New at Reason

Here's a riddle: Can the hunt for subsidized funding actually hurt the development of a promising, new, clean energy source? Shikha Dalmia says that this is exactly what's happening to syngas.

Comments

Pro Libertate | March 24, 2008, 3:52pm | #

Ahem. It's "Riddle me this."

kinnath | March 24, 2008, 3:52pm | #

The federal government is quite good at spending shitloads of money to develop technology to facilitate the delivery of ordinance to enemy targets. Many of these technologies can later be exploited by free-marketers to provide useful products to the consumer marketplace.

However, the federal government is not so good at developing non-military technologies regardless of how much money is spent.

BladeDoc | March 24, 2008, 4:22pm | #

Any comments on Zubrin's similar but somewhat less invasive idea about having the government just mandate that all new cars sold be "flex-fuel". He claims it'll only raise the manufacture cost by $100 and then gas stations will put in the pumps to compete.

I found his book "Energy Victory" in which he expounds on this idea to be interesting.

R C Dean | March 24, 2008, 4:47pm | #

He claims it'll only raise the manufacture cost by $100

Color me skeptical. They can't put in a new dome light for that little.

kinnath | March 24, 2008, 4:53pm | #

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

I guess no one actually believes this any more.

Matthew | March 24, 2008, 5:40pm | #

Not to mention, existing vehicles cannot run on an 85% alcohol fuel mixture. Anything more than 10% will damage the engine (or it won't run at all).

LoneSnark | March 24, 2008, 5:51pm | #

Any possibility of this company getting together with the other-one from California and instead of producing ethanol, this process is changed to produce gasoline?

Robert | March 24, 2008, 5:56pm | #

E85 hell, let's see what the booze from this process drinks like.

Marcvs | March 24, 2008, 5:57pm | #

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

I guess no one actually believes this any more.

It just depends on what you mean by better. With mousetraps, you have an easy replacement value (I'm sure there's some economics word for that, but I don't know what it is) With something like automobile fuel, you have to take into account a whole infrastructure that needs to be replaced if you can't use the existing one. You can't just ignore this cost and say, "my new gas is cheaper to manufacture!" Your fuel may be cheaper on the margins, but there's a huge cost that is being ignored. This is where, at least to the proponents of government meddling, the government subsidies come in.

Speaking of subsidies, you also have to figure in the cost of competing against a group that has a large amount of government already in its corner. This cost is also not trivial.

Ben Masel | March 24, 2008, 5:59pm | #

Corn>ethanol impacts beef prices, but poultry and pork not so much, as the protein co-product (distillers grains) is fed to hogs and chickens. Cattle have a harder time digesting it, tho it can mixed in a small % with other feed.

economist | March 24, 2008, 6:13pm | #

Marcvs,
The best way to deal with the problem of competing against a group with government support is to remove the government support. Of course, that is easier said than done.

Paul | March 24, 2008, 7:06pm | #

Anyone who thinks that the oil company's want to discriminate against ethanol is high on crack.

If small research firms figure out a cheap way to produce ethanol from wood chips that's truly viable, there's no reason to believe that Exxon, Chevron, BP, Texaco etc., won't be the new producers and distributors of such a fuel. These companies have fuel refinement and distribution down to a science. They'll merely purchase these new startups and roll them into the existing infrastructure organically.

Safeway in my neighborhood already offers "Biodiesel". It's over $4 a gallon, BTW. Irony?

Kwix | March 24, 2008, 7:17pm | #

Matthew | March 24, 2008, 5:40pm | #
Not to mention, existing vehicles cannot run on an 85% alcohol fuel mixture. Anything more than 10% will damage the engine (or it won't run at all).

Umm, bullshit. The only thing keeping modern (eg. computer controlled ignition) consumer vehicles from using E85 or even pure ethanol is the fuel hoses/gasketing not being rated for it and possibly an upgrade in the size of fuel injectors to account for the increase in fuel necessary at WOT to maintain HP specs. Most fuels contain 10% ethanol in their "summer blends" as it is.

As evidenced Dodge, GM and Ford all support E85. In fact, Ford has been offering E85 support on vehicles since 1996 but they didn't really start advertising them as such until recently (go find a 1998 vintage Ranger or Taurus and look for this symbol with or without the FFV script).

There are companies, mostly Asian, that have either not changed over their gasket and fuel system formulas to withstand E85 or have not announced the change over. Of these, Toyota is the biggest player in the United States and I doubt they will be a hold out for much longer.

I am in no way saying that E85 is the way to go, but your claim that existing vehicles cannot run on E85 is misinformed at best.

Adam872 | March 24, 2008, 8:06pm | #

Paul,

That has always been my contention. I spent 10 years working in the energy industry and I can tell you the folks who run the mega majors (Shell, BP, ChevTex, XOM) are not stupid. If a new energy technology comes along to supplant oil or natural gas, these companies will be on it and drive it through to completion. They know the oil will run out eventually and would have been working on alternatives for years. BP and Shell in particular are at the forefront of this.

Sam Grove | March 24, 2008, 9:14pm | #

Another downside is that it may supplant an even better alternative that hasn't been developed yet.

Travis | March 24, 2008, 10:32pm | #

I live in Iowa and the state gov't here has been investing in corn based ethanol for years. Every gas station is required by law to have a 10% bled of ethanol. Both parties republicans & democrats try to out bid each other at election time to invest in corn based ethanol. If ethanol doesn't turn to be the wonder fuel they claim Iowa's economy will be fucked. But the heavily subsidies farmers in this state have everyone convinced that ethanol is going to make Iowa rich. When you try to tell someone that ethanol is actually worse for the enviroment the regular gasoline you come close to getting lynched.

Neu Mejican | March 25, 2008, 12:06am | #

When you try to tell someone that ethanol is actually worse for the enviroment the regular gasoline you come close to getting lynched.

Lynched is a bit strong, but a citation should be asked for.

You MIGHT be able to make an argument of "not much better than regular gasoline" with a whole lot of qualifiers.

Corn, however, is not a good way to make ethanol.

Sam-Hec | March 25, 2008, 1:34am | #

Paul wrote:
"Anyone who thinks that the oil company's want to discriminate against ethanol is high on crack."

study the history of Roosevelt era Standard Oil and a different picture emerges. But for the oil trusts, Prohibition might not have happened. Diesel fuel was so named not by Rudolph 'Peanut oil' Diesel, but by Standard Oil.

Dello | March 25, 2008, 1:48am | #

Kwix,

+1 to you. In fact, tomorrow I'll be pulling the plastic fuel tank, oversized injectors, and stainless fuel lines and rail from a 1990 Dodge that was meant to run on E85.

john | March 25, 2008, 10:23am | #

Just where is this infinite supply of wood chips supposed to come from? The national forests?

Every time the government tries to override free market choices and mandate new technological approaches the result is less than optimal at best and disastrous at worst. Buying the Iowa farm vote, which to say turning a high quality food source into a low-quality motor fuel, has already caused runaway inflation in food prices worldwide and in the US in particular. What is still a mystery is why the public isn't marching on Washington with a good supply of stout manila rope.

R C Dean | March 25, 2008, 11:07am | #

a good supply of stout manila rope

Perhaps because bona-fide manila rope is made from hemp, the cultivation of which is illegal?

Kroneborge | March 25, 2008, 1:16pm | #

I think a case can definitely be made for not having a bunch of subsidies. But IMO the first step is to stop the billions in tax breaks to the oil companies. That would at at least level the playing field a bit more for green tech. On the other hand, I think investments in infrastructure can be benefical overall. For example, I can't help but wonder if we had taken that 500b we are spending in Iraq and spent it on renewables instead what type of position we would be in.

Paul | March 25, 2008, 1:44pm | #

study the history of Roosevelt era Standard Oil and a different picture emerges.

We're not in the Roosevelt era of Standard Oil. No one talked about supplies being finite. I stand by my assertion, any one who thinks that oil companies aren't interested in furthering their market share is high on crack.

Any oil company which doesn't diversify it's production is doomed.

Oil companies are in business to make money. If they can make money selling you biodiesel, or Ethanol, E85, or E100 they'll try to corner that market, too. Why wouldn't they?

Colonel_Angus | March 25, 2008, 3:51pm | #

It seems like the source of this fuel would be mostly waste plant material such as yard waste, leaves and shit off of crops, and old trees that are normally turned in to wood chips or mulch. I wouldn't mind if the price of mulch increases because it is being turned in to fuel instead. I hate that shit.

I don't understand all the emphasis on alternative fuels. I think higher fuel prices will ultimately lead to changes in the way transportation infrastructure develops and how land is used.