I agree. Biofuels should come from mainly agricultural waste and livestock waste products, or from cellulosic fast-growing plants like the switch grass that requires no irrigation and little effort.

From Page 3 of the report: "Acknowledgements: The James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and the Rice University Department of Civil and Environmental engineering would like to thank Chevron Technology Ventures and the Institute for Energy Economics of Japan for their generous support of this research."

I expect Chevron Technology Ventures is pleased with the outcome of this study they generously supported.

Chevron Technology Ventures may be doing the same thing that Carnegie did with the Bessemer steel process, say it is horrible and the worst thing you can do until you control it and then it is the best thing since sliced bread.

We'd be idiots not to suspect the results of a study funded by an oil company. But we also have to realize they did make some recommendations that would not support oil:
"The potential for production of ethanol in Latin America and the Caribbean is high, and much of it could be delivered to US coastal regions at a lower cost than shipping corn-based ethanol from the US Midwest. This could substantially help the Gulf Coast states successfully meet a 10% ethanol content;"

Of course, the overall report does nothing but damage ethanol and that does help the oil companies.

We could grow corn on every square inch of the United States and still not meet our energy needs. However we would manage to starve several hundred million people worldwide.

Converting food to fuel is stupid.

Rice University Ethanol Study – Twisted Sister of Big Oil

This Rice University Study from the oil state of Texas is laced with falsehoods. Look at the money trail. The people working for the Baker Institute, who were paid to conduct this with Chevron money, were either environmentalists or oil insiders. They were Not authorities on corn ethanol. James Baker, the founder, was an oil insider himself, serving under two U.S. Presidents who were also oilmen from Texas. It was at their direction that we went into Iraq twice, under false pretenses, to bomb the oil infrastructure, in order to cut off the Iraqi oil supply and manipulate the price of crude oil to new highs. We all paid for it at the pump.

The study falsely claims that consumers are the ones driving fuel prices higher. That’s not entirely true. Gasoline consumption in the U.S. is down 5-6% since 2008, diesel is down 9-10%, and numerous oil refineries have closed down for lack of demand. Meanwhile domestic ethanol market share is increasing and demand is strong. Clean burning, high compression, turbocharged, “ethanol-optimized” engines are coming, and they get all the torque of diesels with as good or better mpg.

FALSE: “billions of dollars in federal subsidies and protectionist tariffs that go to domestic ethanol producers every year”:

Simply Not true. Ethanol subsidies don’t go to ethanol producers. It’s a 45 cent per gallon blending subsidy that goes to whoever blends ethanol with gasoline. Initially, oil companies and fuel distributors were getting the blender’s subsidy, but today blender pumps are spreading. That means that cheaper ethanol can be shipped directly to retailers - who will share the blender subsidy with consumers.

The tariff revenue does not go to ethanol producers either. That goes to the Government and ultimately back to the taxpayers – designed to cover the cost of the blending subsidy. Jeff Broin (Poet Ethanol) is the authority on this: In 2007, the tax incentive, that tax break, was $3.3 billion, but the ethanol industry returned $4.6 billion in tax revenue to the Treasury," Broin says. "We saved $8 billion in farm payments because we eliminated farm payments for the first time in almost 40 years. We saved the consumer $40 to $60 billion in gas prices with extra supplies that kept prices down. We added $47 billion to the Gross Domestic Product." Ethanol subsidies pay for themselves many times over, in numerous ways.

While we’re investing about 4 billion a year in the ethanol blending subsidy - That’s a small fraction of what were paying out to the oil industry – We’ve actually made it more lucrative to develop foreign oil than domestic oil. We pay oil companies over $36 billion a year, in the form of a “foreign oil investment tax credit”, to produce oil outside of the country. That lines the pockets of the Federal Reserve, because we buy foreign oil with debt instruments, which are added to the National Debt. So we pay a hidden cost on petroleum based fuels, floating interest on debt. But we pay zero interest on domestic ethanol and biodiesel.

Protecting our foreign oil supply also costs us over $50 billion a year, burning enough dirty fossil fuels to power a small country. Add that to the cost of your gasoline and diesel fuel and the environmental impact of shipping it thousands of miles burning dirty bunker fuel.

Trading one dependence on imported oil for another dependence on imported ethanol is foolish reasoning. But that’s what the defective study recommends. That’s because it would be more profitable for the Gulf Coast oil industry. Consumers in the region would get a penny or two at the pump by importing Brazilian ethanol, but you would pay for it dearly in terms of interest payments on debt, lost jobs, lost tax revenue, and lost economic stimulus. Shipping foreign ethanol thousands of miles to the U.S. burning dirty fossil fuels - That has no advantage over our more localized domestic fuel, as new ethanol refineries continue to spread to all parts of the country.

Yawn. The critics never seem to offer anything other than the petroleum status quo, do they? Nothing real, I mean, that can be used right now, today, to improve air quality and reduce our dependence on petroleum.

We will continue to support E85 and biodiesel, as we have for the past decade. Look at the infrastructure in Minnesota -- more than 360 E85 pumps statewide, B5 biodiesel at thousands of outlets. It can be done, and it works.

Rice-Baker Ethanol Study Makes False Claims

The study uses VooDoo math to make a false conjecture, that ethanol only displaced 2% of gasoline in 2008, when it actually displaced 7%. Jim Lane, Editor and Expert Analyst at Biofuels Digest, summarized their fuzzy math as follows:

“The study made a separation between the use of 6 billion gallons of ethanol as a substitute for the “potentially carcinogenic gasoline additive MTBE”, made from natural gas, and thereafter credited all US subsidies against the remaining 278,000 barrels per day of ethanol production that replace gasoline, and deducted 33 percent from ethanol’s displacement figures due to the lower energy content of ethanol in terms of BTUs.”

Ethanol is not just an additive. It displaces what would have been gasoline, with a high octane oxygen enhancing fuel that has a faster flame speed and a higher vaporization rate than gasoline:

“The Report’s authors were apparently unaware that fuel economy is the result of a combination of fuel performance as well as energy content, and improperly accounted for the replacement effect of ethanol compared to gasoline.” (Jim Lane, Biofuels Digest)

This is further demonstrated by next generation “ethanol optimized” engines, which can out-perform gasoline. They get more power and better mileage out of fewer BTUs.

The ethanol subsidy pays for itself. You Do Not pay more for ethanol than gasoline, as the study falsely claims. You actually pay more for gasoline, because subsidies for crude oil, which includes the foreign oil investment tax credit, and protecting our foreign oil supplies, costs $85 to $100 billion a year. Add that to the cost of your gasoline and diesel fuel. Now add the revolving interest you pay on the debt instruments we use to buy foreign oil. Domestic ethanol is much cheaper than gasoline, when all the hidden costs of gasoline are included.

The study also makes the false claim that somehow ethanol makes the highly toxic chemical composition of gasoline worse. In reality, adding ethanol to gasoline makes it less toxic. There are over 10,000 fuel tanks leaking gasoline and diesel toxins into the environment, whereas ethanol dissolves in water.

The study makes the false assumption that corn acreage will be increased, so hypothetical environmental damage can be blamed on corn ethanol. That’s Not based on fact. Last year corn acreage decreased 3 million acres, but the yield increased 10% per acre. We are getting more out of less, by extracting oil from refinery residues and more ethanol from waste corn cobs and corn stover – without expanding acreage. We are also systematically displacing natural gas and electric production power with biogas digesters that mitigate biomass waste and manure. Ethanol reduces GHG emissions 48 to 59 percent, even without these upgrades (Nebraska-Lincoln Study).

Damage to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico is being caused by many factors, not just corn. There are isolated cases of ethanol plants polluting water, just as there are many other industries polluting water. We can fix that. Pesticides and fertilizers are not unique to our corn crop. They’re put on many other crops besides corn, and it all runs-off into the watershed. People put pesticides and fertilizers on their lawns and gardens. Factories, food processors, sewage disposal plants and septic systems all contaminate the water shed, and so do dairy farms, hog farms, poultry farms, and cattle feedlots. Blaming dead zones exclusively on corn ethanol is a false assumption.

Furthermore, only 25% of our feed corn crop (which is non-edible) is used to make biofuel. The other 75% of the corn crop goes to feed dairy cows, poultry, fish, and livestock - used to produce food. So if corn is a problem, look mainly at food production, not ethanol. The bottom line is: corn ethanol is a much smaller fraction of the run-off problem than the study says it is. 88% of our entire feed corn crop is not irrigated, and out of the 12% that is, only 3% is used for corn ethanol.

Expanding the supply of ethanol is a wise investment. Look what it did for Brazil. They are energy independent, partly because they subsidized and developed ethanol to fruition. We should do the same. Ethanol is a work in progress. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The ethanol industry is still evolving. It’s going to get better, much better. We should keep the ethanol import tariff in place. If we don’t, we will be out-sourcing ethanol jobs to Brazil, when we need them here at home. We should extend the blender’s credit for 3 more years, but at a lower rate of 40 cents per gallon. Then 30 cents a gallon for another 3 years. We should mandate that ALL new gasoline powered vehicles, domestic and foreign must be flexi-fueled. It costs less than $150 to equip a new vehicle to be ethanol compatible.

The study gives us the false impression that it’s taboo to clear land for fuel crops. Even though it will stimulate our economy, reduce our trade deficit and our National Debt, and displace dirty fossil fuels with renewable fuels that recycle CO2. Taboo to clear land for fuel crops, when we deforest land for urban sprawl, firewood, interstate highways, Tar Sands, mining, and domestic lumber. What is so sacred about these, that biofuel crops cannot be included?

The study says that clearing land for fuel crops will release CO2 into the atmosphere. But that is recycled CO2 being released. And that will be re-absorbed by the fuel crops. In contrast, when you burn gasoline and diesel fuel, you’re adding New carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, not recycling it and not reabsorbing it. Instead, burning fossil fuels causes CO2 to build-up in the atmosphere. That’s where the problem is – not biofuels.

Indirect land use change is unproven junk science and should Not be factored into the environmental footprint of biofuels. It has already been discredited. That’s how out of touch this study is. The study falsely claims that biofuels have no environmental benefits because of the theory of indirect land use change. The truth is, different biofuels are known to have a variety of benefits and advantages over conventional fuels. Furthermore, different biofuels have different characteristics and different carbon scores. We should not paint them all with the same brushstroke. But that’s what the warped study does.

We should NOT do what the study advocates: over-regulate the biofuels industry. Our National Security depends on it. Nor should we over-regulate farmers or complicate agriculture. That’s not where the low hanging fruit is.

@ Roger Pham:
The study you referenced is 15 years old.
Your information is obsolete and inaccurate.

The most current and the most accurate study out there right now is:

“Improvements in Life Cycle Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn-Ethanol.” (University of Nebraska-Lincoln 2009). They reported a 48-59 percent reduction in direct GHG emissions for corn ethanol vs gasoline, two to three times better than reported in previous studies. Their expert, scholarly analysis also concluded: An advanced “closed loop” biorefinery with anaerobic digestion reduced GHG emissions by 67% and increased the net energy ratio to 2.2 - up from the current industry range of 1.5 to 1.8 for most ethanol plants:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121647166/PDFSTART?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

“significant amount of fossil fuel, including fertilizer made from natural gas”

The environmental impact of fossil fuels and natural gas on agriculture applies to ALL crops - including 75% of the corn crop that is not used to make ethanol. So Roger – next time you go shopping for food, be sure not to buy anything made from any crops. Because they ALL pollute the environment.

Roger – Your false claim and conjecture, that corn ethanol caused starvation, does not justify the incorrect math they used in the bias study. MTBE displaced a volume of gasoline, and ethanol displaced MTBE. So ALL ethanol displaces gasoline as well, not just 2%, as the bias study falsely claims. The correct percentage of ethanol displacing gasoline for 2008 was 7%. And the following year, it was about 8-9% and approaching 10% of the entire gasoline supply. This is a factor driving the price of gasoline lower. And that lowers the cost of goods and services across the board.

The study made the false assumption that all engines handle ethanol with a 33% reduction of mpg, solely based on lower BTUs. That’s wrong too. Different engines handle ethanol in different ways. Some will even get more miles per gallon with up to 20-30% added ethanol. “Ethanol-Optimized” engines get more power and better mileage on ethanol, which has lower BTUs, than they get on gasoline. The lower BTU argument does not hold true, because the superior characteristics of higher octane, faster flame speed, and faster vaporization rate for ethanol. This increases performance and oxygenates gasoline for a cleaner, faster burn.

You said: “We should be gearing up for more and more cellulosic ethanol production in order to displace corn ethanol production”.

Roger – Where do you think a lot of that cellulose is going to come from? From corn ethanol crop residues, as a credit to the energy balance. Poet Ethanol, the biggest producer of ethanol in the world, is already integrating cellulosic ethanol production into their corn ethanol plants – using the corn cobs and corn stover residues of corn used to make ethanol.

We may eventually make ethanol from the cobs and stover off the entire corn crop, as the industry builds-out. That will increase the usefulness of corn, by exploiting waste into fuel. This will also spread the environmental impact of corn across a higher level of production. Likewise, the environmental impact of a gallon of ethanol will improve, also because the yield per acre will double in the next 20 years - without increasing energy and fertilizer inputs.

There are corn farmers who are growing oil crops to make their own biodiesel, so not all corn is produced with fossil fuels. Same thing for ethanol. Tractors with ethanol-optimized engines will also be used to grow corn – further displacing fossil fuels with renewable, localized fuels. Plug-in hybrid electric tractors are also being developed. So it’s just a matter of time. Fossil fuels will be phased-out of agriculture.

“Closed Loop” integrated biofuel refineries are coming. They will convert manure from adjacent dairy, poultry, hog and cattle feeding operations into biogas - to power the refineries with CHP production power and also produce surplus renewable power for the grid. Local renewable fertilizer, made from the residues of these integrated biogas digesters, will displace natural gas based fertilizer. In the next 20 years, integrated biofuel refineries will develop into a full blown bio-fertilizer industry. Digester waste effluent will also be used to grow onsite algae and duckweed, which will play a significant role in localized biofuel and fertilizer production.

We may eventually feed corn sugars to heterotrophic algae and duckweed, and then make a whole spectrum of products from that – including biofuel, fertilizer, electric power, nutriceuticals, bio-chemicals, bio-plastics, food and food supplements. In 20 years, corn ethanol refineries could become the economic driver of the century.

@ Roger Pham:
I have enjoyed and agreed with many of your comments in the past, but I am disappointed in your posts above. Get your info right and cut loose your agenda. The Broin economic analysis is much more realistic than the Rice work that is clearly bias.

We should be and are moving toward other alcohols and the next generation of engines to leverage the efficiency of high quality alcohol fuels including ehanol. We should also push current flex fuel engines especially in regions where E85 is more available. Look what MN has been doing and has planned. There are some areas that are less ideal, but as several of you have said there are many waste streams and many ways to make ethanol locally in all regions of our country. I now have a flex fuel car and enjoy the many intangible benefits at each fill up. Things like, fewer dollars for terrorist states, more money for jobs in US, less carbon, tax payer savings from lower farm subsidies, etc.

@Aureon Kwolek,
Thanks for your input and references on this subject.

Roger – The study you refer to is also obsolete. And Patzek’s bias work, funded by the petroleum industry is NOT CREDIBLE. His so called ”studies” have been laughed-out of the scientific community. Patzek and Pimentel, his partner, were discredited several years ago, for using old and inaccurate data. Where were you?

Roger – You are no authority on corn ethanol. What you’re doing on this topic is just regurgitating a bunch of false information. The ethanol industry is light years ahead of where it was 6 years ago when your study was published, using obsolete information that was 10-12 years old.

Roger – You are apparently not aware of the new technologies that are being implemented in the ethanol industry, and you are not aware of the cutting edge technology that is coming in the near term.

Please stick to a subject you know something about.

@ Rodger;
I agree that we need independent evaluation. My evaluation is Patzek's bias is dripping from his every pore, I have read his opinions for some years now. Reading the particular quotes you included from his "study" sounded more like a quickly thrown together blog post, not scholarly peer reviewed, publishable research. Then as I read on, that is exactly what you say it is, just his personal blog where he rants about corn ethanol. There is nothing evil about this industry. Is it a perfect or complete solution to get off gas, no, sorry life is not that simple. It is however making jobs, reducing emissions and is not funding militant extremists. Adding or changing alcohol production from corn to biomass crops and waste streams is probably the way to steer the industry in the future. But we do not need to shut down or demonize the current production. These other methods will come along as the market works, if the government will smarten up and let it work. Believe me when I say, it is farming that has been over subsidized around the world for the last 70 years. This policy keeps the populous fat and happy, but distorts everything in the market. If the market for food was free, we would not use much corn for fuel and animal fodder and people would still be starving around the world. If you don't like the subsidies for ethanol you should read the farm program. Since ethanol has taken off, this government safety net of farmer welfare has all but dried up. This is good for the pride and productivity of farmers and our communities. Oh, and if you want some fairly unbiased opinions read what the USDA has to say on ethanol, please don't hurt your credibility, with further quotes from ideologs like Patzek.