much ethanol. The entire U.S. Corn crop in 2004 was 11.8 billion bushels. You do the math.
Now thats presuming you can get everyone to get a Prius and spend thousands of extra bucks to convert it into a plug in and us it as such.
Face it E85 is not the solution nor is it part of the solution.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
A number of solutions can be combined in order to achieve an improved result, there's no need to rely on just one fuel source alone. There is no reason that a number of technologies can't be combined (hybrid, ethanol, biodiesel, mass transit, etc.) in order to reduce the world's overall dependency on petroleum. Even if you could achieve just a 20% reduction in oil consumption, that would be a significant gain that would provide a stopgap as more long-term and definitive solutions are sought.
No just the opposite. E85 as well as E60 or E45 or E72.63745234 or whatever number you want to put next to the 'E' exists in a finite amount. There is only so much fossil fuel that can be pumped out of the ground and only so much ethanol that we can produce. either one will limit how much E-whatever can be made.
Ethanol is not a solution just something that may or may not help us until we find that solution.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Maybe Switchgrass holds the key. I don't see corn as a reasonable solution. You figure our farm produced 130 bushels in a good year. About 90 bushels on average. That was once every 4 years unless you really dumped the nitrogen into the land. 130 bushels of corn at yesterday's $2.22. On the 80 acres I would gross a little over $2000 in a good year. I was going broke in 1979 at $3 bushel. The big AG corporations with thousands of irrigated acres can get 250 bushels an acre. They hire illegal farm workers and get huge subsidies. I do not see that system as beneficial to America.
Then you have extremists that think unless every vehicle is SULEV rated it is a polluting piece of crap that should be run through the crusher. That is not helping our energy problems at all. That is only making it worse.
I just don't see Ethanol as a viable solution using corn as the crop. I only see "Pie in the Sky" money wasting government programs.
That is exactly right. And most people go ahead and use unleaded as it gets 25% better mileage. If unleaded regular is $2.50 and you can get E85 for $1.85 it is a good deal. Problem anywhere outside the ethanol production area E85 is higher priced than unleaded regular. The simple reason is, transportation limitations that ethanol presents. Ethanol is highly flammable and explosive, unlike biodiesel that is very safe.
Ethanol hazards
Biodiesel is safe to handle and transport because it is as biodegradable as sugar, 10 times less toxic than table salt, and has a high flashpoint of about 300 F compared to petroleum diesel fuel, which has a flash point of 125 F.
Biodiesel characteristics
Correction it gets 33.33% better mileage on average.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Destroy those vehicles already on the road, rather than just setting that higher standard for new ones. Really?
Who are these extremists you are talking about?
I've been called that before, even though PZEV is cleaner than SULEV and it was in reference to a minimum for new vehicles.
Explain this stereotype you claim to exist. Perhaps it can shed some light on the resistance to ethanol in any percentange.
JOHN
By setting unrealistic emissions standards, it raises the price of new cars to where older cars are kept on the roads longer. Not everyone is as fortunate as you and I, that can buy a new car whenever the notion strikes us.
I would estimate with a strong degree of confidence, that 75% of all Toyotas sold in the USA two years ago were rated LEV or lower. That is a 0-3 EPA rating. Only a very small percentage of Toyotas sold in 2004 and prior were ULEV or higher. The cost per vehicle to raise the standard from ULEV to SULEV is very high. No wonder cars cost so much. With each added emissions device comes a decrease in FE. The benefit of going from ULEV to SULEV is less than one pound of pollution per 15k miles of driving. We have reached to point of diminishing returns on emissions. A car that has a LEV rating is very clean compared to any 10 year old car. We need to get "REAL" call LEV good and get on with finding solutions to our diminishing fossil fuel supply.
Maybe E10 is better for the environment. Is it worth the loss of fuel efficiency?
That is far from a slam dunk solution also. They are going to have to do some major changes in battery technology for plug-in hybrids to ever be mainstream.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
The Clark station, know it. There isn't a Gas City by me; there is one near where I used to work in Lombard - I think it's named something else now.
But other than that, E85 is scarce here. There were a couple of stations long ago, in Hickory and Palos Hills that had an E85 pump, but they're gone. Even then that's kind of a drive to get to.
Unfortunately not enough up to yesterday as I paid $2.42/gal or so for regular for the past month. Yesterday I filled up @ $2.49 - was lucky as most of the stations were $2.65 or more.
Again, I would have to drive a bit to get to an E85 station. Add in the distance, reduced mileage, the extra consumption and it really is not economical for me.
IIRC there are two stations in the city, one each in Evanston, Des Plaines, Lombard, Aurora, Romeoville, Naperville, Arlington hieghts, Batavia, Mount Prospect, Orland Park, New Lenox, Willow Springs, Villa Park and a couple of other places near the city. While there not everywhere they can be gotten to with a minor detour for most drives in and around Chicago.
Yes if you just stay around in the city it would be hard to get to one, but if you drive around the burbs you can usually be somewhat close to one.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
I would say that even if you had a pump in your driveway its not economical for anyone.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
...you haven't provided any reason not to use coal gasification technology.
If diesel isn't your cup of tea, then the coal is processed into gasoline.
Every ton of coal processed is just that much less money we give to terror-loving nations of the mideast.
Or to certifiable lunatics in South America (Venezuala).
I'm not trying to start anything, I just think we could produce a lot more corn than we do now.
According to people who follow that sort of thing the average acre of land produces 160.4 bushels of Corn.
Typically we can rotate corn every other year to every third year.
OK so with about 362 Million acres of farmland in the US being rotated every third year would mean that 120.67 million acres a year. producing 19.35 Billion Bushels which would yield just under 46.5 billion gallons. Thats short of the 52.89 billion gallons we would need (presuming everyone drives plug in FFV prius).
Yes we can produce a lot more corn but it still won't be enough. Also remember we need to grow food to eat.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D