Ethanol Is Struggling

Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group, estimated that of the country’s 150 ethanol companies and 180 plants, 10 or more companies have shut down 24 plants over the last three months. That has idled about 2 billion gallons out of 12.5 billion gallons of annual production capacity. Mr. Dinneen estimated that a dozen more companies were in distress.- By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

NVDL: This aspect is good news. Ethanol was competing against ordinary food crops. They can fall away. What we need instead are solar and wind farms, but here's the caveat. We need to get used to the idea that no combination of alternative energy will allow us to continue to consume/live/operate the way we have. We may be able to operate at a reduced capacity if we're able to downscale or rescale our activities. Unfortunately, it appears that we feel our right, our entitlement to our unsustainable lifestyles remains non-negotiable, which means we're headed for trouble.

clipped from www.nytimes.com The decline in fortunes has been extreme for both kinds of ethanol since last summer, when $145-a-barrel oil appeared to shift fuel economics in their favor. Only months ago, refiners in some regions were buying up as much corn ethanol as they could to blend with expensive gasoline, effectively keeping pump prices down slightly. Meanwhile, investors seemed willing to finance plants to produce next-generation biofuels. But since the summer, oil and gasoline prices have plunged, while the price of corn, from which virtually all commercial ethanol in this country is made, has remained relatively high. Refiners are limiting their ethanol purchases to a level required to meet federal blending mandates — a level far below the industry’s capacity. “The ethanol industry is on its back despite the billions of dollars they have gotten in taxpayer assistance, and a guaranteed market,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy analyst at Rice University.