Is Ethanol the Answer to the Energy Dilemma?

n0xin writes "According to Fortune, "The next five years could see ethanol go from a mere sliver of the fuel pie to a major energy solution in a world where the cost of relying on a finite supply of oil is way too high." In an effort to meet fuel-economy standards, automakers already have 5 million ethanol-ready vehicles on the road. Supporters are optomistic that "we can introduce enough ethanol in the U.S. to replace the majority of our petroleum use in cars and light trucks." Are SUVs included in this category?"

Comments

Better uses

[KiloByte]

Well, you see, I can find some a lot better uses for ethanol than using it as a fuel...

Re:Better uses

[FhnuZoag]

Hey, what isn't alcohol an answer for?

Re:Better uses

[hazem]

Eye-wash stations?

Re:Better uses

[Disavian]

Alcohol doesn't make good lube.

Re:Better uses

[sgt scrub]

I can find some a lot better uses for ethanol

Looks like you already did ;-)

Only if I have ...

[IAAP]

sigphon to the tank!

Still doesn't

[dal20402]

...help with global warming.

Next solution please.

Re:Still doesn't

[Fatchap]

Well it does burn considerably cleaner than petrol based hydrocarbons. It will not make it any better, but it may slow the rate it is getting worse.

Re:Still doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is going to help reduce global warming unless we use non CO2 energy generation to precipitate CO2 out of the atmosphere. Even if the US and Europe ceased emissions, China and India who are going through a massive industrialization would quickly 'compensate.' If you want results, make a lot of new nuclear plants and a lot CO2 removal devices (perhaps a calcite pool?).

One other option: nuclear winter cancels global warming. It is up to YOU (yes, you!) to decide whether this is a good idea or not.

Re:Still doesn't

[Fatchap]

It also reduces the amount of Sulfur release, reducing acid rain. As acid rain has contributed to the deforestation of Scandinavia quite considerably, a reduction in atmospheric Sulfur may allow these to grow back and over time photosynthesis some of the CO2 back to Oxygen.

Re:Still doesn't

[Billosaur]

Depends on who you ask:

Against: CU scientist terms corn-based ethanol "subsidized food burning"

For: Industry Argues That Ethanol Delivers

Re:Still doesn't

[Rei]

Yes, we all know that Pimentel (and whatever recently graduated grad student or two he can grab up) is an anti-ethanol crusader. We also know that he's almost alone in his claims that ethanol is a net energy loser. Lastly, we also know that whenever he says it, news sources gobble it up, because it's "controversy".

It's also wrong.

First off, lets start with the fact that even if a fuel were a net energy loser, it's irrelevant. Ethanol converts a source of energy that you can't put into your gas tank into one that you can. Usually that's natural gas, but sometimes it's agricultural waste or even waste heat from other processes or power plants. The nazis converted coal to oil with horrible efficiency (using far more energy's worth of coal than they got out in gasoline), but it powered their war machine.

Ignoring that, it's not even close to a net energy loser. Everyone's studies except Pimentel comes up with this fact. Why does Pimentel get such different numbers from everyone else? He rigs the game. Instead of assuming, logically, that if ethanol demand increases, people will build more modern plants, he uses the efficiency numbers of plants from the '70s. He uses the world's worst efficiency numbers on fertilizer production. He assumes that all corn that would go toward the ethanol production comes from irrigated land (very little corn is irrigated). Some people defend this last point, saying that the corn would require new land, and any land that it would have to grow on that wouldn't need to be irrigated is already in use. This is incorrect; the corn would take the place of plants that can tolerate drier conditions, which would move into the more arid land. Overall, total irrigation use would increase, but is is incorrect to pretend that it would increase by the amount as if you had to irrigate all of the newly needed corn.

In short, Pimentel cheats to get his bad result. And he is routinely criticized for doing so. Find me an anti-ethanol study that doesn't have his name on it, and I might care.

By the way, part of the reason why ethanol is so expensive has nothing to do with energy balances, or even its production costs: it's transportation. You can't ship ethanol in much of our current oil pipeline infrastructure.

My main complaint about ethanol is simply the land issue. More farmland=More deforestation. Especially in tropical countries, this is a major issue.

Re:Still doesn't

[ClamIAm]

None of the popular computer operating systems currently available can perform the job of a research mathematician.

Next solution please.

Re:Still doesn't

[c_fel]

That's not the real problem. The big problem is :
1. The superficy needed to grow the corn ;
2. The amount of energy corn takes from the ground, resulting in an usable ground in a very little time.

The solution for our energy abuse is :
Stop abusing energy.
Sometimes even logical solutions sound stupid.

Re:Still doesn't

[SpaceballsTheUserNam]

"Next solution please."

Ok but you might not like it, Nuclear, fission that is. Really the only (proven) viable option.

Or coal (or tarsands/gas/other burnable shit), we got tons of that, but no help with the global warming. Geothermal could theoreticaly fit the bill but isn't there yet. Solar and wind power have their niches. There's zero point energy, but the NSA will continue too suppres it. Some form of fussion, but not until its too late. Or something else, unforseen by ME, unlikely.

Re:Still doesn't

[codemachine]

Part of the problem is that ethanol was hyped up so much before it was able to deliver.

I know that in this region, it has been pumped up as a great way to diversify our agriculture, and a great way to prove that these feed lots are a good thing rather than a bad one.

An agriculture economics student that I am related to sought to prove how great ethanol was for her project class. She studied the many variables surrounding the plant that was to be built near here. Despite the fact that she was biased towards it, the economic numbers very plainly showed that what they wanted to do here was a stupid idea. There was no way for it to be economically feasible.

Of course the price of oil back then wasn't over $60/barrel, so that obviously changes any economic analysis. It doesn't change the fact that ethanol didn't come anywhere close to living up to the hype it had at the time. Things may have changed a bit over the last couple years, but it may take a while to convince people who've been tricked before.

Re:Still doesn't

[BerntB]

acid rain has contributed to the deforestation of Scandinavia

Those problems are much smaller these days, since England, eastern Germany and Poland has started to scrub their power plants...

The worst problem was pH levels in lakes. (-: Forests are the only things growing well in most parts of e.g. Sweden. :-)

Re:Still doesn't

[themysteryman73]

While that would be nice, most of the world's photosynthesis is done by phytoplankton in the ocean. So while a forest would contribute a little, if all of the ocean's phytoplankton aren't doing a good enough job, I doubt a forest will produce a significant amount of oxygen in comparison.

Still, though, it seems that ethanol is a better solution. By what margin, I don't know.

Re:Still doesn't

[Belseth]

I agree on all counts but I would add that there are other sources for ethanol than corn and some grow on arid land. One issue that's rarely discussed is that a lot of land is growing government subsidized crops that are essentially unneeded. If the land was used instead for ethanol or oil crops there would be a net gain. So long as the farmers get their subsidies they don't care what they grow. The problem usually comes down to a lack of communication between government departments. Much of the government opperates like warring camps competing for financial resources. If there was more cooperation in the government many of these problems would go away. Alternative sources are taboo because the oil companies are threatened by them. If it was simply a matter of wanting to stay on the oil standard we'd be romancing Canada for oil sand oil but the government has been ignoring the largest known source of oil. Why? Domestic oil companies have no control of that source. By invading Iraq we gained control of one of the largest current sources. It helps keep the domestic oil companies in control of the money. I hate to see the oil sands become the answer because that means a drastic increase in global warming. I hate the term global warming because it's deceptive. It's climate destabilization in truth. Notice the record cold and snow falls in Hawaii that no one in memory can remember seeing? It's part of the same effect and the global warming models predicted it. Everyone shouldn't be afraid of global warming it's the backlash which is global cooling that should make people afraid. Remember during the last round half of the US and virtually all of Canada was under an ice sheet. Europe is scared. Why aren't we? Just how many record hurricanes do we need in a year before some one wakes up and smells the CO2?

Re:Still doesn't

[camelrider]

We can either tear up the rest of the country to increase the available farm land or learn to eat petroleum!

Re:Still doesn't

[visualight]

The real problem is that the automakers are excluding any solutions that don't require a combustion engine. They've completely backed off of electric cars now and we'll have hydrogen burning combustion engines before we have all electric cars.

Electric cars give us real choices about how we power our vehicles, and how (and for how long) we maintain them.

Re:Still doesn't

[nickos]

Why is this modded as Troll? - it's an important point!

Re:Still doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want results, make a lot of new nuclear plants and a lot CO2 removal devices (perhaps a calcite pool?).

Any point you might have had is quickly dismissed because you don't know the term "scrubber".

Re:Still doesn't

[mrchaotica]

No, the real big problem is:

1. Stop being so damn fixated on CORN!!

Making ethanol from corn is stupid because it's not even close to the highest-yield crop for that! Using a better crop would instantly solve both of the problems you mentioned (which, by the way, are only problems in the first place because of the idiotic farm subsidies we've got, which encourage growing corn to the exclusion of everthing else).

Re:Still doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric cars are a joke. When you look at their overall efficiency, it isn't much better than a similar small, underpowered internal combustion car, and can be worse in the winter (when battery efficiency is less at cold temps and you have to heat the inside of the car). Combine that with the costs of replacing the battery pack a number of times over the life of the car, and you lose.

Electric cars only move the point at which the pollution occurs from the car to to powerplant.

Electric car efficiency = Powerplant efficiency * Transmission line efficiency * battery charger efficiency * battery storage efficiency * electric motor efficiency.

Re:Still doesn't

[Marxist Hacker 42]

But global warming sure helps with those home heating bills! :-)

Seriously though, saw on the news this morning that Chevy and Ford both have E85 SUVs in the Portland Auto Show this year.

Re:Still doesn't

[Forge]

You make 1 very valid point amid all the noise.

We need Nuclear power plants. How I picture them really impacting the environment is like this.

1. Produce Electricity at Nuclear plant.

2. Transmit Electricity to gas stations in the usual manner (power lines).

3. Run Hydrogen extraction equipment at gas station to fill up Hydrogen powered cars.

Note this means gas stations will need more pumps until we faze out Gasoline. I.e. Diesel, Unleaded, regular, Biodiesel, Ethanol, Hydrogen. Electricity (For battery operated vehicles).

Of those listed only the Hydrogen and raw Electricity pumps will not involve transporting a volatile chemical over long distances. That has to be a benefit ?

Re:Still doesn't

[Fatchap]

True but I was not sure if there were similar effects elsewhere. Does anyone know of any studies done anywhere else on the effects of sulpher dioxide on forests

perhaps not

[Anonymous Coward]

...but it's sure used as the answer to the geek-in-a-bar dilemma

Who are the supporters?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Ask the Seahawks fans who's going to win the Superbowl and you'll likely get a consensus that the Seahawks will win.

Ask the corn industry what fuel technology will succeed, and you'll likely hear ethanol. Like Seahawks fans, ethanol fans are few and far between and pretty much isolated to a small backwater area of the country.

Re:Who are the supporters?

[kevin.fowler]

Your nick is rather ironic after reading that post. Seahawks fan?

Re:Who are the supporters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironic? In that the analogy was a *good* one?

Re:Who are the supporters?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Ask the corn industry what fuel technology will succeed, and you'll likely hear ethanol.

You might try reading TFA next time. From TFA:

Instead of coming exclusively from corn or sugar cane as it has up to now, thanks to biotech breakthroughs, the fuel can be made out of everything from prairie switchgrass and wood chips to corn husks and other agricultural waste.

You're criticizing ethanol based upon old technology. Cellulosic ethanol doesn't depend upon corn, and is more cost-effective in the bargain.

Re:Who are the supporters?

[IAAP]

Cellulosic ethanol doesn't depend upon corn, and is more cost-effective in the bargain.

Dude, define Cellulosic ethanol, please.
I don't know what the fuck that is. Because, it really sound like corn to me.

Re:Who are the supporters?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Supporters of biomass fuels are behind bio-diesel. Corn growers are behind ethanol. There's lots of money to be made making ethanol if the market would exist, and it's the corn growers who would reap the rewards.

Joe HighSchoolQuarterBack working the fry machine at McD's isn't going to be making a fortune in his side business selling used freedom fry oil.

Re:Who are the supporters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google it.

Re:Who are the supporters?

[ajs318]

Cellulosic ethanol is ethanol derived from cellulose.

The idea is simple. You take any plant matter containing cellulose {a long chain polysaccharide which is fairly immune to yeast}, and hydrolyse the cellulose into mono-, di- and short-chain polysaccharides. Then you have something that will undergo fermentation.

Any dilute acid will hydrolyse cellulose, but then you have the problem to get rid of the acid {which will harm the yeast} without creating a salt which also will harm the yeast. {Might it be possible to use a base whose salt with the chosen acid is insoluble in water, and filter out the precipitate? Since solubility is affected by temperature, it should be possible to refrigerate the mixture in the neutralisation tank to help it precipitate, and dump the waste heat into the hydrolysis tank to speed up the reaction. Further Work Required.} Alternatively, there may exist enzymes which will decompose cellulose into sugars and starches. If these are found to be compatible with yeast it may be possible to work a single-stage conversion, otherwise it will be necessary to do a multi-stage process, neutralising the first enzyme before fermentation ..... this does not seem to offer any advantage over the use of a dilute acid.

Re:Who are the supporters?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Alternatively, there may exist enzymes which will decompose cellulose into sugars and starches.

Your friendly neighborhood cow probably has some cellulase to sample.

Of course is it.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

We'll just turn all of south america and africa into big ethanol farms, the people living there be damned. Who cares if it takes an absurd amount of our infrastructure for the renewables, as long as it's "environmentally friendly"?

Re:Of course is it.

[KiloByte]

We'll just turn all of south america and africa into big ethanol farms

Or, we'll turn most of Russia into a big ethanol farm... oh, wait...

Re:Of course is it.

[Iron E]

Or, we'll turn most of Russia into a big ethanol farm... oh, wait...

In post-soviet Russia Ethanol fuels you.

Re:Of course is it.

[Crayon Kid]

Or, we'll turn most of Russia into a big ethanol farm... oh, wait...

It strikes me that the big old field owners, users and industries won't go down without a fight anwyay.

As for "environmental friendly"... You know, lack of energy is not "the dilemma". The main problem is that we have and consume too much energy. It all turns to heat eventually, hence the steady global warming. Burning oil byproducts are just part of the problem.

The main concern should be limiting energy consumption. Finding new energy sources should come in second place.

Re:Of course is it.

[aminorex]

Um... no. Global warming does not result from the heat generated by burning fuel. It results from the failure to re-radiate enough heat from the surface of the earth to maintain climatic equilibrium. While CO2 is relatively transparent to visible and ultra-violet light, when that light interacts with the surface of the earth it is re-radiated largely in the infra-red, which greenhouse gasses such as CO2 and methane transmit less readily.

Reducing energy consumption will hurt people badly. It will result in less economic development, less industrial capacity, less food, less medicine. The goal should be to make both energy consumption and energy production more efficient, in terms of capacity requirements and greenhouse emissions.

I would like to see someone start a Global Cooling Foundation, to focus efforts to underwrite effective amelioration strategies, such as seeding algal growth in the Pacific using chelated iron. Just a few thousand tons of iron in the nutrient-impoverish equatorial regions of the Pacific would more than compensate for all anthropogenic CO2 and methane emissions.

SUVs

[Nerd-o-mancer]

Yes, the government tallies SUVs under that "light trucks" category, because they are (or used to be) built on truck frames. The only difference was they had cabs that went all the way back.

Re:SUVs

[706GL]

Most Ford Explorer from the past few years run on "Flex Fuel", meaning Ethanol or Gas. I don't know if anyone other than Ford is shipping cars Ethanol ready but I don't think it's really a big or expensive deal to convert them anyway.

Re:SUVs

[mrchaotica]

The cars sold in America that support flex-fuel are the large cars, midsize trucks, and some SUVs made by Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler, the trucks sold by Mazda and Isuzu that are copies of American trucks (e.g. the Ford Ranger == Mazda B-series), the Nissan Titan, and the Mercedes C-class.

Incidentally, all except the Mercedes are American-made cars (including the Japanese-brand ones).

source

Re:SUVs

[mark_lybarger]

i have a dodge grand caravan that runs on E85. unfortunately, the only place around to get it is 1/2 hr away, and iirc, the fuel costs more than regular do-it-yourself, and it gets a bit less gas mileage. if i could get it on my way home or to work, maybe, but not a 1/2 hr drive. there's actually only a handfull of stations here in the entire state of ohio.

No

[PorkCharSui]

Ethanol would take up too much of our ag land that we need to sustain our food supply. Check the movie The End of Suburbia (http://endofsuburbia.com/ for a preview of our sad future.

Re:No

[Fatchap]

In that case why does the EU pay farmers to set aside their fields rather than grow things that contribute to the surplus? Why is surplus food routed to Africa (lowering the price for whatever domestic produced grain there is)?

Perhaps there just needs to be a change in focus, especially if you can ferment the non edible parts of food crops for fuel (such as the stalks on grain crops) and waste vegetable matter it could be a win win.

Re:No

[Bing Tsher E]

Shipping food to Africa and the third world is a form of economic warfare. It deflates the price of grain and food products in the places where it is shipped, and thus discourages the people in those countries from growing more of their own food. It creates an economic dependence in said countries for regular shipments from the 'benevolent' countries who contribute the food.

Would *you* want to plant a crop of corn if it were likely that people from another country were going to dump their surplus crop into your market? You'd likely find yourself harvesting a crop worth less than your expense in producing it.

These issues are complex, and the rich countries 'just shipping in food' make the issue worse in many regards.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Or on torrent

Re:No

[Guppy06]

"Ethanol would take up too much of our ag land that we need to sustain our food supply."

Considering the glut of corn-based junk foods out there, that actually might be a good thing.

Re:No

[realilskater]

Actually, producing ethanol does not take up our agricultural land. Ethanol that is currently produced in the corn belt is produced from the waste of farming operations. The ears of corn are harvested and sold to the usual buyers. The stalks that are normally made into feed for livestock are first sent to an ethanol plant where the sugars are extracted and made into alcohol through fermentation. After the sugars are extracted the stalks are made into feed for livestock as they would have before. The production of ethanol in the US has been steadily increasing in recent years and will continue that way for the forseable future. It is also worthy to note that ethanol is mixed with 5% gasoline before it leaves any production facilities. The denatureing of the ethanol is to prevent if from being taxed and treated under laws as the alcohol it is.

Other sources of fermentable materials is currently being reasearched. Some of the sources that have been researched range from various types of trees such as birch and spruce to food processing wastes like chicken and fish entrails. The bottom line is that ethanol is a viable source of alternative energy.

Re:No

[TykeClone]

Most corn based ethanol produced now is produced from corn, and not field trash. The corn is reduced to a "distillers grain" in the process which is a higher protein animal feed than the corn from which it is derived.

Production of ethanol does not take up more land. The land is already producing corn. What the production of ethanol does is to make use of the corn closer to where it is produced and to convert it into a form (a liquid) that is easier to transport and use.

Re:No

[misleb]

Indeed. I'd sure like to see high fructose corn syrup powering cars rather than making people fat and diabetic.

-matthew

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds plausible... unless one actually has been paying attention to what's going on in Africa, which makes your answer sound like total bullshit. Half the former breadbaskets of Africa were taken over by thugs and dictators who systematically destroyed their ability to produce food, and the other half are currently war zones.

Withholding food from Africa would merely result in the *mass starvation of human beings*, not economic prosperity. When the wars are over and they're actually capable of growing again, we'll ship them seeds for a few years instead of grain, tapering off as local production returns to its previous net-exporter normalcy.

Re:No

[zoney_ie]

Agricultural land we need to sustain our food supply! HAH! Here in the West, a lot of good agricultural land isn't used to produce food. And more of it is used to produce food that isn't sold (e.g. Milk)

Furthermore, we sell more food than we eat. WAY more. A whopping huge amount of it is just binned, i.e. surplus from supermarkets, restaurants.

And then we actually buy too much individually. And some of us eat either far too much, or types of food that are inefficient (and yes, we shouldn't need to give up nice foods, but far too many people eat "delicacies" constantly, and even health suffers as a result).

All these moanings of running out of farmland and not being able to feed the "surplus population" are just lies to make people feel better about our corrupt and wasteful Western society.

We are of course, possibly going to be well screwed if China continues to embrace the Western way. That will show up just how unsustainable our habits are.

Re:No

[AndersOSU]

I'm far from sold on the ethanol solution, but it isn't like we are using most of our agricultural land to feed people directly anyway. Most of the corn produced in the US goes to make pig feed.

Re:No

[AndersOSU]

As I understand it the parts of crops that are desirable for EtOH generaton aren't the stalks and chaf, but rather the kernals, for the same reason they're edible - high carb content.

Re:No

[AndersOSU]

That's not what I've read. EtOH isn't produced from waste because of pitfully low yeilds, kernal is used because it has a high card (fermantable) content. The waste is waste because its mostly fiber, not good for eats or anything else.

The stalks aren't made in to feed, the seed is, again for the same reason - low carb content. And I really hope you mean the cob and not the stalk, because if you've ever driven by a corn field you can clearly see that they don't even bother to pull up the stalk.

The production of EtOH has been increasing, but the appropriate question to ask is would it be cheeper than gas if the EtOH subsidies were removed. It wouldn't have two years ago, but we may be getting close to the point where it is now.

However, if a farmer is going to sell a portion of his crop to EtOH production, that is all it would be used for.

Re:No

[Fatchap]

I don't think we were saying that withholding grain would turn the developing countries into prosperous countries overnight. The problem is that continually dumping our excess grain, out of date pharmaceuticals and other rubbish on them is certainly not improving the situation.

Imagine you are a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa, you try to grow a little grain on the poor soil you have, hoping that you are not hit by a bad drought and you have something to harvest so you can sell it on to secondary industries. The money you get from the grain will be used to clothe and feed your family etc. Now imagine that the day you trek into market to trade there is a big shipment of western grain being given away. What do you think that does to your price and the prospects of fending for your family?

Yes, there are huge problems with the way that despotism and graft have infected many of the African states post the withdrawal of their previous colonial rulers. Yes, European nations must shoulder some the blame for this. Yes, some of the blame also sits at the USA and the USSR using African counties as pawns in the cold war. However, don't let's think that dumping unwanted products on them is anyway to assuage the guilt from this or is any form of absolution. It is morally wrong for the developed world to act like this, no matter what the spin doctors tell you is the reason for it.

If you are saying that we should be doing something to help then I wholeheartedly agree with you on that front. What that something is I am not so sure about, having seen the way we cower to the likes of Robert Mugabe, the total abomination of our dealing with Rwanda and the ongoing problem in Ethiopia and Eritrea I do not think that there is an appetite amongst world leaders to really solve this "blot on the worlds conscience."

Re:No

[why-is-it]

if you've ever driven by a corn field you can clearly see that they don't even bother to pull up the stalk.

It depends on what the crop was intended for. If it was grown for feed and intended to become silage, you would find that the stalks are harvested too.

Usually though, if the corn was planted for the kernels, the cobs and stalks are left behind. These can be collected for silage as well, but it is of a relatively poor quality. Furthermore, the time, labour and fuel costs of harvesting the residue left after combining must be factored in. It might not be worth the effort, particularly since you would have to seed the field with fall wheat or rye immediately to prevent soil erosion.

Very interesting

[mendaliv]

It looks like there's finally a use for all the grass clippings coming out of suburban neighborhoods and non-office paper that gets thrown away instead of being recycled.

From the article:
Instead of coming exclusively from corn or sugar cane as it has up to now, thanks to biotech breakthroughs, the fuel can be made out of everything from prairie switchgrass and wood chips to corn husks and other agricultural waste.

This biomass-derived fuel is known as cellulosic ethanol.

Re:Very interesting

[bergeron76]

Yawn.

I knew about this Back in the third Future.

Re:Very interesting

[jayteedee]

The grass clippings might actually work, but the recycled paper won't help at all. What they are talking about is the starch/sugar left over from paper manufacturing that is useful for alcohol conversion. The paper is the cellulose/fiber part of the tree and doesn't contain enough starch to convert into alcohol.

Re:Very interesting

[wiggles]

I think the point of the GP was that they appear to now have the technology to ferment the cellulose itself into ethanol. The problems of which you speak appear to be overcome. Time will tell if this is indeed the case, however.

Re:Very interesting

[wagebo]

I beg to differ... Cellulose is 100% carbohydrate. Is just a form a glucose that is linked end to end to form a chain. WE live off of glucose so you can't tell me that there is no carbohydrate in cellulose. It's just that it's in a form that we as humans are unable to digest.

No it's not

[hsoft]

Growing corn takes a lot of pesticide/machinery/etc.. Ethanol is NOT environment-friendly. Globally reducing our energy consumption is.

Re:No it's not

[TripMaster Monkey]

Ethanol need not be produced from corn...From TFA:

Instead of coming exclusively from corn or sugar cane as it has up to now, thanks to biotech breakthroughs, the fuel can be made out of everything from prairie switchgrass and wood chips to corn husks and other agricultural waste. This biomass-derived fuel is known as cellulosic ethanol.

Cellulosic ethanol requires little far machinery and no pesticides. From Renewable Energy Access:

We can't remember how many times we've been asked the question: "But doesn't ethanol require more energy to produce than it contains?" The simple answer is no-most scientific studies, especially those in recent years reflecting modern techniques, do not support this concern. These studies have shown that ethanol has a higher energy content than the fossil energy used in its production. Some studies that contend that ethanol is a net energy loser include (incorrectly) the energy of the sun used to grow a feedstock in ethanol's energy balance, which misses the fundamental point that the sun's energy is free. Furthermore, because crops like switchgrass are perennials, they are not replanted and cultivated every year, avoiding farm-equipment energy. Indeed, if polycultured to imitate the prairies where they grow naturally, they should require no fertilizer, irrigation, or pesticides either. So, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, for every one unit of energy available at the fuel pump, 1.23 units of fossil energy are used to produce gasoline, 0.74 of fossil energy are used to produce corn-based ethanol, and only 0.2 units of fossil energy are used to produce cellulosic ethanol.

Between its lesser environmemtal impact (up to 80% reduced emmisions) and its cost-efficiency, cellulosic ethanol is far more environment-friendly than fosil fuels.

Re:No it's not

[hsoft]

Well, I didn't know. I guess I should have RTFA. However, I have hard time believing that culture like switchgrass would not require fertilizer. Prairies don't require fertilizers because grass dies and decay right there and animals eating it defecate and die and decay right there, thus keeping the eco-system intact. However, take that prairie, cut all the grass, produce ethanol and burn it. Do it for a couple of years, and without fertilizers, you shouldn't have any more grass growing there.

Of course, I'm not an expert and could be wrong, but this is what my common sense tells me.

Re:No it's not

[brunes69]

Most of the nutrients in the soil come from the rain, not from bio-degrading material.

Think about it for a second, if all of the nutrients in the soil came from other plants and animals that bio-degraded, then the ecosystem in that area would be unsustainable over the long haul.

Re:No it's not

[hsoft]

Oh great, thus we can all tell the farmers to stop putting fertilizers on their fields, and tell all organic farmers to stop putting the excrements of their animals on their fields, because it's useless: most nutrients come from the rain.

Anyway, I give up. I don't want to say that the article is wrong because I don't have the knowledge to say so. Maybe that the kind of culture they are speaking of would only need nutrients that come from the rain to be a sustainable culture, but I'm skeptic.

Re:No it's not

[ClamIAm]

Prairie plants are basically weeds. They'll grow back.

Re:No it's not

[dbIII]

Growing corn takes a lot of pesticide/machinery/etc.. Ethanol is NOT environment-friendly

Ethanol makes sense if it's a byproduct of something else or produced by a less intensive farming method - Brazil is using it successfully but they can't make enough for everyone without using a lot of oil to make fertilizer and defeating the purpose. Methanol makes more sense from some plant material. Methane makes a lot more sense from waste products.

Where ethanol has the advantage is that conventional car engines can run well on it without much work and it's easier to ship around. Methane can run in diesel engines without much work - but due to the high sulphur content of US oil there aren't a lot of diesel vehicles currently in the USA and as a gas it makes more sense in fixed installations than vehicles. Biodiesel makes sense so long as it's made out of waste products - specificly growing Canola for it is burning oil to make fertilizer to make biodiesel and is a losing prospect.

There's no one true energy - even for vehicles. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something or has swallowed a sales pitch.

Re:No it's not

[Anonymous Coward]

If by Machinery, than you mean, tractors, than those would, in all practicality run on ethanol as well, right?

Re:No it's not

[TykeClone]

Biodiesel makes sense so long as it's made out of waste products - specificly growing Canola for it is burning oil to make fertilizer to make biodiesel and is a losing prospect.

Corn -> Ethanol + distillers grain

distillers grain fed to animals -> "fertilizer" + meat

"Fertilizer" + corn ground -> more corn

Re:No it's not

[dbIII]

distillers grain fed to animals -> "fertilizer" + meat

I can understand the simplistic misconception, but what you are describing is "organicly grown" corn and is a lot more expensive and difficult than using artificial fertilizers - plus there are obviously a lot of losses in the system.

Re:No it's not

[TykeClone]

manure makes a good supplemental fertilizer. Rotating between corn and soybeans also does a great deal to help reduce the amount of fertilizer required.

Both of those methods add nitrogen to the soil. As near as I've seen, the bulk of the fertilizer applied to corn fields is anhydrous ammonia - nitrogen.

The production of anhydrous ammonia is where a great deal of fossil fuels (natural gas, I think?) is expended.

Re:No it's not

[dexter riley]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bowl

Re:No it's not

[ultranova]

Oh great, thus we can all tell the farmers to stop putting fertilizers on their fields, and tell all organic farmers to stop putting the excrements of their animals on their fields, because it's useless: most nutrients come from the rain.

The more nutrients the plants have available, the faster they grow. Using fertilizer lets you get more harvest from the same field. Not using fertilizer means that you get less harvest, not that you get no harvest.

There are plants (moss) that grow on bare rock. They just grow really, really slow.

Anyway, I wonder if it would be more cost-effective to use seaplants; I'm pretty sure that plankton increases its biomass faster than land-based plants.

Re:No it's not

[ajs318]

Bollocks. Organic farming would be as cheap as, or even cheaper than chemical farming if it weren't for the huge subsidies paid out to chemical farmers {who already overproduce anyway}, and the fact that any farmer seeking organic certification must wait several years for the tainted land to purify itself -- during which period their produce can't legally be labelled organic.

Re:No it's not

[Steve525]

No, you have a good point: if you take the plant matter away, you are taking nutrients away. If you keep doing this, you'll eventually won't have enough nutrients to grow whatever it is you want to grow.

However, it is possible that this will still work without needing additional fertilizers. We don't really need all of the plant matter to make our fuel. It is possible, that in the refining process (when the plan matter is broken down into the fuel we want), we are left with a lot of waste which actually the nutrients that the plants need. We just need to put this waste back onto the ground.

At first, this sounds wrong, because you can't get something from nothing. But in this case, what we are really interested in, is the carbon cycle. In this cycle energy from the sun is used to combine water and CO2 to make some O2 and some compound (sugar, alchohol, and maybe cellulose), which can then be converted back into water and CO2 (using up O2) giving up energy. The nutrients the plants use, don't actually participate directly in this cycle. They form the factory that does the work, but they aren't actually consumed.

Having said this, I have no idea how the other details of the chemistry work, and if it possible to separate the nutrients from the fuel. I am making this up, since I only have enough knowledge to be dangerous. I'm just saying it's concievable you could use plants for energy without having to add fertilizer to the cycle.

Re:No it's not

[AndersOSU]

Not a chance in hell. Farmers use chemicals because they get something out of it. Even if you could fertilize naturally there are still huge disease and insect problems. Like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_rust

Re:No it's not

[ClamIAm]

Yes, so if we have a massive drought and hire a bunch of people who to do this who can't farm, I'll accept your argument. Maybe you haven't realized this, but farmers have improved their techniques since the early 1900s.

Re:No it's not

[juicyfruit]

I call bullshit.

I don't know if the energy is net positive or not, but even without reading any studies I can tell you NO ONE is including the sun's energy in the equation because OF COURSE the balance can't work if you count that. Such a study would be absolutely pointless and I can't believe anyone is that stupid.

Sheesh.

Re:No it's not

[why-is-it]

Most of the nutrients in the soil come from the rain, not from bio-degrading material.

That simply isn't true.

if all of the nutrients in the soil came from other plants and animals that bio-degraded, then the ecosystem in that area would be unsustainable over the long haul.

You are forgetting that the latest crop of plants are consuming nutrients from the soil. It's not like the nutrients accumulate forever and ever.

Re:No it's not

[dexter riley]

Massive droughts happen; fertilizer and pesticide costs will greatly increase as oil prices increase; the profit margins for growing plants for ethanol may be fairly small; farmers will be under even stronger economic pressure than today to maximize output; modern farming techniques are highly energy intensive; expecting farmers to extract more energy from more land with less inputs, and not recognizing the possibility of large-scale erosion, particularly as average temperatures rise and rain patterns grow more sporadic, seems short-sighted. Or hadn't you realized this?

Re:No it's not

[ClamIAm]

Once again, farming techniques have improved, are improving, and will improve. Or hadn't you realized this?

Ethanol seems best

[AKAImBatman]

Ethanol would be a lot cheaper than trying to deploy hydrogen. With the hydrogen route, we have to redeploy our entire fuel infrastructure. Which isn't going to happen as long as most people drive gasoline cars. Ethanol, OTOH, can work in a standard gasoline engine with a few modifications, and can be supplied from the existing fueling stations.

With gas prices being so high, all that's standing in the way of Ethanol is this constant argument over whether or not it's energy positive or not. Of course, this completely ignores the issue that hydrogen isn't energy positive either. You need powerplants upstream to crack hydrogen, just as you'll need upstream energy to supply farming equipment. Even in Ethanol isn't energy positive (which I don't believe for a minute), it's still a better option than hydrogen.

What we really need for Ethanol to take off is a proper hybrid vehicle capable of burning both gasoline, ethanol, and various blends.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[acidblood]

What we really need for Ethanol to take off is a proper hybrid vehicle capable of burning both gasoline, ethanol, and various blends.

These are all over the place here in Brazil. Last I heard, something like 80% or 90% of small cars were sold with hybrid ethanol-gasoline engines (nicknamed Flex around here). Many shops (even small ones) already have the technology to convert an ordinary gasoline engine to a hybrid, and it isn't that expensive either.

I should remark that Brazil was a pioneer in the usage of ethanol for car fuels, but in the last decade or so it was getting out of fashion. With the advent of hybrid engines we're seeing a revival of sorts, particularly given the lower price (which unfortunately has been rising though).

For my part, I believe the future is biodiesel, not ethanol, though.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethanol, OTOH, can work in a standard gasoline engine

Silly rabbit, ethanol isn't OTOH! It's C2H5OH. Duh.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[bergeron76]

Actually, there are much bigger things standing in the way of "everyday ethanol". They are:
a) a massive 10's of Billions of dollars of Fossil Fuel investment (dating back to the 60's) - You'll have to do your own homework but the keywords here are: President Regan, GH Bush (Cia Director), Noriega, Iran, Panama, Bush (41), Iran, Iraq, Bush (43), Saudi Arabia, Sept. 11th, Fox News, Iran, War on Christmas, Iran, Iran.

b) Hydrogen is the future, but no new energy can come about without the approval of item a) above. The reason being that the production of any energy that deflates the profits of the massive investments in the existing (and decrepit) fossil fuel infrastructure haven't been re-couped. No Genius on this planet could introduce a perfect fuel and overtake the existing oligarchy. The "Big 3" Oil companies would simply fabricate a reason for the sudden lowering of Oil prices, and undercut the production costs of this great new energy source. For example: Genius inventor discovers a way to turn Corn into Ethanol. Genius inventor gets with investors (even Massively Wealthy ones), and can only produce his "fuel" for $2.00 a gallon. The existing Oilgarchy would suddenly "discover" a new method of refinement, or possibly an undiscovered "reserve" off the coast of Bali. As a result, prices of Gasoline would drop back down to $1.89 a gallon; thus making your affordable $2.00/gallon Ethanol Fuel both a) cost prohibitive, and b) not worth the modification to their vehicles and the existing "trustworthy" infrastructure.

As long as we live and die by Petroleum fuels, we're all slaves to the rich corporations.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[dada21]

With gas prices being so high, all that's standing in the way of Ethanol is this constant argument over whether or not it's energy positive or not

Gas is not expensive. It has dropped in price versus inflation, leading me to believe we're not running out.

Ethanol is much more expensive in the long run -- compare mileage for the same amount.

Oil isn't leaving us any time soon. Oil created the best quality of life increases in all of history. Be thankful we have it.

That laptop you use? Oil-based plastics. Those contact lenses? The sneakers? The UV-reflecting coatings on glass? Part of the insulation in many homes?

Oil based.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[AKAImBatman]

Gas is not expensive. It has dropped in price versus inflation, leading me to believe we're not running out.

They're currently being held artificially low by the government oil reserves. The price per barrel of sweet crude oil hasn't budged much from its ~$60 position. Ethanol is extremely competitve at that price, and has been blended in many areas to help keep gasoline prices down.

Ethanol is much more expensive in the long run -- compare mileage for the same amount.

The bad news? Ethanol is less energy dense than gasoline. The good news? We don't burn our gasoline worth a crap. Ethanol can burn much more efficiently, helping cover a great deal of the energy gap. Especially if we move to a more efficient engine than the Otto cycle.

Oil isn't leaving us any time soon. Oil created the best quality of life increases in all of history. Be thankful we have it.

That laptop you use? Oil-based plastics. Those contact lenses? The sneakers? The UV-reflecting coatings on glass? Part of the insulation in many homes?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an environmentalist out after the death of Petrolium. Petrolium has a lot of uses. Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems with using it to fuel transportation. Ethanol frees us from relying on foreign markets, stablizes the price of fuel, and creates a source that isn't anywhere near as hard to access. As alternative fuels go, it's the best option we've got. And less reliance on Oil for transportation can only help drive down prices for use in other industries.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[The Fink]

Of course, oil isn't energy positive either.
Okay, sure it's energy positive from the time we extract it from the ground, but any fair consideration needs to take into account the amount of energy that, once upon a time, was required to create that oil, since essentially what we're required to do is replace the whole supply chain (or, wait a few hundred thousand years -- or more! -- for the supply chain to replenish the stocks we've taken).

I'm led to believe that the figure is approximately 24 tonnes of plants to produce one litre of petrol as an end product. Considered this way, then ethanol, biodiesel or hydrogen are all far less energy negative.

The bonus is that waiting several hundred thousand years for the fuel supply to renew itself isn't necessary with the other energy-negative part-solutions.

Oh, and converting a standard four-stroke petrol engine to run on ethanol is not that hard, either -- as proven by a recent entry of a 1925 Austin in the Darwin to Adelaide Panasonic World Solar Challenge. Bigger carburetor jets (or similar adjustments in a fuel injected vehicle), cylinder head lubricant (probably not necessary on most unleaded vehicles), and some timing adjustments are about the mix of it, and come to think of it EFI systems could be designed to handle such adjustments mostly automatically.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[mixmasta]

This is a defeatist argument. The change over will be slow, it will be difficult, but it is coming whether anyone likes it or not.

Why not try to help it along? The national security reasons ought to be enough in themselves.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[Anonymous Coward]

as a chem eng student, who has done a bit of research in the area, unfortunately, bio-diesel produces as much particles and soot as ordinary diesel, if not more, RME - Rape Methyl Ester (which is being looked in to in europe) increases the nitrogenoxides count and is therefore in my opinion not an viable alternative.

What we found best during our research was using ethanol for cars, biodiesel for trucks, and to make the ethanol from renewable sources / forraging leftovers etc. and heat buildings by a central heatcarrying net and heat-exchange it to produce heat in the individual houses, and fuel this using biogas / methane from wastedumps.

However, alot of what we do is massively pointless, because USA (not the largest country in the world if you count inhabitants) are the biggest producers of greenhouse-gases. So as long as you don't change, there realy isn't much point in our change.

Kind Regards / Mark

Re:Ethanol seems best

[zoney_ie]

Why do people in the US seem fixated with Ethanol? Here in Ireland, all we hear about is rapeseed oil, which can be used in a normal diesel engine (that hasn't been used for diesel, or has had filters and stuff changed). We have a few vehicles running on that right now (the fuel, including the same taxes as petrol/diesel, is more expensive though. Set less tax though, and it would be cheaper). I'm just curious why the focus seems to be different?

In any case, there are definitely renewable resources we can burn in our vehicles. The problem is not that (once oil prices go high enough, the switch will happen *fast* and without a nasty crash), but rather power for the major consumption we have (heating, lighting, domestic, industry, etc.) Unless we go nuclear and content ourselves with increasing storage of nuclear waste, there's a major problem of how to get away from fossil fuels in power plants. A *FAR* bigger issue than vehicles.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[bcattwoo]

Why do people in the US seem fixated with Ethanol?

Diesel engines are way less prevalent here (at least among passenger vehicles) compared to in Europe. This is likely due to a number of factors some of which include the high sulfur content in most diesel has led to prohibitions in some states and the perception among much of the public of diesel engines being smelly and noisy. I think VW is the only manufacturer who has sold passenger cars with diesel engines here in the past decade or so, with some old Mercedes diesels still kicking around as well.

Biodiesel does seem to have gained some traction with those that do own diesel cars, but is obviously less attractive to those who don't own a diesel and have few choices in obtaining one. Honestly, even ethanol is little talked about outside of enviro-type circles. Gas-electric hybrids and hydrogen vehicles are all the rage in the mass media here.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[marcosdumay]

Brazilian ethanol yelds 10 times more energy than it needs to be produced and taken to the cars. It yelds 18 times the energy it needs to be produced.

Brazilian biodiesel outputs 4 to 5 times more energy than it needs to be produced and taken to the cars. But brazilian production of biodiesel is very low tech yet and will probably inprove a lot on the next years.

As you see, both can yeld net positive energy.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[bkeeler]

It's pure politics. Ethanol is heavily subsidised, and the farm states are politically powerful. Iowa, in particular, has an early presidential primary, and presidential hopefuls are pretty much blackmailed into supporting the subsidies if they want to get those key early votes. The farm-state congress-critters are likewise beholden.

Re:Ethanol seems best

[bill_mcgonigle]

unfortunately, bio-diesel produces as much particles and soot as ordinary diesel

This is too bad - diesel particulates seem to be a leading cause of childhood asthma.

However, alot of what we do is massively pointless, because USA (not the largest country in the world if you count inhabitants) are the biggest producers of greenhouse-gases. So as long as you don't change, there realy isn't much point in our change.

Mark, you misunderstand Americans - we're lazy and cowardly. You go ahead and perfect the processes, get the costs down, solve the big problems, and we'll come beating down your door with contracts and fists of cash for your better, more environmentally friendly, more cost effective fuel solution. We're just not willing to run the experiments ourselves.

What kind of question is this?

[halcyon1234]

Of all the asanine things I've seen on Ask Slashdot...

Isn't this something better solved with a quick Wikipedia search and a quick Google query?

All the biologists and physicists I've spoken to say no. It's a fuel source, yes, but not a viable replacement for oil. It has a much lower fuel efficency, and it is still non-renewable. It might solve SOME of the pollution problems, but that's still a "might". It won't solve the growing energy need, and it won't solve the issue of non-renewability.

If you're looking forward towards a sustainable, rewnewable, efficient fuel source, they should be looking at wind, solar, nuclear, or hydrogen, to name a few.

Re:What kind of question is this?

[TripMaster Monkey]

All the biologists and physicists I've spoken to say no.

Really? All of them? Care to provide a list of these sources?

It has a much lower fuel efficency, and it is still non-renewable.

Wrong and wrong. From Renewable Energy Access:

We can't remember how many times we've been asked the question: "But doesn't ethanol require more energy to produce than it contains?" The simple answer is no-most scientific studies, especially those in recent years reflecting modern techniques, do not support this concern. These studies have shown that ethanol has a higher energy content than the fossil energy used in its production. Some studies that contend that ethanol is a net energy loser include (incorrectly) the energy of the sun used to grow a feedstock in ethanol's energy balance, which misses the fundamental point that the sun's energy is free. Furthermore, because crops like switchgrass are perennials, they are not replanted and cultivated every year, avoiding farm-equipment energy. Indeed, if polycultured to imitate the prairies where they grow naturally, they should require no fertilizer, irrigation, or pesticides either. So, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, for every one unit of energy available at the fuel pump, 1.23 units of fossil energy are used to produce gasoline, 0.74 of fossil energy are used to produce corn-based ethanol, and only 0.2 units of fossil energy are used to produce cellulosic ethanol.

Re:What kind of question is this?

[Fatchap]

Do you mean asinine?

Anyone else see the irony?

Re:What kind of question is this?

[greginnj]

If you're looking forward towards a sustainable, rewnewable, efficient fuel source, they should be looking at wind, solar, nuclear, or hydrogen, to name a few.

Nuclear is renewable?? Who knew?




... my guess is that it's probably not even rewnewable, and I say that as a fan...

Re:What kind of question is this?

[halcyon1234]

All the biologists and physicists I've spoken to say no.

Really? All of them? Care to provide a list of these sources?

Hang on, let me just go ahead and try to remember every conversation I've ever had. {rolls eyes}

Off the top of my head, I'd have to say David Stephenson and Julie Czerneda (physicist and biologist, respectivly)

Re:What kind of question is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear is renewable?? Who knew?

Duh. After it's been used in a power plant, the spent fuel rods can then be reused for dirty bombs and sources of radiological contamination for generations. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Re:What kind of question is this?

[cataclyst]

'specially if the cores reach critical mass.... [/sardonic]

Re:What kind of question is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some research on Wikipedia? You mean the exact thing YOU obviously did not do?

"However, all subsequent studies have concluded that ethanol production yields more energy than it consumes (most agree on a ratio of 1.34:1 -- [8] and see below). ... ethanol production is 81% more energy efficient than gasoline. (Groschen http://www.mda.state.mn.us/Ethanol/balance.html>)"

And newer technologies are only improving this : http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=38601

You should try talking to biologist and physicist who have updated their data in the past 20 years, or who do not rely on studies that have been almost universally criticized for serious flaws.

And how the Hell do You conclude that ethanol is non-renewable? What will stop its future production? When will the world run out of ethanol? The answer is simple : Never, there is nothing to stop ethanol production. Suitable feed stocks for ethanol have been growing for hundreds of millions of years, and will continue to do so. Once the current crop is harvested, a new crop can be planted, ad infinitum.

Nuclear energy on the other hand, is absolutely NOT renewable. There is a finite supply of uranium on Earth. And eventually, it will be exhausted. The current supply is far greater than the need for the immediate, but that is true of coal too, and it was once true of oil. That does not make them renewable.

Re:What kind of question is this?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Come now, this is Slashdot. You really ought to know better than to try to pull something like this.

Provide references to support your point, or admit you don't have a point. It's that simple.

(And no, random name-dropping does not count as providing references.)

Wrong. It could.

[burne]

Ethanol made from plants will form a closed carbon-cycle. Ethanol sythesized from non-fossil sources will form a closed carbo-cycle.

Re:Wrong. It could.

[Anonymous Coward]

But aren't plants are produced from fertilizer which is made from oil?

Re:Wrong. It could.

[bradkittenbrink]

Actually, I think it would probably be slightly better than a closed cycle. Chances are that ethanol production from plant biomass will never be 100% efficient, and always leave at least a little waste carbon. As a result, the carbon dioxide released by burning any amount ethanol should add up to less than the plants used to produce it consumed from the atmosphere.

Re:Wrong. It could.

[bcattwoo]

But now you are neglecting the fuel that had to be burned to plant, harvest, and process the corn to produce the ethanol. Not to mention that a lot of that "waste carbon" will likely end up finding its way back into the atmosphere via decomposition and some other process. There is also the question of what the effect will be of switching from whatever was already growing on that land to growing corn for ethanol production. It is a very complicated problem to figure out the net effect of ethanol.

Re:Wrong. It could.

[mrchaotica]

So run the tractors and processing plants on ethanol too! As long as it's net energy output is positive -- which it is -- it'll be fine.

Also, growing corn to produce ethanol is stupid. There are a lot more efficient crops than that, such as sugar cane and hemp.

Re:Wrong. It could.

[bcattwoo]

So run the tractors and processing plants on ethanol too! As long as it's net energy output is positive -- which it is -- it'll be fine.

True. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of the net energy calculation. As long as it doesn't take more energy to produce ethanol than the ethanol itself produces than it should be carbon neutral. If it was energy negative (not saying it is) then some other renewable energy source would need to be used to maintain that neutrality.

Also, growing corn to produce ethanol is stupid. There are a lot more efficient crops than that, such as sugar cane and hemp.

I'm sure there are and those will have their own energy/carbon/money cost analyses that need to be done as well.

Re:Wrong. It could.

[vandon]

So run the tractors and processing plants on ethanol too! As long as it's net energy output is positive -- which it is -- it'll be fine.

Wait, wait, wait, wait...Everyone seems to know when there's a dupe and jump all over it. So, how come no one is brining up this slashdot story?

The Strange Energy Budget of Ethanol Production

Which states:
"The San Francisco Chronicle published an article regarding research on how much fuel is required to make Ethanol. The results indicate that it make take 6 times more energy than the end product delivers."

Re:Wrong. It could.

[mrchaotica]

You know, somebody else in this thread said something to the effect of "The only one who says ethanol is a net drain of energy is [this one particular guy] and his grad students, and his studies have been thoroughly debunked by the rest of the community." It made me wonder if this was the same guy. So I looked it up.

The research mentioned in the article you linke is by "Tad Patzek," who is apparently a geoengineering professor at UC Berkeley.

The guy mentioned by the other post I read (which is here) is named David Pementel and works at Cornell Univerity.

Well, I do a Google search, and lo and behold! -- it turns out they worked together on the same [debunked] study!

So pardon me if I discount your "ethanol production uses 6 times more energy than it produces" claim, mmkay?

Re:Wrong. It could.

[dyslexicbunny]

What's the difference in the two? I'm not a chem person.

Shit article..

[IAAP]

There was nothing on the energy required to make this "Fuel". It was just a press a release.

Next article please!

The editors are modding us down -2 at a time. Just watch!

As a North Dakotan

[alexwcovington]

I'm proud to say I drive my 1993 Mercury Topaz on 40% ethanol. Hand mixed by yours truly with a fly-by-night flip of the regular and E85 pumps. And it runs GREAT.

Re:As a North Dakotan

[TubeSteak]

I dug up some articles through google the last time ethanol was mentioned and basically, they said that:

Cars can handle 10% ethanol with no modifications

20% ethanol eats away at various gaskets and other plasticy/rubbery parts.

So you can run your car on a 40% ethanol blend, but I wouldn't expect it to last a long time. And maybe you should keep one of those ABC fire extinguishers in your car... just in case one of the gaskets give up & your engine catches on fire.

Re:As a North Dakotan

[elbenito69]

Of course, I wouldn't expect a 1993 Mercury Topaz to last much longer anyway...

Re:As a North Dakotan

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, but he'd be perfectly fine if he had a Sable, Mountaineer, or Grand Marquis instead!

Re:As a North Dakotan

[miller701]

Why are Iowa, Minnesota and (god help us) South Dakota kicking our collective asses in Ethanol plants? Exisitng and planned.

I think people up here don't belive in it enough yet. Hopefully we'll catch up eventually. I could be bad memories of the coal gasification plant and the Ethanol plant up in ? (Cavalier?) that ADM bought out back in the Eighties. I think it was a case of being too far ahead of the curve.

Re:As a North Dakotan

[Billly Gates]

Exactly.

I bought a new 2006 Hyundia Elantra and any ethenal can damage the engine and my car's manual has big warning labels about using ethanol at all.

I want to avoid ethanol as even %10 could damage my engine. I hope they dont mix it in gas soon without informing customers. My fear is with high gas prices there will be an incentive to mix it in to cut down on costs. After all if you say 2 gas stations with one for $2.30 a gallon and one for $2.40 a gallon then which one would you chose?

Why does there have to be just one solution?

[Yonder Way]

Part of the reason we're in such a pickle is because we depend so completely on just one fuel source. Haven't we learned that diversity will make us more robust?

Re:Why does there have to be just one solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we don't learn too well? Any of these sound familiar to you?
Repeating history, two party system, multiply convicted drunk
drivers, etc.

We like hammers, and when you have a hammer in hand everything
looks like a nail.

Re:Why does there have to be just one solution?

[giampy]

yeeaaaah riiiiight ...

I am looking forward the day when every wheel in the car will have its own size, when there will be 234 different types of DVD, of course mutually incompatible, and i could finally write my /. posts in southeastern italian dialect !!!

cant wait ...

Costs more than it delivers

[bennyp]

Ethanol fuel is made of corn. Corn is grown using industrial processes which rely heavily on oil-based fertilizers and oil-fueled machinery. A much better solution is hemp-oil.

Re:Costs more than it delivers

[Fatchap]

Here is an alternative for you. RTFA before posting. The point is clearly made that it can be produced from a variety of crops including grasses that require no fertilizers.

Even if it need oil based fertilizers using ethanol as the main fuel for vehicles would free up some of the finite oil resource to make it, and those nice man made fabrics you wear.

Re:Costs more than it delivers

[AK__64]

So when are we going to see grass farmers out there? The simple fact is that only corn farmers are going to get behind ethanol and promote it, and only so long as it's corn-based ethanol. The article does not point out that it is only in theory that large quantities of ethanol can be made from grasses.

"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[246o1]

The answer to the question is no, because this is just a half-way measure at best, even given a lack of morality with regard to the people in foreign. As you pointed out, we can turn the Third World into our ethanol-farming slaves (but it's not ACTUALLY going to be very environmentally friendly), and we'll have to start getting bananas, coffee, cocaine, and other important crops somewhere else.

The great thing about ethanol, if it replaced oil, is that we would no longer have to support evil dictatorships like Saudi Arabia (and have less incentive to interfere in the Mid-East in general), and we could let the revolutions that have been waiting to happen finally happen. The house of Saud would be SOL in 10 years if the US withdrew its support.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

If the question isn't energy generation (ethanol is fermented grain, which derives energy from sunlight), then it is just about energy storage... what form can it be in that's close to being as convenient as oil/gas/petrol.

Hydrogen has its flaws here. I'm thinking we need to move away from such a dependence on portable stored energy. More light rail, less cars. Even so, can't eliminate it completely, so we probably need something revolutionary in solid state energy storage. Just no clue what it could be.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[Keith McClary]

The house of Saud would be SOL in 10 years if the US withdrew its support.

I'd give them 10 days if they also pulled out the expats who run the computer systems for the military and police.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[dada21]

I think not.

Look around you -- everything plastic came from oil. Many synthetic products, too.

Oil is cheap and plentiful. We're not running out and we won't in our lifetimes. Oil has not increased in price versus inflation.

Be thankful to oil producers for all they provide, cheaply.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it, although ethanol has a lower energy density than gasoline, it burns more efficiently by a large enough margin that you get further on an equivalently sized tank of fuel. Which makes it actually more convenient than gasoline.

Plus it's less toxic and spills would be less harmful to the environment. Although in large quantities it could certainly kill off aquatic animals. But still, it would degrade and disperse much faster.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[rusty0101]

Not quite everything plastic.

The vast majority of those plastic bags you get your food in at the grocery store checkout counter are actually made from corn oil, not crude oil.

There are quite a few other "plastic" products that are made with various other vegetable oils. Granted a large number of hits on Google are for bio-diesel, but there are others as well.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[jridley]

We're not running out and we won't in our lifetimes.

For me, the question is not about "in our lifetimes." Do we have more rights to resources than our children? Is it OK to burn stuff up at whatever rate we choose just for the hell of it, because it's all about us, screw people in 200 years?

We are slowly crawling out of that nasty hole; we have been far worse in the past (some of the industrial operations of the last 150 years are truly horrific) but obviously we have a ways to go. Most people go through almost every day with no thought for the repercussions of their actions, and no thought for the future except for THEIR future, and MAYBE their children, but screw anyone else and their children, and even unborn generations of their own line.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[PaxTech]

Is it OK to burn stuff up at whatever rate we choose just for the hell of it, because it's all about us, screw people in 200 years?

Do you honestly think we'll still be getting the majority of our energy from burning oil in 200 years? I simply don't understand how people posting on a technology focused website can make the mistake of extrapolating trends into the future without taking technological change into account.

200 years ago people pondering environmental issues in their far future would have worried about where we would dispose of all the waste from our equine powered economy. After all, the population keeps rising, therefore the world needs more horses for transportation, therefore there will be horseshit six feet deep in the streets everywhere! Environmental holocaust! The sky is falling!! Our equine dependence is simply unsustainable! Oh, won't people please think of future generations? :)

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[RevWhite]

I'm afraid straw man arguments don't hold up here. First off, the manure is useful and biodegradable. It did pose a bit of a disposal problem in large cities, but it was useful. Second, how do you predict the future other than extrapolating a trend? You can't depend on some miraculous technology that hasn't been developed. We have to make efforts toward our goals ourselves if we want to create change. We cannot simply say that our children will create something useful to reduce/eliminate oil dependence.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[jridley]

Do you honestly think we'll still be getting the majority of our energy from burning oil in 200 years?
No, I don't, but I do reject the "we're not going to run out of oil in our lifetimes" statement as being a non-sequitur in this conversation. Any finite resource should be used with care. There are too many people who figure if there's enough for them, then there's enough.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[aminorex]

In fact, the 23d century had contemplated declaring war on us, but then they realized that if they bombed us back to the stone age they would not be able to invent time-travel, thus defeating the war effort.

Re:"environmentally friendly" wasn't the point

[thirdrock]

Second, how do you predict the future other than extrapolating a trend? You can't depend on some miraculous technology that hasn't been developed.

Except of course, they have been developed. Dozens of them. Solar Power, Wind Power, Wave Power, Thermal Gradient Power, Geo Thermal Power, ethanol, biodeisel, algae deisel, kinetic effeciency (super cars), lighting effeciency (compact flourescents), air conditioning efficiency (see Lee Eng Lock's SuperSymmetry in Singapore for the world's most effecient AC), manufacturing efficiency, farming effeciency and so on and on and on.

The problem is that lazy westerners are always expecting some "magic bullet", meaning they don't have to think too much, work too much or change too much. I mean, for christ's sake, Americans would rather murder a couple of hundred thousand third world brown people and send their economy into massive war-based deficit than change the type of car they drive, the refrigerator they buy, or even the light-bulbs in their house.

I am not a "peak oil" believer, however I think that the idea of peak oil may be usefull in forcing social change in arrogant westerners who have all the resources available to them to create a world that is technologically advanced AND energy efficient.

Cost?

[xanthines-R-yummy]

The article says that attitude is the major barrier, but I still think it's cost right now. This page is obviously out of date (although the girl is still cute!), but I think it still makes the point that gasoline is still a pretty cheap liquid by comparison. Oil is around $1.20 per gallon right now. I'd be lucky if I could find a cup of coffee for that price! Ethanol is still expensive and will be until the demand is high enough to start using it. Sure, mass-production plants have yet to be built... but those things aren't cheap, either. I feel like (no basis in fact!) the price of oil/gasoline is going to have to increase much, much further for ethanol to be a realistic alternative. Just my 2 cents.

Re:Cost?

[Thrymm]

I feel like (no basis in fact!) the price of oil/gasoline is going to have to increase much, much further for ethanol to be a realistic alternative.
Unfortunately you may get your wish soon enough with the way things are going in the Middle East, Colombia, etc.

Re:Cost?

[badlikeacobra]

So, does anyone really think that the environmentalists who blanch at the thought of an oil refinery being built will cheer an ethanol equivilant facility?

Re:Cost?

[Saxophonist]

So, when are we going to start seeing Kool-Aid at the pumps?

Re:Cost?

[plunge]

"This page [cockeyed.com] is obviously out of date (although the girl is still cute!),"
 
She is soooo into you. In your MIND!!!

Re:Cost?

[chanceH]

man. I gotta get into the scorpion vencom business.

Need to look for a positive balance

[SysKoll]

Right. It remains to be seen if the total end-to-end energy balance is positive. Ethanol combustion is not very energetic compared to hydrocarbones, and so you need much more of it to store the same energy as, say, the same volume of gasoline.

Considering that most agricultural ethanol production processes require energy (to harvest and transport raw biomass, to grind it, to heat and break cellulose, to mix, etc), it's easy to see why you should be very careful with your energy balance, otherwise you might pick a process that won't even break even. The industrial process used to produce wood alcohol (methanol), for example, often consumes way more energy than the final product represents. But in that case, the main concern is total cost, not a positive energy balance.

Re:Need to look for a positive balance

[sl3xd]

Ethanol combustion is not very energetic compared to hydrocarbones

I'm eager to nitpick: Ethanol is a hydrocarbon. CH3-CH2-OH

That being said, you're still right: ethanol combustion is less energetic than petroleum. The same thing can be said of ethanol's cousins, including methanol. But you can turbocharge alcohols more than is possible with petroleum as well -- a big reason why many auto racing diciplines use methanol over gasoline.

The industrial process used to produce wood alcohol (methanol), for example, often consumes way more energy than the final product represents.

Considering that the large-scale industrial process that creates methanol uses natural gas (methane), it's important to realize that for all intents and purposes, methanol is still a fossil fuel.

I have no problem with alternate forms of energy; ethanol can solve part of the problem -- but it isn't a magic bullet. There is no magic bullet for the world's energy problems, and I'll happily shoot down anybody who claims otherwise. Contrary to what proponents would like to believe, the energy and infrastructure requirements to produce ethanol are well known. Investment money is plentiful, as is motivation. But you can't beat the laws of physics, which end up trumping wishful thinking.

There isn't enough (arable) land in the US to grow sufficient amounts of biomass to power the country and feed it. Even Popular Science changed their entire opinion on ethanol within a few issues: First they were gung-ho, saying ethanol is the way of the future. Then respected scientists from prestigious universities gave the magazine the facts -- facts which changed Popular Science's entire view on the feasability of an ethanol economy.

You can feed your car or your kids. Pick one.

Re:Need to look for a positive balance

[SysKoll]

An excellent summary of the issue -- and thanks for correcting me about hydrocarbons. I just have to remember to drink the right kind :-)

BTW, I looked up the history of ethanol as a gasoline additive. During WWII, the Germans had apparently developed a kind of synthetic gasoline that was based on coal with a sizeable fraction of ethanol.

Anecdote: from 1942 to 1944, the peasants in German-occupied Russia were eager to barter this gasoline against homebrewed vodka. After a while, the German noticed that the vodka they got from the farmers had an awful gasoline taste. Turns out that the farmers were getting the ethanol distilled from the gasoline to boost the alcohol content of some cheap low-grade moonshine, and sell the mix as 80-proof vodka. I don't even know how it's possible to distill ethanol from ethanol-enriched gasoline, but obviously, Russians won't let a mere chemistry detail stand between them and their booze supply.

Re:Shit post..

[Fatchap]

The energy mainly comes from the sun. When plants take in the solar energy they convert it into sugars by a process called photosynthesis. These sugars then react with yeasts to form alcohol, which is then distilled to give pure ethanol.

Obligatory Simpsons quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to all of life's problems!"

Re:Obligatory Simpsons quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

"One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me."
I feel this Simpsons quote has slightly greater value.

Re:Obligatory Simpsons quote:

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Actually Mr. Simpson is quite right. If we drank the ethanol instead of using it for fuel, we would be unable to drive anywhere.

offcorse i got it

[goarilla]

if everybody drinks a lot, have a huge hangover next day
He/she can't stand bright lights let alone the buzzing of a computer >> less power use :D

Ethanol & Bio-Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

considering the alternatives, i have to place my bets on Ethanol and Bio-Diesel, which will work fine with very little modification with the existing infrastructure and automobiles & trucking & freight industries...

Stop griping Greenies

[narftrek]

This will get modded Flamebait and/or Troll, especially coming from me, but JEEESUS I have already read five comments griping about this technology not solving X problem, causing Y problem, etc. THIS IS BETTER! One guy complains that it won't fix the greenhouse gas problem--it won't make it any worse. Another complains it's gonna use up all our land. Another complains it's gonna poison the environment with pesticides. Look people, will nothing make you guys happy? The main things this tech will do for us is:

reduce our dependence on oil (if Iran decides to quit selling us oil our economy isn't gonna spiral into oblivion like it could now)

it uses trash besides just corn or cane (that's gotta count for something)

alchohol burns cleaner

it will use existing infrastructure that hydrogen won't

We won't have nasty chem plants cranking out far more poisonous fuel cell and/or battery materials

farmers already get paid subsidies to NOT grow stuff, let's change that

Tons of pesticides won't necessarily be needed since even if the crop isn't huge or is partially damaged, it can still be used

The farm tractors can burn thier own product (many farmers already make or use thier own biodiesel)

I can keep going on about this but I think my point is made. Just because this solution doesn't fix EVERYTHING doesn't mean it should be ignored or scrapped. Stop complaining Greenies. At least science and government are FINALLY listening to your incessant complaining for something to be done about pollution and alt fuels. There will NEVER be a solution made that can perfectly cover all bases but this one beats most of the other proposals out there. This is a solid and viable solution and not just placation like these current hybrid cars. There's something to complain about and a true instance of industry throwing you a bone to shut you up. /rant

One good thing that may come out of this...

[brunes69]

Since the government won't have to subsidize the corn industry by charging duties on sugar, maybe you americans can get all the Fructose crap out of your soda and use real sugar.

Trust me, it tastes WAY better.

Re:One good thing that may come out of this...

[fshalor]

Agreed! I hate HFcorn syrup for anything other fluid flow experiments. (:) )

I really like what Brazil has done with EtOH. But as a chemical engineer, I'm much more fond of biodiesel. Both for the engine technologies, performance characteristics and overall robustness of infrastructure. It can be transported in any kerosine/diesel/gas truck no sweat. And it keeps engines a lot cleaner than fossil derived fuels.

Ethanol makes sense for brazil, but bio makes more sense in a lot of places. Just think: to make ethanol, you have to distill. WHich takes more energy than making the same gallon of bioD from methonal, lye and vegtable oils. (Even if you count the energy needed to make the methonal and lye.)

I want a diesel motorcycle, running on bio brewed in my back yard! and I want this crap out of my drinks! We weren't designed to metabolize HFC!

-=thbbpt!

Re:One good thing that may come out of this...

[Alan the Prof]

...erm. Fructose is a real sugar. A monosaccharide. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose

Do you mean Saccharin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin, which does taste horrible, or Aspartame?

Re:One good thing that may come out of this...

[lisaparratt]

Chemically, maybe, but not culinarily.

Cellulose is ethanol's only chance...

[benjamindees]

Here is a very detailed report on cellulosic ethanol. In terms of efficiency, it has nothing on biodiesel and is less efficient than methanol. But there is already a market, and little in the way of regulatory hurdles.

Re:Cellulose is ethanol's only chance...

[jcr]

How do you come to the peculiar idea that CNN is the "jewish media"?

-jcr

Re:Cellulose is ethanol's only chance...

[VON-MAN]

Ok, but http://runningonalcohol.tripod.com/id26.html say that "it will actually get better mileage and/or more power" than gas (which can't be bad). And you can convert a gas powered car to ethanol, not to biodiesel. So, maybe ethanol has more chance than that.

Re:Cellulose is ethanol's only chance...

[benjamindees]

"it will actually get better mileage and/or more power" than gas

I accounted for that.

And you can convert a gas powered car to ethanol, not to biodiesel.

In the long term, which is more important: the car you're driving *right now*, or a fuel that's 20% easier to obtain?

Re:Cellulose is ethanol's only chance...

[Anonymous Coward]

When they started spewing zionist propaganda.

Re:Cellulose is ethanol's only chance...

[jcr]

When they started spewing zionist propaganda.

Thanks for playing, adolf. Run along and put on your tinfoil hat.

-jcr

It's a part of the solution...

[Herger]

IIRC ethanol can be blended into regular fuel up to 15% and be used in cars already on the road in the USA, while an 85% ethanol/15% gasoline (E85) can be used in "flex-fuel" vehicles that can be purchased from most manufacturers on request. It's only a stopgap, because ethanol is currently expensive to produce. This may change with biotech to improve fermentation, as well as a shift in US trade policy to facilitate the import of sugar cane, a much better starting material for fermentation (or just import the ethanol!)

Still, I believe the biggest limitation is, even assuming moderate improvements in conservation and efficiency, there isn't enough land available to produce the corn/beets/sugarcane needed. Plus, the biggest consumers are commercial (i.e., diesel) vehicles -- we might be better off investing in carbon-neutral catalytic solutions like Changing World Technologies or AlphaKat, which can use a wide variety of biomass as input and produce diesel fuel.

Misguided, a bit.

[xenocide2]

One thing to remember is that african and south american nations desperately want open agriculture markets, and crop-generated ethonal is one way undo the European, American and other developed nation's tarriff and exchange barriers. It's not like we're forcing them into farming (you might argue that American agricultural subsidies are forcing them OUT of farming). Farmers in 3rd world countries are no more slaves to farms than the American white collar class slaves to the office.

Reguarding dictatorships, I'd suggest researching and thinking more carefully about the likely outcomes. Firstly, ethonal in 3rd world countries likely means supporting 3rd world dictatorships, of which there are many. So we're not likely to see a shift from a repressive government to anything other than another repressive government. Secondly, the revolution waiting to happen in Saudi Arabia is not likely to end in a better form of government. The Sauds are frequently attacked as ignoring the Muslim laws and faith, and being corrupted by Western influences, cropping up as armed dissidents taking over places like the Grand Mosque (Mecca, 1979). Apparently the house of Saud is not repressive ENOUGH. If anything, the revolution coming in Saudia is going to be the production of a dictator or theocrat ruling by brute force and cutting off the economic ties with the west that has brought the nation a good amount of prosperity. I hope you weren't expecting a revolution to throw off the shackles and chains of Shari'a.

Re:Misguided, a bit.

[246o1]

Well, I didn't mean to imply that the farmers now are all currently slaves (though a lot of them are in very tough situations on the large agri-businesses of American and other foreign companies), just that if we so desired, it would be within the power of the West's powerful companies.

WRT dictatorships: there are lot of bad governments in the world, and I'm not saying that giving more market power to agriculture would get rif of them. I'm just pointing out that it would get rid of a lot of the outside interference and internal oil-related-wealth-discrepancies in the Middle East.

I think that if agriculture, rather than oil, were such an important source of wealth, it might be better for the countries producing it than oil has been. Oil can be produced in a smaller area with fewer people per dollar of wealth generated than ethanol, allowing for greater concentration of power and money in the hands of the corrupt leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Indonesia, &c.

Obviously a revolution in Saudi Arabia would still leave it mostly Muslim, but perhaps more democratic (it could hardly become less) and at least not Wahabbist. No longer having US troops propping up the unpopular and corrupt government would also give the people in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim world one less reason to dislike the US.

Re:Misguided, a bit.

[AugstWest]

Well, it amazes me that everyone instantly starts thinking of third-world countries when they read this, because my first thought was that America's farmers might actually start making money again.

See, we have farmers right here in the U.S. of A., and they've been hurting for decades due to the same conglomeration of power that most other small businesses are getting screwed by. There's a single company in Texas called Dean Foods that controls something like 95% of the milk market.

I'm overly idealistic, I'll agree with that, but I'd love to see our farmers start makign money again, and this would be a great way to do it.

Imagine land becoming valuable again for something other than pavement and condos....

Re:Misguided, a bit.

[TykeClone]

Most of the ethanol plants currently in Iowa are owned by farmer-owned cooperatives.

You forget one factor...

[brunes69]

Regardless of what crop is used to produce it, ethanol requires areable land, and lots of it.

To produce enough ethanol to sustain the US alone, would require hudreds of thousands of acres of crops. Regardless of the sustainability of the crops, it is a huge management issue in and of itself to control all that production.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, can be produced readily in a power-plant type fashion.

Re:You forget one factor...

[ClamIAm]

Regardless of the sustainability of the crops, it is a huge management issue in and of itself to control all that production.

That sounds fair.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, can be produced readily in a power-plant type fashion.

So hydrogen plants are completely sustainable as well as require no management? Sounds like perpetual motion or something.

Re:You forget one factor...

[Qzukk]

require hudreds of thousands of acres of crops.

With the ability to create it from any plant matter, tens of millions of lawns in hundreds of thousands of subdivisions across the country stand ready for the signal. After all, if we didn't cut the lawn, we'd be evicted by the housing association, so the stuff might as well do something other than fill landfills.

I'll even do my part by using my father's old reel mower to maximize fuel efficiency.

Re:You forget one factor...

[n-baxley]

and we all know how clean and appealing power plants are.

Re:You forget one factor...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm not mistaken, more soy and corn are grown as feed crops for beef and other animals than is grown for human consumption and there is a surplus of that. Agriculture is something that has been researched and understood for a long time. Go to Nebraska or Kansas sometime.

Now I have family in the beef industry, relatively small players with only a few thousand head of cattle. The way they tell it, the agricultural businesses are huge, hundreds of billions of dollars a year type huge. Similar in many ways to energy. There are big powerful companies and conglomerates, there is old money, and there is an incredible amount of power and influence in that industry. They would have me believe that the ADMs and what have you type companies have been trying to get in to energy for a while and that oil companies have been all out cock blocking them to preserve their monopolies. Likewise energy companies have been trying to get in to some of the ag businesses and the reverse has been happening. It seems kind of a little on the conspiracy side to me but it's definitely true that the energy companies are all about maintaining their wealth and the ag companies aren't too different in that regard.

Back to the actual cultivation, there is a lot more land that is more dry and not as farmable (Utah, Wyoming, eastern Colorado) and if it came down to energy, there are rivers to damn up, there is water to well, and that stuff is all completely solvable. You could probably by hundreds of square miles in eastern Wyoming that isn't really good for a lot of stuff right now and put corn and what have you in. It doesn't need to be human grade corn to make ethanol either.

Re:You forget one factor...

[eaolson]

Hydrogen, on the other hand, can be produced readily in a power-plant type fashion.

Except that there are no hydrogen wells on the planet. The only economically feasible method of generating hydrogen at the moment is the burning of methane. Electrically breaking down water requires more energy than you later get from burning the hydrogen.

Remember, hydrogen is really only an energy storage mechanism, not a fuel source.

Re:You forget one factor...

[joshmccormack]

"To produce enough ethanol to sustain the US alone, would require hudreds of thousands of acres of crops."

I don't know what the whole ethanol making process entails, or what types of crops would need to be grown, but it seems like the growing phase of the production of ethanol could help clean the air, no? Couldn't this be a good thing? And if the crop used would be edible, couldn't it be used in emergencies as a food source, too?

Re:You forget one factor...

[KlomDark]

Oh... My... God!!! Hundreds of thousands of acres of crops! Where will we get them?

Dumb City Boy... That ain't shit. There's 640 acres in a square mile. Say you just a mile of land on either side of Interstate 80 going through Nebraska (455 miles to go from Iowa to Wyoming on I-80 in Nebraska), you're talking 455(miles long) * 2(miles wide) * 640(acres per square mile) = 582,400 acres. Not a drop in the bucket when compared with all the farmland in the whole state.

Nebraska has more farmland than that sitting unused. Even smaller states like Indiana have millions of acres of farmland. In use, you're talking MILLIONS of acres, just in Nebraska. (When you equalize for the panhandle in the northwest, and the curved side on northeast, you're looking around a 400x200 mile area (84,400 square miles) total (So around 54 MILLION acres of land) Management is pretty simple, definitely not difficult, other than some hard physical labor in planting, irrigating, harvesting, transporting.

And even better, since ethanol isn't meant for human consumption, you can make it with relatively dirty water, rather than having to divert precious drinkable water for it.

*Waits for city boy to figure out what water has to do with alcohol*

(Posted from Nebraska)

Energy Return on Energy Invested

[dido]

A look at a small table of energy return on energy invested figures gives ethanol from corn a 1.3, ethanol from sugarcane something like 0.8 to 1.7 (meaning it could possibly be a net energy loser!), and ethanol from corn residues 0.7 to 1.8. Compare that with petroleum's EROEI, which is today something of the order of 23, and had once been higher than 100. Even at the maximum efficiency level, it would probably take dedicating all of the arable land in the United States to grow corn for conversion to ethanol to allow business as usual. Also, mechanized farming techniques are so heavily dependent on petroleum-based (and natural gas based) fertilizers and pesticides. Here's a good article on how to properly evaluate these schemes for alternative energy, and ethanol doesn't fare very well.

No, the only real solution to the energy crisis is to abandon the grossly wasteful American way of life, and take steps towards serious conservation efforts.

Re:Energy Return on Energy Invested

[tepples]

Even at the maximum efficiency level, it would probably take dedicating all of the arable land in the United States to grow corn for conversion to ethanol to allow business as usual.

How much land are you talking about, specifically? Not many people know how big an acre is. For instance, Indiana is over 23 million acres in size.

Also, mechanized farming techniques are so heavily dependent on petroleum-based (and natural gas based) fertilizers and pesticides.

Are != must be. Could techniques be adapted to use Mel's mix (equal parts compost, peat moss, and vermiculite)?

Here's a good article on how to properly evaluate these schemes for alternative energy, and ethanol doesn't fare very well.

That article fails to mention biodiesel, which has a comparatively impressive EROEI of 3.2.

Re:Energy Return on Energy Invested

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with that. America enjoys it right to waste. Standing on a soapbox doesnt change anything if the people dont listen. From elementary school up you hear turn of the lights when you leave the room, the only way conservation is going to happen is when engergy is too expensive to pay for. Then people will start turning off the lights and driving smaller cars.

Re:Energy Return on Energy Invested

[rabugento]

Look at the source! The source of data for ethanol from sugarcane is a 1980 article, considering american conditions. Much has changed over the last 25 years...

Re:Energy Return on Energy Invested

[The Fun Guy]

But look at the citation for the data on that table: Energy and the U.S. Economy: A Biophysical Perspective Cutler J. Cleveland; Robert Costanza; Charles A. S. Hall; Robert Kaufmann Science, New Series, Vol. 225, No. 4665 (Aug. 31, 1984), 890-897.

Technology has advanced a long way since 1984, particularly in the area of enzymology to break down chemically resistant carbon in plant tissues, like cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Brazil's ethanol program relies heavily on conversion of sugar; to make ethanol economically competitive in the US, we would need to rely on conversion of cross-linked starch and long-chain polymers. The phenolics in lignin would be a feedstock for industrial chemistry. Here's some more general info.

The USDA's Crop Conversion Science and Engineering Research Unit is all about developing new tools to increase the efficiency of extracting usable energy from plant products. Here are a few examples:

Aqueous Enzymatic Extraction of Corn Oil and Value-Added Products from Corn Germ Produced in New Generation Dry-Grind Ethanol Processes

Economic Competitiveness of Renewable Fuels Derived from Grains and Related Biomass

Enzyme-Based Technologies for Milling Grains and Producing Biobased Products and Fuels

Full disclosure: I don't work for these guys, and I have no financial interest in bio-based fuels (other than the usual "No Blood For Oil" thing). I just think that what they're doing is cool.

Another Obligatory Simpsons Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, what the? *gasps* My retirement grease! No! You thievin' grease bandits! I'll kill ya!

Re:Another Obligatory Simpsons Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

We run the grease racket in this town.

A wise man once said (more or less)

[killkillkill]

Ethanol, the cause of and solution to all of lifes problems

Like this Ford?

[sonofagunn]

Ford's ethanol hybrid

Re:Like this Ford?

[AKAImBatman]

It runs up to 85% Ethanol. Which sucks. And blending the fuel types on your own can result in unexpected timing problems. Using a Stirling, OTOH, allows you to burn any mixture of fuel without concern for timing issues. In fact, such an engine could burn just about any fuel, including hydrogen.

Re:Like this Ford?

[ultranova]

And blending the fuel types on your own can result in unexpected timing problems.

With modern technology, would it be possible to build an engine that auto-adjusts itself to the characteristics of the fuel being used ? After all, if the ignition, valves and air/fuel ratio process are controlled electrically, it shouldn't be that difficult to adjust them on the fly.

I suppose, thought, that you'd also need an electrically controlled automatic transmission with lots of gears to compensate for different burning rates of different fuels - they require in different engine speeds.

Re:Like this Ford?

[sonofagunn]

With modern technology, would it be possible to build an engine that auto-adjusts itself to the characteristics of the fuel being used ? After all, if the ignition, valves and air/fuel ratio process are controlled electrically, it shouldn't be that difficult to adjust them on the fly.

They're called "Flex-Fuel Vehicles" (FFV) and there are millions (1.5 million from GM alone) on the road RIGHT NOW. I've owned 2 by blind chance (I didn't shop for a FFV b/c there is nowhere to buy ethanol around here). They can run on any mixture of gasoline/ethanol up to 85% ethanol. They automatically adjust timing and A/F ratios to adapt to whatever mix you put in. E85 is available at a small amount (500) of stations but that number will be growing rapidly over the next few years.

Check out e85fuel.com for more details.

Re:Like this Ford?

[Roj Blake]

E85 is available at a small amount (500) of stations but that number will be growing rapidly over the next few years.

GM is counting on it. Currently GM has 9 models that can run E85, and they just yesterday announced a marketing blitz to start during the Olympics advertizing this fact, and to inform people that E85 even exists. Part of the announcement was GM hoping more people become aware of E85 and demand increases and they can make more models compatable.

Yes!

[Ethanol]

Yes, by golly, I AM!

Re:Yes!

[idonthack]

So what can you do?

Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[mangu]

To produce enough ethanol to sustain the US alone, would require hudreds of thousands of acres of crops.

Dude, do you have any idea at all of the number of acres of crops in the USA?

Hydrogen, on the other hand, can be produced readily in a power-plant type fashion.

Other than in science fiction, where do you have a hydrogen power plant? A hydrogen-powered car? Ethanol has been a *practical* reality for decades. My first car powered by 96% ethanol was a Brazilian 1983 Chevette. At that time, about 90% of all new cars being made in Brazil were powered by ethanol.

For the last 28 years, every single fuel station in Brazil has had ethanol pumps. Have you ever seen a hydrogen pump in any fuel station anywhere in the world? Apart from straight ethanol, all the gasoline in Brazil contains at least 20% ethanol.

There has never been a single hydrogen powered car sold commercially anywhere in the world. In Brazil, tens of millions of 92% ethanol powered cars have been sold in the last 30 years, and many more cars powered by 20% ethanol.

Do you still have any doubt on which fuel can be "produced readily"?

Re:Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between what scientists know is possible and what 3rd world farmers and tinkerers are able to accomplish is vast.

Re:Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[rolfwind]

There has never been a single hydrogen powered car sold commercially anywhere in the world.

BMW would like to disagree with you:
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/press/date/2000 0531/press016915.html

http://www.engineeringtalk.com/news/asc/asc109.htm l

I believe, ethanol, can be, at best a transitional fuel, what with the human population increasing, the future will have less land available for such uses as a fuel crop.

I heard of hydrogen cars (non-production) in the '60s already. If fusion ever comes online, 0% land is needed, and there would be plenty of energy for electrolysis, or perhaps the more efficient steam electrolysis. Even if fusion doesn't pan out, solar energy could be harnessed for that purpose (I'm not talking about purely solar photaic cells, but a hybrid system of a parabolic dish design.) Afterall, collectively, millions of acres of roofs are being unused everyday!

Re:Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[Don_dumb]

BMW would like to disagree with you

Actually if you had read the articles you posted you would realise that in fact BMW has NOT SOLD any hydrogen powered cars, the cars mentioned in the articles were just prototypes used to ferry people around at a show. They may have made big claims at the time about putting them into production, but six years later and still there is no hydrogen BMW for sale.

Re:Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[leandrod]

with the human population increasing, the future will have less land available for such uses as a fuel crop.

Wrong. Natality decreases faster than mortality, so that the trend is population stabilisation. Absent major cultural shifts, we would see even a decrease. Japan has already started to shrink, and Europe won't be long.

Re:Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Ahhh yes, BMW, "the car of the people". So we have BMW's pipe dream versus the quotidian reality of Brazil, and millions of ethanol powered GM Chevettes.

By the way, BMW loses points anyway, for being a "closed" secretive company. BMW is not to be trusted. They are a pain in the ass for the consumer to deal with. My last car was a BMW. I tried to get an official factory service manual for it. Sorry, BMW only sells official service manuals to "authorized" repair facilities under NDA. Regular owners and "Mom and Pop" repair shops are Shit Outta Luck.

My present car is a Cadillac, and GM will sell you any service manual you want, by the truck load. Hats off to GM for their ethanol work in Brazil, and their consumer friendly attitude.

Re:Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[narsiman]

Dude - ever been to India or China. Try any ASEAN country and you will know realhand what population growth means !!

Re:Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[ivan256]

Other than in science fiction, where do you have a hydrogen power plant?

A nuclear (fission) plant connected to some electrodes for electrolosys is a practical reality *right now*. Considering where my power comes from, and that I that I have a large transformer a jar, and some salt in my basement as I write this, I could demonstrate the process for you given about an hour and a glue gun. I'd even seperate the hydrogen from the oxygen for you.

Don't dismiss so quickly the negative effects of the massive cultivation and the associated fertilization oand pesticides that would come with growing sufficient grain for ethanol production.

Re:Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[rolfwind]

Ahhh yes, BMW, "the car of the people".

You must be thinking of Volkswagen - the people's car. BMW simply stands for Bayerische Motor Werk.

BMW was already an airplane engine manufacture in WW1 and has been producing cars a while before the people's car concept even came to the scene.

Re:Ethanol is here now, hydrogen is a pipe dream!

[leandrod]

Try any ASEAN country and you will know realhand what population growth means

Their time will come. The trend is global, wherever secularity and prosperity advance.

HERE is the cost

[mangu]

In my neighborhood fuel station here in Rio de Janeiro, gasoline is R$2.50, ethanol is R$1.80

Oil is around $1.20 per gallon right now. I'd be lucky if I could find a cup of coffee for that price!

Brazil also produces coffee. A cup is R$0.50 regular, R$0.75 espresso.

Hemp!

[mrchaotica]

It also doesn't help ethanol's case that the most efficient crop to produce it is so demonized in the US. Not only does hemp have a higher usable energy content than corn or soybeans, but it freakin' grows as a weed! It ought to win out over corn and soybeans just by the elimination of fertilizer costs alone!

But no-o, we can't have people growing hemp because it's too similar to marijuana, and we'd have to put even more stoners in jail (who shouldn't even have to be there anyway)!

It's completely absurd and pathetic.

Re:Hemp!

[Beren]

I realize that in this "enlightened" time it's rather uncool to ask this, but here goes... Why shouldn't they be in jail? Our laws prohibit the use, sale, growing, etc... of a particular plant. If people violate those criminal laws, why shouldn't they be in jail?

Arguing that the law is unjust is beside the point. The fact remains that growing (selling, using) marijuana is illegal in the United States.

Oh, I guess that's why they should be in jail.

Re:Hemp!

[mrchaotica]

Arguing that the law is unjust is beside the point.

No, that's exactly the point. What are laws for, anyway? To prevent harm, that's what! Which begs the question, who did these pot-smokers harm? The answer is, of course, nobody but themselves.

Now, the next question is, who does the act of jailing all these people harm? The answer is, everybody! It harms the pot-smokers themselves more than the actual smoking did, and it harms society in multiple ways: by depriving the work force of otherwise-productive people, and by draining tax dollars to feed and house them!

I personally have absolutely no desire to do any kind of drugs, nor do I think anyone else should. However, I'd much rather leave the idiots alone than to waste my tax dollars in a futile, fundamentally stupid effort to "fix" their personality flaws! If they want to ruin their lives and/or kill themselves, I say good riddance and let them do it!

And then on top of all this, we're depriving ourselves of all the various benefits the plant itself can provide, including eliminating our dependence on foreign oil, and the trillions of dollars the war over that is costing us!

We've got the solution to both our energy needs and our prison overcrowding problems literally growing as a weed in our backyards, and we're too bent on some kind of idiotic moral crusade to take advantage of it! It's completely, absurdly, insane!

(I'm not even going to go into the whole racist origins of the law in the first place, which makes the whole thing even more fucked-up...)

Oh, by the way: the argument "It's wrong because it's illegal" is the most fucking asinine argument there is. By that logic, if "having the nickname Baren" was illegal than you'd be going to Hell right now. Does that make sense to you?!

Re:Hemp!

[rolfwind]

Why shouldn't they be in jail? Our laws prohibit the use, sale, growing, etc... of a particular plant. If people violate those criminal laws, why shouldn't they be in jail?

Arguing that the law is unjust is beside the point. The fact remains that growing (selling, using) marijuana is illegal in the United States.

By that logic alone, the founding fathers should have been hanging on the gallows. And those people who operated the underground railroad as well.

A stupid law causes comtempt for all laws. If a law is unjust, people have a duty to disobey it. Sometimes it's the only way to dispute something (can you see a national politician touching that issue with a ten foot pole in favor of drug legalization regardless of the facts?)

BTW, I don't care about drugs' legality one way or the other but I find it ironic that what people do to their own person is suddenly criminal law. Perhaps it's the same sort of hypocrisy that cause us to decry smoking/tobacco as bad as hell for you, have the government sue them for a billion dollars, yet NOT ban the substance but happily tax it's use where that gets used for wholly different purposes.

Perhaps the government should learn from it's mistake from prohibition and relize you can't legislate morality (where it doesn't hurt others) or successfully ban substances such as these.

But perhaps it did and keeping up the "war on drugs" has a wholly different purpose/advantages than the initially stated or planned. Like the war on terrorism.

Well, I'm rambling now - the law and whether you "should" be in jail or two different things. Do you go the exact stated speed limit on every road?

If not, should you be in jail?

Re:Hemp!

[Savantissimo]

Because the Feds don't have the constitutional right to ban it outright, only to regulate it under the interstate commerce clause. Why do you suppose that it took a constitutional amendment to allow Congress to ban alcohol, and even when they had one, they still permitted medicinal and religious uses? No such amendment was ever passed to allow them to ban all the other substances they have prohibited. The only reason they get away with it is that the judges have been a bunch of spineless pussies ever since FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court.

Re:Hemp!

[Shihar]

Arguing that the law is unjust is beside the point. The fact remains that growing (selling, using) marijuana is illegal in the United States.

Oh, I guess that's why they should be in jail.

The same logic would justify rounding up the Jews and throwing them into concentration camps. The law stated that they needed to be marked, rounded up, and destroyed. Obviously throwing a kid in jail for smoking weed is not the same as incerating jews, but the extreme example serves its point.

Oh Goodwin, your wisedom is everlasting.

Re:Hemp!

[LordLucless]

It must be wonderful having an entire set of ethics based solely on a code that can be changed at any time by a group of men over whom you have nothing but the most marginal control.

Re:Hemp!

[Anonymous Coward]

throwing a kid in jail for smoking weed is not the same as incerating jews

Did you mean to say "incarcerating" or "incinerating" ?

Now there's an idea for a good alternative fuel source ..... christians and muslims burn just as well, though.

Re:Hemp!

[b0bby]

My question would be, if it's so efficient, can you point to some other countries where hemp is being widely used for paper or ethanol production? I think the "War on Drugs" is silly too, but I've never been convinced by the "hemp is a wonder plant" camp since I don't know the actual numbers on production in other parts of the world.

Re:Hemp!

[mrchaotica]

Well, there are two problems with that: first, hemp is native to North America (the Native Americans were the first ones to smoke marijuana, and the ones who introduced it to the Europeans), and second, the Google results are all cluttered up by the "hemp is a wonder plant" stoners. It's hard to find sites with an aura of credibility, although there are some there.

Re:Hemp!

[criscooil]

What are laws for, anyway? To prevent harm, that's what!

That is perhaps what laws should be for. Its called utilitarianism. If that's what you mean then I agree. However, you and I will need to remember that a large part of the population is quite comfortable with the idea that laws are for enforcing morality. Or should I say the current morality of the part of the population which currently holds power. Add almost a century of vicious propaganda that pot is immoral, and the current situation is not so mysterious.

Re:Hemp!

[mrchaotica]

Actually, I would call it "libertarianism," because utilitarianism is broad enough to include laws for the purpose of enforcing morality. From the article you linked:

From this he derived the rule of utility: that the good is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people.

and

John Stuart Mill wrote a famous (and short) book titled Utilitarianism. Mill differs from many current utilitarians in that he considered cultural and spiritual happiness to be of greater value than mere physical pleasure.

So, if spiritual happiness is a valid measure (instead of merely physical happiness), and enforcing morality makes "the greatest number of people" (i.e. the majority) happy, then making laws to enforce morality is consistent with utilitarian principles.

I think "libertarian" works better, because it limits the definition of happiness to include only the physical.

Re:Hemp!

[hankwang]

What I don't understand about this whole thread is that everybody is talking about whether marihuana should be legal or not. It is the same species, but the strains that are cultivated for fiber production are completely different from those for the drugs. If you didn't know: pot consists of the unpollinated flowers of female plants. Hemp plants for the fibers are both males and females and they contain a completely negligible amount of THC (the active compound of the drug). If you tried to hide drug-grade plants between the fiber-grade plants, you would need to prevent pollination (which would spoil the drugs), which is nearly impossible since they are pollinated by wind. Also, the drug-grade and fiber-grade plants look different, so hiding them wouldn't even be that easy.

Yet another fallacy.

[Pig Hogger]

The fallacy that petroleum can be replaced as an energy source.

This time, it's with alcohol.

Well, farming the corn necessary to fuel the US will need far more land than there is in the US... And processing the corn needs energy, too.

Forget SUVs, it's not sure that hybrids could be powered!!!

Petroleum rules for a very good reason: it has the highest energetic density, which was attained through millions of years of insolation used to grow the plants that became oil.

When oil runs out, cars will have to go.

Re:Yet another fallacy.

[belg4mit]

The premise of the post is a fallacy, but everything you wrote is as well.

The post is wrong for the same reason people who hype hydrogen as the solution
are wrong. Ethanol and hydrogen are storage mediums, not energy sources. It's
true that ethanol is traditionally dervied from fermentation, but in this case
the energy source is *biomass* not ethanol. It's technically no different than
tossing logs into the boiler of a train.

>Well, farming the corn necessary to fuel the US will need far more land than
>there is in the US...
Ah, so you must be the inspiration for the "95% of statistics" quip.
And there's no reason it has to be corn.

>And processing the corn needs energy, too.
Nah shit Sherlock, and that's taken into account. That's why, if my memory
serves me, the conversion efficiency to delivered energy for bimoass ethanol
is some 70-odd percent.

>Petroleum rules for a very good reason: it has the highest energetic density, which was >attained through millions of years of insolation used to grow the plants that became oil.
Spend less time reading Slashdot and more time reading, oh I dunno, a science book not
published in Kansas; because that statement was complete and utter bullshit.

Re:Yet another fallacy.

[Clover_Kicker]

> Well, farming the corn necessary to fuel the US will need far
> more land than there is in the US

Source?

Re:Yet another fallacy.

[Pig Hogger]

My bunghole.

Re:Yet another fallacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I opt into all mailing list.

Re:Yet another fallacy.

[mixmasta]

Spend less time reading Slashdot and more time reading, oh I dunno, a science book not published in Kansas

lol

Re:Yet another fallacy.

[Steampunk]

It's technically no different than tossing logs into the boiler of a train.

Er... I know what you're trying to say, but you throw the fuel--wood, as you said--into the firebox of the locomotive. The train is what is being pulled by the locomotive.

As a proud alcoholic...

[Tyir]

I think ethanol is the answer to everything!

Butanol is better

[Anonymous Coward]

Butanol is better than ethanol because it's less corrosive and has almost the same amount of energy as gasoline does. It can basically be run in an unmodified car, just pump and go. No having to replace shit so that it doesn't get corroded like with ethanol, no having to install bigger injectors and reprogramming the ECU because ethanol only has 70% of the energy of gasoline.

Not all fertilizer is petroleum based

[tepples]

But aren't plants are produced from fertilizer which is made from oil?

Not everywhere. Agriculture in many countries still uses natural materials (Mel suggests equal parts compost, peat moss, and vermiculite).

Hundreds of thousands of acres vs Rhode Island

[tepples]

To produce enough ethanol to sustain the US alone, would require hudreds of thousands of acres of crops.

Want a ballpark figure? 640 000 acres = 1 000 square miles. That's smaller than the State of Rhode Island (1 545 sq.mi)

Re:Hundreds of thousands of acres vs Rhode Island

[njh]

Or put another way, imagine a square of land 32miles on each side. That's all you need.

Re:Hundreds of thousands of acres vs Rhode Island

[mwilliamson]

politicalcorrectness=off;
How about adding doping agents to a nuke...then we can solve all our problems at once and convert the parts of the world that piss us off into big glass PV panels.

What about intensive farming?

[johansalk]

Desertification is a mounting threat to many regions around the world due to soil exhaustion. I can only imagine that large-scale ethanol farming would add to this problem.

Re:What about intensive farming?

[TheSync]

Desertification is a result of poor farming technology. Rich farmers growing ethanol crops would use high levels of technology to reduce the risk of desertification. It is much more of a problem in poor countries where small farms grow subsistence crops.

GM Plants?

[matt_tucents]

How about the possibilities of using Genetically Engineered plants in this situation? It's not that we're looking for plants that might make more ethenol, but plants that need even less care and effort from farmers, thus further reducing the energy required when considering the whole energy balance.

Re:GM Plants?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because then there would be a $0.75/gallon licensing fee to Monsanto, payable by credit, cash, or first born son.

Re:GM Plants?

[ajs318]

Not necessarily. Governments never have to pay patent or copyright royalties; they can just change the law to exempt themselves. Some countries' governments have granted drug manufacturers a special licence to manufacture certain pharmaceutical products for use in their National Health Service. As they already have a statutory right to manufacture the drugs, they do not need to pay for a licence from the patent holder.

Ethanol is not the final answer

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to consume less energy.

Currently all of the computers in the world consume more energy than falls on the earth in terms of sunlight.

Sunlight is part of the energy equation for the production of ethanol.

See the real problem?

GM & Ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.phoenixmi.com/about/news/automotive/200 6011144.phtml

fermentation vs chemical processing

[drDugan]

my understanding: ethanol is mostly produced now through fermentation of plant matter - specifically using the sugars and converting them into fuel. it's expensive energy wise (the process uses almost as much energy as it produces) and it wastes a huge fraction of the raw material.

We really need to find a way to use physical substrates or catalysts in some process to directly convert the plant matter into ethanol. This is an incredibly hard problem -- but all the chemicals are there. Get to it you chemists!

Which is better

[Kurt Russell]

A horse or mule?
After reading these posts it seems like NOTHING will work.
Not enough land, Not enough oil....

No ice cream! No cake! happy birthday.

laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Laws based on criminal behavior from cartels composed of chemical interests and bribed law makers and judges are unjust and illegal laws. Laws that obviously violate the spirt and the letter of the Constitution are unjust and technically illegal, even if they are de facto "enforced".

I am a veteran of the old civil rights protests. We had to fight against "laws" on the books that were "enforced" by the gun carrying badged order following mercenaries, and the local judges and prosecuting attorneys, who were ostensibly the local "law authority". Even when it was obvious to most anyone with an IQ over 75 that they were in fact, highly illegal "laws" and clearly un-Constitutional, they were enforced. It wasn't right, it wasn't legal, and eventually they had to stop what they were doing.

If you go back further, you can see a better parallel, the law (an illegal amendment) against alcohol posession, ingestion, production and sales. Why it was illegal is simple, no amendment or lesser law may violate any of the first ten, the first ten are considered carved in stone, and were delineated on purpose because people were afraid that the original social contract wasn't clear enough and that "the law" would "misinterpret" the original signers intentions. They cannot just one day say you have no freedom of speech, or to petition or assemble, yet they have passed laws that violate that (free speech "zones" for instance). They cannot restrict the right to keep and bear arms, yet they have passed numerous laws that violate that. They cannot restrict travel, yet they do that, in spades today if you try to fly. And etc. The so called government is the biggest breaker of laws out there.

Whenever any current regime in power abrogates any of the first ten, and calls it "a law", it is in fact not a law, but a dictate, an edict, no matter they call it a law, and it is every citizens duty to resist such dictates. The Constitution is NOT a contract that gives citizens powers, you are born with them, natural rights. The only Constitutional laws pertain to limitations on government power, and they clearly do not have Constitutional power to restrict the Peoples natural right to grow, consume and trade in a natural crop, whether that crop has psychoactive properties to it or not; quite simply, it is none of their business,nor do they have lawful power to restrict it. They have the physical power by the threaten and use of violence to restrict it, but they have no Constitutional authority. Zee-ro.

They even RECOGNIZE this fact themselves, so to get around it, it is not illegal! What is illegal according to them is to use,possess, etc and NOT PAY A PER OUNCE TAX, which they do have the power to enforce. All the anti hemp laws (psychoactive or not) are based off of that originally. The kicker is, they do not recognize any attempts to lawfully register and pay said tax, they reject any offers out-of-hand. It therefore fails the equal protection clause clearly then.

I would not put the anti hemp laws at the same level as say when universal race based slavery was still legal, but in a way it is, because when they arrest someone for it, and incarcerate them, they are violating the anti slavery (and other) laws (unlawful incarceration, kidnapping, theft, conspiracy etc) and engaging in various RICO violations themselves to get to that point.

So, that's why they shouldn't do that. It's just obviously "wrong" is the easy way to put it. Glad to help.

Re:laws

[Eunuchswear]

no amendment [...] may violate any of the first ten

Rubbish.

Where did you pull this bizzare doctrine from?

cold weather

[Anonymous Coward]

cold weather problems with biodiesel. I like it too, but it's still a problem, gels/thickens like a mofo, worse than regular diesel.

biodiesel is unquestionably energy-positive

[r00t]

Ethanol is just plain stupid when you can do biodiesel instead. Algae, growing under glass in Arizona, would do a great job.

Re:biodiesel is unquestionably energy-positive

[VON-MAN]

Ethanol is just plain stupid when you can do biodiesel instead.

Actually, you can't use biodiesel in a car that uses gas. However if you increased your cars compression and did everything to optimize your engine for alcohol, it will actually get better mileage and/or more power.

Algae, growing under glass in Arizona, would do a great job.

And what job would that be?

Re:biodiesel is unquestionably energy-positive

[mrchaotica]

Actually, you can't use biodiesel in a car that uses gas. However if you increased your cars compression and did everything to optimize your engine for alcohol, it will actually get better mileage and/or more power.

Turbodiesels, which do happen to run on biodiesel get better mileage and/or more power (i.e. torque) too, you know...

Of course, I see no reason why we can't make ethanol and biodiesel!

Re:biodiesel is unquestionably energy-positive

[bhtooefr]

And they're more reliable (don't go there - note that VW's problems are NOT with TDI engine reliability. It's with electrical gremlins and early 1.8T turbogasser engine reliability.)

Myself, I just bought a 1985 Jetta Diesel. Not even a turbodiesel. And even though we THINK it's got 275,000 miles (we can't know for sure - VW's problems back then were with making reliable odometers :P), it's still running really strong.

FWIW, I bought this car specifically to use it with biodiesel.

Re:biodiesel is unquestionably energy-positive

[mrchaotica]

Huh, I didn't know they made diesels without turbochargers. Doesn't adding a turbo make it much better in every way (i.e. more efficient and more powerful), since you're not always using it at the same low RPM all the time?

Re:biodiesel is unquestionably energy-positive

[bhtooefr]

You can vary the RPM on a naturally aspirated diesel no problem.

If you've got a TDI, disconnect the N75 valve to simulate a naturally aspirated diesel (although it'll be even slower).

The NA diesel is less efficient, because there's less air being put in (due to there not being a turbo), so the fuel isn't as completely burned. Also, it's less powerful, because of the same reason.

Re:biodiesel is unquestionably energy-positive

[mrchaotica]

I didn't mean to imply that you couldn't run a naturally-aspirated diesel at varying RPMs, I was just thinking that it was more suited towards something like a diesel-electric locomotive (where it turns a generator instead of the wheels directly) where the average output was close to the peak output, and you could therefore size the engine accordingly. In contrast, with a car you have to size the engine for peak acceleration, but you won't use all that power most of the time, so you either have to have a huge engine or deal with your car being slow. It just seems to me that a turbocharger is a way to get by with a smaller engine, and is therefore better suited to cars.

Re:biodiesel is unquestionably energy-positive

[bhtooefr]

Yes, I deal with my car being slow :P

52 horsepower. It's almost at the fastest it can go at 70MPH. (SUPPOSEDLY, it's been to 85MPH. I don't believe it, unless it was downhill with a tailwind.) At least that's what traffic does around here.

Re:Hemp! Yeah, right

[Anonymous Coward]

The government's rules against hemp are a straw man argument. The better reason not to use hemp for lots of stuff (like paper, but also ethanol) is that it's an annual crop and is tremendously inconvenient to harvest and store. Sure, you could mow it down with a combine and pelletize it (lots of energy required for that!) each fall. But then you gotta store a zillion tons of pellets to process 11 months a year.

A better solution is trees. You can harvest them 12 months a year (depending where you are), and logs store pretty well. If you're interested in running your chipper in the woods, you can even chew up the tops and leaves for fuel--although you should leave something behind to rot and fertilize the next crop.

Yes, I work for a paper company that uses ~2000 tons of wood a day. That's got nothing to do with my conclusions, though.

switchgrass

[ecloud]

If it has such a high energy content, what about building a powerplant surrounded by fields of this grass, and just burn it and use a steam turbine to generate electricity? Then use this technique to take care of the smoke emissions. If you compare the electrical transmission losses with the amount of energy lost by fermenting it and making alcohol and then transporting that, I wonder which is more efficient?

that's great, but...

[r00t]

First there's the obvious: second-hand smoke and car crashes. (and yes, tobacco and alcohol are trouble, but they are unfortunately deeply embedded in our culture) There's also the issue of crime. If you're so stoned out that you can't keep a normal job, you'll probably steal stuff.

Second, we have all sorts of helpful social programs. We have medicaid, medicare, and laws against turning people away from emergency rooms. We have social security, food stamps, welfare, and WIC. We have homeless shelters, Habitat for Humanity, loan help for first-time home buyers, and housing projects. We have public school, subsidized universities, and education grants. We even bury or cremate people who die without enough money to pay the bill.

The existance of all those social programs means that we can't stand by while people mess up their lives. If we do, we allow them to waste money via the social programs going to an unproductive member of society.

Should we get rid of all these social programs? Maybe. I'm not so sure about the unburied corpses though. In any case, we do have these social programs. Thus, we try to keep idiots from making themselves worse.

Re:that's great, but...

[LordLucless]

First there's the obvious: second-hand smoke...

So make smoking in public places illegal; it is already illegal to smoke tobacco in public over here.

and car crashes.

So charge them with DUI/negligent driving/occasioning death, whatever the crime may be, same as is currently done with alchohol.

e have social security, food stamps, welfare, and WIC. We have homeless shelters, Habitat for Humanity, loan help for first-time home buyers, and housing projects. We have public school, subsidized universities, and education grants.

I have no idea how drug use relates to home loan assistance, public schooling, subsidized universities or education grants. It's relationship to food stamps, welfare and homeless shelters is tangential - proportionatly, only a very few users of drugs such as marijuana end up homeless. I have no hard statistics, but I'd guess it's in the same realm as alchoholics unable to keep a job or save any money more than the cost of the next bottle.

Should we get rid of all these social programs? Maybe. I'm not so sure about the unburied corpses though. In any case, we do have these social programs. Thus, we try to keep idiots from making themselves worse.

Which means the government should be able to ensure every citizen does only what is most healthy for them. Anyone eating more than two servings of red meat a week should be imprisoned. Potato crisps, chocolates and candies should all be banned, and possession punished by imprisonment. All citizens should have a mandated period of exercise each day. Failure to exercise results in a fine, unless excused by age or disability. Sky-diving, bunji-jumping, mountaineering and all contact sports are outlawed due to the possibility of injury.

Gee, I wish my government would keep me from making myself worse. It'd be such a fun world.

Re:that's great, but...

[mrchaotica]

First there's the obvious: second-hand smoke and car crashes. (and yes, tobacco and alcohol are trouble, but they are unfortunately deeply embedded in our culture)

Tobacco smoke is actually more unhealthy than marijuana. I'm not sure about the relative impairment between alcohol and marijuana, but I doubt that marijuana is worse (especially considering that alcohol includes 100 proof vodka as well as the usual beer etc.). Incidentally, marijuana is "deeply embedded in our culture" too -- it's just that it was popular among the non-white population (e.g. indians and black people) a century ago, which is why it was outlawed. In other words, it was a racial thing.

Or, at least, that was the scapegoat reason for outlawing it. What happened was that the [wood-based] paper industry got scared of competition from hemp, so they made up a bunch of stories along the lines of "OMG some stoned-out crazy black guy is going to rape all our white women!!!" and used this BS to trick the government into passing a law about it.

There's also the issue of crime. If you're so stoned out that you can't keep a normal job, you'll probably steal stuff.

So? If you're so drunk that you can't keep a normal job, you'll probably steal too, so why don't we prohibit alcohol too? (Oh, right, it's because we already tried that -- and it worked out about as well as prohibiting pot is now!)

Besides, most people in jail for marijuana-related "crime" are only there for simple posession. They weren't causing any trouble, they just happened to have some of the illegal substance on them.

Second, we have all sorts of helpful social programs. We have medicaid, medicare, and laws against turning people away from emergency rooms. We have social security, food stamps, welfare, and WIC. We have homeless shelters, Habitat for Humanity, loan help for first-time home buyers, and housing projects. We have public school, subsidized universities, and education grants. We even bury or cremate people who die without enough money to pay the bill.

First of all, not all of those are social programs. Education is an investment in human capital, and burial or cremation services are for the benefit of public health (not the comfort of the surviving family).

Second, not all of those are government-run social programs. Habitat for Humanity, for instance, is not run by the government (in fact, it's a Christian organization).

Third, the remaining things that actually are government social programs ought to be eliminated!

The existance of all those social programs means that we can't stand by while people mess up their lives. If we do, we allow them to waste money via the social programs going to an unproductive member of society.

Wait, so you're saying we don't want to waste welfare money on the unproductive person... so we arrest them and pay for their food and housing in jail instead??!

Wouldn't it just be a lot simpler to neither give the person Welfare, nor throw him in jail?

Re:that's great, but...

[mini me]

If you're so stoned out that you can't keep a normal job, you'll probably steal stuff.

It's too bad there wasn't a law against stealing... oh wait. By that logic we should make downloading any type of file illegal because the downloaded file might infringe on someone's copyright.

Re:that's great, but...

[r00t]

I'm saying that we do pay to support unproductive people. That may be good or bad, depending upon your politics. No matter if it is good or bad, it's something we do.

Since we support unproductive people, it is strongly to society's benefit to reduce the number of unproductive people. Thus, we fight destructive habits as best we can.

The same goes for education. We invest in humans by educating them. Our investment is wasted if the humans turn out to be potheads.

Re:that's great, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have more than the average amount of clue regarding this, but only a little.

Not only did the paper industry rail against hemp (W.R. Hearst's newspapers did a lot, and he owned a LOT of trees), but so did the budding petrochemical industry, as many things you can make from oil you can also make from hemp.

As far as the industries 'tricking the government'... what are you smoking? They BOUGHT the government a long time ago. The smear campaign was to incite public indignation in the minds of the sheeple and convince them of the EVILS OF WEED at the same time that Popular Mechanics magazine was calling hemp the crop of the future.

Re:that's great, but...

[mrchaotica]

Since we support unproductive people, it is strongly to society's benefit to reduce the number of unproductive people. Thus, we fight destructive habits as best we can.

This still doesn't explain why alcohol and pot are treated differently. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that alcohol is responsible for an order of magnitude more "unproductive people" than pot is.

And, more to the original point, it also certainly doesn't explain why growing hemp (which is not even exactly the same plant as marijuana) is illegal*, even for the purpose of making ethanol fuel!

*it's not illegal to grow hemp per se; it just requires a permit that is never granted.

Re:that's great, but...

[r00t]

Not that I care for alcohol, but...

A reasonable person could like the taste. A bit of red wine can help avoid heart disease, and some kinds of beer are high in rare nutrients. Major religeons are willing to defend wine. Alcohol isn't known for halucinagenic effects or paranoia, both of which are considered WAY BAD by most people.

Producing alcohol is extremely easy. For pot, you have to be a sneaky gardener. It's trivial to produce alcohol indoors without fancy equipment. Heck, I sometimes produce alcohol by accident!

We at least tried to get rid of alcohol. If you think today's little drug war is bad, oh, you don't know. An alcohol war would be far, far worse.

Seaweed

[mattite]

Why not use kelp (seaweed)? Doesn't that stuff grow around a foot a day? Since this new process can use cellulose, and has a net energy gain, just grow kelp in the middle of the ocean. I can think of a few benefits:

- Current agriculture remains unaffected, thereby also unaffecting most food supplies.
- Kelp is a weed that grows without any special help: just make sure it gets enough sunlight.
- Kelp grows in the ocean where, last time I checked, few people (if any) live. No issues with taking up land.
- Maybe some genius can think of a way to create an off-shore kelp platform.
- The ocean covers roughly 2/3 of the planet's surface, so there's plenty of room for harvesting.

The only problem is that I do not know what the impact on the marine ecosystem would be. However, if the harvesting is done far out in the middle of the ocean, I can't imagine there would be significant harm. If there is a way to calculate this out, we might just find that there may not even be a need to reduce consumption.

Uncle Jesse's moonshine

[ecloud]

Remember the Dukes of Hazzard episode in which Jesse entered some of his moonshine in a contest to find an alternative fuel?

Chemical Process

[Galactic Dominator]

Get back to me when there is a useful chemical process involving de-denaturing the ethanol so I can put it back to good use. Just totally undrinkable in its current form.

How about your front yard?

[shmlco]

I think an earlier poster had a point. How many acres of grass (i.e. front and back yards, landscaping, parks, playing fields) are already being grown in the US? How many people already water and fertilize and maintain them? How much cut grass is already being gathered weekly and hauled off to dumps?

It would appear that what we should be looking into is a way to divert the biomass we're already growing and harvesting to a different destination.

And no, I don't expect it to power the entire country. I would, however, expect it to make a significant dent.

Re:How about your front yard?

[sl3xd]

You know, I think I qualified my statement with 'arable' land.

I live in the States' second driest state. We get less rain per year than many get in a month.

It's incredibly wasteful to use water on something as superficial as a lawn.

Ever heard of xeroscaping? It's fairly popular, and is becoming increasingly so in desert climates (such as say, the SouthWestern quarter of the United States).

The bottom line is that there is no lawn. The water required to grow it is simply not extant.

Many an environmentalist is acutally quite concerned with the amount of fresh (ie. irrigation) water that will be available in the US. Decades of misuse are taking their toll.

To grow anything for alcohol, you need abundant fresh water. This is something that isn't as abundant as many would like to believe. (My father's a civil engineer whose entire career is in the handling of large quantities of water-- some of it industrial, but most of it municipal. If anybody knows about water issues, it's him.)

Every drunk in the world has dreamed of such an ethanol supply. Ethanol is extremely profitable stuff -- espescially in the dilute form that people drink. It's considerably more expensive to make alcohol pure enough to burn in an engine.

Making cheap, pure, abundant ethanol has been a dream of nearly everybody who drinks (or makes) alcohol. Strides have been made, but it's still a woefully inefficient process.

Look -- I'm all for making what ethanol we can from what would otherwise go to the landfill. Just don't give in to the delusion that it will make such a large dent in oil usage.

Re:How about your front yard?

[shmlco]

Be that as it may, in about a third of the US grass grows everywhere without needing to be watered, and in many places where watering doesn't matter because fresh water is abundant. And discounting hardier forms like prarie grass. I think living in a desert environment may be coloring your thinking. Try driving through, say, Kentucky some time.

And whether or not people should have grass for yards is another question. The practical reality, at the moment, is that many do, and that gives us the opportunity to make use of the by-products.

Alcohol

[The_Honkey]

Homer: Alcohol, the cause, and solution to all of lifes problems.

No, this is the answer...

[bearnol]

My own (original) idea, but released under the GPL for everyone's benefit
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/browse_ frm/thread/25130f0f89248f9a/ac072ae38ba5c0de?lnk=s t&q=perpetual+motion+wanless&rnum=1&hl=en#ac072ae3 8ba5c0de

Sustain whose food supply?

[Shivetya]

The US already puts out more grains that it can consume and this has happened while the population increased and the amount of farmed land decreased.

If crops needed to make ethanol became a source of good money we would see an increase in farm land devoted to them, but we would also see all sorts of new ways of increasing the output of land already used to grow these same crops.

I think the biggest negative impact would be less grain available from the US for the rest of the world. There are too many countries where there is little incentive to be a good farmer other than keeping your own alive, and this results in low yields which require importing from other countries. The US and a few other countries usually fill this gap. Turn around and make a more profitable use for our grain and either your going to have to turn these countries around or the plight of their people will be worse.

Re:Sustain whose food supply?

[why-is-it]

The US already puts out more grains that it can consume and this has happened while the population increased and the amount of farmed land decreased.

Yes, but that was accomplished due to mechanization and advances in fertilizer technology. I suspect massive farm subsidies have played a role in being able to afford the machinery and fertilizer as well.

We have many more specialized machines today than in the past, and they are more common. Back in the day, one farmer in the entire community might own a threshing machine. Nowadays, practically everyone has their own combine.

Additionally, some crops (notably corn) are grown almost entirely with fertilizer. There is little need for a sound crop rotation strategy when you can give manually give the crop the nutrients it needs most, when it needs them.

There are too many countries where there is little incentive to be a good farmer other than keeping your own alive

That's largely the result of US and European agricultural subsidies. We sell them our surplus crops cheaper than what they can grow themselves.

The US and a few other countries usually fill this gap.

I believe you mis-spelled that. The technical term is "dumping"

The only downside...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is that you're driving a 1993 Mercury Topaz.

On the up-side, at least you can be thankful it'll probably dissolve your engine pretty soon.

A vote, I say!

[FridayBob]

Wouldn't it be nice if Slashdot could arrange for us to have a quick vote on issues like this? In this case it would be something like:

Twenty years from now, which do you think
will be your car's main source of energy?

O Petroleum
O Hydrogen
O Biodiesel
O Ethanol
O Batteries

This would not only make it easier to gauge opinion among the readers, it would more often include the opinions of those who would otherwise have said nothing.

Re:A vote, I say!

[trash eighty]

O CowboyNeal will pull my chariot along

Wrong question

[dangitman]

Is ethanol "the answer" - no it's one tool among many. Why do people think there should be one, single solution for alternative energy? Different methods are good for different purposes.

ethanol is limited

[Anonymous Coward]

ethanol even though it sounds pretty good only has limited resources. Chances are it'll be used only by agricultural machinery and transport of food from the farm to the city. There isn't really more. If you want more you'll have to change your diets folks.. you'd switch from pork, chicken and beef to eating rice in order to free more crop to the making of ethanol.

One supporter ...

[tbone1]

I know that the Indy Racing League is using ethanol for the 2006 season. I just wish I could tie that in with a Danica Patrick joke ...

They were not "out of fashion"...

[hummassa]

You must remember that the production of ethanol must be subsidized because otherwise sugar is more profitable for the big farmers and cane processing plant owners.
In the late 80s and early 90s the federal government took out the subsides, and many stations were out of ethanol, for a long time.

Re:They were not "out of fashion"...

[marcosdumay]

If you are talking about brazilian ethanol, yes, it was subsidized (is it right?), and yes, lots of stations were out of it when the subside was canceled. But it is not subsidized anymore, and even so it is cheapper than gas. Brazil is suffering from lack of ethanol mostly due to the fast increase on consumption, but nothing that can't be fixed on 2 years if the govrnment stays out of it (what it won't).

I'd like to see how much of the brazilian cars are powered with ethanol. Is it viable to power all of them?

Re:They were not "out of fashion"...

[danpritts]

> brazilian ethanol,

> But it is not subsidized anymore, and even so it is cheapper than gas.

Do you mean cheaper per liter or cheaper per km travelled?

The energy density of ethanol is a bit over half that of gasoline. Assuming equal efficiency, you'll need nearly twice as much ethanol to travel a given distance. This means more frequent fuel stops or larger fuel tanks (larger fuel tanks, of course, mean lower fuel economy since you're carting around all that fuel).

ethanol ought to cost about half as much per liter as gasoline for it to be cost-equivalent. I don't know what the prices are in Brazil, just pointing that it's not a simple cost per liter comparison.

It's also clear that ethanol production takes lots of arable land, lots of water, and a significant amount of energy to both grow the (corn or whatever) and to distill it into ethanol. Opinions differ but some analyses show that ethanol produced from corn in the US actually is a net energy loss.

Re:They were not "out of fashion"...

[Carpe PM]

E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) is used here (North Dakota) and was $1.69/gal vs. regular gas at 2.19/gal. The local cab company uses it and needs about 20-25% more than gasoline to go the same distance. That makes it a slight advantage, since you get more horsepower and it keeps the engine cleaner.

Another Brasilian here -- you tergiversed.

[hummassa]

The real question is: is there hydrogen in the pumps anywhere you know? If you buy this BMW you mentioned, where will you fuel it? Down here, there is ethanol in the pumps in 100% of the gas stations over a country that is larger than continental USofA, meaning you can travel the equivalent of the Route 66 and never get without fuel. Got it?

Re:Another Brasilian here -- you tergiversed.

[rolfwind]

The real question is: is there hydrogen in the pumps anywhere you know?

Yes, at the Munich Airport, which I have been to often.

If you buy this BMW you mentioned, where will you fuel it?

http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/tw/bmw_hydr ogen.htm

It's dual fuel, you can use gasoline as well. In fact, one of the first hydrogen cars in the 50s or 60s was converted from a normal (american) car. Nothing had to be changed with the engine itself, just the fuel lines and such, as hydrogen tended to corrode certain materials that gasoline didn't.

And what you are talking about is a chicken and the egg problem. 150 years ago, I doubt that there was much of a gasoline infrastructure for cars.

And in Germany, there are enough pumps for Natural Gas powered cars which I have never seen in America. Because there are natural gas powered vehicles in Germany (it's cheaper). Does that mean natural gas will always be a non-option in America?

You ask why. I ask why not.

From the article I just linked:
"I once rode from downtown Munich to the city's airport (a lengthy trip) in a fourth generation BMW 750hL and even "filled up" at a hydrogen service station located right on the airport property. It was an interesting experience, but a common enough routine at Munich airport where many of the vehicles used around the facility, including apron buses, are hydrogen-fuelled.

BMW has been operating 7-Series hydrogen-powered sedans on a daily basis in both Munich and Hanover. When running on hydrogen, the 750hL 12-cylinder engine develops 204 horsepower, tops 100 km/h in 9.6-seconds and is capable of a top speed of 226 km/h. The car's 140-litre cryogenic hydrogen tank gives the fully-equipped luxury car a range of 350 km. The cars are "dual fuel" units capable of being run on gasoline when needed. After all, you won't find a hydrogen filling station on every street corner just yet."

Because ethanol "just works"

[hummassa]

I know from experience that Europeans love Diesel motors, but I know (also from experience) that they are heavy, noisy, emit dirty byproducts, etc... While the burning of ethanol generates water and carbon dioxide. Besides, we in Brasil have a 25-years ongoing experience with ethanol-powered cars -- commercially available, and 96-grade ethanol available in the pumps of every gas station in the country.

Re:Because ethanol "just works"

[ajs318]

Less with the tired old arguments about what comes out of a diesel engine already! The fuel contains carbon, hydrogen and oxygen; the products are water vapour and carbon in various states of oxidation {pure, CO and CO2}. Clue: if you can see it with the naked eye, it's not going to do you any harm.

Re:Because ethanol "just works"

[AndersOSU]

Your experience wasn't with modern diesel motors.

In my opintion bio-diesel is the future, and even if it was burned in a circa 1970 diesle engine (or even a ~1900 one) it doesn't matter much if it is dirty because it isn't new dirt like in oil.

"would it be"... ?!

[hummassa]

Our best-selling cars since last year (Brasil here) are all "flex-fuel" cars that run on every mix from "pure" gasoline (gasoline in the pumps here is 20% ethanol) and 96-grade ethanol. Every single electronic-controlled-injection/ignition modern car can be made to adjust itself to new mixes automagically.

Trees.

[VON-MAN]

Boy, you're so wrong it's unbelievable. In fact, hemp can be harvested twice a year in most places, in warmer areas in can be a year round crop. And hemp happens to provide more than four times the amount of cellulose then corn of cane. Hemp can be used to produce paper, but also to produce textile because of its very long fibers. It's an excellent cellulose source. Also, hemp could be are very nice boost to farmers, for the reasons i mentioned above. And farmers can need a little boost.

Oh, your "solution" does have everything to do with your paper industry. It could have become the number one source of cellulose (and not harvesting of trees, for crying out loud). But it was prohibited in 1937 after a lot of lobbying of DuPont (yes, THAT DuPont) and W.R. Hearst. Yes, the Hearst famous for his newspapers and timberland.

I don't know what you're trolling here for and i question your motives.

Re:Trees.

[mrchaotica]

Indeed, you're correct -- had it not been outlawed, hemp would have completely replaced trees as our primary source of paper. I'd forgotten about that; it's just yet another reason why the prohibition of hemp is ludicrous.

We'll never know..

[jcr]

If ethanol is a viable fuel, remove all the subsidies and tax manipulation, and it will stand on its own. So far, it's nothing more than a massive corporate-welfare program for Archer Daniels Midland (price fixer to the world).

-jcr

Off-Topic

[VON-MAN]

Most people here will agree with you. And if you had read before replying you would have seen that shipping food to Africa wasn't presented as good idea. On the contrary. Ethanol however, can ONLY be an opportunity for anyone, and maybe also for Africa, think about it. And if you don't want to plant corn for ethanol, then don't, the Europeans will dump their surplus really cheap. Besides all that, I don't think that exporting oil is doing Africa a lot of good now.

Re:Off-Topic

[Firethorn]

The problem with exporting oil is that it concentrates the funds too much. It's relativly easy to punch a few hole on a couple acres of land, import a few dozen to hundred workers, and have a relativly small number of people in the country take all the profit.

When it comes to ethanol, well, you have the factory(cheaper than sending the raw stuff over), but you also have all the farms, that have to be run by people. You also have the equipment, and it's cheaper to produce your own after a certain point. Chemicals for fertilization, though they'll have to find a different source than oil byproducts.

Still not perfect, but it can add up.

yes, FINALLY, ethanol and SUVs go together

[swschrad]

news this week: Ford is putting an E85 engine into the hybrid escape.

if these car outfits really mean what they say, EVERY hybrid engine should accept E85. as should every auto meant for the mass market. it isn't rocket science, just put stainless steel in the fuel rail system instead of aluminum, and change rubber gasket composition. twenty bucks a car, max.

we can't farm our way out of being an energy slave to the middle east, but it's a damn good start... and in case of their trying to pull another "arab oil shock of 1976," we can just tell them to cob off.

Agreed

[JamesR2]

Totally agreed ... thanks! Lets face reality here ... NOTHING we do today is perfect either. Old triangle problem; pick any 2 sides.

Wait...what?

[Peldor]

Ethanol may not be the answer, but it sure helps you forget the question.

Great, cut my lawn and fill up my car indirectly!

[Madman]

I think it's great that there's finally technology that can make use of the vegetable waste we have, instead of throwing it into landfill we can make fuel out of it. Using the waste will require municipal support for vegetable wate recycling but it's worth it.

An interesting idea from MIT is to directly use pollutants at the source while it's in concentration. Atmospheric waste is pumped through cylinders with algae in them. The rich carbon dioxide concentration makes the algea grow like crazy, they produce oxygen in quantity, and then can be squeezed for biodiesel. The rest of the algae can then feed cattle. The co2 never gets to the atmosphere. This works great large-scale at fixed locations but is no good for cars or homes. For that another solution is needed.

We're thinking about atmospheric pollution the wrong way, it's just another form of waste. Our tax money goes to sewage treatement, garbage disposal, and recycling. We know we can't just dump raw sewage into the river or big heaps or trash on the streets because it will cause disease and make our lives hell - we're taught this from an early age. Yet we think nothing of dumping waste into the air, we are finally waking up to the fact that it's bad but we can't do anything about it. It takes a whole infrastructure to dispose of waste effectively and efficiently, one person can't do it alone and we all recognize this.

Carbon waste needs to be handled at the community level the same with all other waste disposal, the difference is that it doesn't have to be directly handled by the community - it can be outsourced. Tax money in Deluth Iowa can fund carbon waste in Botswana and the effect is the same. There's a tremendous growth industry there, but communities must start demanding it as it's not going to come from the central government.

One word: Sulphur

[hummassa]

Petrol-based-diesel (I don't know if biodiesel also -- and I suspect not) is loaded with sulphurous and sulphuric oxides. Hint: those are not good for you.

Land use

[thomas.craig]

Indeed, the preponderance of the evidence seems to be that ethanol can be produced from perennial crops with a positive BTU balance, but land use is the real problem. At the risk of being US-centric, according to the US Dept. of Energy, total 2004 gasoline consumption was approximately 65,700,000,000 gallons (sorry, can't find the link - this is from an analysis I did last year. If someone has a link to more current figures, or figures that differ, I'd appreciate seeing them.) Assuming very optimistically that one acre of farmland can produce enough biomass for 1000 gallons of ethanol, then 65 million acres would be required to replace gasoline with ethanol - about twice the area of the state of Georgia. Obviously, completely replacing gasoline with ethanol is not a realistic goal, but the US is currently undergoing a rapid loss of arable land, so it is unlikely that even 6.5 million acres can be freed up to produce the ethanol required to replace 10% of gasoline consumption. The danger is that ethanol production will intrude on (1) less productive land - thus decreasing the efficiency of ethanol production and (2) more sensitive eco-systems, especially in the developing world. On the other hand, as other posters have pointed out, ethanol has some advantages in terms of emmisions, and politically it is advantageous to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, so replacing subsidized, economically non-viable crop production with ethanol production and using otherwise wasted bio-mass for ethanol production makes sense.

This will never happen in the UK,

[polyp2000]

There's enough fuss here about the drink driving already. I dont know about you but after i've had a few I dont want my car pissed too!. Besides it brings new meaning to the term "On the Wagon"

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

American attitude

[Chayak]

A lot of our energy problem comes from the good ole USA. We have the bigger better faster mentality drilled into our head and people love big gas guzzling SUVs and trucks. We have solutions that would help reduce fuel usage but things like that usually end up being bought by the oil companies to prevent it from cutting into their profit margin. We need to change our attitude and start looking at more fuel efficient vehicles that don't cost an arm and a leg.

Re:American attitude

[Billly Gates]

Good luck

My uncle laughed his ass off at my 2006 Hyundia Elantra that I bought. Why? Because only a liberal would buy a car when you could get a truck. I didn't argue.

I did ask him why I needed a big Ford F250 truck? I am a college student hurting on money and have nothing to hual. I got no answer.

After seeing gas prices go back up again I smirk when I think of his 9mpg truck.

You can't convince people that they can't have the car of their dreams sadly.

What is your definition of "modern"?

[hummassa]

I lived in Europe in the beautiful (and bubbly :) year of 1998. I rented a 1998 Ford Escort 1.4 litre Turbodiesel there. In less than two months, I asked the rental shop to trade for a 1.8 (or was it 1.6? don't remember exactly) gasoline '98 Escort, even if my fuel bill rocketed three or four times (Diesel engine gave me 2.5x more mileage, while the price per litre was approximately 0.6x the gas price), because:

1. Noise level: the 1.4 turbodiesel had a noise level 6x higher than the gasoline engine, in all conditions (stopped at a red light it went wum-wum-wum-wum-wum all the time, loud GRAAAM at any acceleration, while the gas one is approximately silent in both situations)

2. Emission smell: whoa!

3. Really weaker engine: the 0-60mph and 20-60mph times were four times longer. I commuted 20km (12mile?) everyday in the highway and it really hurt. And I went a lot of places by car in the weekend, so I was really driving a lot.

4. At the time, I could afford the difference without a big sweat.

Re:What is your definition of "modern"?

[g.a.g]

Sure, if you trade a somewhat crappy small engine against one that doesn't break a sweat for doing its chores, no surprise that you'll have a better ride. I myself have a three-cylinder 1.2 litre diesel, and at red traffic lights it just stops!! So no wum-wum-wum all the time, just real silence. And it's extremely efficient: I get more than 60 mpg, or in real life about 3.x l/100 km (that's in the high twenties for km/l). Only in the cold mornings it sounds like a truck, but that has to be expected. It goes away after some kilometres, and then it sounds like a oversized sewing machine.
OTOH, I just test drove the new VW 2.0 TDI in a Seat Toledo, with 16 valves and 330 Nm torque! Talk about fun driving! And it went 17 km/l.

So yes, the older and too small turbodiesels are not so good, but once you get to the reasonable sizes (PSAs 1.6 is a fine engine too), you should be better off.

Aside, is it true that Diesel fuel in the US is more expensive than regular unleaded?

Re:What is your definition of "modern"?

[danpritts]

> Aside, is it true that Diesel fuel in the US is more expensive than regular unleaded?

yes - on a recent car trip i noticed diesel prices were maybe 10-20% more than 87 octane unleaded.

Think really hard

[RingDev]

What is the difference between Barzil and say, upstate New York, and how migh that effect the effictiness of an ethanol burning engine?

-Rick

PS: I'm a Bio-Diesel fan, all the perks, half the penalties of Ethanol. ;)

Land?

[dookie]

Who cares how many thousands of acres it would take to meet our energy needs? There's thousands and thousands of acres of rainforests we can bulldoze to plant corn and sugar cane. And the rainforest trees can be converted to ethanol too! It's a win-win situation.

Look around you

[Engineer-Poet]

Oil is cheap and plentiful.

Historically it has been. Historically, the USA was an oil exporter too; that changed when US production peaked in 1970, while consumption continued to rise. Now oil production of the entire world is peaking or about to.

Historically, most people farmed for a living. If the future was going to be just like history, we wouldn't have history as we know it. Eras end. The era of cheap oil is ending.

Oil has not increased in price versus inflation.

Oil prices are near their inflation-adjusted high (during Gulf War I). They will go higher.

We're not running out and we won't in our lifetimes.

We haven't run out of oil in East Texas, but production has fallen to 12,000 barrels per day. Prudhoe Bay is producing at less than half its peak. Oil comes out slower and slower as the reservoirs are depleted. "Out of oil" in one sense means the zero point of an asymptotic curve; that will arguably never happen. Out of swing capacity (out of cheap oil) is another thing entirely; we're there today, and you can expect $100/bbl in the near future.

Just a few years ago, oil was $15/bbl. Then the target price of oil was $20-$30/bbl. Now it's over $60/bbl, and Kuwait's biggest field has peaked at 1.7 mmbbl/day. Mexico's Cantarell field has peaked. Speculation is that Ghawar, S. Arabia's biggest field and biggest in the world, is producing 80% water (due to reckless water injection) and is about to peak.

If you think oil is going to remain cheap when demand hits a static or slowly shrinking supply (and the historic inelastic short-term demand curve), you've got another thing coming.

Look at Brazil!

[gone.fishing]

Brazil has the answer - they have already converted to an ethanol economy and are rapidly leaving the petroleum based economy behind! All cars (and many trucks) sold in Brazil are "multi-fuelers" that are able to run on gas or ethanol or any combination thereof! All gas stations are required to carry both gas and ethanol (and most also carry diesel). This way older gas-only powered cars can remain on the road although the vast majority of people run ethanol for their every day use.

This has made an amazing change in the Brazilian economy. It has put people to work growing sugar cane and other products to make into alcohol. The salaries paid to these people stay in the country and are recycled within their country so, the economy is stimulated even more. With oil, the money leaves the country and is never seen again.

Alcohol is actually a cleaner burning fuel than gasoline so some people say that this makes it more environmentally friendly although I suspect that the comparison may actually be flawed. Pollution is generated when the product is grown, harvested, and manufactured (probably to a greater degree than oil). Still, the transportation of oil from overseas probably results in a lot pollution too.

What puzzles me is if Brazil, a poor nation can do this, why can't countries like the U.S.A. and Canada do it too? We certainly have the wealth, knowledge, and resources.

Re:Hemp! - In Canada

[dextromulous]

Hemp was "legalized" in Canada a few years ago. Unfortunately, you have to have a license to grow it. I'm not sure on exact numbers, but I have a bucket of shelled hemp seeds on my desk right now that I snack on (for every 42g serving there's 15g protein and 15g polyunsaturated fats, as well as 2.7g monounsaturated and 2.1g saturated fats)

The only production numbers I was able to find for Canada were from 1999, and in that year, 14200 hectares (~35000 acres) of hemp was cultivated.

As far as current production numbers, I was unable to find any, but it looks like most of Canada's hemp production is for food, cosmetics, and clothing, not paper or ethanol.

diesel motorcycles

[GungaDan]

http://www.dieselmotorcycles.com/models.htm

I want one, too.

What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Fusion! Seriously, this thread is this long without a reference to that?

one half empty beer can, beer included, some banana peels, and we're ROCKING....

though I think, based purely on the items being put in, that Mr. Fusion would be more aptly named "Mr. Make-Alcohol-and-Convert-all-alcohol-into-fuel"... but that would make for a longer label.

Answer

[hummassa]

I believe (but I don't have the hard numbers right now) that today 50-60% of Brasilian cars are either ethanol or "flex" (gas/ethanol hybrids). In 1986, in the peak of the Proalcool subside program, 76.1% of all cars in Brasil were ethanol-powered, so, yes, I think it's viable to put them all on ethanol in some five to ten years. Ethanol-powered cars are still subsidized, tho -- their property tax is half of the same model, gas-powered car.

Re:Answer

[marcosdumay]

Yes, the cars are subsidized. But not the fuel.

Thanks for the info. I've read some very confusing numbers on the net.

About time.

[Ghir]

I find this "insight" particularly interesting as I think back to my time growing up in the midwest US.

I vividly recall the governement paying farmers to *not* harvest their corn crops in an efford to normalize pricing and to prevent a depression that would have sent many of them to the poor house. This followed on the heels of the massive oil shortages that resulted from the OPEC embargoes of the '70s (I'm barely old enough to remember those days, being born in 1971).

In my teens and early 20's, I remember finding out that ethanol blend gasolines were actually only a midwestern thing, and only a very few US refineries were capable of making it. Being an alchohol not too dissimilar from that which is burned in "top fuel" drag cars (another interest from my teens), it seemed silly to me then, and now, that we as a nation could kill two proverbial birds with one stone by not only giving corn farmers an expanded market, but also diminish our reliance on fossil fuels, be they foriegn or domestic.

I'm glad that "the powers that be" are finally starting to look at this more closely. I guess it took the real emergence of fuel alternatives, such as hydrogen feul cells, and yet more major conflict in the middle east, which threatens our foriegn oil supply, for the nation as a whole to start looking around for real, viable alternatives.

Of course, even if they made IC engines that burned pure ethanol, it will still be a while before they could have it available on enough corners in the country to make it viable. But the same can be said about any gasoline or diesel fuel.

Talk about OVERRATED

[Engineer-Poet]

I'm disgusted that this has been modded up to 5 (despite at least one "overrated" mod), when the very next comment provided links to info and far more insightful and factual commentary.

USDA says that we can get as much as 2.66 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn. The 2004 harvest was 11.8 billion bushels, so the whole crop could yield (at most) ~31 billion gallons of EtOH.

Then there's biomass. The "billion ton vision" is looking for a billion tons/yr of stuff with cellulose in it. Iogen has an enzymatic process from which they claim 330 liters (87 gallons) per ton; from that you could theoretically get another 87 billion gallons a year.

Total from the whole corn crop (g'bye, Tony the Tiger and Corn Chex) and all that biomass would be 118 billion gallons/year. We burned 139 billion gallons of gasoline in 2004 (9,063,000 barrels/day), plus another 4 million bbl/day of distillate (diesel) and 1.6 million bbl/day of jet fuel. Ethanol isn't going to do the job no matter what, and hyping it as The Solution just because it isn't hydrogen is a huge mistake.

The problem with ethanol is, ironically, that it is compatible with the existing vehicle fleet. That fleet has an average tank-to-wheels efficiency of 14.9%. Lead-acid batteries are about 70% efficient, Li-ion is closer to 95%. We are far better off going plug-in hybrid than wasting our money on ethanol.

Moderators: when the parent is back down to 2, it's about where it ought to be.

Re:Talk about OVERRATED

[AKAImBatman]

I'm disgusted that this has been modded up to 5 (despite at least one "overrated" mod), when the very next comment provided links to info and far more insightful and factual commentary.

I'm sorry, but why are you linking to him? He didn't provide any facts. He provided a few "go search for yourself" links, and was refuted by respondants. There's quite a bit of discussion regarding the viability of Ethanol as a fuel. Simply linking to some random poster and saying, "This guy is right!" does not resolve the issue. (Especially when he doesn't even refute anything I've said.)

Total from the whole corn crop (g'bye, Tony the Tiger and Corn Chex) and all that biomass would be 118 billion gallons/year. We burned 139 billion gallons of gasoline in 2004 (9,063,000 barrels/day), plus another 4 million bbl/day of distillate (diesel) and 1.6 million bbl/day of jet fuel. Ethanol isn't going to do the job no matter what, and hyping it as The Solution just because it isn't hydrogen is a huge mistake.

You've taken our total production and then proclaimed that Ethanol can't do the job. Question? Have you considered that we can increase our crop production? Amercian farmers produce far less crops than they could simply because there is an insufficient market. The government actually pays farmers to leave large swaths of fields bare. Now I've been operating under the understanding that we'd have to double our crop yeilds to produce enough Ethanol to meet the needs of fuel consumption, but let's go with your figures for a moment. Your figures show a 21 billion barrel deficit in the necessary number of barrels. Thus we need a 17.7% increase in the amount of Ethanol produced in order to meet the demand. Why do you see that as a problem?

The problem with ethanol is, ironically, that it is compatible with the existing vehicle fleet. That fleet has an average tank-to-wheels efficiency of 14.9%. Lead-acid batteries are about 70% efficient, Li-ion is closer to 95%. We are far better off going plug-in hybrid than wasting our money on ethanol.

Efficiency isn't the entire formula here. If it was just about efficieny, we'd all be driving electric cars. In fact, it's about range and fuel economy. It's about keeping the transportation system we have. Replacing our fuel infrastructure and our cars would be one of the most expensive replacements in history. No one wants to do it. No one wants to be forced to purchase a new vehicle, fuel station owners don't want to be forced to invest hundreds of thousands each in new pumps, and fuel producers don't want to invest billions (trillions?) in new hydrogen production technology. That's why Hydrogen isn't appealing. Ethanol can reuse most of that infrastructure with only fractional losses in energy density.

I agree with you that I'd like to see Hydrogen as the final solution, but a sudden shift just isn't going to happen.

BTW, there's fairly complete selection of papers on the Ethanol problem here. It's even helpfully divided into the papers showing figures against (amounts to mostly just Pimentel) and for (everyone else).

Moderators: when the parent is back down to 2, it's about where it ought to be.

Oh yeah? Mods! Mod parent up for providing links to interesting fuel consumption figures. :-P

This is a discussion, not a war. Everyone has their position and their points to be made. The point is to mod up posts that are salient to the topic at hand.

Re:Talk about OVERRATED

[Engineer-Poet]

He didn't provide any facts.

He linked to this (factual), and stated that ethanol is:

1. a fuel source
2. not a viable replacement for oil
3. has a much lower fuel efficency
4. is still non-renewable.

All of which is correct (#4 might be limited to "as produced today", but not #2 or #3).

He... was refuted by respondants.

Only one of whom even tried to address those points I highlighted above, and he quoted a source which didn't even support his claim.

There's quite a bit of discussion regarding the viability of Ethanol as a fuel.

Why didn't YOU address any of those salient points? After criticizing hydrogen for the problems it would have in actually becoming a solution, you blithely ignore the same issues as they apply to ethanol. Sure, they're different; you can dump E85 in some millions of vehicles currently on the road. That doesn't mean that you can actually get enough of the stuff to run them on it.

You've taken our total production and then proclaimed that Ethanol can't do the job. Question? Have you considered that we can increase our crop production?

Have YOU? We burned 139 billion gallons of gasoline in 2004. A gallon of ethanol has the energy of about .66 gallon of gasoline, so that would make ~210 billion gallons of ethanol equivalent. The whole 2004 US corn crop (a record harvest, BTW) would make ~31 billion gallons, so you'd need ALMOST SEVEN TIMES THE HARVEST to replace gasoline.

It's not only impossible, you'd have to be stupid or insane to suggest it. It's far easier to do something about that pathetic 14.9% efficiency figure.

If it was just about efficieny, we'd all be driving electric cars. In fact, it's about range and fuel economy. It's about keeping the transportation system we have.

What part of "plug-in hybrid " don't you understand? Maybe you should head over to CalCars and read a bit, or Plug-In Partners.

Replacing our fuel infrastructure and our cars would be one of the most expensive replacements in history.

The electrical grid is already there, and vehicles wear out and are replaced steadily. That investment will be made regardless, it's just a question of what character the replacements will have.

I won't try to determine your mental state. I just wanted to make the point that, on the scale of usefulness, informativity and insightfulness, your post's quality fell way short of its score. If the mods really want to do their job, they'll make sure that the +5's don't include such examples of failed critical thinking.

Re:Talk about OVERRATED

[AKAImBatman]

He linked to this (factual), and stated that ethanol is:

1. a fuel source
2. not a viable replacement for oil
3. has a much lower fuel efficency
4. is still non-renewable.

All of which is correct (#4 might be limited to "as produced today", but not #2 or #3).

Ahem. From your link: "This is a controversial subject charged with potential bias. Much of it depends on what is included and what is excluded from the calculation, particularly when compared with the energy balance of the production of gasoline itself. Analyses are greatly complicated by various methods of accounting for the energy value coproducts and consideration of alternate uses of the feedstock. Not surprisingly, this debate has been at best inconclusive to date. "

To address your points more precisely:

1. The argument over whether or not Ethanol is energy positive will be what determines whether it is a fuel source or not. From Brazil's usage we know that a positive balance is possible. Either way, it's still a fuel. As I said before (which you keep agreeing with despite your claims), Ethanol would consolidate our fuel infrastructure, making it easier to optimize our energy usage. If Ethanol fails to be energy positive, the extra power can be farmed from higher up on the grid. e.g. Nuclear power.

2. The article does not state that it is not a viable replacement for oil. It states, (and I quote AGAIN): "Not surprisingly, this debate has been at best inconclusive to date." That's "inconclusive". As in, "no conclusion can be reached". As in, "it's still open for debate". As in, "you've proved nothing". Except for perhaps, a personal bias. (Which is fine. Just tone down the theatrics, please.)

3. Ethanol is capable of burning far more efficiently in engines than gasoline. This helps make up for a significant percentage of the energy density difference by extracting a greater percentage of the energy from the fuel. That was the point that this poster was trying to make. Believe it or not, it does work in the real world, which is why Ethanol is used as an Octane Booster. From the same Wikipedia article: "One advantage shared by all four alcohols is octane rating. Butanol has the additional attraction that its energy per kilogram is closer to gasoline than the other alcohols (while still retaining over 25% higher octane rating). [...] Ethanol in a blend with gasoline replaces tetra ethyl lead, benzene and MTBE -- all of which are additives that are meant to raise octane levels."

4. Your own source has this to say about the renewability of Ethanol: "David Pimentel disputes that "ethanol production from corn" is a renewable energy source. However, Pimentel's studies have been widely discredited, and also fails to compare other viable sources of ethanol such as Sugar beets and Sugarcane."

Why didn't YOU address any of those salient points?

Excuse me, but I do believe that's what I'm doing. As I pointed out above and in other posts, you need to read your own sources in order to understand both sides of the issue. I have no problem with you having a bias, but your dismissivness of the counter-points has no place in an open discussion.

Have YOU? We burned 139 billion gallons of gasoline in 2004. A gallon of ethanol has the energy of about .66 gallon of gasoline, so that would make ~210 billion gallons of ethanol equivalent. The whole 2004 US corn crop (a record harvest, BTW) would make ~31 billion gallons, so you'd need ALMOST SEVEN TIMES THE HARVEST to replace gasoline.

1. I used your own figures in my counter-point. If you disagree with them, then don't provide them as the core of your argument.

2. You're also assuming that Corn is the only crop

Having fun whacking that straw man?

[Engineer-Poet]

Your blockquote from REA does not address the claim: that ethanol as produced is not renewable.

The USDA claims 1.34:1 EROEI for ethanol, or about .74 BTU of fuel to make 1 BTU of ethanol. The energy embodied in the fertilizer does not come from ethanol, it comes from natural gas. The cultivation isn't powered by ethanol, it's powered by diesel. The conversion of rock phosphate to soluble form, the formation of the pesticides, the distillation.... none of these processes run on ethanol. If they did, you'd get (at most) 1/4 of the gross production as net surplus after process needs. It is not renewable.

Cellulosic ethanol is touted as being more like 8:1, but it's not on the market yet. Conventional ethanol will be priced out of the market as crude and gas prices rise.

(Ironically, just this minute All Things Considered is running a feature on ethanol quoting David Pimentel.)

Good point, but....

[Medievalist]

Aren't you forgetting even more massive subsidies and tax manipulation enjoyed by other energy sources?

And remember US Farm Parity laws, too - if the fedguv didn't pay people to not grow crops, ethanol and food would cost a tiny fraction of what they now cost.

A true market economy would probably work better. But as you say, we'll never know....

Re:Good point, but....

[jcr]

Aren't you forgetting even more massive subsidies and tax manipulation enjoyed by other energy sources?

No, I'm not forgetting them at all. Oil is used world-wide, because it's cheaper than other forms of energy.

And remember US Farm Parity laws, too - if the fedguv didn't pay people to not grow crops, ethanol and food would cost a tiny fraction of what they now cost.

yes, the damage done to our economy by government interference is pervasive.

-jcr

Re:2xWrong. It could.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I do a Google search, and lo and behold! -- it turns out they worked together on the same [debunked] study!

And the link you provide is to the National Corn Growers Association. They're the main group that would benifit from increased ethanol use. Isn't going by a report like this sort of like trusting a cigarette company's report that 'Tobacco is harmless'

Re:2xWrong. It could.

[mrchaotica]

Ah, sorry -- I just linked to that because it actually had the word "debunking" in the title. However, you're welcome to look at the search results yourself -- there are a lot of people who disagree with Pimentel and Patzek's research, including a bunch of links for other universities. For example, this seems to be pretty unbiased and reliable. Here are some key sentences:

A review of Pimentel/Patzek reveals that they made pessimistic assumptions, had double-counted certain energy costs without detailed elaboration.

To the contrary of the commonly accepted cellulosic ethanol plant designs, Pimentel/Patzek assume that fossil fuels are to be burned in cellulosic ethanol plants to generate needed steam and electricity.

If Pimentel/Patzek assumed use of lignin to produce steam and electricity in cellulosic ethanol plants, they would have had positive energy balance values for cellulosic ethanol similar to those from Argonne and others.

Argonne's review of Pimentel/Patzek shows that their production cost estimates are higher than market prices, implying that farmers, ethanol producers, biodiesel producers are in money-losing business, even taking into account subsidies they receive.

Argonne also found that Pimentel/Patzek cost estimates for cellulosic ethanol contain calculation errors by using a cost of $100 per tonne for cellulosic biomass feedstock, instead of their own estimate of $23 per tonne.

+1, Informative!! Thanks.

[hummassa]

What is your car? In 2007/8 I will probably shop for a new car (I have a 2001 GM Celta 1.0 gasoline -- quite good at 15km/l in city traffic, 18km/l on the higway) and I will probably want another compact (my wife gets the "luxury" models in the family -- I park on the street all the time and a simpler car is better for me)

Re:+1, Informative!! Thanks.

[g.a.g]

It's a Volkswagen Lupo 3L. It's actually roomier than you'd think - we went two people for two weeks holiday (not camping though) in it.
Unfortunately, production stopped this year, and there is no direct successor in sight. I have to get rid of mine due to some 7-pound changes in the family set-up (it's our only car), that's why I was looking for a new one. I was really happy with it, especially on the fuel pumps - a full tank was (including European taxes) between 20 and 30 euro, and got me up to 1000 km far!

Energy density

[hummassa]

The energy density of ethanol is a bit over half that of gasoline.

If this is true, then a normal Otto-cycle motor is far more efficient burning ethanol than burning octane. The normal increase in fuel consumption (for the same car model) down here is around 20%. I.e., if a car makes 15 km/l with gas (*), it makes 12 km/l with ethanol. Considering that down here the price of the ethanol is ~50% per litre of the price of gas, ethanol gets ~40% cheaper per km.

(*) Disclaimer: our gas is 20% ethanol.

Re:Energy density

[danpritts]

Interesting. I only go by what I've heard and seen in reference sources online, but it's been pretty consistent. I'm surprised to hear esp. the comment below that says that 80% ethanol mixes get you about 75% as far as "pure" gasoline (which might in fact have 10% ethanol).

I know that ethanol has the property of boosting octane of gasoline. that's one big reason you commonly see 10% ethanol blends today.

ethanol or biodiesel

[BigLonn]

(remember guys it really doesn't matter which one you pick as long as you pick one)
Ethanol could be a serious contender to replace Gasoline in the long term, but in the near term its only gonna be a sliver, for the next 10 years atleast. As for other alternatives like biodiesel, which has had a 4 fold increase in use over the last five years , it actually has more traction for a fuel replacement, as it has grown from 5 million gallons in 1999 to over 100 million last year alone. If you don't believe me, google it, biodiesel plants are building in North Carolina, South Carolina, North & South Dakota, Iowa, Ohio, , Missourri, and whole lot of other places I missed out on last year alone.

You aren't misunderstood, you really are stupid

[Engineer-Poet]

Not that you don't have a lot of company who also make erroneous statements and then stick to them even when they've been proven wrong, but it's not the company you would keep if you were smart.

From your link:

Wasn't my link, stupid. I told you who cited it at least twice. Apparently you need more repetition before meanings sink in; you might want to work on that "reading comprehension" thing.

If you wanted my figures, the least you could do is look at them.

The argument over whether or not Ethanol is energy positive will be what determines whether it is a fuel source or not.

Thank you, Mister Irrelevant. Besides the fact that it wasn't my reference, didn't you get the point that, even if you assume no energy inputs whatsoever, the production isn't sufficient to do the job? An EROEI less than infinity just makes it worse.

In fact, sugar cane produces 22.5 gallons per ton of cane. Yields average 30.8 tons per acre with a maximum of 100 tons per acre. Using the national average, this works out to about 693 gallons per acre vs. the best case of 532 gallons per acre obtained from corn.

And at 25-45 tons/ha and 87 gallons/ton from the Iogen process, Miscanthus has a potential from 880 to 1580 gallons/acre.

What you don't realize is that we don't have 300 million acres to spare, for anything. 2004's record corn harvest came from only 73.6 million acres harvested (80.7 million planted). Further, it's very expensive to grow sugar cane in the US (why do you think we have import quotas and price supports?), and it's one of the most polluting crops we've got due to runoff.

What part of, "It's not about efficiency" do you not understand?

What part of "I can't believe you were stupid enough to claim this once, let alone twice (and I was going to let you back out gracefully)" don't you understand?

Of course it's about efficiency. The more efficient you are, the less of any type of fuel source you need. If we could get 4x the efficiency of oil utilization, we could roughly eliminate imports (for a while). If you have X amount of energy source and it meets only 1/3 of your needs if you use it in 15% efficient systems, it will meet 133% of your needs if you can boost that to 60%.

Plug-in hybrids are a nice idea, but they don't remove the dependency on oil.

Well, let's see. A PIH with 50 miles electric range gets me an 80% reduction, while a vehicle running on E85 (20% of the energy in E85 is petroleum used directly, and another 48% to 59% is one or another kind of fossil fuel used indirectly) gets me as little as 21% reduction or as much as 32%. If I don't drive long distances, the PIH doesn't need liquid fuel at all. I can buy or even make make my own "green" electricity, but I can't control what goes into E85. Doesn't look good for ethanol.

There are no panaceas here, just different options to chose from.

And they need to be evaluated on their merits. Without partisanship or mercy.

why not get a Ethanol-powered plug-in hybrid? :-P

Might be worth it, if ethanol (unsubsidized) gets cheaper than petroleum. Otherwise it's a waste of money. FWIW, the PIH cuts liquid-fuel requirements enough that you really could meet the remaining needs with biofuels.

That's assuming you can phase in the new fuels. First you have to convince fueling stations to add the equipment.

Fueling stations? Every hardware store already has what you'd need. It's this remarkable device called an "extension cord".

The Prius+ conversions thus far

What about fuel cells?

[Firethorn]

The problem with ethanol is, ironically, that it is compatible with the existing vehicle fleet. That fleet has an average tank-to-wheels efficiency of 14.9%. Lead-acid batteries are about 70% efficient, Li-ion is closer to 95%. We are far better off going plug-in hybrid than wasting our money on ethanol.

How about going with ethanol fuel cells? That way you get increased efficiency and can use ethanol

Of course, Corn is relativly poor for conversion into ethanol. I'll say that even though I come from a cornbelt state. Sugarbeets and such are far, far better. Still, that the entire corn crop could come so close is suprising.

Re:What about fuel cells?

[Engineer-Poet]

You still have 50+% losses in the conversion of biomass to ethanol. Distilling ethanol requires most of the remaining energy to be used in the process; if you use a different process like conversion of biomass to charcoal (for direct carbon fuel cells or raw material for reducing zinc oxide to metal), the off-gas from the carbonization process can be used for energy or other purposes.

Maybe the vehicle fuel of the future is a slurry of charcoal in an antifreeze mixture.

Still, that the entire corn crop could come so close is suprising.

The entire corn crop would only make 31 billion gallons; the rest assumes a billion tons of other biomass.

If we are going to use corn as fuel, we'd be better off burning the corn to heat homes and using the natural gas and fuel oil displaced by the corn to run vehicles. A bushel of corn will make about 392,000 BTU of heat, but distilling it takes about 33,000 BTU/gal or 88,000 BTU/bu. If you use the corn in a corn stove instead of sending it to a gas-fired ethanol plant, you free up 470,000 BTU of natural gas at a loss of ~220,000 BTU of ethanol. Ethanol from corn is a farm subsidy program, not an energy program.

Oil is artificially cheap, though.

[Medievalist]

The point I was trying to make was that the cheapness of oil is artificial, as is the high cost of agricultural products. You're choosing to focus on one side of the equation only. Government interference (driven by a hereditary plutocratic aristocracy, in my opinion) has shaped the market from both sides.

You said "Oil is used world-wide, because it's cheaper than other forms of energy" but I have enormous hydropower potential in my back yard and absolutely no oil resources closer than 100 miles away. At one time the house I live in had a huge waterwheel in the basement, but it was ripped out decades ago because tax-sponsored oil-based infrastructure made it uneconomic to use. Today, due to the commercial availablility of extremely powerful magnets, it would be commercially viable again, but use of the water now requires permits from nine county and state agencies plus three federal ones. It would be far cheaper, in a fair and free marketplace, to fabricate and install a 1-ton francis turbine with an environmentally safe coanda wedgewire intake on my stream than to continuously truck propane in over the lifetime of such a turbine.

Obviously, this is ancedotal and not scientific evidence, but you get my point I bet.

BTW, the high energy density of oil makes it good for prosecuting offensive war, while the high sustainability of agriculturally based, locally generated fuels makes them better for maintaining defenses. It seems like society should not sponsor one to the detriment of the other (perhaps using a minimum of trade interference to keep both available) but the US fedguv has been distorting the marketplace for over half a century with heavy-handed, half-assed attempts at sponsoring both - with ever-increasing use of tax dollars.