Ethanol operating capacity + new capacity up 63% over 2005 production

[JohnWxy]

HEre are the numbers for Ethanol production, U.S. (in Billions of gallons) from http://www.ethanol.org/production.html

Note that available capacity at the end of 2005 plus new capacity under construction is 62.7% greater than 2005 total production. Pretty fair expansion.


                                 Billion Gal       percent
                                                     increase
Total production: 2004     3.4    

Total production: 2005     3.9            14.7%        over 2004 total production


capacity at end of 2005    4.6            35.3%        over 2004 total production

under construction           1.745         37.9%       over end of 2005 capacity

capacity end of 2005
    plus new capacity:       6.345         62.7%      over the total production for 2005

If you assumed a 38% rate of growth (which might be conservative based on these figures) Ethanol production will TRIPLE in 3 1/2 years. (keep in mind production capacity will continue to be increased in the coming years). That would put ethanol at about 10% of the total transportation fuel supply in 3 1/2 to 4 yrs.

Of course, if we dropped the tarriffs on Brazilian ethanol, we could hit 10% of the total transportation fuel supply and provide insurance against an oil supply disruption of 10% in much less time and still keep growing our domestic production of ethanol.

[Unkaphaed]

1. Ethanol

So, when am I going to be able to buy Ethanol as an alternative fuel at the local corner Quickie-Mart?

I recently saw a web site of a major auto manufacturer who was advertising their vehicles that run on a special formula of Ethanol -or- good-old-petrol, depending on what was available. They had links to find out where I could buy the special Ethanol, and there were all of four places in all of Texas - and none were accessible to the public (Johnson Space Center, Pantex, Red River Army Depot, and an Army or AFB in San Antonio, if I remember right). Four places in all of Texas!? We need a massive push to get alternative fuels out there and ready for folks to use - if I buy a vehicle, I want to know that I can hop in and drive from, say, Austin, Texas, to Las Vegas, Nevada, and have as good a chance of not running out of fuel when I'm burning an alternative green fuel as I do if I were running on gasoline.

That is when people will buy alternative fuel cars (IMHO).

[lldu]

2. There is an e-85 gas station available in San Antonio

You just have to call them, register, get a magnetic card from them.
My daughter did this a couple weeks ago.

http://www.aacog.com/naturalresources/cleancities/E85Station/E85Station.htm



Larry L

[JohnWxy]

3. I completely agree, if you can't find it you can't very well buy it.

This is why I have been posting to this site and others, in the hope that I could stir up people to email congress (www.congress.org this site makes it easy to email your congressmen and senators) to say we need to aggressively promote the availability and production of ethanol. Actually, if it was available people would be buying it (sick of importing oil form mid-East). If people could find it, they'd buy it and the demand would drive up the production. MOre investment in ethanol would follow, making it MORE available. But the big oil companies have not exactly been pushing ethanol (see Ford vice-President testimony to Senate panel on energy security).

"For ethanol to be a real player in the transportation sector and lessen America's dependence on foreign oil, we need a strong, long-term focus on policies that increase U.S. ethanol production and accelerate E85 infrastructure development," Cischke told lawmakers.

Most service stations carrying E85 fuel are mom-and-pop or independently owned stores in the U.S. Midwest.

U.S. automakers have produced almost 6 million flexible-fuel vehicles. If they all ran on E85 fuel, over 2.5 billion gallons of traditional gasoline could be saved, Cischke said.

But she said the flexible-fuel cars and trucks cannot boost U.S. energy security if E85 fuel pumps are not available.

"We obviously need key partners like the oil industry to invest in developing and marketing renewable fuels, like E85," she told lawmakers.

Sen. Pete Domenici, who chairs the energy panel, said the lack of distribution for E85 is a big problem. "How do we get the companies to put the tanks out there?"

He said the government should lean on oil companies to install more pumps and Congress should follow up to "find out is there any role we have, any possible way we can pursue this, so that the companies will do more."

This is where public policy can help make things happen much quicker. NOw, the oil industry has known about ethanol for a long time (they used to use it to boost octane of gas, but changed to lead as it was cheaper. After lead was banned they went to MTBE. Now that's on it's way out. But the big oil companies have never been eager to use a substance they can't completely control the price of. Barach Obama (Senator form Illinois, and another Senator have requested an investigation of the oil companies restricting availability of ethanol).

This web-site shows how much ethanol (as 10% ethanol is sold in each state. As you can see Texas does sell ethanol:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs03/htm/mf33e.htm

Now, you can get Ethanol as Ethanol 85 (85% ethanol) or Gasahol (10 % ethanol). Ethanol 85 requires a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (doesn't cost anymore than the gasoline version of same car). But if you are not ready to buy a new vehicle you can use Gasahol in any engine that burns gasoline. That is if you can find it.

I personally think we should require oil companies to put 10% ethanol in all gas. OF course, now that MTBE is going to be phased out that in effect will happen. The oil companies have already started to buy ethanol in great volumes. I think replacing MTBE will put the ethanol percentage at about 6% or 8%, so that will be a start. That will get us started reducing imports of oil.

Ethanol is more available in the mid-western states. But the construction of new ethanol production facilities will change that.

Ethanol will become much more available in the next year or two. The replacemnet of MTBE will assure us of that. Hopefully we won't stop there (we won't, were going to be forced to expand ethanol use much more than that). The price of gas is going 'northward' inevitably. In addition to that, as I said, I think people want to reduce our imports of oil in the worst way.

[Oerdin]

4. There is a major hole.

It totals up the projected amount of "under construction" capacity but doesn't say when that capacity is going to come on line. Let's leave out the question of if this "under construction" capacity really is under contruction instead of just in some phase of planning (planning which may or may not actually materialize into actual ethanol produced)and just concentrate on the hard numbers. How long will it take to build that 1.745 billion gallons of capacity? 2 years? 3 years? 1 year? 6 months?

Without the time factore it is worthless to compare yearly rates.

[JohnWxy]

6. notice i used 38% rate of growth. All new capacity will be on line within

one to two years (I figure it probably takes 12-18 months to build a plant. Some of this was under way at the END of 2005 - not just starting at end of 2005). Some of the new construction will be coming on line in 2006 but I used a very conservative 38% - that's 2.7% more than the growth in capacity from 2004 to 2005 (35.3%). I was being very conservative.

Want to use 35.3%? That gives you 397% growth in 4.5 yrs. A rather nice rate of growth:wow: .

But it will be more than 35.3%, just a question of how much more. I only added 2.7% - quite conservative.

[JohnWxy]

8. Eight new ethanol plants coming on line in 2006 in Iowa.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/16/business/corn.php

By Matthew L. Wald The New York Times

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2006

Iowa has 19 ethanol plants now and will have 27 by the end of the year, according to Punt, a former president of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. The Siouxland Energy and Livestock Cooperative showed a $6 million profit for 2005, Den Herder said, driven in part by the price of ethanol.

Eight more ethanol plants coming on line by the end of 2006 - in Iowa. 42% increase for that state. All 8 of those plants were under construction as of the end of 2005. I don't know what the figures for the rest of the country would be, but as you can see some of the new construction is coming on line IN 2006.

[4dsc]

5. Where will they get all the corn??

I noticed that nobody has been able to answer this simple question..

Not to mention, you ASS-U-ME too much here by claiming "That would put ethanol at about 10% of the total transportation fuel supply in 3 1/2 to 4 yrs." Where are you going to get the corn needed??

[JohnWxy]

7. 35 million acres not being planted

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/16/business/corn.php

~~
~~
Nationwide, the use of corn for energy could result in farmers planting more of it and less wheat and cotton, said Keith Collins, chief economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But the United States is paying farmers not to grow crops on 35 million acres, to prop up the value of corn, he said, and much of that land could come back into production.

A change is under way that experts say will tightly tie the price of crops to the price of oil: ethanol plants are multiplying.

Iowa has 19 ethanol plants now and will have 27 by the end of the year, according to Punt, a former president of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. The Siouxland Energy and Livestock Cooperative showed a $6 million profit for 2005, Den Herder said, driven in part by the price of ethanol.

Many farmers here in the American corn belt say they have the ability to grow the material for vast amounts of fuel. Another biofuel is a diesel substitute made from soybeans, which still leaves about 80 percent of the bean for cattle feed, advocates say.

Joe Jobe, executive director of the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group, predicted that more demand for soy oil as a diesel substitute would force production of meal, pushing down its price and thus making cattle feed cheaper.

"I think there's a historical shift under way, not to grow more crops for energy and less for food, but to grow more for both," Jobe said.

[4dsc]

9. There's a very good reason why corn isn't grown

on more of this land being set aside. Its because that land is not very good at growing corn because of high erosion or other problems..

You fail you realize that growing corn ERODES the land its grown on and continued crop planting will eventually make more land useless.. Thus you will grow less corn in the future and thus make less ethanol from it..

Ethanol is not the VIABLE alternative to oil!!

[vorlund]

12. Simple solution to corn erosion

(quote)
You fail you realize that growing corn ERODES the land its grown on and continued crop planting will eventually make more land useless.. Thus you will grow less corn in the future and thus make less ethanol from it..
(end quote)

Rotate crops. Corn-> Soybeans -> Corn and so on. Use a portion of the farmland used to grow energy crops for corn or soybeans based on demand, rotate crops planted to provide steady supply of all needed bio fuels.

And then there's always permaculture. One could choose crops that can grow simultaneously in the same field to provide energy/food on a continual basis. There are plenty of ecologists looking for work. It wouldn't cost much to hire a post-doc and a couple graduate/undergraduate students to do the research.

[JohnWxy]

16. Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Biofuels could meet 1/3rd US energy demand.

Understand, I am not providing this link for you. You obviously don't want to be bothered with information derived from the work of actual researchers in this field. (Why don't you email Bob Perlack at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and and tell him why he doesn't know what he's talking about, LOL. You could give him the benefit of your great expertise in this field. ROFL).

I provide this link only for those interested in information based on actual research by credible sources:

"Our report answers several key questions," said Bob Perlack, a member of ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division and a co-author of the report. "We wanted to know how large a role biomass could play, whether the United States has the land resources and whether such a plan would be economically viable."

Looking at just forestland and agricultural land, the two largest potential biomass sources, the study found potential exceeding 1.3 billion dry tons per year. That amount is enough to produce biofuels to meet more than one-third of the current demand for transportation fuels, according to the report.

Such an amount, which would represent a six-fold increase in production from the amount of biomass produced today, could be achieved with only relatively modest changes in land use and agricultural and forestry practices.

"A fuel cell is a device that can obtain 40 to 50% efficiency in conversion of a fuel into useable power (as opposed to approximately 18% efficiency for the average internal combustion engine)." (that's about 2 to almost 3 times as efficient as ICEs__JW)


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=45476

"Ethanol is a safe, practical fuel derived from wholly renewable sources, meaning that the hydrogen economy can become truly “green”. Full reforming of ethanol takes place at just 450 degrees C compared to the 550 degrees C for comparable PGM-containing catalysts and 650 degrees C for nickel-based catalysts. This means that ethanol can be reformed using substantially less power than with existing technologies and temperature management issues are reduced. Furthermore, as the catalyst is PGM-free it can be sold for high volume applications at industrial prices far below the price of current catalysts."

Acta expects to have fuel cells for automotive applications in TEN years


Acta Files Patent for Low-Temperature Hydrogen Reforming

Acta S.p.A., the world’s leading developer of high performance platinum-free catalysts for the fuel cell industry, today announced that it has filed a further patent concerning its unique catalyst for hydrogen reformers.

Hydrogen reformers are an important component in supplying pure hydrogen for PEM fuel cells. To date, they have been constrained by the high operating temperatures required for the process to take place, by the high cost of the platinum group metal (PGM) catalyst used to lower these temperatures, and consequently by limitations on which hydrocarbons which can be used to generate the hydrogen.

Acta’s new catalyst can be used to reform hydrogen from ethanol as well as from conventional fuels such as natural gas and methanol. Full reforming of ethanol takes place at just 450 degrees C compared to the 550 degrees C for comparable PGM-containing catalysts and 750 degrees C for a nickel-based catalyst. This means that ethanol can be reformed using substantially less power than with existing technologies and temperature management issues are reduced. Furthermore, as the catalyst is PGM-free it can be sold for high volume applications at industrial prices far below the price of current catalysts.

Paolo Bert, Chief Executive, Acta, commented: "Acta’s catalysts offer a breakthrough for the fuel cell industry. This latest development offers the opportunity of on-board ethanol reforming for automotive fuel cells without the use of scarce and costly PGM’s in either reformer or fuel cell. This meets a need for the automotive industry to have affordable fuel cell systems. Moreover, it allows the use of ethanol as a fuel for automotive use.

To the reader: The links to the Ethanol Fuel Cell information is pertinent in that Acta and others are pursuing development of Fuel Cells using hydrocarbons as a way to provide the hydrogen to the fuel cells. This is the way Fuel Cells will become a practical reality for general transportation purposes. Dealing with free hydrogen in fuel cells is too dangerous and expensive (to try to make safer) to be practical for general transportation uses. Note that this shortens the time for fuel cells to become a practical reality. Acta is expecting to have fuel cells for automotive applications in 10 years.

The reason Acta likes ehtanol, is it is easier to work with than gasoline (allowing a reformer made of much more economical materials). You can use gasoline to provide the hydrogen too, but it has drawbacks compared to ehtanol. (see Acta web-site).

Now fuel cells are important as they are 2 to 3 times as efficient as Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs). This makes the 30% of fuel supply from ethanol (ORNL estimate, above) become 60% to 90% of the fuel supply (for transportation).

[NickB79]

10. My dad has land in CRP

It is steep, sandy soil that eroded like mad whenever we tried to plant crops on it. Now it is a grassy hillside with pine trees that is benefiting the local wildlife.

The amount of money farmers are paid for leaving land idle is chickenscratch compared to the value of good, productive farmland. No farmer in his right mind would put flat, black-soil farmland into CRP.

[JohnWxy]

11. Well, I must say I'm surprised by your admission to defrauding the

U.S. Government and all us taxpayers. If your accepting money to not plant crops where you couldn't plant any even if you tried, that is a blatant admission of fraudulent behavior. I'm not prepared to think your behavior is representative of all farmers - or at least I HOPE IT's NOT.

Maybe while you were counting your ill gotten gains, you missed this from my post:

"Many farmers here in the American corn belt say they have the ability to grow the material for vast amounts of fuel."

[NickB79]

13. There is no defrauding taking place

From the USDA, the criteria for CRP enrollment:

http://www.fsa.usda.gov/pas/publications/facts/html/crp99.htm

Eligible Land

To be eligible for placemnt in the CRP, land must be:

1. Cropland that is planted or considered planted to an agricultural commodity 2 of the 5 most recent crop years (including field margins), which is also physically and legally capable of being planted in a normal manner to an agricultural commodity; or

2. Certain marginal pastureland enrolled in the Water Bank Program.

Additional Requirements for Cropland

In addition to the eligible land requirements, cropland must:

1. Have an Erosion Index (EI) of 8 or higher or be considered highly erodible land according to the conservation compliance provisions (redefined fields must have a weighted average EI of 8 or higher);

2. Be considered a cropped wetland;

3. Be devoted to any of a number of highly beneficial environmental practices, such as filter strips, riparian buffers, grass waterways, shelter belts, wellhead protection areas, and other similar practices;

4. Be subject to scour erosion;

5. Be located in a national or state CRP conservation priority area; or

6. Be cropland associated with or surrounding non-cropped wetlands.

Our field COULD be planted with crops and farmed, but the soil would erode rapidly, causing poor crop yields. It's not like we're trying to plow a cliff face. I believe the erosion index listing they gave the slope I mentioned was a 10? That was the primary reason it was accepted, based on the slope being easily eroded.

[JohnWxy]

17. How many acres would come out of the CRP and back into producation due to

ethanol demand?

I can't find the link right now, but a Agricultural economist (at Iowa State Univ, I believe,) has stated that he believes that sustained demand for ethanol could cause about 5 million acres to come into production and out of the CRP. HE said that much of the land in the CRP is not suitable for Corn production. This would lead to an addtional savings from less money being spent through the CRP program.

I'll try to find that link, if anybody is interested.

[Sorwen]

14. It is not very realistic to think

that a significant portion of that CRP land would be planted to corn. A lot of that land is in areas that are not exactly in the corn belt, like Montana, Washington, Texas, Idaho, and North Dakota. If this land could be productive corn land, then I think it already would be.

I think that corn ethanol is a pretty good start, but the long-run potential for corn as a feedstock for ethanol is a bit limited. To produce 4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2005 required about 15% of the U.S. corn crop. Increasing production to 15 billion gallons would require about half of the corn crop. I'm not sure how realistic that is. We export about 15-20% of the corn crop, so if we kept every bushel that would have been exported and produce ethanol from it, then 15 billion gallons might be possible, but I wouldn't expect much growth beyond that. If corn price increases as a result of ethanol, then there would be some expansion in production, but I wouldn't think that it would be a significant expansion.

For a real substantial portion of our transportation fuel to be ethanol, I think the real hope is cellulosic ethanol, not corn ethanol. A lot of that 35 million acres of CRP land and a lot of marginal land throughout the country could be used to produce cellulosic ethanol. And the yield could also be greater. An acre of switchgrass can produce more ethanol than an acre of corn.

[JohnWxy]

15. Corn ethanol is not going to be the major source of ethanol. Cellulosic

materials (agricultural waste, energy crops (e.g. switchgrass) will be much more important.

What I am talking about here is just the near term until cellulosic really gets going. OF course even when cellulosic ethanol is being produced, corn will still play a part - unless you want to replace the corn with cellulose sources, such as switchgrass.

NOte I was only talking about thanol getting to 10% of the fuel supply. That is do-able with corn. (lets not forget farmers are getting more productive in their operations every year and I expect greater efficiencies to be achieved in the process of producing ethanol from starch based sources. But in talking about 10% of the fuel supply I am ONLY talking about the near term.

In six years of less cellulosic sources will be coming on stream as viable coommercial sources of ethanol. ONce that gets underway then areas of land not sutiable for cultivation will become viable for growing swtich grass. Also, of course, many tons of agricultural waste will be sources of cellulosic ethanol. BTW Iogen has started a commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Canada and is producing ethanol from cellulosic sources right now, in Canada.

Farmers are being paid to NOT planat corn so as to support the price of corn. While soome of the unplanted areas may be suitable only for cellulosic sources such as switch grass, much of it is viable crop land, if not for corn then soy beans - another source of starch based ethanol.