Looming Glut?
Here we go again – feast or famine time. Reuters is reporting that there could be a “looming glut” of ethanol ahead. Just a month ago we couldn’t produce enough.
I especially like the fact that this story is based on the predictions of one person, Fimat Energy analyst Antoine Halff, who says, “Surging capacity … poses daunting challenges for the ethanol industry, including heightened competition for feedstock and the logistical headache and costs of shipping ethanol from the Midwest to the main gasoline markets.”
Halff predicts that by the end of 2008, ethanol production capacity in the Midwest will be sufficient to replace 25 percent of Midwestern gasoline demand and he suggests that the solution to the problem will likely be the wider adoption of E85.
Sounds like good news to me.
3 Comments »
Jim Cossolias
Butanol is a much more viable alternative and does not require a flex fuel vehicle. Ethanol for motor fuel is not a better choice. Ethanol costs twice as much to make as butanol and has 60% of the energy content of gasoline. At 94 octane straight butanol of a butanol blend could also qualify as a single grade fits all motor fuel eliminating inventory problems as well. What are we waiting for????
Al Finn
Ramping up butanol infrastructure is a matter of investment and chemical/manufacturing engineering technology. The public relations battle against the ethanol super-giants is another matter. Ethanol is represented by big farm conglomerate money, among other big business interests, and has its hands in government pockets.
Government officials listen to ethanol. Butanol is the David against the ethanol Goliath.
But Butanol is clearly the better man, so Butanol will eventually win. We should all hope that smaller farm interests will wake up to the possibilities, pool their resources, and put butanol on the main track soon.
Cindy
First of all, BP and DuPont own the technology to make butanol an economically viable alternative fuel.(see previous post http://domesticfuel.com/?p=696) At this point, butanol is not at all cheaper to produce than ethanol because there are no facilities that do it.
Butanol also has some increased health and safety issues compared to ethanol.
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