Ethanol is barely the answer

by Tryan Hartill

The second big issue with Brazil is their feedstock, which is sugarcane. Ethanol is made from sugar, and sugarcane has, well lots of sugar. Almost 7 times more than our ethanol feedstock, corn. Sugarcane can grow in a few U.S. States, but it takes a very wet and warm climate. (Florida, Miss. ect…)

Just these 2 issues alone make the similarities between Brazil and the U.S. a stretch.

Next the story moves to the midwest, where farmers are growing corn just for ethanol. But to make this work, ethanol is heavily subsidized in order to compete with petro gas. Which I will admit is a better use of farmland, because before the subsidies came by way of paying farm owners for owning land. I have heard many stories about farmers in Iowa, where people bought farmland for around 20,000 bucks and made their money back through checks from the Government in 10 years time, then sold it for $20,000 again. I’m assuming this happens all over the midwest.
Ethanol (Corn) must be subsidized because the EROEI is very low, close to 0.3. If one were to power the whole process using ethanol itself, you would barely get anything out of it. It would be like walking up 10 stairs and having to step back down 7, it would take a lot of steps to go anywhere.
Hence this takes a lot of political pull to keep the money flowing from the Government. Keeping the subsidies intact is pretty much the main goal of the congresscritters from the Midwest and they can pull it off using their large numbers.

Now moving on to our neck of the woods.

Surely many people have heard about our biofuel potential, oil seed crops, Canola and Mustard Seed.
These 2 plants produce much more fuel than corn and they have an EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested) of close to 2, almost 7 times greater than corn ethanol. This is also leaving out the feedstock leftover, that has many uses. And you can use biodiesel to power the whole process. (Natural gas or “bullscat” needed also)

We have very few farmers growing either at this time, they can’t grow it and sell it as fuel because they can’t compete with $2 or even $3 diesel. The cost of diesel, must look to be well over $3 for years before they will ramp up production. An outlook that calls for $3.25 diesel would really ramp up production, as it is naturally an excellent rotation crop for wheat fields. The main problem is they are not really experts at growing it. As the case in Brazil, it took them 10 years to really get the hang of it. Thus I am very conflicted when it comes to Oregon and Washington biofuels. The process is actually doing the “freemarket” thing. Waiting until there is a demand for more expensive diesel before production is ramped up. But anyone with Google and 5 minutes can find the huge subsidies that the oil companies get right now, if those disappeared diesel would skyrocket and farmers would bring all they could to market. A Conservative group put the actual cost of a gallon of diesel in the $7 range, I won’t go there, but I am 100% certain that the actual cost is at least over 4 bucks a gallon.
We all know that the oil subsidies will never end, so the only solution to prepare ourselves for the future and to buy our fuel from local sources, is to also give subsidies to our farmers. But direct cash payments, like in the Midwest, are really not needed to get a program going. Thousands of State and Local Government owned trucks run on diesel. So they can create a market if there was a push by the citizens and their elected leaders. But the trick is, they would have to sign long range contracts and buy their diesel at a set rate, that could be higher than petro diesel.

But it could also be lower.

So in a way it may be a subsidy and then again it may save State and Local Governments 1000’s of dollars. This is what we as a State must decide, when to pull the trigger. IMHO the right time to start a program like this is to play the odds. If there is a 50% chance that diesel will stay above a set amount (Most likely $3.25) for a long period of time, then it’s time to pull he trigger and get things started. Washington State has already said yes, and they are set to put anywhere from 2 to 20% biodiesel in all their vehicles over the next few years.

So do you think diesel will stay above $3.25 for years to come or is the current price just a spike?

If the answer is yes, I would suggest you talk to your Representatives in Salem and create the demand needed to get a program in our State going.

Maybe we can even be on 60 Minutes!

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