Lawmakers Out To Kill the Corn-Based Ethanol Mandate

mdsolar tips this report: "Teams of lawmakers are working hard on bills to cut corn-based ethanol out of the country's biofuel mandate entirely, according to National Journal. It's the latest twist in America's fraught relationship with biofuels, which started in 2005 when Congress first mandated that a certain amount of biofuel be mixed into the country's fuel supply. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was then expanded in 2007, with separate requirements for standard biofuel on the one hand and cellulosic and advanced biofuels on the other. The latter are produced from non-food products like cornstalks, agricultural waste, and timber industry cuttings. The RFS originally called for 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2010, 250 million in 2011, and 500 million in 2012. Instead, the cellulosic industry failed to get off the ground. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was forced to revise the mandate down to 6.5 million in 2010, and all the way down to zero in 2012. The cellulosic mandate has started to slowly creep back up, and 2014 may be the year when domestic production of cellulosic ethanol finally takes off. But then last month EPA did something else for the first time: it cut down the 2014 mandate for standard biofuel, produced mainly from corn. And now Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) have teamed up on legislation that would eliminate the standard biofuel mandate entirely."

Probably a good thing

[cold fjord]

Probably a good thing. Using corn or other edible crops has been linked to rising food prices that have been painful in the third world, the US, and Europe.

Record Food Prices Linked to Biofuels [technologyreview.com]
How biofuels contribute to the food crisis [washingtonpost.com]
Biofuel rule puts turkey farmers in fret over corn costs [washingtontimes.com]
EU votes on crucial cap on biofuels made from food crops [theguardian.com]

There are other ways to do it.

'Biofuel from non-food crops within 15 years' [telegraph.co.uk]
U.S. to Pay Farmers for Non-Food Crops for Biofuels, Vilsack Says [bloomberg.com]
Quest for cheap, nonfood biofuel starts with a brewery [eenews.net]

Of course it may not be popular is some states.

Re:reasons for it

[mhajicek]

It also damages two-stroke engines.

Re:Maybe this corn can be used for food again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lifted from [peterkaminski.com]
Sanity, he suggests, is "when a person is adaptable and satiable, capable of realistic planning and empathizing with his fellow beings." In the book, he expands on these traits:
flexibility -- to be able to change your opinion or course of action, if shown clear evidence you were wrong.
satiability -- the ability to feel satisfaction if you actually get what you said you wanted, and to transfer your strivings to other goals.
extrapolation -- an ability to realistically assess the possible consequences of your actions and to empathize, or guess how another person might think or feel.

Thanks, Obama!

[Overzeetop]

This just seemed like a good place for this meme.

Re:Diesel is a better solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but Diesel is not a panacea.

I'm sick of hearing people say Diesel is clean. It's not.

For a Diesel engine to run at proper efficency, it has to be warm. In colder climates this means Diesel engines idling for absurd amounts of time while they "warm up", or to prevent them from cooling down too much. During the "Warm-up", they are terrible polluters, spewing noxious fumes and particulates like crazy. This is due to the ineffencies caused by the cold engine. Catalyic converters and such help some, but they have to heat up too, and that takes time.

If you think I'm wrong, I invite you to stand next to a cold Diesel in -40c weather (Heck, even drive behind one!). Breathe the fumes for 10 to 15 minutes while your eyes water and your lungs burn... you'll change your mind about "Clean" Diesel.

I'm not just talking Pickup trucks either. Your Jetta TDI is just as bad. (I know, my boss used to drive one.) They're fine in the summer, but just as noxious in the Winter.

Re:reasons for it

[Ralph Wiggam]

Good. The fact that two stroke engines are still allowed to be sold is a disgrace. Running a weed whacker for an hour causes a lot more pollution than driving a Hummer for an hour.

Re:About Time guys....

[couchslug]

NG engines are easy to do and well understood, but the infrastructure issue means it's a fleet-use only item.

Folks who work with NG generators report very long life and low wear. If I had a convenient source of CNG I'd convert at least one of my trucks to bi-fuel as "gas and gasoline" systems can co-exist. Ford is going to offer a CNG option on the extremely successful F-150. (That would make a great option for a work truck since CNG can be used to run cutting torches, generators, and so forth. Standard hardware could easily connect them.)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/07/31/ford-f-150-to-get-natural-gas-engine-option/ [forbes.com]

Lester Brown thinks this is a good idea

[mdsolar]

In his new book "Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity" Lester Brown writes: "Between 2005 and 2011, the grain used to produce fuel for cars climbed from 41 million to 127 million tons—nearly a third of the U.S. grain harvest. (See Figure 4–1.) The United States is trying to replace oil fields with corn fields to meet part of its automotive fuel needs. The massive diversion of grain to fuel cars has helped drive up food prices, leaving low-income consumers everywhere to suffer some of the most severe food price inflation in history. As of mid-2012, world wheat, corn, and soybean prices were roughly double their historical levels."

He is pessimistic about cellulosic ethanol: "The unfortunate reality is that the road to this ambitious cellulosic biofuel goal is littered with bankrupt firms that tried and failed to develop a process that would produce an economically viable fuel. Despite having the advantage of not being directly part of the food supply, cellulosic ethanol has strong intrinsic characteristics that put it at a basic disadvantage compared with grain ethanol, so it may never become economically viable." http://www.earthpolicy.org/books/fpep/fpepch4 [earthpolicy.org]

Ethanol uneconomic says OIL lobby ..

[codeusirae]

So what's news, the OIL lobby pays politicians to shutdown ethanol production as this would cut into their profits.

'"This issue affects chainsaws and chain restaurants," Rob Green .. said at a lunch hosted by the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's top lobbying group`. ref [huffingtonpost.com]

Re:Maybe this corn can be used for food again?

[Anonymous Coward]

And for the standard automobile, E10 can be burned with minimal detrimental effects, zero changes in equipment, and minimal-to-zero engine re-tuning.

I've worked as a power train systems engineer for over 20 years for
a car company I should not name here but which is associated with a blue oval.

You don't know what you are talking about, and you are doing the
naive readers here a disservice by writing misinformation.

Ethanol absorbs water from the atmosphere. This can cause a fuel system to
malfunction in a number of different ways, ranging from freezing up in cold temps,
to corrosion damage which causes injectors and pumps to quit working.

Ethanol in gasoline was and is a giant pork-barrel project which benefits agribusiness
in the US and screws the rest of us. It is an unmitigated disaster and the sooner it ends
the better.

__