As I am sure most are aware, there are many detractors of the ethanol movement who indicate that ethanol is not economically viable. Although I am sure the argument is far deeper than my superficial understanding of the debate, the primary argument I tend to hear against ethanol is that it is inefficient to produce, because you have a tractor in a field burning fosil fuels to plant and you must ship it by rail rather than pipeline, which is also less fuel efficient.
I was thinking about it, and it seems to me that you can make the same argument about coal. I don’t know about the economic efficiency of a tractor in a field v. a large shovel and several dump trucks and the fuel that is burned putting the stripped land back in place–although I imagine they are not too far apart–but, you cannot ship coal by pipeline, and I imagine the average haul of a coal train (considering the length of PRB loads) is at least as long as the average ethanol haul.
What is it about coal that makes it such an economic darling and ethanol that makes it such an economic nar-do-well?
The difference is not so much in how ethanol is physically handled vs coal (although there are differences), but how it is paid for.
The mining, transportation and consumption of coal are economically viable activities without government mandates or subsidies. As “inefficient” as the operation may seem from a physical standpoint, the value of the coal as a source of electricity exceeds the costs of mining the commodity and transporting it to the utilities that use it. It’s possible that could change in the future. It may be that, someday, transmission technology will make it more economical to transport electricity from generating facilities at the mines, rather than transport the fuel, but that’s probably not in the cards for my lifetime. Another thing that could change is envir
Ethanol uses more energy to produce than what it yields when mixed with gasoline, is the statement I have heard. Whether that’s true or not is certainly debatable.
But to produce ethanol requires a lot of grain. E-85 fuel is only 5 cents per gallon cheaper than straight gasoline currently, though the price differential was closer to 50 cents or more at this time last year.
Transportation by pipleine isn’t possible unless the pipe is made of stainless steel, and engine parts on flex fuel vehicles are all of stainless steel because ethanol will eat away at other metals.
When these factors are taken into account, ethanol has lost its appeal due to the cost of producing and transporting it, and the added cost of a flex fuel system.
I think a lot of environmentalists oppose ethanol because it is a net loss on an energy basis (energy used to produce minus energy output). The subsidy is a political bone tossed to corn-producing states. Some sort of bio-mass fuel might be economically rational in the future.
Of course, any fuel has some cost of extraction: Oil, gas, coal, uranium; you name it. You have to pull it out of the ground, then transport it to a place where it can become energy. Additionally, each fuel has an output: how much energy you get from it per pound. So the key metric here is going to be: energy in vs. energy out. It can be expressed as a ratio.
Fossil fuels have been popular for centuries because they’re concentrated energy sources. Forged under high temperatures and pressures, they represent massive amounts of energy in a tight package. But even there, you’ve got a wide variety of outputs. For example, look at lignite coal. Most lignite is burned in mine-to-mouth operations (see: North Dakota, Texas). If you have to ship lignite 1,000 miles, your ratio of input to output will be so poor as to make it uneconomical. Though I’m no expert on it, I suspect uranium blows everything else out of the water in terms of its energy per weight unit. Of course, a variety of other factors have left nuclear power a minority method in the U.S.
At any rate, the economics of ethanol are something of a sticky wicket. I’ve seen a variety of numbers bandied about as far as that all-important ratio. The reason for the variances is the sheer quantity of inputs that ethanol has. The obvious one is the coal or gas burned to cook corn, which is required as part of the distillation process. But as you say, tractors have to go into the field to disc the soil, spread fertilizer, spray pesticides and herbicides, then combine the corn. Then the corn gets shipped by truck or train to an ethanol plant. Then, after it’s cooked into ethanol, that must be shipped by truck or train to a blending station, where it’s mixed into gasoline. Input after input after input. Compare that to coal, which can be shipped directly to a burn site, or petroleum, which is shipped to a refinery, refined, then shipped directly to market (with lots of efficient haul via pipeline).
We haven’t even gotten into the ancillary effects on other products reliant on corn syrup, and the effect of price changes on those products…passed on, of course, to you and me. If massive numbers of acres of arable land go to corn production from something else, what net effect will that have on the economical availability of beets, beans, carrots, wheat, canola, etc when their net tonnage produced drops to accommodate the tonnages of corn you will need for ethanol production? Heck, even dog food is mostly corn!
Keep in mind, that ethanol was developed for a reason- to find addition uses for corn, and thereby raise the value of the corn grown by the producers. That, they have succeeded in doing.
While I’ll be the first to admit that i have found this thread interesting, it still seems to fly in the face of all the hard headed “let’s keep these discussions focused only on railroading, because this is a RAILROADING forum” comments that many here seem so fond of flaunting.
Please remember that ethanol which is just ethyl alcohol mixed with gasoline and can be made from just about any grain or vegtable product or byproduct such as potaoto or sugar beet skins… There are experiments going on now suing sawgrass to make ethanol.
This does have a direct effect on railroading. Ethanol and distillers grain have become major railroad commodities. They have, in turn, affected the movement of rail grain. There are a number of branch lines in Iowa, for example, that used to be major grain unit train originators, and much of the traffic dried up because the grain was being trucked, instead, to ethanol producers. It’s true that the ethanol (and the distillers grain) often themselves move by rail, but the distribution patterns are different (and the ethanol is distillers grain may originate on different lines that the grain used to originate). The extent to which this continues or intensifies could have a significant effect on the agricultural rail network. Short lines could be especially vulnerable if they are on the “losing” end of these shifts.
Ethanol and coal have got to be two of the more lucrative products currently on the rails. Whether ethanol has a future will drastically affect investment in rail–particularly among short lines and regional railroads that have hitched their wagon to ethanol. As further proof thereof, although I am generally a fan of alcohol, I can’t say I have an interest in ethonol as a hobby or coal and the reason I was pondering the above was because I was wondering about future railroad investments. In fact, I think the future of ethanol will have as much of an effect on the short line industry is heavyweight rail cars.
I am not saying you are necessarily one of these people, Convicted One, but in contrast to those who want to confine the conversations on here to the “pretty blue engine looks better on my train set than the shinny red one,” the true benefit of this forum is gaining knowledge of things that affect railroads–like coal, ethanol, the legal system, and politics. Were it not for topics like this, the attributes of different types of coal, etc., I would have stopped checking this forum long ago–although I like the shinny red engine, there is only so much I can learn about it and still keep my interest. In contrast, whether that shinny red engine will make its way to the KBS because of a booming ethanol business or will be sold for scrap ten years from now is virtually limitless in keeping my interest.
Gabe
P.S. Also, I will never understand what is forcing people who think
It’s use in highway fuel was also brought about by the discovery that MBTE which was being used to reduce undesireable exhaust emmisions was found to be highly carcinogenic when it leaked into ground water supplies as well as when the resulting compounds formed by combustion in the engine.
Protecting the enviornment is a complex process. ‘Fixing’ one problem may create 10 more. MBTE is one such fix that created more problems than it solved.
Regarding the cap and trade (tax) issue, that certainly should come under scrutiny with the disclosures of the emails from University of East Anglina. No doubt this will be an interesting two weeks in Copenhagen.
Ethanol also uses considerable amounts of water, which here in the Midwest is not quite the issue as it is on the west coast.
While there is considerable cost subsidies to ethanol, there is also considerable costs involved (in the form of national defense expenditures) keeping the free flow of oil at market prices.
Has energy and the dynamics of it ever been as interesting…and as frustrating?
I could apply that argument just as easily to my “dirtykilowatts.org” thread, which, in it’s day got butchered and lamblasted for not being sufficiently embedded in the narrow crack of interest(s) that SOME people seem committed to imposing upon the flock around here. And then there are the political process threads that have direct bearings on railroading as well.
Using the litmus that get’s those type of threads locked, this one seems to be slpitting a narrow line indeed.
Very interesting! I’d heard that diesel fuel by volume, produces more BTU’s the gasoline. Where does natural gas fit (comparison would have to be by volume?).