The U.S. Corn Ethanol Industry, the largest in the world, is now losing a serious amount of money producing unprofitable biofuel. While the situation for the ethanol producers was bad in 2018, due to losses stemming from falling margins, it’s even worse this year. This has prompted one of the country’s largest ethanol producers, ADM – Archer Daniels Midland, to sell some of its ethanol assets with the possibility of spinning off its entire ethanol business operation.
While higher corn prices and falling revenues have negatively impacted the U.S. Ethanol Industry recently, that is only a small part of a much bigger problem. You see, the EROI (Energy Returned On Investment) for corn-based ethanol, is so low, there’s virtually little if any, net energy produced from the 16 billion gallons of the biofuel supplied by the U.S. industry last year… or any year prior.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please understand my analysis of the U.S. ethanol industry is focused at the macro-economic level and is not directed at the individuals or companies who are doing the best to their abilities. The main problem as I see it is that the leadership today is not providing the market with wise advice on our energy situation. Instead, we are ignorantly heading over the energy cliff without a care in the world. Unfortunately, this will end badly
That being said, according to the Alternative Fuels Data Center, U.S. ethanol production has more than doubled from 6.5 billion gallons in 2007 to 15.8 billion gallons in 2017:
Read the rest here: https://srsroccoreport.com/the-u-s-corn-ethanol-boondoggle-producing-1-million-barrels-per-day-of-unprofitable-energy
Ethanol will ruin your engine, it absorbs water bigtime. Horrible stuff. You have to add all kinds of additives to your fuel.
They want to raise the ethanol content from 10% to 15%. Older cars and trucks cannot run on that garbage! It’s bad enough that mileage dropped by more than half when 10% was added. The combustion engine is way passed its time, but “Big Oil” refuses to release its grip on the world, they love the power they wield. That’s why all the hydrogen fuel-cell car research has come to a screeching halt.
Someone’s profiting.