Saturday, September 15, 2007
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Ethanol: Shock and Awe
It has been two years since the initial shock/spike to our transportation energy reality. The timing of hurricanes Rita/Katrina came as our fearless leader was signing the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This energy policy act can be compared to the foreign policy/military plan that came to be known as "shock and awe," and we all know how well that worked out.
For over twenty years, we had a homogeneous gasoline supply. The oil industry and consumers had not experienced dramatic changes in gasoline all at once and virtually over night like we experienced in 2006. The three main factors that have synergistically combined to produce a massive storm of instability in our transportation energy supply are:
- Phase-out of MTBE
- Desulphurization of gasoline
- Ethanol integration
Somehow we have been led to believe that this system of producing liquid petroleum transportation fuel that has been developed, perfected and controlled for over a century is just going to change in an instant.Let me be clear when I say that almost all bio/alternative transportation fuel initiatives that have come to light in the last two years amount to polishing the brass on the Titanic.
Aside from all the legitimate concerns we are now hearing about associated with producing ethanol, there is a much bigger concern - how do you put all this ethanol into gasoline. Because ethanol cannot be shipped via the method of choice for transportation fuels, pipelines, ethanol intergration is seriouly limited. More importantly and basically overlooked or not realized is the fact that adding ethanol to gasoline is very expensive. Furthermore, there is a limit of 10% ethanol that you can blend with gasoline using the current technique, splash-blending, at the terminal.
Clean burning efficient liquefied petroleum gasses (LPGs) such as butane need to be removed from gasoline before ethanol can be added, or these LPGs will leach out of the gasoline resulting in an increase of air pollutants. In some areas of the country known as conventional gasoline areas, there is a waiver to the controls on this type of air pollution when ethanol is blended, and preliminary reports indicate this waiver for ethanol blending is causing increased ground level smog air pollution. Removing these LPGs result in a staggering loss of 3-5% of available gasoline supply. This is known as refinery shrinkage.
As an expert in transportation fuels it is quite frustrating to see real issues such as ethanol integration not addressed. It seems virtually nobody in the industry has thought about how all the new ethanol production that is coming on line very soon is going to be physically added to gasoline. The ethanol industry, that so much of our time and resources have been devoted to, faces serious risk in the coming months and years. The resulting backlog and glut of ethanol is predicted to result in a dot com. like bust for many of the smaller ethanol producers that have bought into the fantasy of ethanol. Soon the shock and awe of our grossly misguided energy policy will begin to hit home when the American consumer realizes there is nobody at the helm with a thorough and realistic plan.
Here are a few important news stories that people should be aware of:
Biofuels Don't Have The Juice To Go The Distance
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/commentary/hc-plcbiofuels09.artsep02,0,7391054.story
Bush's ethanol dreams make corn a hot commodity
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/100840.html
(c) 2007 Jim Russo
For over twenty years, we had a homogeneous gasoline supply. The oil industry and consumers had not experienced dramatic changes in gasoline all at once and virtually over night like we experienced in 2006. The three main factors that have synergistically combined to produce a massive storm of instability in our transportation energy supply are:
- Phase-out of MTBE
- Desulphurization of gasoline
- Ethanol integration
Somehow we have been led to believe that this system of producing liquid petroleum transportation fuel that has been developed, perfected and controlled for over a century is just going to change in an instant.Let me be clear when I say that almost all bio/alternative transportation fuel initiatives that have come to light in the last two years amount to polishing the brass on the Titanic.
Aside from all the legitimate concerns we are now hearing about associated with producing ethanol, there is a much bigger concern - how do you put all this ethanol into gasoline. Because ethanol cannot be shipped via the method of choice for transportation fuels, pipelines, ethanol intergration is seriouly limited. More importantly and basically overlooked or not realized is the fact that adding ethanol to gasoline is very expensive. Furthermore, there is a limit of 10% ethanol that you can blend with gasoline using the current technique, splash-blending, at the terminal.
Clean burning efficient liquefied petroleum gasses (LPGs) such as butane need to be removed from gasoline before ethanol can be added, or these LPGs will leach out of the gasoline resulting in an increase of air pollutants. In some areas of the country known as conventional gasoline areas, there is a waiver to the controls on this type of air pollution when ethanol is blended, and preliminary reports indicate this waiver for ethanol blending is causing increased ground level smog air pollution. Removing these LPGs result in a staggering loss of 3-5% of available gasoline supply. This is known as refinery shrinkage.
As an expert in transportation fuels it is quite frustrating to see real issues such as ethanol integration not addressed. It seems virtually nobody in the industry has thought about how all the new ethanol production that is coming on line very soon is going to be physically added to gasoline. The ethanol industry, that so much of our time and resources have been devoted to, faces serious risk in the coming months and years. The resulting backlog and glut of ethanol is predicted to result in a dot com. like bust for many of the smaller ethanol producers that have bought into the fantasy of ethanol. Soon the shock and awe of our grossly misguided energy policy will begin to hit home when the American consumer realizes there is nobody at the helm with a thorough and realistic plan.
Here are a few important news stories that people should be aware of:
Biofuels Don't Have The Juice To Go The Distance
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/commentary/hc-plcbiofuels09.artsep02,0,7391054.story
Bush's ethanol dreams make corn a hot commodity
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/100840.html
(c) 2007 Jim Russo
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