The ICEman Cometh

But, are cracks forming in the ice?

In other news, modern history’s most notorious con man, Donald Trump, traveled to Iowa this week to lend moral support to E15 (15% ethanol, 85% gasoline) motor vehicle fuel. Forgive me please for using ‘Trump’ and ‘moral’ in same sentence. If you reflect upon this for a bit, as I have, I think you’ll come around to the idea that it’s natural for our biggest con man to be tempted by what has become our country’s biggest natural resource con job, i.e., ethanol derived from corn for use as a motor vehicle fuel. My reaction to Trump’s endorsement:

Image credit: Patrick’s Place

Before proceeding further, might I suggest something. That ‘something’ is that anything requiring the endorsement of Trump’s Syndicate for survival is probably not well aligned with the common good.

Take soil loss, for example. Most would say preserving our soil is ‘the common good.’ Average soil loss in Iowa is 5.5 tons per acre per year. If that acre was planted to corn, and that acre produced 200 bushels of corn grain, and one of those bushels produced 2.9 gallons of ethanol on average, I can tell you how much soil erosion is generated by your choice of E10 and E15 blended motor fuels over the course of a year, assuming you buy 15 gallons per week (see below). It’s a safe bet that Trump didn’t notice the soil blowing across the Iowa landscape when he was here. And if he did, he didn’t give a rat’s ass.

At this point, it’s not clear what Trump’s ‘moral’ support for E15 might resemble. The U.S. Congress debated a continuing resolution funding bill at the end of 2024, and year-round E15 fuel ended up being a part of it. Iowa’s congressional delegation, however, sold the bearskin before the bear was shot. Biden never got that bill to sign. What happened? Then President-elect L’orange and then Number 1 fanboy Elon Musk (remember him?) shared a six-pack before pissing on the E15 campfire and jilting Iowa’s biofuelians by squashing the continuing resolution. As Laura Belin at Iowa Down Ballot has pointed out, Trump IS THE REASON they don’t have year round E15 now. Post-election euphoria must be bad for their memory.

Year Round E15. What is the Controversy?

Uncombusted gasoline evaporated into the atmosphere causes smog. Ethanol blends have a tendency to evaporate more readily than pure gasoline, and physics tells us that this is more likely to happen in the warm weather months. The objective metric of this phenomenon is called the Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP).

Under Section 211(h) of the Clean Air Act, EPA limits RVP to 9 lbs/in² from June 1 to September 15. Going back to 1992, EPA has waived the limit for E10 blends, presumably to accommodate the powerful corn belt politicians that guard ethanol like the Knights Templar. That waiver has never been granted to E15 blends. Thus, the use of E15 has been very modestly constrained by this summer-time restriction.

If consumer choice patterns remain unchanged, the effect of a year-round waiver for E15 on the total amount of ethanol consumed may be somewhat limited. However, it’s clear the industry has something completely different in mind. They’re hoping to dispatch E10 altogether and make E15 and E85 the only ethanol blended choices at the pump, especially as older cars that are intolerant of E15 age out. In this circumstance, ethanol consumption could increase by 30-40%.

The unblended 91 octane gas seen at stations around Iowa really isn’t much of a choice for consumers. Many label this product as ‘recreational’ gas and it can cost more than $1 per gallon more than E10. Unblended 87 octane gasoline is still a practical choice for consumers, if you can find it.

---

Immediately after Trump’s rally, Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, tossed this over-stuffed piñata right at my flaming broomstick: “Pushing (year-round availability of )15% ethanol/gasoline fuel blends through would make President Trump The Godfather of E15.” Can anyone doubt that Trump loves being called ‘The Godfather?’ I sure don’t. Nicely played, Monte.

Makes me wonder if the ICE Capos summarily executing folks in the Twin Towns of St. Paul and Minneapolis call him that.

---

How Did We Get Here?

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a component of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by Congress and signed into law by Bush II. This is how it was supposed to work:

The RFS required specified volumes of renewable fuels (i.e. ethanol and biodiesel derived from plant matter) to be blended into the US petroleum supply at ever-increasing volumes. The amount of corn grain ethanol (dark blue in the graph above) was to top out in 2015 and expanded volume mandates would be fulfilled by cellulosic ethanol and other ‘advanced’ biofuels. Cellulosic ethanol is that made primarily from corn stalks and leaves, what we call stover in the biz. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Cellulosic flopped like a half-dead catfish long off the trot line, and EPA has waived that volume requirement every year. People say ‘cellulosic’ these days with about as much enthusiasm as they say herpes. Q: Why did it flop? A: Because of a variety of technological and economic obstacles.

The amount of fuel ethanol produced from corn does continue to increase, albeit now very slowly. Why slowly? Because the amount of gasoline sold in the US is increasing very slowly, or not at all.

The most common blended fuel has long been 90%-10% gasoline-ethanol (E10). Expanded use of the 85% gasoline-15% ethanol (E15) blend along with the 15%-85% gasoline-ethanol blend (E85) in specially-adapted car engines has kept the market for corn ethanol from collapse.

A generation has passed since Iowa and other states willfully began this journey into Motor Fuel Mordor, knowing FULL WELL where it could ultimately lead. BUT….the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus magnified our importance within both political parties, and the Iraq war shed the blood of thousands of Americans and innocent Iraqis. With government encouragement, the ethanol industry went right on entrenching infrastructure to safeguard the previous year’s and the previous year’s and the previous year’s, building their Too Big To Fail Firewall.

The emergence of EVs in their various forms is stagnating demand for liquid fuels, and by extension, ethanol derived from corn. So is an overall reduced enthusiasm for driving among younger generations. Only 25% of 16-year-olds now have a driver’s license. But relentless lobbying by the Big Ag Lobby has convinced politicians of both parties to virtue-signal their fidelity while supporting strategically dubious schemes that will only intensify the pain when the band aid is finally ripped off. This has become so obvious that only an evil conman like Trump has the chutzpah and gravitas to save it, and even his bona fides on this are questionable.

Bringing in Trump was not a sign of strength. Quite the opposite, it shows how fundamentally weak the industry is. They’re constantly molding their justifications around political personalities and not chemistry, physics and economics. A parallel thing continues to happen with Trump’s ICE murders. Josh Marshall of the Talking Points Memo said this about ICE and Minneapolis: “These things don’t come in one coherent motion. You see it more in a kind of fragmentation, a general loss of a coherent and aggressive message.” It all starts to look so ridiculous that we’re almost flummoxed to summon a comment. The same thing is happening with ethanol.

Does anyone really know anymore why we’re still doing corn ethanol, other than it makes oligarchs like Bruce Rastetter more wealthy? You can talk all day long about jobs, GHG emissions, home grown fuel, foreign oil, and clean air (probably the most laughable one). Or, despite all evidence to the contrary, maybe Iowans actually like polluted water and soil erosion. For the sake of argument, I’ll concede all of Monte Shaw’s bullshit just so I can enter into evidence this massive sledgehammer: 1 acre of solar panels produces as much energy as 100 acres of corn grown for ethanol. And guess what? That first thing (solar) doesn’t require Des Moines to ration drinking water, and Iowa DNR to post “Unsafe for Swimming” signs at state beaches. It also doesn’t help drive the second-in-the-nation cancer rate, kill an ocean 1500 miles away, and lend an assist in the extermination of Monarch butterflies and 3 billion prairie birds. No need to spray solar panels with insecticide and herbicide, so they also don’t cause fish kills and a decline of oak trees, bee hives, grapevines, and vegetable crops.

When ethanol dies, and indeed it will die, the people now making bank will be eagerly looking for someone to blame. Because they have the financial and political capital to do so, they could’ve spent the past several years paving a road that would lead Iowa to a more sustainable and. prosperous future. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t make that a priority.