Hi Joe! As you can imagine, living in the state of Iowa which produces more
corn than any state in the US, the issue of ethanol can be a pretty hot
topic! A total of 1.9 billion bushels were the final 2003 production
figures (that is a lot of corn flakes!). The price of a bushel of corn has
not changed a whole lot over the last 20 years yet consumer prices have
steadily increased - kinda makes the agricultural folks a bit hostile on
conversations concerning potential methods of getting a fair price for
their crop. There is a weekly debate as to whether ethanol is green
economics or nongreen economics with both sides of the debate producing
seemingly valid data sets. There are a number of interesting reports on the
production of ethanol and its environmental impact - I recommend reading
some of the Iowa State University studies as another data point in the
debate.

Happy Holidays!

Dave



                      Joe     Fjelstad
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                      12/18/2003 09:06
                      AM
                      Please respond to
                      Environmental
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                      Joseph9000






Thanks for additional information Brian. There seems to be an ongoing
battle
in all matters environmental these days. It is difficult to sift through it
all and find the nuggets of real value.

Below is an excerpt of an interesting article by Cecil Adams about elthynol
as an alternative to gasoline.

"Corn belt states began subsidizing ethanol after the Arab oil embargo of
1973. The federal government joined the party a few years later. The Energy
Tax
Act of 1978 authorized an excise tax exemption for biofuels, chiefly
gasohol (a
gasoline blend containing at least 10 percent ethanol). Another federal
program provided loan guarantees for the construction of ethanol plants,
and in
1986 the U.S. even gave ethanol producers free corn. It's estimated that
the
excise exemption alone costs U.S. taxpayers as much as $1.4 billion per
year.
The immediate beneficiaries of ethanol subsidies have been corn farmers
and,
more significantly, the Archer Daniels Midland Corporation of Decatur,
Illinois, better known as ADM. The world's largest grain processor, ADM
produces 40
percent of the ethanol used to make gasohol. As might be supposed, the
company
and its officers have been eloquent in their defense of ethanol and
generous
in contributing to both political parties. The politicians have been
generous
right back. The libertarian Cato Institute estimates that every dollar of
ADM's
ethanol profit costs taxpayers 30 bucks.
One might not mind spending the money if it bought us something--energy
independence, say, or cleaner air. But based on current evidence, it
doesn't.
Ethanol contains only about two-thirds as much energy per gallon as
gasoline, so
cars using ethanol blends get lower mileage. Though ethanol can reduce
carbon
monoxide emissions, the fuel may well produce more of other air pollutants.
True, the ethanol industry drives corn prices up, which helps farmers--but
a 1986
USDA study found we'd be better off mailing the farmers checks rather than
propping up an entire industry with tax dollars. (Ethanol has since been
touted
as a substitute for MTBE, an additive that makes gasoline burn cleaner but
also
causes groundwater pollution. However, skeptics claim that due to
improvements in engine technology, it'd be better just to dispense with
such additives
altogether.)
The capper, though, is the claim that it takes more energy to make a gallon
of ethanol than you get by burning it. One of the most vocal proponents of
this
view is Cornell University ecology professor David Pimentel. In an analysis
published in 2001 in the peer-reviewed Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences
and
Technology, Pimentel argued that when you add up all the energy costs--the
fuel
for farm tractors, the natural gas used to distill corn sugars into
alcohol,
and so on--making a gallon of ethanol takes 70 percent more energy than the
finished product contains. And because that production energy comes mostly
from
fossil fuels, gasohol isn't just wasting money but hastening the depletion
of
nonrenewable resources.
These findings were denounced by ethanol producers and their allies.
Michael
Graboski, a professor of engineering at the Colorado School of Mines,
published a rebuttal of Pimentel's paper, saying he used obsolete data,
etc. Pimentel
in turn rebutted the rebuttal. The debate has gotten pretty technical. I
make
only a few observations: (1) Pimentel seems to have tweaked his
calculations--in an August bulletin from Cornell, he says making a gallon
of ethanol takes
29 percent more energy than it provides, not 70 percent. (2) That conceded,
the
guy is no flake, among other things having chaired a U.S. Department of
Energy panel that investigated ethanol economics (and reached similar
conclusions)
in 1980. Graboski, on the other hand, is a consultant to the National Corn
Growers Association. (3) Given that ethanol production involves the
conversion of
massive amounts of energy from one form to another, the contention that the
process is an efficient way to make fuel seems to fly in the face of basic
physics--so much so that I'm inclined to regard the subsidy program, and
the fact
that it has survived for a quarter century, with something approaching awe.
Money-wasting government schemes are hardly rare. But how many do you know
of
that flout the second law of thermodynamics? "

Have a wonderful holiday season,
Joe