Air Pollution Rules Relaxed for U.S. Ethanol Producers

[nosmokes]

so am i the only one this makes no sense to? the whole point of using etoh as a fuel is to reduce greenhouse gasses, so we're gonna allow the plants that produce the ETOH to make more greenhouse gas than do now? something is just fundamentally wrong with the logic of this administration. it just doesn't work out.
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original-ens

Air Pollution Rules Relaxed for U.S. Ethanol Producers

WASHINGTON, DC, April 12, 2007 (ENS) - The federal government said today that it will permit corn milling facilities that make ethanol for fuel to emit more than double the amount of air pollutants previously allowed. The new rule is expected to increase the amount of ethanol available for fuel.

The final rule issued today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, treats facilities producing ethanol for human consumption, industrial use or fuel equally under Clean Air Act permitting requirements.

Until today, corn milling plants that make ethanol for use as a fuel additive have only been allowed to emit 100 tons of polluting emissions per year, while plants that make ethanol for human consumption have been permitted to emit 250 tons per year.

The new EPA rule allows all ethanol producers using corn or other carbohydrate feedstocks to emit 250 tons of air pollutants per year.
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complete article here

[Javaman]

1. You know why, right?

because the gov't scum is pulling the wool over the eyes of the nation on this one. I'm sooooo surprised. They think, "well, the moron public thinks that ethanol production is green, let them think that and to drive the point home, we will allow the ethanol producers lower the pollution levels on production output. The public will think, "duh it's clean fuel, so duh, it's only corn, heh heh heh, pass me another beer woman!!""

When in reality, the mouth breathers of American haven't a single clue about how it requires fossil fuels to plow, plant, grow and harvest this "green" fuel.

and so it goes.

[jpak]

2. This is about volatile organics emissions - not greenhouse gases

Big difference.

VOs contribute to photochemical smog formation.

Annual US emissions of VOs are ~21 million tons per year.

There are 118 corn ethanol plants in the US. If all increased their VO emissions by 150 tons by this rule change, it would increase US VO emissions by 18,000 tons (or 0.085% of current US VO emissions).

Ironically, corn ethanol is used as a substitute for MTBE - a gasoline oxygenate that is used to *reduce* auto VO emissions.

MTBE is a seriously bad ground water contaminant - and substituting ethanol for MTBE is a Good Thing.

That said, this rule change is NOT needed. It's just another example of ChimpCo EPA fucked up emission rule rollbacks.

[nosmokes]

3. well, nitrogen oxides are listed and that's a greenhouse gas and

particulate matter is a contributer as well. but you're definitely correct , in spades, about the MTBE. my understanding, though i've never delved into it, is that the refiners started putting MTBE into gasoline at the behest of automakers to help them meet CAFE standards. you know anything about that?

[jpak]

5. "NOx" - NO and NO2 are not greenhouse gases - N2O (nitrous oxide) is

but is not produced by ethanol plants, cars or industrial boilers.

and yes, the MBTE thing was a wrongheaded attempt to play nice with gasoline manufacturers - and it backfired.

Some info on ethanol production and GHG emissions...

Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0604600103v1

Jason Hill, Erik Nelson, David Tilman, Stephen Polasky, and Douglas Tiffany

Abstract

Negative environmental consequences of fossil fuels and concerns about petroleum supplies have spurred the search for renewable transportation biofuels. To be a viable alternative, a biofuel should provide a net energy gain, have environmental benefits, be economically competitive, and be producible in large quantities without reducing food supplies. We use these criteria to evaluate, through life-cycle accounting, ethanol from corn grain and biodiesel from soybeans. Ethanol yields 25% more energy than the energy invested in its production, whereas biodiesel yields 93% more. Compared with ethanol, biodiesel releases just 1.0%, 8.3%, and 13% of the agricultural nitrogen, phosphorus, and pesticide pollutants, respectively, per net energy gain. Relative to the fossil fuels they displace, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced 12% by the production and combustion of ethanol and 41% by biodiesel. Biodiesel also releases less air pollutants per net energy gain than ethanol. These advantages of biodiesel over ethanol come from lower agricultural inputs and more efficient conversion of feedstocks to fuel. Neither biofuel can replace much petroleum without impacting food supplies. Even dedicating all U.S. corn and soybean production to biofuels would meet only 12% of gasoline demand and 6% of diesel demand. Until recent increases in petroleum prices, high production costs made biofuels unprofitable without subsidies. Biodiesel provides sufficient environmental advantages to merit subsidy. Transportation biofuels such as synfuel hydrocarbons or cellulosic ethanol, if produced from low-input biomass grown on agriculturally marginal land or from waste biomass, could provide much greater supplies and environmental benefits than food-based biofuels.

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[tom_paine]

4. In Loyal Bushie World, the EPAs job is to keep us from finding out we've

been poisoned by pollution. It is to keep it's Loyal Bushie base of a coupel hundred corporations protected from the Special Interests, which to a Loyal Bushie (or a Loyal Nazi) is THE PEOPLE.

The EPA is merely one of hundreds of Loyal Bushie Agencies awash in corruption and deceit, functioning exactly the opposite of what they were intended.

A monstrous shadow is on our land, unlike any we have seen before since the Alien & Sedition Acts, as dangerous as any threat to America ever was or is...since 1865.

[NormanYorkstein]

6. lol

All you have to do is say "environmentalist" and suckers like up.