Results for: “e85 case study iowa”

Introduction My new book — Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil — has been published. A press release issued last week describes the book in some detail: Robert Rapier Reflects on Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil in his Latest Book Here I want to describe a bit about the evolution of the book, discuss what’s in it, and finally provide contact information for reviewers who would like a copy. It was less than a year ago that I was contacted by Jeff Olson, a Senior Editor at Apress, which is a division of the large global publisher Springer about writing “a book for educated laypeople on today’s energy issues.” I had been contacted… Continue»

Alas, today I had intended to put up my book review of Amanda Little’s book Power Trip, but I left the book on my desk in the office and I need to review some notes first. So that should be posted for my Thursday column. If you haven’t noticed, I have fallen into a pattern of putting up a new column each Monday and Thursday. Because there is always a lot going on in energy, I generally have three or four decent choices for these new columns. This week, I was sent a guest column on nuclear power called Fukushima a stake through nuclear industry’s heart. I had initially decided to run it, but had a change of heart. The… Continue»

A Plan to Phase Out “Dirty” Energy After the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, someone said to me “We have to stop all offshore drilling.” My response was that I could get behind that idea, but I wanted to know what sacrifices the person was willing to make. That turned out to be the end of the conversation, because usually the people campaigning against these sorts of things believe that the consequences will be all good (no more oil spills) with no real downside (like less energy available). I can tell you with absolute certainty that we can live with no offshore drilling, but I can also tell you that the price of your fuel would be… Continue»

The previous essay spoke of the selfishness of many of today’s political leaders in spending tax dollars for votes, while compromising the economic opportunities for the next generation. In this essay, I want to focus on the selfishness of a particular group: Ethanol special interests, who have succeeded in gouging taxpayers for another $6 billion in wasteful spending in 2011. Let me make it clear — again — that I am not against ethanol as fuel. In fact, I have spoken out many times in favor of ethanol in specific circumstances. I reiterated this position recently on a Podcast interview on This Week in Energy. For example, I think many areas of the Midwest could produce ethanol sustainably, use it… Continue»

Over the next two posts, I will examine some of the tactics used by the Renewable Fuels Association to justify keeping the $6 billion ethanol subsidy that was made almost entirely redundant when the the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was passed into law in  2005. Not satisfied with a market that is mandated by law to grow by 25% between now and 2015, the ethanol lobby insists that they need the subsidies as well. As I will show, they have no qualms about deceiving people to get their way. In this post, I will cover a tactic that the RFA has previously condemned in others: Paying for self-serving research. I will also show that the amount of taxpayer money they… Continue»

Ulterior Motives Behind the Ethanol Pipeline? Ethanol producers in the Midwest have lobbied for support to build a pipeline to ship their ethanol to the East Coast. As I have argued, given that the market for ethanol is nowhere close to being saturated in the Midwest (a large E85 market in the Midwest could consume all of the ethanol produced there), it would seem to be a better allocation of resources to build up the E85 market rather than try to export ethanol from the Midwest. However, some have claimed that the real reason ethanol producers want the pipeline is so they can export ethanol out of the country. They argued that U.S. taxpayers would end up subsidizing ethanol exports… Continue»

Bob Dinneen wants Congress to extend ethanol tax credits with “a stroke of the pen, a little bit of Whiteout, just change the date.”

The Saudi Arabia of Ethanol Iowa is to corn ethanol what Saudi Arabia is to oil. At present Iowa has the capacity to produce 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol per year, which is 26% of the nation’s total (Source). This is of course due to the large amount of corn production in Iowa, enabled by ample rainfall and rich topsoil. But Iowa differs from Saudi Arabia with respect to energy production in one very important detail: Saudi Arabia satisfies their own energy needs with the oil they produce, and exports the excess. Iowa on the other hand exports the vast majority of the ethanol they produce while importing gasoline as motor fuel. Gasoline consumption in Iowa is presently around 1.6… Continue»

Local Production for Local Needs I currently live in Hawaii, and one thing I hope to help facilitate is for Hawaii to become more sustainable in food and energy. We have the natural resources here to be largely sustainable, but we depend on outside sources for around 90% of our food and energy. Currently, fuel and power in Hawaii are provided by Southeast Asia and from as far away as the Middle East. Of course we do this for the same reason many countries are dependent on imports for their food and energy: That is cheaper than the alternative of self-sufficiency. But from the perspective of risk, regions with such high dependence on others for their basic needs can quickly… Continue»

Of course you are against ethanol. You work for Big Oil. Is ethanol reducing dependence on foreign oil? What’s this EROI/EROEI/Energy Return Business? Is EROEI the Same Thing as the Process Efficiency? Isn’t the Energy Balance for Corn Ethanol Better than for Gasoline? Does the Energy Balance/EROEI Matter? Doesn’t the Ethanol Subsidy Actually Benefit Oil Companies? Doesn’t Ethanol Usage Create Jobs and Provide Cash for Midwestern Communities? Do We Have Enough Land to Grow Our Way to Energy Indendence? If Brazil can do it, why can’t the U.S.? Can’t Brazil and other tropical countries provide biofuels for the world? What about the environmental benefits of using ethanol as fuel? Isn’t ethanol useful as an oxygenate replacement for MTBE? 8/26/07 –… Continue»