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I don't know about you, but that much energy out of a nugget of 2mm nugget of beryllium sounds pretty freakin commercializable to me.

It depends. How much energy is used to refine that 2mm nugget of beryllium? It's almost certainly a specific isotope mix, which would require a pretty sophisticated refining process (i.e. could be moderately energy intensive aside from the 2MJ ignition burst). You might think that you've got a lot wriggle room with an order of magnitude power output, but keep in mind that Gasoline has an energy density of about 45 megajoules per kilogram, so it wouldn't take much for that refining energy cost to be higher than the ignition energy costs. You have to look at the whole process (for instance look at the costs of corn-based ethanol).

Secondly, how much of the 20MJ output can be captured in a useful manner (i.e. electricity) versus capture/conversion losses? With a modern Internal Combustion Engine, after more than a century of refinement, it's less than 30%.

If the beryllium extraction/refining energy costs are close to the same as ignition input and the conversion efficiency to electricity is under 30%, you don't gain that much.

I think we're finally almost on the same page. You really seem to understand what I mean by scaling. I agree that scaling a process up isn't everything : you have to improve the process as well. I was envisioning an environment where there are multiple competing firms, all doing some practical research, that are always trying to shave another penny off the costs of panels being produced. All would have immense factories, big enough to get the maximum benefit from mass production.

Exactly like the market for computer chips.

And, unlike some of the other industries I mentioned, the amount of regulation and red tape would be vastly reduced.

When multiple suppliers compete to produce equipment used on offshore wells or in oil refineries, they can't shave costs too much, or an industrial disaster will strike. They have to do all kinds of engineering to determine that the parts used will handle the harsh conditions.

I would say that most of what your looking for is already here. Maybe not quite to the scale your wanting but the solar industry in 2005 was a 11.2 billion dollar industry. Of the most profitable companies like Q-cells, and SunPower and Suntech Power have doubled their presence and capabilities since then. Q-cells made over 1.2 billion along in 2007. Nanosolar has all of it's production on back order 18 months out. People are using the tech where it reasonable fits in. They are using it for public image and because of state requirements and so on. It's out there quite strong, it just needs more work. I think I counted a total of 13 companies making over 1 million in sales in the PV solar industry last time I tried to track it down. About 5 of them are publicly traded companies which means there is more pressure to compete with traditional sources.

If the government subsidized it, I would want two things.

a. Elimination of oil and other hydrocarbon subsidies. I argue that burning hydrocarbons is NOT a positive externality, it is a negative one. Even if you don't slap on carbon taxes, you have to at least make the taxes for using oil the same as for any other corporate activity. Why should other industries have to subsidize big oil? (because when you give, say, Exxon, a tax break, the missing government revenue has to come from other corporations. Like Walmart or Cisco)
b. The government could pay, with low interest loans, for the capital costs for the factories needed to mass produce solar cells. Firms that took the subsidies would still have to compete on price on the open market for their product, and would have to pay the operating + depreciation costs (essentially the marginal cost for production). This would encourage them to produce solar cells that are economically feasible.

You have to understand something. The subsidies given to oil don't even match the taxes paid by them. What subsidies do is get the oil companies to do something we want by covering part of the costs so it makes it profitable for them. If we didn't have the subsidies, the oil companies simple wouldn't invest in the areas our government thinks it should, it wouldn't drill in a certain place or abandon a non-profitable well that make costs jobs or something in an area. Currently, the oil subsidies account for around 33 billion dollars over the next 5 years. That would average around 6.6 billion a year. A senate report claims that the total amount of oil subsidies from the last 32 years equals 152 billion dollars. What is surprising about this is that it's all emotional alarm when you consider that American oil companies paid a

Nice claim, seems like I read that before. I will draw on sources that I can find on the internet, rather than what's in my library because my library is harder to share with you, of course you'll just refute these anyway, but it's a good exercise for me:

Here is one that gives the tax rate for the oil industry as of 1998.
Here is one that demonstrates the House wanting to end the tax breaks that you claim don't exist. Of course with the political state of affairs here I wouldn't put it past congress to waste time with useless regulation, but that is another discussion.
Here is one analyzing the oil industries tax breaks as compared to ethanol. Note that I am not a proponent of ethanol and that this information is solely to demonstrate the tax breaks given to oil companies.
Here is a bill from 2005 doing more of the same.
Enjoy.

at the height of the Arab oil embargo, exclaimed that there was "no energy shortage" and said that "at the current rate of consumption we have 600 years of oil left."

Fifteen years later, during the 1987 oil crisis, they ran a similar ad but this one said "at the current rate of consumption we have 200 years of oil left".

Amazing. In 15 years we lost 400 years worth of oil!!!

Both statements were right, of course, but what the oil companies were COUNTING on was that most folks would NOT understand that "at the current rate" doesn't mean that the rate wouldn't INCREASE. It seems that most folks STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Now, we have politicians running for office with the promise that they will "replace oil fields with corn fields". To make matters worse, the US government is subsidizing corporations who make and run Ethanol plants, which immediately begs the question "If Ethanol is capable self-sustaining energy production sufficient to replace oil, why does it need subsidies?"

Independent studies by academic agricultural and environmental experts report that Ethanol requires an input of 54,725 BTU more for each gallon produced than you'd get by burning it. On the other hand, Ethanol industry sponsored studies claim Ethanol has a net energy of 17,058 BTU per gallon. Whose right?

Let's look at the problem in another way. Assuming pro-Ethanol groups are correct, how much Corn will it take to replace gasoline as a source of energy?

From http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/marketing/grainoutlook /html/012306/012306.html we have the following facts:
1) The USDA's January estimate of the size of the 2005 U.S. Corn crop came in at 11.112 billion bushels.
2) Planted acreage of Corn in the U.S. in 2005 totaled 81.759 million acres, with a calculated yield of 135.9 bu/acre.

From Ethanol industry sources we find that the more efficient Ethanol plants can generate 2.68 gallons of Ethanol from each bushel of Corn. Therefore, 11.112 billion bushels of Corn can supply 30 billion gallons of Ethanol.

A fact of chemistry that economic theory cannot change is that Ethanol supplies 76,000 BTU/gallon and gasoline supplies 120,000 BTU/gallon. In other words, it takes 1.5789 gallons of Ethanol to replace the energy in 1 gallon of gasoline. That COULD mean that 30 billion gallons of Ethanol will replace 19 billions gallons of gasoline. But, in reality, Ethanol produced from Corn replaces even less. From a pro-Ethanol website, http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm#concl:
"We conclude that the NEV of corn ethanol is positive when fertilizers are produced by modern processing plants, corn is converted in modern ethanol facilities, farmers achieve normal corn yields, and energy credits are allocated to coproducts. Our NEV estimate of 16,193 Btu/gal can be considered conservative, since it was derived using the replacement method for valuing coproducts, and it does not include energy credits for plants that sell carbon dioxide. Corn ethanol is energy efficient, as indicated by an energy ratio of 1.24, that is, for every Btu dedicated to producing ethanol, there is a 24-percent energy gain. Moreover, producing ethanol from domestic corn stocks achieves a net gain in a more desirable form of energy. Ethanol production utilizes abundant domestic energy supplies of coal and natural gas to convert corn into a premium liquid fuel that can replace petroleum imports by a factor of 7 to 1."

That "7 to 1" is 7 gallons of Ethanol are needed to replace 1 gallons of gasoline! Here is how it is figured: about 58,942 BTUs must be supplied from external energy sources for each gallon of Ethanol produced. To be self-sufficient Ethanol must return that energy, leaving only 17,058 BTU/gal available as excess energy. Or, dividing 120,000 by 17,058 shows that it will take 7.0348 gallons of Ethanol to replace eac

First, most of the newer plants and ethanol "farmers" are using ethanol powered equipment.

Most of the equipment used in agriculture is diesel-powered. Who makes the ethanol equipment? Are they converted diesels or refitted spark-ignition engines? Who builds the fuel systems? (I found a reference to an 800-hour test with EtOH blended with #2 diesel, and another where the fuel was 15% EtOH and 80% diesel. Big whoopee.)

Further, more and more of the ethanol is not coming from specifically grown crops, but agricultural waste and "garbage". (Yes this is personal knowledge here).

It was my impression that the fuel distilleries bought grain on the open market, or spoiled grain not fit for consumption. How do the "ethanol" farmers know they're growing for the fuel market? Especially the ones whose grain gets mold and isn't fit for other uses? Since you have personal knowledge I'm sure you won't mind explaining the details and linking to a few references.

Cellulosic ethanol is reaching the 4-6:1 energy range. Indeed, it does much of this by producing the necessary gasses used in the process (think of in-process recycling).

That statement begs two questions:

1. What's the fraction of fuel ethanol produced from cellulose vs. grain?
2. What's the excuse for giving subsidies to grain alcohol when it does not significantly improve energy supplies or security?

Cellulosic ethanol is indeed far, far better than corn likker. But it's still awfully inefficient; you take a dry ton of biomass at 16.1 GJ and you get 87 gallons of ethanol at ~84000 BTU/gallon (total 7.3 million BTU, or 7.7 GJ) out. That's less than 50% conversion efficiency, and even if you can get your drivetrain efficiency up to 20% (the average is 14.9%) you're down to less than 10% field-to-wheels. Maybe some of the fermentation byproducts have value as animal feed or something, but that still stinks.

If you took that ton of biomass and burned it in a combined-cycle plant achieving 40% efficiency, then used it to charge batteries you could probably get 25-30% efficiency field-to-wheels. You might be able to use the waste heat for other purposes, too; you can't do that with a distillery.

I also love this "logic":

How does the Prius do on this account? Poorly at best. A Prius or other hybrid does nothing to increase a shift away from "gas guzzling". And it does so at a serious risk to future problems.

A vehicle which gets more than double the MPG of your average light truck "does nothing"; never mind that it could be converted to E85 if the incentive structure gave credit for it. Yeah, that's some reasoning.

For example, currently most of the transportation infrastructure such as roads and bridges are paid for by gasoline taxes at the pump. Governments have already started increasing these taxes and considering raising them in accordance with better fuel economy. Why? Simple: as fuel economy improves dramatically, revenues will decrease. We all know that no government likes decreasing revenues.

Since corn ethanol contributes almost nothing to our energy security, why not eliminate its 52 cents/gallon Federal tax subsidy? That would raise more revenue than all the hybrids on the road don't pay, never mind that they tend to be light and cause a much lower share of road damage than heavy trucks. Besides, it would be simple to raise the gas tax by a penny here and a penny there to make up for the changing composition of the fleet. Nobody would notice, and the bulk of the cost would be paid by the people who create the bulk of the damage: those with big, heavy, gas-guzzling vehicles.

Another problem with the hybrid appro

Sure, here's a lot of links for you to read over :) .

Some links are by obviously biased parties (for example, NCGA is the National Corn Growers Association). Others are not. This is just a start, of course - I gathered these in about three minutes of searching. Again, if you can find a single "net negative" study done by anyone - university, corn-industry, government, environmental group, anyone really - that didn't have Pimental and his bad data involved, please let me know, because I've never found such a study.

Just be aware that Pimentel releases this "finding" every other summer, Looking at the dates below, he's a month ahead of schedule this year.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/01/8.23.01/P imentel-ethanol.html

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/03/8.14.03/P imentel-ethanol.html

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/ethanol .toocostly.ssl.html

I can't speak to this newest report, but Pimental's work has been repeatedly critiqued, and one of the main compliants it that he uses out of date numbers for yield and conversion efficiency:

http://www.mda.state.mn.us/ethanol/balance.html

http://www.usda.gov/oce/oepnu/aer-814.pdf

http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_rooster.html

http://www.ncga.com/public_policy/PDF/03_28_05Argo nneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf

http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm

All that having been said, Pimental is right that soy and corn alone cannot replace our petroleum addiction. You can read more about this in the archives at TDIclub.com.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board =UBB14&Number=946804&Searchpage=1&Main=941398&Word s=%2Bethanol+%2Bmoney+DrStink&topic=&Search=true#P ost946804

The study referenced in the article I referenced

I also consider free roads to be a gasoline subsidy as well, but I'm sure you don't agree, even though our gasoline taxes only pay for a small part of the total cost.

<a href="http://www.usda.gov/oce/oepnu/aer-814.pdf">U SDA Report in 2002</a>
<a href="http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm">'95 report</a>

With good crop rotation, and other standard farming practices soil depletion and erosion is not an issue. Hasn't been for years. Ethanol can be made from many different crops, corn is just one of them. Even assuming normal farming, as opposed to the most conservative ones soil overall stays the same, but fertilizer is added to keep it there (or often improve it first and then keep it there). Fertilizer manufacture is becoming much more efficient. While farmers are using less.

I am of course ignoring solar in claiming ethanol is energy position. IIRC plants are something like 2% efficient in converting solar energy to other forms, while solar cells can reach 40%. (laboratory, but 10% is reasonable in the real world, and these are old figures)

A quick google search reveals that typical studies show ethanol had 1:1.34 energy ratio in the mid 90s, and that number was going up, that is studies from the early 90s did have a negative balance. Interestingly, Gasoline production is quoted at 1:0.85, that is more energy is needed to produce gasoline than you get from it! (mostly because of cracking and other refinery costs)

Links: Estimating the Net Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol: An Update ETHANOL'S ENERGY BALANCE - Illinois Plenty more at Google, I just copied in the more interesting ones. I tried adding "Richard Heinberg" onto the search terms, but all I got was a bunch of FUD links with no hard data. (And a link to Amazon.com where I could buy his book, which might or might not be real science, I don't have the money to buy it)