Randy Dutton - a fiscal conservative

Candidate for Washington State Representative - 24th District (Pos 2)

Ethanol Mandate End

Ethanol Mandates and Subsidies Should be Eliminated NOWUS and Washington State Legislative mandates and subsidies for ethanol have contributed to a global disaster. Not only is the forced using of food for fuel causing massive starvation on a global scale, it is causing governments to teeter on the brink. As of 4/16/08 40 countries were listed by the UN as at risk of collapse because food prices have climbed 80% in 3 years. The World Food Program claims 100 million more people are at risk of starvation. And many in the world blame the US ethanol mandate and subsidy policy for most of the problem. It will get worse. Many of the starving are in Muslim countries. You can bet that the hungry and disenfranchised Muslims will be an easy recruiting target of Islamists. And guess who will foot the bill for bailing out collapsed economies? We just shipped $10 million to Haiti when their PM resigned over the food shortages. That's just the start...Ethanol is a solvent that has almost no redeeming value as a fuel.

Ethanol is corrosive. As a solvent it eats rubber, aluminum, paints, and fiberglass. It quite literally dissolves rubber fuel lines in some appliance as it did to one of my HomeLite tools, leaving gasoline dripping out of the gas tank. The HomeLite technical expert said it was because of the ethanol in our fuel and they didn’t have a “fix”. Now multiply that millions of times in garages across Washington State; I reported it to the CPSC.

Ethanol additive percentage above 5.8% requires decreasing the percentage of cheaper fuel additives such as pentanes because of volatility problems per the EIA of DOT, yet some states have created policy pushing ethanol concentrations higher:

Ethanol separates from petroleum gasoline, which makes it unstable generally in less than 90 days. This can leave motorists and boaters stranded. It can make industrial and emergency equipment such as generators unusable;

Ethanol, after separating from water, actually increases the total container volume required because it expands;

Ethanol absorbs water. This is part of the reason it is so corrosive;

Ethanol can’t be shipped through pipelines, thus dramatically increases hazardous tanker truck shipment on our highways and increases the rail terminal infrastructure necessary to handle ethanol rail shipment;

Ethanol, as a solvent, causes sediment to separate from the bottom of a fuel tank and be run through the fuel system, which can clog fuel nozzles;

Ethanol increases microbial action;

Ethanol production from food is driving up the cost of food and reducing export income;

Ethanol production targets have signaled to oil companies (and OPEC) that their additional investment in refineries and extraction may not pay out, thus we are left with more severe shortages;

Ethanol increases several air pollution gases (formaldehyde and acetaldehyde) and is predicted by the Breast Cancer Institute to raise respiratory deaths by a few hundred people per year;

Ethanol fires have been found to be much harder and more expensive to fight. Ethanol fires burn through the foam generally used to fight petroleum fires and which costs about 30% more. Most fire departments neither have this different but necessary foam, nor the training to use it;

Ethanol increases the frequency of gas station fill-ups, and the number of gas stations because it has only 70% the energy of petroleum;

Ethanol subsidies are helping to bankrupt the

economy;

Ethanol production is now blamed around the world for creating civil strife, and famine. Policy makers at the IMF and World Bank blame the US for using food for fuel.

Ethanol production is now criticized by many environmental groups. And far from showing the world how advanced we are, the

is being criticized for damaging the global food supply and forcing the destruction of rain forests

The U.S. Energy Information Administration believes that the practical limit for domestic ethanol production is about 13.8 billion gallons by 2030, or about 7 percent of the transportation fuels market. (Annual Energy Outlook 2007)

Even if all the corn produced in America last year were dedicated to ethanol, it would reduce

U.S.

consumption of gasoline by only 12 percent. (“Corn Can’t Solve Our Problem”, Washington Post, March 25, 2007) A 12 percent reduction in our gasoline demand would reduce our oil demand by only 5 percent – less than third of what is imported from the Persian Gulf alone.

According to University of Minnesota economists C. Ford and Benjamin Senauer, filling the gas tank of an SUV with pure ethanol would require more than 450 pounds of corn—roughly enough calories to feed one person for a year. (“How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor”, Foreign Affairs)

Since

America

provides two-thirds of all global corn exports, the increasing use of corn for motor fuel production – and the resulting rise in grain prices – will be felt worldwide. According to Runge and Senauer, rising food prices caused by the demand for ethanol and other bio-fuels could cause as many as 600 million more people to go hungry worldwide by 2025.

One gallon of ethanol requires 4 to 5 gallons of water to produce at the distillery. Irrigated corn requires 880 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol, but only about 15 percent of the corn grown in the

U.S.

is irrigated. Averaging across both irrigated and non-irrigated corn, 1 gallon of ethanol requires 132 gallons of water. Production of ethanol has already threatened water supplies in many areas. Increasing ethanol production will exasperate this problem. (For water needed by irrigated corn and ethanol, see: Sandia National Laboratory, “Energy Demands On Water Resources,” December 2006. For percentage of corn under irrigation, see Patzek and Pimentel. For concern about water supplies, see Wichita Eagle, “Time to get serious about Ogallala Aquifer, April 8, 2007.)

According to a group of academics from the University of California at Berkeley, only 5 to 26 percent of the energy content of ethanol is “renewable.” The rest of ethanol’s energy comes from other fossil fuels (coal and natural gas) necessary to produce corn and process it into ethanol. (Science 311, January 27, 2006) Transportation energy demand is essentially transferred from one fossil fuel (petroleum) to another (natural gas and/or coal). (Brent D. Yacobucci, “Fuel Ethanol: Background and Public Policy Issues,” Congressional Research Service, October 19, 2006, 22. Available: http://www.ncseonline.org/NLE/CRSreports).

Ethanol contains 34 percent less energy content than gasoline. Less energy efficiency will require motorists to refuel more frequently.

Ethanol plants are heavily subsidized. The federal government provides a $0.51 per-gallon tax credit that is paid out of the government’s general fund. (Kansas Fuel Retailers’ Ethanol Guide.)

The Energy Information Administration reports that the capital costs associated with cellulosic ethanol production are 5 times greater than those associated with conventional corn-based production. (Assumptions to the Annual Energy Outlook 2007). A gallon of cellulosic ethanol then would cost about $7.50 per gallon before even considering the price of the feedstock. (Jerry Taylor, Heartland Institute’s Energy Summit). Current cellulosic ethanol plants are either pilot or demonstration projects that are not producing commercially viable (that is, economic) quantities of ethanol.

Dr. Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator, Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, said in a recent hearing before the House Agriculture Committee that domestic corn is expected to continue to be the primary source of alternative fuels through 2030 – belying the common contention that switchgrass or sugarcane will soon take over the market.

A point worth considering, particularly given the severe drought now affecting the southeastern

U.S.

: Should the American public be gambling on the vagaries of the weather for its fuel supply? A severe, years-long drought in Iowa or Illinois or other key corn-producing states could devastate America’s ethanol industry and the

U.S.

would have no choice but to make up for any shortfall in ethanol production by importing more oil. Further, it’s reasonable to assume – given the ethanol industry’s decades-long addiction to subsidies – that federal taxpayers will be called upon to prop up the ethanol producers in the event of such a drought.

And from the National Renewable Energy Council http://www.e85fuel.com/pdf/ethanol_guidebook.pdf comes a list of materials incompatible with ethanol. Now consider that nearly every home tool, boat, generator, RV, etc has these components in their fuel system, and plastic gas cans also present a problem.

And I might add that ethanol stored in old underground storage tanks are likely to leak into ground water. From the Ford Motor Company website:https://www.fleet.ford.com/showroom/environmental_vehicles/BiodieselTechnology.asp “The World-Wide Fuel Charter, a compilation of fuel quality requirements endorsed by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), the Engine Manufacturers Association, the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association and a number of other automobile manufacturer trade associations around the world, does not endorse fuels that contain more than 5% biodiesel for fuels sold in WWFC defined category 1-3 areas (most of the world). International Truck and Engine Company has stated that the use of biodiesel in their engines - some of which are in Ford products - at greater than 5% concentration, is solely at the discretion and risk of the customer. (read that as “warranty does not cover…”)Use of Biodiesel in Ford Vehicles: Fuels containing no more than 5% biodiesel may be used in Ford diesel powered vehicles. Consistent with WWFC (World-Wide Fuel Charter) category 1-3, “Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) used in commercial fuel must meet both the EN 14214 and ASTM D 6751 specifications”. There are still some unresolved technical concerns with the use of biodiesel at concentration greater than 5%. Some of the concerns are: Requires special care at low temperatures to avoid excessive rise in viscosity and loss of fluidity Storage is a problem due to higher then normal risk of microbial contamination due to water absorption as well as a higher rate of oxidation stability which creates insoluble gums and sediment deposits Being hygroscopic, the fuel tends to have increased water content, which increases the risk of corrosion Biodiesel tends to cause higher engine deposit formations The methyl esters in biodiesel fuel may attack the seals and composite materials used in vehicle fuel systems It may attack certain metals such as zinc, copper based alloys, cast iron, tin, lead, cobalt, and manganese It is an effective solvent, and can act as a paint stripper, whilst it will tend to loosen deposits in the bottom of fuel tanks of vehicles previously run on mineral diesel Ford believes that it is unlikely that the emission benefits of biodiesel will be sufficient to achieve Tier 2 emission standards with out catalysts and particulate filters. Ford is working aggressively on technologies, including engine improvements, new catalysts and particulate filters that will remove HC, CO, NOx and soot from diesel exhaust. Renewable fuels or blends containing renewable components can help reduce the total lifecycle CO2 impact and may be used when available, but they are not the key step to achieving Tier 2 emission standards. “

Who better to acknowledge some of the biofuel problems than a leading biofuel maker Amyris, which according to their website "is developing a gasoline substitute that contains more energy than ethanol, will result in lower cost and less polluting biofuel blends, and is fully compatible with today's cars and the existing petroleum infrastructure. We are also developing a diesel substitute that can achieve lower costs and much greater scale than vegetable oil based biodiesels. Our next generation biodiesel is inherently stable in cold temperatures and does not break down during storage and transport like conventional biodiesel." So this illustrates they likely are working on propanol, and trying to solve the biodiesel problems.

Please note that I am a very strong proponent of bioengineering, energy self sustainment, and fuel from renewable sources. However, I strongly believed the world adopted the wrong fuel in ethanol and the wrong feedstock to make it because of political pressure that was not born of science and common sense..The ethanol policy is based upon fear – fear of running out of fuel – fear of global warming – fear of destroying the Earth. All are wrong. xxxComments and Actions from around the world:Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute said U.S. biofuel policy has "become one of the worst foreign policy issues in our history."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday sent a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson requesting the 50 percent waiver, saying that the increased price of corn is damaging Texas' energy and beef industries.

General Mills CEO, Kendall Powell, "The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food. A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That’s soaking up some of the corn supply"

"Rising global food prices have hit few places as hard as Afghanistan, where the cost of wheat flour has shot up 76 percent in three months, fueling anger against the US backed government of President Hamid Karzai. In the volatile south, officials fear it could boost recruitment for the Taliban insurgency." - AP

Increase US Oil ProductionThere is no shortage of oil in the US. The US has 2 trillion barrels of high quality shale oil in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, and 800 billion barrels of that are recoverable. The 2005 Rand Institute Study for the USGS said that the oil should may be recoverable at $20-30/barrel. New in situ thermal extraction technology also will be able to provide the oil at much less environmental cost than the current Canadian oil sands projects. Meanwhile we must tap into the ANWR oil fields on the Alaskan North Slope. Most of Washington's oil comes from Alaska and the current Pruedoe Bay fields are running low. In fact, total global oil reserves keep going up because more oil keeps being found in areas not previously explored.We should encourage the development of the ANWR field quickly so at to save our economy. And if you think CO2 is the problem, a study xxx