Ethanol Has Believers But Faces Huge Hurdles
The prospect of a home-grown energy source has politicians promoting ethanol as a solution for everything from reduced smog to lowering dependence on foreign oil. We asked two thousand BuyingAdvice.com readers for their view on the debate.
Almost 65 percent of those surveyed said they regard ethanol as a viable solution to our future energy needs and 60 percent said they would switch to ethanol if it were the same price as gas.
But the political hype and public expectations seem to be running ahead of the impact the biofuel is having in the marketplace and projections for the contribution it can make to the country's energy needs in the coming decades.
U.S. ethanol production has risen to around five billion gallons this year and there are already over 5 million vehicles on the roads that can use the fuel as a major source of power. But with U.S. gas consumption running around 140 billion gallons a year, even the strongest advocates concede that the fuel can only offer a partial solution for our energy needs.
A 2005 Department of Agriculture study projected that 30 percent of U.S. oil production could be replaced by ethanol by 2030, but the study assumed that much of the fuel would come from sources other than corn, which is currently used for all domestic commercial ethanol production, using technologies that are still in the research stage.
A fifth of U.S. corn going to ethanol production
Some estimates say that a fifth of U.S. corn production is already being used to make ethanol and the Department of Agriculture has reported that the growing market for the fuel is driving up feed grain prices and could impact the cost of food.
Even The American Council for Ethanol, the leading lobbying group for the industry says it sees production from corn as a stepping stone to the use of wider sources.
"Corn has other very important customers," said Karen Brekke of the ACE. "It is just not practical to expand production to the point where it impacts those other uses."
Research is concentrating on expanding the substances used to create the fuel to include grasses, wood pulp and the discarded byproducts of corn production such as the stalks and leaves, but none of these processes are yet being used commercially.
While the focus in the U.S. has been on producing ethanol from corn, any plant material with heavy starch content can be refined to produce the sugars which form the basis for ethanol. Most of the fuel produced in Latin America is derived from sugar cane.
Recent trade agreements signed during President Bush's tour of Latin America, are designed to lay the foundation for an international market in ethanol. But the United States still places tariffs on ethanol imports, saying that they are needed to help develop domestic production.
Distribution a Major Hurdle
But even if the production problems can be overcome, before it becomes more widely used, ethanol has to develop a distribution network that can make the fuel more widely available.
When asked what they regarded as the chief obstacle to wider use of ethanol, 43 percent of our survey sample listed availability as the biggest barrier.
Of 180,000 gas stations nationwide, there are only approximately 1,000 currently selling ethanol. These are heavily concentrated in the upper Midwest close to corn producing areas where there is the highest number of ethanol refining plants.
Ethanol can not be distributed using the same pipelines used for gasoline because is it much easier for the fuel to be contaminated by water. A dedicated ethanol pipeline network would have to be constructed to expand distribution beyond the heartland. Currently all supplies of the fuel are distributed by road or rail tankers.
Choice of vehicles with ethanol capability was chosen as a the biggest obstacle to wider use of the fuel by our almost 30 percent of our survey sample.
Almost all existing vehicles can run on a mixture of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol, called E10. Seven states already mandate the use of ethanol-blended fuels. Most ethanol currently produced in the United States is added to gasoline to reduce emissions.
The commercially available fuel usually referred to as ethanol is a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gas, called E85, but according to the ACE only about one percent of current production is used to make E85 with the rest going to E10 and other low content blends.
A flex fuel vehicle is classified as one that can run either on gasoline or E85. There are almost 5 million vehicles on U.S. roads that qualify as " flex fuel."
But existing "flex fuel" vehicles lose around 30 percent of their fuel efficiency when run on E85, according to The Department of Energy, which adds that many drivers are unaware that they even have the capability.
There are 30 different 2007 models that can run on E85, but critics point to the fact that they are predominantly SUV's, trucks and large sedans that have poor energy efficiency using either fuel.
Only dramatic shifts in the market can bring the dream to fruition and a dream seems to be what we are being sold.
Published on Monday, May 15, 2007 - Email to a friend
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