The Ethanol Folly
Politicians at the state and federal level continue to champion ethanol as the way of the future to decrease use of gasoline and in effect foreign oil imports. Tax breaks at the federal level have been provided for investments in ethanol producing facilities. Tens of millions of gallons of ethanol producing facilities will be coming on line in the next few years. Detroit touts its flexfuel vehicles designed to run on gasoline or ethanol.
In the US, ethanol production is from corn. The major producers of corn are in the midwest US. Therefore it stands to reason that ethanol production will be concentrated in the midwestern US. Unlike gasoline or diesel, ethanol is a corrosive liquid and cannot be pumped through existing gasoline pipelines that crisscross the US. It must be trucked by tanker from production facility to the end user. Give the cost of trucking over pipeline distribution, the costs of ethanol production and transportation will always be excessive if the intent is to provide ethanol as a vehicle energy source outside the midwest. As for selling flexfuel vehicles outside the midwest, they act merely as an advertising ploy as flexfuel vehicle owners will likely never run the vehicle on pure or even E85 (85% ethanol content).
For all practical purposes, ethanol is unlikely to be available outside the midwest except as a substitute for MBTE as a gasoline additive. The use of ethanol should be limited to the midwest and used to power flexfuel vehicles in that region only. Farm vehicles should be built or modified to run on ethanol to take advantage of the short distribution network required to truck midwest ethanol production to midwest users.
12/16/2007 ( 661 )
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