Urging Congress to Cancel the Ethanol Tariff

reporter writes "The Wall Street Journal is urging Washington to discard the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. This tariff is effectively a subsidy for corn-based ethanol produced in the USA. Yet, producing ethanol from corn is highly inefficient and consumes 1 unit of energy for each 1.3 units of energy that burning ethanol provides. By contrast, ethanol derived from sugarcane (which is the sole source of ethanol in Brazil) yields 8.3 units of energy. Sugercane is about 7 times more efficient than corn. Some studies even show that corn yields only 0.8 unit of energy, resulting in a net loss of energy."

Comments

Energy efficiency

[Aglassis]

I'm not too impressed by arguments that say that energy efficiency is the only reason that ethanol or biodiesel can't work. Even if they consume more energy to produce than they make, they are still very useful for one major reason: they are easily transportable. If I can make electricity at $0.07 per KWh at a coal or nuclear plant and make it into a much more valuable transportable energy source via the ethanol or biodiesel route, then I may come out ahead even after the energy losses. Coal and nuclear power are cheap. Gasoline isn't.

Of course, I should mention, you probably shouldn't be running your tractors and other equipment that you use to harvest the corn or other agricultural product with oil or ethanol. That doesn't work. It only works if you have a mostly electrical system. I wonder if there are any major piece of agricultural equipment that can be set up to "run from the grid" in a sense. Like big batteries on tractors that recharge every day?

Re:Energy efficiency

[PrinceAshitaka]

I have heard the statistic many times here, that it is not effective to grow bio fuels. Here on Slashdot biofuels = knee-jerk reaction = nice green thought but the math doesn't work. It is often posted that these fuels do not produce more energy than they require to grow. I assume this calculation come from the energy required to produce the fertilizer along with the petrol consumed by the Tractors. Where does this statistic come from? If the farmers didn't fertilize (fertilizers are very energy intensive to produce ) would the energy required still be more than produced? This statistic seems old, as I remember hearing them at least 7 years ago. Perhaps the conditions are no longer valid. SHOW ME THE MATH!!! Or chemistry as it may well be.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Yooden_Vranx]

Very good point on the transportability. Beyond that, the "energy deficit" argument is flawed in that we could generate more energy for free that could offset or completely account for the energy cost of producing ethanol. Corn and wind are two things the midwest has in abundance. But beyond that, here's what the Iowa Farm Bureau says: http://www.iowafarmbureau.com/programs/commodity/i nformation/pdf/Trade%20Matters%20column%20050714%2 0Brazilian%20ethanol.pdf (for those not familiar with the geography of the USA, Iowa is famous as a huge corn-producing state, and, according to the link here, produces one quarter of the ethanol produced in the US). They don't specifically advocate repealing the tariff, but they also acknowledge that competition is good and that we use more ethanol than we produce, so we must turn to outside sources.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS41 6-Patzek-Web.pdf

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be curious to know how many years of protection Brazil's ethanol industry had while they developed their ethanol technology while all the pundits were saying is wasn't viable. Throw in some cellulose with that corn and all of a sudden there's an additional savings in landfill costs, to say nothing of how much is around us.

How about they go fuck themselves. Energy independance is in the strategic interests of the United States and since we bear the burden of providing essential government services for free to coutries the world over, for free, perhaps they should just shut the fuck up. It's not like the US is demanding tribute. Although, really since the opinion of the world is that we are, one wonders why we don't.

Re:Energy efficiency

[PrinceAshitaka]

Thank you. I will read this thoroughly later but on reading the abstract it seems that the camparisons were made using a basis of whole plant ethanol production. If only the corn of the plant is used there would be a higher concentration of sugar and it could be more effiecient than stated in this study.

Re:Energy efficiency

[pfdietz]

The 1.3x number comes from Pimentel and coworkers. They make unnecessarily pessimistic assumptions. Properly done, most studies have shown the fossil energy input is less than the energy in the ethanol. (The energy input including the sunlight is of course greater than the energy in the ethanol, but that is irrelevant.)

Even Pimental et al.'s numbers are only for corn-derived ethanol. Ethanol from cellulose, sugar cane, or gasified biomass (via a modified Fischer-Tropsch process) produce many times the energy content of the fossil fuels used to grow, harvest, and process the biomass. For sugarcane, the energy returned is eight times the energy spent.

Re:Energy efficiency

[tomhudson]

Real fuel economy hasn't gone down in 2 decades, once you factor in the shift from cars to SUVs in the US.

There's no excuse to produce non-commercial vehicles that get 9mpg in the city in "real life", or even 14mpg "rated".

If you REALLY wanted energy independence, step 1 is to get rid of the mini-vans, Jeeps, the "cross-over" vehicles, and the "look I've got SO MUCH horsepower" crap. If it can't do at least 20mpg city/30mpg highway, just melt it down for scrap.

Re:Energy efficiency

[fabu10u$]

I wonder if there are any major piece of agricultural equipment that can be set up to "run from the grid" in a sense. Like big batteries on tractors that recharge every day?

You've never slogged through the mud on a farm, have ya? Farm implements don't glide on smooth roads; they dig through dirt and slash their way through tall crops during the harvest. Electric cars struggle after they've been stripped of all remotely extraneous weight, so I don't think an electric tractor is going to be workable.

Re:Energy efficiency

[genrader]

The thing is, this is what consumers should demand. This isn't something the governments of states or the Federal government of the United States has ANY business in.

Re:Energy efficiency

[jthayden]

Add to that fact that at least around harvest and planting time when I was a kid farmers were running their equipment 24/7. We used to run in shifts and the tractor only stopped a few mintues to refuel or breakdown. Maybe the rest of the year you would have time to charge. But when it really matters, you need a diesel engine and nobody has multiple tractors/combines unless they are a corporation farm.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Peter La Casse]

If you REALLY wanted energy independence, step 1 is to get rid of the mini-vans, Jeeps, the "cross-over" vehicles, and the "look I've got SO MUCH horsepower" crap. If it can't do at least 20mpg city/30mpg highway, just melt it down for scrap.

No, that's step 2. Step 1 is getting gas prices high enough for the average American to want to take action.

Re:Energy efficiency

[IAmTheDave]

The thing is, this is what consumers should demand. This isn't something the governments of states or the Federal government of the United States has ANY business in.

Yeah, unfortunately, it does. I'm pretty libretarian in my views, but the American people as a whole care not for things like the environment. They want their SUVs. So, in order to get better fuel economy, one of two things must happen.

1. Govn't raises gas prices (tax?) to the level of true pain - $5, maybe $6/gallon where consumers are FORCED to demand better fuel economy or
2. Govn't raises MPG standards for all vehicles produced moving forward. Closing the SUV hole is a good start.

Consumers only care for themselves in general, and will hardly ever demand something that will inevitably cost them more money for the sake of another - like the environment, or people in third world contries (or any other household for that matter).

So unfortunately, in this case, the govn't does need to step up. I shudder to say it, but I do believe it.

Re:Energy efficiency

[diablomonic]

I assume you say this because of the relatively small (power wise) electric motors and crippled battery supplies used in many mainstream electric/hyrid vehicles. Try putting one of these

500 hp 420 ft lb torque symetron electric motor (weighs only 70kg if another website I read is to be trusted)

onto the tractor. Overkill I guess but ought to do the trick. only issue is battery power, but since tractors are normally working on a farm, not driving cross country, you could set up easy to swap battery packs and a charging station in a shed/barn(eg lead acid if you wanna go cheap) which you swap out for a charged one whenever the ones on it get low.

now I have no idea how much that electric motor costs, but id imagine with mass production it should cost less than a new diesel engine, given the size and relative simplicity, and cant see the batteries being a show stopper (especially since we dont need to accelerate much or get to high speeds, so most of the energy goes into mushing up the fields or pulling whatever implement, weight shouldnt be too much of an issue, unlike in a car where the less weight, the better the acceleration or the less power we need to get same accel)

in other words: Do-able (and yet I doubt Ill see one mass marketed for a while). Interestingly I heard about this 500 HP motor because there was talk of putting it in a motorbike!!, and considering when racing, to get equivalent performance (i.e. lap times, not top speed I guess) from an electric bike to a petrol one, you only need rouhgly 1/3 the power, that would be one FAST bike!!! :) (equiv to a 1000 - 1500 hp motorbike) checkout gizmag.com.au in the vehicle section somewhere, where they talk about different electric bikes (that website is also the ULTIMATE geek toy website: robots, exoskeletons, electric vehcles, flying cars, cool giant boats, planes, gadgets, guns, millitary gear, etc etc. of course half the stuff talked about is millions of dollars or prototype stuff, but still fun to dream)

Re:Energy efficiency

[PhineusJWhoopee]

You've never slogged through the mud on a farm, have ya? Farm implements don't glide on smooth roads; they dig through dirt and slash their way through tall crops during the harvest. Electric cars struggle after they've been stripped of all remotely extraneous weight, so I don't think an electric tractor is going to be workable.

I've got it! Nuclear powered tractors (Patent Pending (tm))!

ed

Re:Energy efficiency

[tomhudson]

I stand corrected. How does $5/gallon sound?

... or will people just go "oh, well" and organize more prayer meetings for lower gas prices?

(Gas guzzler's prayer: "Oh Lord, I asked you last week to help me out by giving me the winning lottery numbers. I promised to tithe back, not just 10%, but 20% ... but you didn't listen. So how about you make it up to me by lowering gas prices so I can keep on driving my 12mpg SUV, because I SO love that truck, and if I don't drive it, nobody can see the Honk If You Love Jesus bumper sticker when I cut them off in traffic, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Terr'rists will have won.")

Re:Energy efficiency

[PhineusJWhoopee]

I love the horsepower my 2005 Mustang GT gets me. It gives me 278 HP at the REAR WHEELS while also getting me a pretty decent, 18 city and 21 mpg Hwy (real world numbers), gas millege. Oh yeah, it gets me something else... IT GET'S ME LAID!

Well, I'm not interested in getting laid by anyone who is shallow enough to give me some action because of the car I drive....but my 2005 Lotus Elise can out accelerate *and* drive circles around your Mustang, and gets 26/32 city/hwy mpg to boot.

On a more serious note: the way to fuel efficiency is light weight.

ed

Re:Energy efficiency

[HeroreV]

Nobdy cares about capitalism anymore. I blame it on the schools. They spend too much time teaching about George Washington and black rights, and not enough time teaching about economics.

Re:Energy efficiency

[tverbeek]

And if the public demands unregulated home fission generators, the government has no business saying otherwise? Sorry, but libertarian/mercantilist dogma doesn't hold up in the face of common sense. The government damn well does have a legitimate interest in helping to get rid of stuff that's just bad for the whole planet and which doesn't have enough real benefit to compensate for that. Gas guzzlers are on that list.

Re:Energy efficiency

[The Snowman]

Real fuel economy hasn't gone down in 2 decades, once you factor in the shift from cars to SUVs in the US.

There's no excuse to produce non-commercial vehicles that get 9mpg in the city in "real life", or even 14mpg "rated".

If you REALLY wanted energy independence, step 1 is to get rid of the mini-vans, Jeeps, the "cross-over" vehicles, and the "look I've got SO MUCH horsepower" crap. If it can't do at least 20mpg city/30mpg highway, just melt it down for scrap.

That's awfully ignorant. So we should all be driving compacts, motorcycles, and bicycles? Minivans tend to get good gas mileage for their size, certainly better than SUVs but not quite as good as cars. My next vehicle will be a minivan so I can fit my whole family in the car *and* my groceries and other junk. I'll still get 20+ mpg. I own a Ranger pickup truck. It's fairly efficient for a truck, in that range between "car" and "gas guzzler." I don't use it for a business, so should I melt it down for scrap? Considering that I use it for its intended purpose on average once a week, hell no. I move furniture and other large items for myself and for friends, so I own a truck. Not a pile of scrap metal.

What you are getting at is that our automobile industry needs to start producing more efficient vehicles, and their customers need to evaluate their needs and purchase vehicles that they need, not that they want. For example, a single person or small family in a Suburban or Excursion. That's retarded. A car or minivan is more efficient, more safe, and cheaper. If they want to waste extra money on the big SUV both on purchase price and fuel, let them. I'll stick with my Taurus that gets around 25 mpg and is around a gajillion times safer.

This is a free market. If people want SUVs, Detroit will produce SUVs. Enough of us sane people choose to purchase sedans and light trucks that are cheaper, more fuel efficient, safer, and more reliable that they will continue to make them. I am happy spending half as much to fill my tanks as other people. This gas "crisis" really doesn't affect me much.

Re:Energy efficiency

[tbannist]

Indeed, SUVs were generally sold to insecure and stupid people. That's what Ford's own customer profile on SUV buyers indicated. They tend to be shorter than average, dumber than average, and generally insecure. They buy SUVs because they think a bigger vehicle makes them safer, and being higher up makes them feel powerful. In short, the majority of SUV buyers were either compensating. The SUV manufacturers know this, charge outrageous prices for SUVs and they used to get them. Of course, then the price of gas went up, the federal subsidies for SUVs were cut.

The other group who owned SUVs were small business owners who could get a $75,000 subsidy for the SUVs. Yes, that's right businesses could get a $75,000 per vehicle subsidy for SUVs because they were classified as "small trucks". This also why SUVs are less safe than normal cars, the safety standard for trucks are much looser than they are for cars. I'm not sure if this has been corrected in the States yet or not.

Re:Energy efficiency

[The Snowman]

Part of the problem is the line between wants and needs. Excluding businesses such as shipping companies, delivery companies, et al. that need bigger engines and more horsepower, what about individuals who need them? My brother is an electrical worker. He needs his Silverado. Not want, need. It gets bad mileage, but he hauls stuff around and it is not a company vehicle. What about large families that need large vehicles? Or should they take two cars everywhere, which is probably less fuel efficient? How about someone who owns a boat and needs to tow it to a lake, so he needs a big V-8 or V-10? Should these people "feel the pain" when despite owning gas guzzlers, are driving vehicles they need?

I like the solution of requiring better fuel economy, but that still hurts a subset of consumers (again, not talking businesses here) that truly do need larger vehicles. Ideally, people would buy more sensible vehicles, but that is not our culture. That is not the American way. Like it or not, it's the popular sentiment among 290 million people. Bigger is better.

Re:Energy efficiency

[tverbeek]

[SUV buyers] tend to be shorter than average, dumber than average, and generally insecure.

Too bad they couldn't also get other body measurements to compare.

the majority of SUV buyers were ... compensating

This is the same reason I bought a Geo Metro.

Compensation works in both directions. :)

Re:Energy efficiency

[shotfeel]

Many of these studies also leave off the fact that the "byproduct" of producing ethanol from corn is also valuable. If I can find the link to the study, I'll post it (I think it was done by the US Department of Agriculture).

In short, ethanol is produced by converting the sugars/starches in corn to ethanol. That leaves behind a protein rich by-product that is then added to corn and other feed used for raising cattle, replacing more expensive (in every sense of the word) protein supplements.

So based on the merits of EtOH production alone, corn may not be the best source. But you need to consider all the factors involved.

OTOH, if you live in the midwest, you may be hearing a lot about switch grass. Supposedly yields more protein than soy beans and more EtOH than corn. Look for some farmers to turn to that if EtOH becomes a more viable fuel alternative.

Re:Energy efficiency

[the_Bionic_lemming]

If you REALLY wanted energy independence, step 1 is to get rid of the mini-vans, Jeeps, the "cross-over" vehicles, and the "look I've got SO MUCH horsepower" crap. If it can't do at least 20mpg city/30mpg highway, just melt it down for scrap.

Nahh. Let the consumers get what they want. Pass a law instead that bans all city dwellers from owning a vehicle and force them to use public transportation instead.

Re:Energy efficiency

[russellh]

government by the people, for the people. don't forget it.

Re:Energy efficiency

[MBGMorden]

I've got a new theory that people who claim that others who buy something as unrelated as a big car are compensating for something . . . are themselves compensating for something.

Seriously, there's a lot of reasons not to buy an SUV (or a lot of over the top things), but childish accussations about "compensating for something" are flat out idiotic.

Re:Energy efficiency

[edunbar93]

The thing is, this is what consumers should demand. This isn't something the governments of states or the Federal government of the United States has ANY business in.

Sure thing, buddy. And while we're at it, consumers should demand UberMail, my magical new spam-preventing SMTP server which - if everyone were to switch to it overnight - would make spam and Exchange disappear forever. Until that day, perhaps the government could make spam illegal and actually enforce that law, no?

Re:Energy efficiency

[fernandoh26]

You own an SUV don't ya?

It's ok... *pats you on back* .... Remember, motion in the ocean, k?

Re:Energy efficiency

[MBGMorden]

No, actually I drive a Mustang (a 9 year old beat up Mustang ;)). It gets 23MPG. Not great, but not terrible either.

Re:Energy efficiency

[ravenshrike]

Actually, if we really wanted energy independence we would remove all tariffs and subsidies, and also greatly reduce the patent system from what it currently is. Allowing patent ip companies to exist, or for companies to buy up patents to stop a technology from being used is a severe bastardization of the system and the people doing so should be stripped of any money they made off of control of said patents. Then the government would get off it's ass and ruduce most regulation of things like oil refineries and nuke power plants. Allow people to suck as much gas as needed and either reduce the fuel taxes or force them to actually use said fuel taxes to improve the roadways like they're fucking supposed too. Within 2 generations we would be energy independent with the added bonus of a revitalized economy. Combine that with the abolition of corporate taxes, which are in the long run just another sales tax anyway, and our economy would make China's look like a fucking slug. But since it's probable that none of that will happen it's a moot point anyway.

Re:Energy efficiency

[dal20402]

brother is an electrical worker. He needs his Silverado. Not want, need. It gets bad mileage, but he hauls stuff around and it is not a company vehicle.

This is true only because we're stuck in the Stone Age of trucks in the U.S., thanks to undemanding consumers and truck makers who'd, logically, rather make fat profits than innovate.

Everywhere else in the world, there are high-cube vans powered by small, extremely torquey turbodiesels that carry considerably more stuff than our vans and pickups.

With their short gearing, those vans are plenty quick at lower speeds. And they get more than twice the mileage of our trucks. The only two things they are missing that our trucks have are the ability to tow very heavy trailers and the 100mph top speeds.

Dodge is selling such a Mercedes van in the U.S. as the Sprinter, but it's only one product -- not a full line -- and it needs European-style gas prices to be fully cost-competitive for most markets.

What about large families that need large vehicles? ... How about someone who owns a boat and needs to tow it to a lake, so he needs a big V-8 or V-10? Should these people "feel the pain" when despite owning gas guzzlers, are driving vehicles they need?

Yes. Those are lifestyle choices. People should pay the costs of their lifestyle choices, not force the rest of us to pay them through artificially low gas prices that don't reflect the costs of maintaining a road network or fixing the environmental damage created by large, fuel-hogging vehicles.

Incidentally, you don't need a big V8 or V10 truck to tow most boats that most people own. Something like a V6 Toyota Tacoma will do just fine with all but the huge-ass, over-the-top showoff-craft.

Re:Energy efficiency

[AndersOSU]

Um the motor might be cost competitive, but have you seen the price of batteries lately. So lets say that you actually manage to power the tractor for four hours with one batterypack, and each battery pack requires a 12 hr recharge. So you need six battery packs. Given that the cost of the batteries in a prius cost ~$2-3k and that the tractor is going to need at least 4-5x power you are now trying to talk a farmer into buying $48-72k worth of batteries (not counting the cost of electricity to actually power them).

Oh, and all my rough estimates are probably waay on the conservative side, so I could easily see the battery cost double or triple. Still think it is cost competative?

Re:Energy efficiency

[PRC Banker]

They spend too much time teaching about George Washington and black rights, and not enough time teaching about economics.

Surely the teaching of economics starts with the principals of 'opportunity cost', demand/supply, and 'externalities'. In that order. Sadly most of the first has been scrapped from high school courses, and much of the last is under pressure. Compare a good university degree with the emphasis on various concepts to a high school course - the high school course is simplistic to the extreme and uncovers little if any of the (non-obvious) insights of economics over the past 300 years.

Re:Energy efficiency

[zxnos]

do you have a link to the ford profile?

before suv's people drove minivans. before that, conversion vans. before that, station wagons. we all know that big vehicles are all about compensation and nothing to do with the room to take the average american family (2.4 kids) camping or any other road based vacation... ...lord knows i would have prefered being stuck in the back seat of the equivilant to a geo metro for the thousands upon thousands of miles i travelled around the states as a child.

Re:Energy efficiency

[smokeslikeapoet]

$5 a gallon won't make a difference when people will spend $8 a gallon for bottled water. A 20 bottle of water on my school campus costs $1.25. How 'bout $12.80 a gallon for coffee, (two bucks for a venti brewed at Starbucks.)

And the same people that consume pricey beverages will bitch and moan about outrageous profits at $3.00 USD / US gallon at the pump.

The ethanol evangelist are drinking Koolaid made with corn syrup. The Cato Institue reported on the inefficiencies of running a car on moonshine yesterday.

Let corn be used for what God intended it to be used.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Once&FutureRocketman]

Pimental may be overly pessimistic, but it really doesn't matter in the final analysis. Whether the EROEI is 0.8:1 or 1.3:1, neither one is a winner relative to our current consumption of energy. The EROEI of oil production ranged from 5:1 to 25:1, so corn-based ethanol falls short by an order of magnitude.

To put it another way, even if the return on corn ethanol was a very optimistic 1.5:1, we would have to increase the total system energy throughput by ~10x our present consumption to effectively displace petroleum as a liquid fuel source. And we simply don't have the means to do that, especially not if we're going to try to avoid a global climate disaster while we're at it.

Re:Energy efficiency

[tomhudson]

... and my old motorcycle could out-accelerate, out-brake, AND out-corner your POS Ford on a LOT less gas. Oh, and it cost a lot less, as well - left more money in the pocket for "amusement".

Re:Energy efficiency

[pclminion]

I have heard the statistic many times here, that it is not effective to grow bio fuels. Here on Slashdot biofuels = knee-jerk reaction = nice green thought but the math doesn't work. It is often posted that these fuels do not produce more energy than they require to grow.

The per-acre yield of oil producing crops for the purpose of biodiesel production is, in truth, low. At the biodiesel facility I unofficially work for, we produce thousands of gallons of high-quality fuel from recycled cooking oils. This is oil that would have been produced, harvested and used with or without the biodiesel market.

The facility is in the country, and we've got a "back 40" which currently is leased to farmers. This year, they're growing clover. I've whined incessantly that we should be growing vegetable oil crops, but when you really work the numbers it's not worth it. Yet.

Recycled waste oil, for the near term, is really the only thing that makes sense for biodiesel production. Unfortunately, the supply is not nearly enough to maintain a fuel supply if even a significant FRACTION of Americans switched to biodiesel vehicles. This is a real problem. There are dreams of using oil-producing algaes to get massive yields, but this has yet to be perfected.

Biodiesel is no pipe dream, but there are complex economic and industrial considerations which will be evolving as the years go by. I'm excited to see where we go in the future. At any rate, I feel better knowing that the exhaust from our diesel vehicles at the farm is net 0 as far as carbon emissions.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Total_Wimp]

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS41 6-Patzek-Web.pdf

It's nice to have some numbers, but this doesn't appear to be very scientific. This is from the abstract:

Finally, I estimate that (per year and unit area) the inefficient solar cells produce ~100 times more electricity than corn ethanol. We need to rely more on sunlight, the only source of renewable energy on the Earth.

Scientists gather data. This guy appears to be pushing an agenda. It's kind of like Intelligent Design. Just because you say it's science doesn't make it so.

TW

Re:Energy efficiency

[transami]

The 1.3x figure comes from government study.

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

Re:Energy efficiency

[ocbwilg]

The thing is, this is what consumers should demand. This isn't something the governments of states or the Federal government of the United States has ANY business in.

Absolute nonsense. While I'm all for consumers demanding this, it is also absolutely the business of the Federal government. Or have you not heard fo a little thing called "sational necurity"? Here, let me use it in a sentence:

"The economy of the United States has become nearly inextricably tied to the import of foreign oil from countries in the middle east, many of which are hostile to the United States."

All it would take is one major middle-eastern oil producing country to stop selling oil for a few months and the economy of the United States would melt down almost overnight. A prime example is Saudi Arabia. They are one of the worlds largest oil producers and sit on top of one of the world's largest oil reserves. They are ruled by a royal family who spends most of their time walking the delicate line between appeasing the Islamic conservative movements (who believe that the US and Israel should be destroyed) and eliminating the more radical elements of those conservative movements (who are actually trying to do the destroying, and wouldn't mind eliminating the Saudi royal family either). A coup in Saudi Arabia isn't all that far-fetched of a notion, and it would be absolutely devastating to the US both politically and economically.

Now whether or not that coup happens (or some other devastating event) is up for debate. But the potential downside is far too large to ignore, which is why from a national security standpoint it is imperative that the United States government move as quickly as possible to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Right now one of the best options for a petroleum replacement (at least as an energy source) is ethanol, and it absolutely is the government's job to encourage developement and use of ethanol and other alternative energy sources.

Re:Energy efficiency

[pclminion]

So, in order to get better fuel economy, one of two things must happen.

Who cares about fuel economy when the fuels are renewable? SUV owners are already accustomed to paying out the nose at the pump. With ethanol/biodiesel, these fuel-hungry vehicles will still suck the juice like mad but at least there will be no net carbon emission. Personally, that's all I care about.

Re:Energy efficiency

[AndersOSU]

Oops off by a factor of 2. A farmer would only need 3 battery packs if it lasts 4 hours and recharges in 12. Still too expensive, and I doubt that they'd last that long.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

lotus elise: 0-60 in 4.6 seconds
Ford Mustang GT*: 0-60 in 5.3 seconds

*: note, this is the version of the GT with 300hp, not your puny 278

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id =7&article_id=2489&page_number=7

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id =7&article_id=2489&page_number=6

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

bullshit. most boats -- such as mine -- are over 5,000 lbs with trailer and cannot be towed by a compact SUV or pickup since the length will result in a tail wagging the dog situation. a V6 just doesnt cut it. you need a V8 with a full length vehicle to tow it.
just because you cant afford a decent vehicle, it doesnt give you the right to bitch about other people who can.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

I drive a 1996 4wheel drive chevy s-10 blazer with 148,000 miles. I get mediocre gas mileage. It's paid for. Someone with a 20 mpg vehicle that's paid for is way ahead of someone with a 40 mpg vehicle that has a $500 per month car payment.

These people with $50,000 trucks get hosed for hundreds of dollars a month in car payments plus another $100 bucks a week to fill it with gas. OUCH. I've bought 2 new vehicles in my time, and unless I'm REAL blessed with disposable income some day, I don't plan on ever doing it again. And I advise everyone to apply the same idea to their own lives.

No, I'm not addressing the conservation issue. I'm not really in a position to spend my funds in order to save resources. I live 2 minutes from work and church and 15 minutes from most of my family members. That's my contribution to saving gas...

Re:Energy efficiency

[lowrydr310]

How about someone who owns a boat and needs to tow it to a lake, so he needs a big V-8 or V-10?

When you own a boat that needs to be towed by something with a lot of power, then the fuel consumed by the towing vehicle is insignificant compared to the amount of fuel that the boat will use.

Most people won't be towing their big boat around every day of the week, so when you're simply commuting to work, you're burning a lot of fuel that you really need to (compared to the fuel burned while driving a smaller vehicle). Unfortunately for anyone who wants to enjoy boating or any other activity that requires a large tow vehicle, there are few alternatives.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

At any rate, I feel better knowing that the exhaust from our diesel vehicles at the farm is net 0 as far as carbon emissions.

Note, however, that "carbon emissions" aren't the real problem. If you dumped a catalyst into the air that converts water and carbon dioxide into methane and oxygen, the result would be to increase global warming, since methane is a significantly more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Yet, your "net carbon emissions" would still be zero.

Re:Energy efficiency

[pclminion]

You're right, but my vehicles emit CO2, not CH4, last I checked. I was a bit sloppy with the terminology.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

I agree with what dal20402 said, but I'd also like to point out that considering the world's current population and the rate of its growth, people who have large families are especially costly to the environment.

Re:Energy efficiency

[barawn]

Govn't raises MPG standards for all vehicles produced moving forward. Closing the SUV hole is a good start.

They did, several months ago. Look under 'Future'.

Why didn't this get more press?

It doesn't set in until 2010, but that's basically needed due to the delay between design and implementation in the auto industry.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Comboman]

Many of these studies also leave off the fact that the "byproduct" of producing ethanol from corn is also valuable . . . That leaves behind a protein rich by-product that is then added to corn and other feed used for raising cattle.

Damn, I was hoping the byproduct would be bourbon. Save the planet, drink more Jack Daniels.

Re:Energy efficiency

[AndersOSU]

Sweet, so we're free and clear of oil dependance 1.5 generations after gas hits $10 a gallon.

I'm all for more nuke plants, but do we really need more refineries? I'd be much happier with newer refineries - I say we gently prod exxon, shell etc. into completely refitting their refineries by closing down the oldest one every year.

Re:Energy efficiency

[tomhudson]

I notice you said "about 25 mpg". Have you actually measured it by keeping track of the distance driven between fillups? Real-world mileage figures are usually different.

My next vehicle will be a minivan so I can fit my whole family in the car *and* my groceries and other junk. I'll still get 20+ mpg

Why do you need to haul around "other junk" all the time? Or, for that matter, the whole family *and* groceries? Make a list, plan your shopping trip beforehand, and save money on both gas and by not buying the "impulse purchases."

Save the truck for those times when ONLY a truck can do the job.

Re:Energy efficiency

[operagost]

You're bringing a straw-man sort of argument here, because no one is proposing we replace petroleum yet-- just supplement it to bring fuel prices down. Most automobiles in the USA can only run on 10% ethanol, so we couldn't replace petroleum immediately.

Re:Energy efficiency

[lowrydr310]

Unfortunately that V6 Tacoma doesn't get much better fuel economy than a fullsize pickup truck with a V8.

I own a Tacoma and my uncle owns a Nissan Titan, and I drive both vehicles regularly in similar conditions. The Tacoma is extremely sluggish compared to the Titan, especially on hills, and the fuel economy isn't that much better. I'd rather pay a little more for fuel and have more power (and a bigger truck with a bigger bed). Even at $3 a gallon for gas, I'd still take it, but $5 or $6 would change my opinion.

What I really want is a Toyota Hilux Diesel. You can get them just about anywhere else in the world EXCEPT North America. When is Toyota going to wake up and realize that a diesel engine is ideal for a compact pickup truck? Actually I think it's US consumers who need to wake up and make that realization. The price premium for a Diesel is well worth it - it might not be cost-effective initially, but if you're using your truck like a real truck, it will pay off in the long run. I recall the problem (of no compact diesel trucks in the USA) has something to do with diesel standards, however our new low-sulphur requirement should hopefully change that

Re:Energy efficiency

[Slappytron]

There's no way you can propose that and call yourself a libertarian. When the time is right, gas prices will go up to $5/6 a gallon on their own, due to increased demand and decreased supply. We don't need government to interfere in that process and create a whole slew of other problems. This stuff doesn't happen overnight, and there's no magic bullet solution. The tide is turning - hybrid cars are selling well and that's giving auto companies incentive to innovate solutions. In the long run, that's the only thing that's going to work.

Re:Energy efficiency

[The Wooden Badger]

The large family thing makes me laugh. It's interesting that mini-vans get more mpg than comparable capacity SUV's. Sure there is more "utility" to the SUV, but for the ones that "need" the extra utility they can afford it. The rest can more easily (cost of vehicle and better efficiency) afford a mini van. But there are a whole lot of people that look at their vehicle purchase as a status symbol and try to buy up.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Wokan]

And then you run into the non-average family. Foster parents with 4 to 8 kids who have a 12 passenger van for use on the weekends when they have to take the whole family somewhere. It's cheaper than driving the two smaller vehicles.

Not sure what they're compensating for, but you'll probably get whacked over the head with your ruler if you try taking any measurements.

Re:Energy efficiency

[operagost]

You're not much of a libertarian. I thought the issue was the high price of fuel. Consumers will use less gasoline once they decide the prices are too high. When demand goes down, the price will follow (assuming no change in demand). I like the side benefit of using a somewhat more ecological fuel like ethanol, but the economical benefit is what we're discussing here. Raising taxes on gasoline would do exactly the opposite of what we're trying to achieve here. Middle and lower-class citizens who can't run out and buy new hybrids or E85 vehicles will be hit the hardest by fuel prices, which will consume a larger portion of their budgets.

The economical impact of the bogus fuel crises of the 1970s drove people to more efficient vehicles over time and the same will happen now.

Re:Energy efficiency

[jafac]

My biggest criticism of Pimental has to do with;
For Ethanol he goes to ridiculous lengths to find energy to plug into his calculations. (ie. it costs X calories to build the tractor to farm the land to grow the corn, so this is included in his calculations).

For Petroleum, he ignores the obvious cost of equipment and lives (and jet-fuel) that goes into securing oil resources around the globe. The fact that such global military dominance has a side-benefit of political power should have no bearing on the fact that, if we weren't addicted to foreign oil, we would not have spent $300 Billion in bombs, planes, helicopters, tanks, APCs, and human lives, over the past 3 years trying to control this resource.

Re:Energy efficiency

[pizzaman100]

I'm wondering why must our farmers grow corn? Why can't they produce sugar ethanol as well? In the warmer climates they can grow cane, in the colder climates they can grow sugar beets.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Quino]

Interesting -- do you mind if I ask what you do?

Just this past weekend I started thinking about working in a local biodiesel facility that is hiring (I'm a mech. eng. -- so I guess they want engineers to keep the facility running).

I wouldn't mind hearing more about this industry "from an insider"

It'd be nice to get a paycheck + do something that I feel is worthwhile in a bigger sense.

Re:Energy efficiency

[uncqual]

Yeah, unfortunately, it does. I'm pretty libretarian in my views, but the American people as a whole care not for things like the environment. They want their SUVs. So, in order to get better fuel economy, one of two things must happen.

Let the market work w/o govt interference if you're "pretty libretarian[sic]"!

Eventually, we (the world) will use up all the accessible petroleum reserves. Yes, all that CO2 will end up in the environment. Normal market forces will cause fuel prices to go up and the demand for gas guzzlers will decline (it already is declining - if you own a recent model year SUV, better sell it now before its Blue Book value is equal to its scrap value). The world will transition to other power sources when they make economic sense because depleting petroleum reserves have driven the supply down.

Taxing the poor and middle class in the U.S. in order to preserve oil for China and India's growth doesn't sound like a very smart strategy - effectively it's a transfer of U.S. taxpayer dollars to other countries. Remember that if you (the generic/collective "you") are forced to pay an additional $500/year in fuel taxes even after you reduce your consumption by buying a new fuel efficient car for which you pay another $1000/year in car payments, you need an additional $2000/year (or more) in salary just to break even after income taxes. However, Sanjit reporting for work in Bangalore (who, coincidentally, was hired by your employer the day after you were laid off and is doing the same work you were doing - curious) can work cheaper - in part because he doesn't pay U.S. fuel taxes AND in part because he pays less for fuel because you (when you were employed) were so kind as to pay big $ to save some cheap fuel for him to buy to get to work.

OTOH, the U.S. taxpayer should not be forced to subsidize oil either (as in military action to "stabilize" (yeah, right) a "critical part" of the world economy).

Re:Energy efficiency

[operagost]

The only two things they are missing that our trucks have are the ability to tow very heavy trailers and the 100mph top speeds.

Yeah, that would be the problem. You see, some people do actually tow things bigger than a motorboat. Anyone who only needs to tow a small load will get the smaller engine in the first place-- we do have compact and mid-size pickups here.

Incidentally, you don't need a big V8 or V10 truck to tow most boats that most people own. Something like a V6 Toyota Tacoma will do just fine with all but the huge-ass, over-the-top showoff-craft.

Exactly. So why do we need the goofy little euro-vans again?

Re:Energy efficiency

[operagost]

That's the lamest straw-man argument I've heard today. I don't see how a home fission reactor equates to the impact of a gus-guzzler. Common sense would help here.

Re:Energy efficiency

[operagost]

Your Elise also costs twice as much. Congratulations, moneybags.

Re:Energy efficiency

[pclminion]

Interesting -- do you mind if I ask what you do?

What I do for a day job is software development. But you're probably referring to my biodiesel work. Since our facility is currently very small, each of us pretty much knows how to do everything. The basic steps are to acquire the oil, pump it into a 330 gallon stainless vessel, add a certain quantity of sulfuric acid and methanol, which esterifies the free fatty acids (our oil is particularly nasty and has a high FFA content). This takes a few days.

Once the acid esterification completes (or nearly so) the fuel is pumped into smaller reaction vessels. We take samples and titrate to determine pH levels and the amount of catalyst which will be necessary. The catalyst is sodium methoxide, which we make by combining methanol and lye. The methoxide it added to the reactors and the material recirculates for about an hour. At this point, you have honest to God biodiesel.

Over time, the waste products (glycerin, a small amount of soap, and water) settle out. The fuel is pumped to washing tanks where it is purified and the water is removed. Then it goes into 55 gallon drums. That's it, really.

You may be interested to know that we are forming an Open Source biodiesel conglomerate, which will hopefully help us accumulate knowledge and techniques from other producers and as a benefit, we will provide distribution and marketing services. This is all still quite up in the air, but we are currently doing real production and selling real fuel to real customers. I'm extremely excited about it.

Re:Energy efficiency

[dal20402]

most boats -- such as mine -- are over 5,000 lbs with trailer and cannot be towed by a compact SUV or pickup since the length will result in a tail wagging the dog situation.

Get two things, coward:

1. a reasonable boat -- if your boat is over 5000 lbs, you have it just to show off how rich you are.
2. some driving skill -- there are lots of safe vehicles with heavy/long trailers on our roads; they're called semis.

Anyway, a giant V8 truck that can't be parked anywhere, drives like a drunken elephant and gets 12 mpg is hardly a "decent vehicle." I'll keep my Acura TSX, thank you.

Re:Energy efficiency

[bnenning]

How about someone who owns a boat and needs to tow it to a lake, so he needs a big V-8 or V-10? Should these people "feel the pain" when despite owning gas guzzlers, are driving vehicles they need?

Essentially, yes. Need is relative; for example, how many people who own boats really "need" them?

Ideally, people would buy more sensible vehicles

Sufficiently high gas prices will eventually make that happen.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Xenious]

Exactly! Interfering with things only creates a pendulum swing with more unpredictable change. It is almost the same idea as the carefully managed prime interest rate. Things that will happen that you might not think about are: increased postage (did you know there is a proposal out now for stamp prices to jump 10 cents next year?), increased shipping costs (UPS, FedEx), increased prices on everything you buy in any store (it has to get from a factory to your local retailer), etc etc. It doesn't just affect the "evil gas guzzling SUV drivers" hehe.

The problems we have here are two fold. The one on most people's minds is the gas cost this is a result of some ill timed refining shortages combined with world events. This will sort out to a degree once refining is back online for summer. The rest is up to securing oil supply from other places. This is viewed as a short term problem because the fun lovely analysts help drive this up up up. Long term we need alternative fuels, etc.

The second problem is carbon footprint. This is a very long term goal with short term progress. We should steer towards this with innovation driven by consumer purchasing demand, not by intervention and artificial refined gasoline pricing/taxes.

I own a mid size SUV with a V6. I use it to haul things and people. I did seriously consider the Lexus RX440h when making a purchase but in the end didn't like the vehicle. The fact that it did tempt me is a good thing and shows we are progressing. (The prius is an ugly sad car, so I am disregarding it here.) Hope is out there and we are definately headed in the right direction.
-Jim

Re:Energy efficiency

[RogerWilco]

Try the Volkswagen Transporter.
The 2.5 Liter Tdi engine will give you 200 hoursepower, run 100 Mph fully loaded (with 6 windsurfboards on the roof), and still get you about 20km/Liter or 50 Mpg. With the extra seats it will fit 6 people.

A friend of mine has one, because he also has his own company and we did a 4500km (3000mile) trip trough Europe with it last year. The above is the consumption we get while cruising german and french highways at around 130-140 kph (85-90 mph)

Re:Energy efficiency

[wothbora]

I'm sure all that public transportation isn't doing anything BAD to the environment... Heaven forbid that we allow SUV's on the road; instead, let's run a gazillion empty buses all over the city which average about 2 mpg and kick out more exhaust than 100 SUV's...

Are your sure you are a Libertarian? What the heck do you think Washington and the States will do with the extra tax on the gas? Decrease property taxes, employment taxes, heck even a larger rebate for dependants? Hell No!!! They'll probably use it to Subsidize Ethanol Production and Public Transportation (that nobody uses)...

I wonder if Hemp would make a good alternative fuel?

Re:Energy efficiency

[clare-ents]

For reference, I'm in the UK, petrol currently costs 97.8p /litre at the pump.

That's, £3.70 per US gallon, or $6.89 at the current exchange rate.

I regularly hire cars, having measured the mileage on them they've all done over 10 miles to the litre, that's about 40miles / US gallon.

The idea that 20-30mpg is a fuel efficient vehicle is (to me) laughable.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Jim_Callahan]

By arbitrarily calling things 'lifestyle choices' and stating that this immediately dismisses them from consideration, you open yourself to an interesting style of logic. Allow me to demonstrate:

Breathing clean air is a lifestyle choice: If that's what people want, they should have to pay the 100$/bottle for aqualung refills, not force the rest of us to pay for them through environmental regulations that we don't want.

See? you can do it to anything, which makes it a worthless argument.

As for towing, you can tow a boat or trailer with a dirtbike, if that's what you want. The point is that a truck is optimized to tow things, i.e. it has better fuel efficiency and lower emissions hauling a two-ton box of furniture than your geo metro. You'd think someone as environmentally conscious as you would understand the advantages of that. And that someone browsing /. would be in a technical field that would require one to understand optimization. /innocent expression

Re:Energy efficiency

[Quino]

Thanks for the reply!

I am excited to hear about biodiesel -- good luck with the open source (Biodiesel Howto Wiki?) documentation.

Do you operate a small fueling station? Or how do you distribute your biodiesel? May I also ask where you are? (I'm in N. California -- I know of one biodiesel facility here, which is what got me originally curious about this process).

Also, are you price competitive with regular diesel?

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the essential problem with libertarianism. I own my house. I own the land the house is on. I deny anyone permission to create any substances that drift onto my property (i.e. combustion products). Fire is outlawed for the whole planet.

"You may not forbid us from materials we create to drift upon your property. We establish that everyone has property rights to the atmosphere, and authority to dump whatever they want."

Fine. I dump SARIN into the air at your property and pick the property up at a reduced price.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, unfortunately, it does. I'm pretty libretarian in my views, but the American people as a whole care not for things like the environment. They want their SUVs. So, in order to get better fuel economy, one of two things must happen.

Govn't raises gas prices (tax?) to the level of true pain - $5, maybe $6/gallon where consumers are FORCED to demand better fuel economy or
Govn't raises MPG standards for all vehicles produced moving forward. Closing the SUV hole is a good start.

So unfortunately, in this case, the govn't does need to step up. I shudder to say it, but I do believe it.

The Govt has steped up, heard of CAFE standards? DOT emissions standards?

If it is true pain, then why not 20$ or 30$ per gallon tax. The rich would never think of driving a gas hog then. Everyone will be getting along just great with 6 dollar a loaf bread.

Get a clue, the fix is not the Govt 'steping up', nor is increased taxation.

Re:Energy efficiency

[diablomonic]

first of all, why 12 hr recharge? the SLA's I use take 5 - 6 hours to recharge. second, the NimH batteries in the prius store 1.7 kwh of energy. the prius uses nimh to cut down on weight because, like I said, in city driving it is accelerating and decelerating a lot, and even with regen braking, the more weight you accel/decel, the more energy it takes (E = 1/2 MV^2 ).

In the case of a tractor, Velocity is a lot smaller, so the only real weight concern is making sure it doesnt get bogged in the mud. Therefore you can use lead acids or other cheaper heavier battery types. 2 kwh of lead acids cost somewhere round $100 second hand ebay batteries, and weigh about 50 kg but I think we'd need a LOT more than that.

lets see, cant find a new price for tractor but since they seem to be going for $200,000 (AUD) for a good second hand 375hp one, down to 20-30 grand on ebay for (i assume) what must be cheaper models, we can assume we got a bit of money to play round with if we eliminate the engine cost.

lets start with a 3-4 tonne, 70hp model. assume maybe 30-40hp (22 -28 kw) average power use(pulling this figure out of my #%&! but it seems generous to me), so we want say 4* 3 hour packs for a single 12hr workday, each one 80 kwh, about 1.5 ton, cost roughly $4000 each, brings us to 16 grand plus the rest of the tractor. 1.5 tonnes is fine for including in the tractor weight (they are usually about 3-4 ton, and seem to have extra weights added for stability sometimes) since we are eliminating the weight of the engine and fuel (leaves us 1.5 to 2 tonnes just for chasis, tyres, body etc), but obviously we will require a decent setup for the swapping of batteries over (maybe just some hefty prongs which slide into holes in the battery pack, providing electricity connection and holding it at the right height to replace it later) , gonna add to the cost, although I guess it could be shared among tractors).

end result: initial cost- batteries 5,000 to 50,000 dollars, depending on how long you want to work each day, new/second hand, lead acid or other, etc. The rest of the tractor should be lots cheaper as you dont have the normal engine and drive train, but you need extra for the battery swap mechanism, say $1000-$2000,

advantage: cheaper running costs to diesel (though maybe not biodiesel), especially if you have a windpower setup as a farmer easily could. No onsite pollution. quieter.

Disadvantage: annoying swapping of batteries (so yeah, having lithium or other high power packs to allow longer running time, if they ever drop in price, will be a big advantage)

Price advantage: undecided, I think a cheap simple diesel one will beat a cheap electric, but as you scale up in power and features, I think the electric should win pricewise

overall conclusion: maybe not worth it just yet unless you intend to invest a decent amount (eg $80,000 or more at a guess) in a new tractor (not impossible, some 400hp tractors (this will be 500hp) were going for $300,000 second hand!). If you were setting up a fleet of tractors for a big farm, could be a worthwhile option. Or I could be way off and talking out my %@##, whatever, its late, im going to bed :)

Re:Energy efficiency

[pclminion]

Do you operate a small fueling station? Or how do you distribute your biodiesel?

This is an interesting topic for us. Currently, we do not fuel vehicles directly. Right now there are a few customers who buy in units of 55 gallons, and some people even buy single gallons (stored in plastic juice jugs). I want to be clear that this is still a very small operation. Last week, we "flipped" 6,000 gallons of fuel (i.e., we bought it and immediately resold it) to a local farming operation. It should power his farm vehicles for a couple of years. We're quite literally buying the stuff on RAIL CARS, as well as making it ourselves. Nuts, huh?

Being in Oregon (to answer another of your questions), we thought we would be faced with some issues at the pump. In Oregon, it is illegal to pump your own gas. However, we've discovered a loophole. Pure biodiesel is not a "petroleum fuel" and is therefore not covered under the Oregon pump law. We have several ideas in development for small scale fueling facilities but nothing concrete yet.

Also, are you price competitive with regular diesel?

We are neck-and-neck with it. Diesel prices range from $3.07 to maybe $3.25 across the region. If it weren't for the tax, we could make a profit selling the stuff at $2.30, but alas, the government wants their cut, so our price is around $3.00. The oil recycler we buy the stock oil from charges $1.00 per gallon. If we could cut him out and go directly to the restaurants, we could cut that cost nearly in half, but we don't have the infrastructure to do something like that.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Lumpy]

They want their SUVs.

really? you could have fooled me and a buddy of mine in Chicago.

He buys new Chevy Aveo cars and strips out almost everything to do an electric conversion to bolt up to a manual transmission in there. These car's can go 45 miles on a charge and can do 80mph if they need to. (he also has one that will kick the crap out of most american sports cars off the line in the 1/4 mile, but that's another story)

He buys these $9000.00 cars in canada for about $7500.00 and ships them home, puts in a 65hp electric motor with regen capabilities and a battery pack, and sells them for $15,000.00

and he cant make enough to satisfy demand. He takes about 2 months to convert 1 car from start to finish and can convert 3 at a time right now. He has prepaid orders for the next 12 months of production and is still getting orders for them.

Americans have been hungry for efficent cars for a while. Detroit is not interested in making them because they have thin profit margins AND are making sure that cars that would outsell american cars 10 to 1 like the SMART from europe will not get here without major problems and end up costing $20K to the consumer so americans are forced to buy a piece of crap that get's a max of 40mph Forign hybrids being way overpriced for what they are are outselling everything right now... go ahead and TRY to buy a new Toyota Prius right now.

  BTW: my buddy has one of those aveos that use NiMH battery pack that can get 100+ miles at highway speeds but the battery pack costs almost $20K if batteries were more efficent and were affordable we could have more efficient cars.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Jim_Callahan]

Notice that "+" by the 20 in the grandparent? That means that it will be more than 20, not necessarily in the 20-30 range. If you actually read the post involved, you'll note that he took the figure from the previous post, because it was a counterargument and that was the logical thing to do.

Now, you've been hiring cars (which, firstly, implies you don't own one and thus really don't have the experience to comment, but I'll leave off that, i guess). Rental companies tend to buy fuel efficient cars, because renters tend to get upset if they end up paying significantly more than that little number on their rental contract. Thus you saw things like hybrid vehicles in rental stations years before anyone in their right mind would have actually bought one for private use. Secondly, you're talking about a car, which, depending on the specific vehicles involved, is anywhere from 1/2 to 1/8 the mass of a loaded van and similar in profile (air resistance). As those of us familiar with the advanced mathematical concept known as 'multiplication' will know, an object of double the mass requiring double the work to move it the same distance is not entirely beyond comprehension. So a fuel-efficient van will tend to have higher gas consumption than a similarly efficient car.

Welcome to the world of primary-school math and elementary logic. May your stay be long and pleasurable.

Re:Energy efficiency

[neurojab]

Just wanted to add that there are rural areas in snow country that have a need for an american-made 4-wheel drive vehicle. At the moment, the only vehicles that meet this description are trucks and SUVS.

Why American made? In rural areas in the midwest, the mechanics in the nearest town will only look at american made vehicles. If you buy a Subaru or BMW and it breaks down, you have to tow it 70 miles for repair.

Why 4 wheel drive? Snow. You can't use chains due to state law, and the road into town may not be plowed for a day or two. If you need to get to work or buy groceries, and don't have 4 wheel drive, you're screwed.

Why can't the US car industry build an all-wheel drive car? They're too focused on building gas-guzzling SUVs.

Re:Energy efficiency

[drinkypoo]

Coal and nuclear power are cheap. Gasoline isn't.

You also have to think in terms of environmental cost. Nuclear without breeder reactors is expensive - we need to bring breeder reactors on line now. Coal is always environmentally expensive - it produces more atmospheric nuclear waste every year than all the nuclear accidents to date and just mining is a pretty horrendous thing to begin with - granted, you have to mine for nuclear fuel as well...

Re:Energy efficiency

[Jim_Callahan]

If you're running it on batteries, then, given the energy-density of batteries, your power source is actually heavy enough to weigh down your vehicle and effect its energy consumption. You really have to run that kind of thing off the grid, or charge it every 10 minutes, to keep your weight from getting out of hand.

Given that, it's an optimization problem, as most electric motors are also lighter than their gas-powered counterparts, so there might be a range where it was actually worthwhile. (The gap isn't as large as you'd think on wieghts, though, with what GM's been doing with magnesium alloys recently)

Re:Energy efficiency

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Right. My point was that "zero net carbon emissions" is something of a red herring, because, for example, differences in NOx emissions when burning a particular fuel may (or may not; I don't know) outweigh the benefits of "zero net carbon emissions".

Basically, I'm just being a nay-sayer. :-P

Re:Energy efficiency

[drinkypoo]

Scientists are people too. Research is useless unless it is used. You may not agree with his conclusion but if his methodologies are good, who cares what his agenda is?

Re:Energy efficiency

[Once&FutureRocketman]

It's a straw man argument, but I'm not the one setting up the straw man.

The politicians who like to rah-rah ethanol are justifying their position (and the subsidies)by implication -- or even direct, explicit statement -- that corn-based ethanol will lead us to independence from foreign oil, freedom from high gas prices, and will allow us to maintain our energy-intensive, auto-centric lifestyle in a world that no longer has cheap and readily available oil. It's a viciously deceptive lie that allows them to pass on big bucks to Aurther Daniels Midland and other agribusiness lobbies.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Jealous of those rich people? Bitterness gets mod points I guess. The GP is correct--A ski boat and trailer combined can easily be around or over 5000 pounds, 25+ feet long, and the bigger vehicles are much more stable with those loads.

Re:Energy efficiency

[drinkypoo]

As we have already covered, though, corn ethanol is not efficient anyway. Also, there are other biofuels which can be made from other parts of plants, like biodiesel from oils. I suppose the holy grail would be a plant with lots of sugar AND oil, from which we can easily extract both... You need methanol or ethanol to make biodiesel anyway. Also, diesels can be run on E95, a 95% ethanol and 5% gasoline mixture, so you have flexibility there. The only conversion needed to run E95 is to raise base compression and to be able to vary fuel delivery, which is a feature of any TDI diesel anyway. Diesels with mechanical injection might be more difficult, but should still be convertible.

And before I get the usual fleet of assholes trying to tell me that gasoline should never go into a diesel, it's been done already with great success. Also, Mercedes used to put a recipe for making a diesel fuel out of dirty motor oil and gasoline into their manuals, but eventually took it out because people are stupid and cannot be trusted with that information.

Re:Energy efficiency

[rossifer]

Breathing clean air is a lifestyle choice

You're saying that one assertion is as good as any other. As it turns out, your alternative statement is especially poorly chosen.

Breathing air that you have dirtied costs me. It costs me lifespan and my health while I'm alive. All that's happening when we make you pay for that through higher taxes on fuel is to even up the accounting. You can still do it (your choice), but you'll have to pay.

My breathing air in a functioning biosphere does not cost you. The CO2 that I emit came from carbon already cycling through the biosphere, and if anything, I've filtered some fraction of smog and dust out of the air I've breathed, so you're better off.

See? you can do it to anything, which makes it a worthless argument.

As usual, when confronted with a suprising assertion, following the money gets to the underlying truth. It's one of the fundamental principles of effective critical thought. You'll have to return to your thesis as at least one of your premises doesn't stand.

Regards,
Ross

Re:Energy efficiency

[Best ID Ever!]

Here's a comparison of the USDA study and Pimental study. It outlines the different assumptions and compares the numbers.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Total_Wimp]

If his conclusions are based on poorly chosen assumptions then the conclusions will be bad. One of the easiest ways to make bad assumptions is to have an agenda that drives your choices of assumptions.

Scientists ask questions and then find the answers to those questions via experimentation. People with an agenda draw conclusions and then try to find facts to match their conclusions. It's possible that the two can end up with the same answer at the end of the day, but the evidence is that people with agendas tend to be inaccurate in their agenda's favor more often.

If Microft tells you they had their techs run a scientific study and that that study proved that Windows server 2003 was better than Linux, Unix and Mac servers for a particular task, would your gut reaction be to take them at face value? How about if Linus proved that Linux was better. Jobs proved that Macs kick ass? They all might be right for their particular application, but my gut reaction would be to not take them at face value. Because they each have an agenda.

TW

Re:Energy efficiency

[Hawke666]

Hmm, I think you use an interesting definition of the word "need". Perhaps your brother would be better served by a van -- they tend to have more cargo capacity, and better fuel efficiency than pickup trucks.

Same goes for large families -- a van which seats 8 will be more efficient (typically 20-25mpg) than most alternatives. Or were you thinking of some other "large" vehicle, like a pickup truck (which seats ? In any case, the efficiency per person will likely be greater, unless the 2 cars you're talking about get 40-50mpg. In that case yes, taking 2 cars will be more efficient.

And then there's the "need" to take the boat to the lake. ... ... Yes, these people should "feel the pain" for this luxury of owning a boat, and taking it out to the lake. There is no way this is a "need", unless it's a fishing boat which is the family's livelihood -- in which case they should leave the boat in the lake, and not tow it back and forth. In either case, owning a boat is no excuse for driving this "needed" gas guzzler all the time, even when you're not towing the boat!

Re:Energy efficiency

[drinkypoo]

There are dreams of using oil-producing algaes to get massive yields, but this has yet to be perfected.

Well, the process works, the only thing wrong with it is the price. They need to bring the cost of such a system down significantly before it's feasible. Regardless they are doing it now, the water that comes out of the system is cleaner than that which went in, and they're getting good oil production per unit of energy input.

Biofuel from hydroponics is the only means that makes sense in the long term, because topsoil depletion is more serious than, say, greenhouse gas emissions.

Re:Energy efficiency

[budgenator]

For the most part we are big beef eaters, and the farmers already grow a lot of corn for cattle feed, switching the already purchased agricultural infrastructure from corn for cattle feed to corn for ethanol production cost is effective for the farmer; additionaly the ethanol has as a waste product a high protein waste called distiller's dried grain which is a good cattle feed, so the corn that was going to be grown anyways makes ethanol too.
There are basicaly two catagories of corn grown, field corn is a tough starchy veriety which farmers like for cattle field because the lower sugar content makes it less likely to spoil in storage, and the toughness gives the cattle the roughage they need to stay healthy, it tastes like "old" corn and is a bit chewier.
Sweet corn is grown for human consumption, and is sweeter, and doesn't store as well; sweet corn turns starchy if it gets old. I'm not a farmer but grew up a round them, so yes I've really eaten field corn.
When ethanol becomes main-stream you'll see some changes like the big-boys developing verieties specialy adapted for ethanol yield, and remember both corn and sugar cane are grasses so gentic manipulation is highly possible to boast sugar yields.
My area is a big sugar-beet producer I'm sure there will be ethanol plants made that utilize beets effiently.
I also think that emzymes to breakdown cellulose into fermentable sugar will be developed to increase ethanol effiencies pretty soon so even wood chips, saw dust and especial tree bark will turn up as ethanol in our tanks.

Re:Energy efficiency

[dal20402]

The point is that a truck is optimized to tow things, i.e. it has better fuel efficiency and lower emissions hauling a two-ton box of furniture than your geo metro. You'd think someone as environmentally conscious as you would understand the advantages of that.

That's exactly the point.

Current trucks aren't optimized at all for their intended purpose. They waste enormous amounts of energy with their high-horsepower engines coupled to too-tall gearing lugging around big ladder frames that are too heavy for the loads they carry and make good packaging impossible. The *only* task a current large pickup truck is truly optimized for is towing an enormous fifth-wheel trailer on the highway. The reason they are the way they are is because they're cheap to make in huge quantities and buyers don't know about better alternatives.

95% of U.S. truck and van drivers would be better served with different designs. For those carrying bulky cargo in the city (delivery people, repairmen), unibodies with high cubic capacity, small turbodiesels and short gearing would enhance carrying capacity, quickness, maneuverability and fuel economy with no significant tradeoff. Those working off paved roads in the country should have smaller, higher ladder frames with a torquier engine hooked to a real transmission/transfer case, for better off-road ability. And those towing trailers short of 15k lbs. should have trucks sized more appropriately for the job at hand, which would allow for better fuel economy and maneuverability (important for boat towers!)

As for your "lifestyle" logic, I don't think it's really difficult to distinguish between those things we believe society should provide its members (clean air, safe streets, emergency rooms) and those the members need to pay for themselves (the ability to tow huge boats). If you work hard enough you can turn every debate into a slippery slope. That doesn't make all debates worthless.

Re:Energy efficiency

[ArtStone]

Here are some possibilities... Farmers in Iowa and Kansas have equipment designed to grow and harvest corn... switch to sugar beets needs all new equipment. Silos at the local -grain- cooperative are set to handle grain, not sugar beets. Like many other crops, sugar beets are controlled by government allotment programs. You can't just switch from corn to sugar beets.

I think the bigger issue though is the intense agriculture is depleting the topsoil, increasing the nitrogen, fertilizer, and pesticide load on the Mississippi and related issues.

Just look at Google Earth and you can see that much of the midwest is now using irrigration (look for the round green circles). The aquifers of the United States don't have an infinite supply of water. Irrigated crops will create salinity that makes the land not support crops in a few generations.

And of course, there are the companies like ADM that give generously to political campaigns. Robert Dole isn't called "the Senator from ADM" for nothing.

Oh, and didn't we use to think it was the Brazilians that were cutting down the "rain forest" to grow sugar beets using "slash and burn" farming that were destroying the environment?

Re:Energy efficiency

[jo_ham]

Ford already makes the "Backbone of Britain" and has done for over 30 years - the Transit van.

I can see why they wouldn't introduce it to the US market, but the current turbodiesel models will do 90 (unloaded) without breaking a sweat, handle quite well for a vehicle that size, and have near-infinte utility. There are more variations to the Transit than I can count, including a pick-up bed model, that make it an ideal workhorse.

There's a reason they're still selling so many years after they first graced British roads.

I can't link it directly, but ford.co.uk has a link to the basic model range.

Re:Energy efficiency

[pclminion]

Right. My point was that "zero net carbon emissions" is something of a red herring, because, for example, differences in NOx emissions when burning a particular fuel may (or may not; I don't know) outweigh the benefits of "zero net carbon emissions".

Personally, I put local pollutants like NOx farther down the list of priorities than global pollutants such as CO2. When it comes down to it, NOx is considered bad simply because humans don't like to breathe it. Whereas CO2 has significant, long term affects across the entire planet. But this is only my opinion.

Nay-say away. Without the critics we'd just end up in fantasy land.

Re:Energy efficiency

[budgenator]

For tutorials try journey to forever to get started. They are geared toward helping indiginous people produce fuels and energy so it not high-tech to an unreachable point for real human beings and do-able in your garage to suppliment your fuel for lawn mowers and string trimmers, and yes gas engines in them can run on 10% biodiesel gasoline mixtures. I'm looking into making a b10-e10 mixture!
This site has forums, biodieselnow with lots of interesting questions and answers about biodeisel; everything for garage setups to large scale commercial production.

Re:Energy efficiency

[plantman-the-womb-st]

I once decided to make a statement about the SUV trend. A lot of people at my office building have them, the type of SUVs that cost ridiculous amounts of money and aren't used for what SUVs should be, the BMWs the Range Rovers and such. I showed up to work in a suit with a brand new climbing harness on over the top of it, a carabiner and a figure eight descender clipped to it and a coil of rope over my shoulder. People gave me the strangest looks you could imagine. One guy asked me what I was wearing and said I looked silly. I said just as silly as you look driving around an all terrain off road vehicle in the downtown business district.

Amazes me how one can be silly while the other is a symbol of high status.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

What about this idiotic thing of towing boats? Only in the US. Leave the boat on a marina already.

Re:Energy efficiency

[garyrich]

"Excluding businesses such as shipping companies, delivery companies, et al. that need bigger engines and more horsepower"

OK, lets look at them. Business care about costs. That's why they don't run more wasteful vehicles than they need. Long haul trucks may need big engines, but UPS trucks don't and they don't have them.

"My brother is an electrical worker. He needs his Silverado. Not want, need."

Maybe. A Silverado work truck with a Vortec V6 engine. They don't get such bad MPG. An electrical worker has no need for some monster 3500 with a 300HP engine like I see sitting in gridlock commuter traffic every day. Only a fool would own one of those that didn't need it for stump pulling or as an emergency tow vehicle for some really heavy stuff.

"What about large families that need large vehicles?"

What about a van? Safer, better MPG, more useful space, etc.

"How about someone who owns a boat and needs to tow it to a lake, so he needs a big V-8 or V-10?"

If you own a boat that is so big as to need that and you can't afford to have a dedicated tow vehicle for it -- you really need to rethink your priorities. Buy a used Camry and leave that thing home on the weekdays. If you are using that behmoth for your 50 mile commute every day I have no sympathy.

"Should these people "feel the pain" when despite owning gas guzzlers, are driving vehicles they need?"

Yes. The pain may be the only thing that will make them reevaluate their needs. Even of the consumers you list probably no more than 10% actually need those beasts they drive every day.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Suidae]

Also consider that when performing tasks like plowing or bailing a tractor is working near its peak power output (or it should be if it is sized properly for the task). Equipment like bailers are driven from the power take-off shaft of the tractor, so although pulling doesn't require that much power, driving the other equipment may.

I would not be surprised if a days work on a modest family farm could required as much as 500kWh.

Re:Energy efficiency

[dclydew]

*cough* hemp *cough*

That will get you oil (seed), biodeisel (at much greater ratios than corn) and it can be grown at lower cost with greater yield...

but, someone might try to smoke it... so we can't have that.

Re:Energy efficiency

[NutscrapeSucks]

You're not much of a libertarian. I thought the issue was the high price of fuel. Consumers will use less gasoline once they decide the prices are too high.

The problem is "once they decide", it's not economically rational to immediately change their behavior -- A consumer faced with $3.00/gal gas can't cheaply drop his SUV lease, nor can he reasonably move closer to work. I think it's clear that people will start to use less fuel, but reasonably will take several years until the market rationalizes itself.

Re:Energy efficiency

[BlueStrat]

I agree with what dal20402 said, but I'd also like to point out that considering the world's current population and the rate of its growth, people who have large families are especially costly to the environment.

So, do you then support regulations or laws governing family size, either through punitive taxes or more Chinese-style childbearing laws? Forced sterilizations? I think in any such case, there would be a huge protest and revolt by the US citizenry.

Any U>S. politician even hinting at any such thing would be committing political suicide, IMHO.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Energy efficiency

[rwhamann]

So, do you then support regulations or laws governing family size, either through punitive taxes or more Chinese-style childbearing laws? Forced sterilizations? I think in any such case, there would be a huge protest and revolt by the US citizenry. Any U>S. politician even hinting at any such thing would be committing political suicide, IMHO.

This is Ric Romero, reporting live, via tape delay, from Slashdot.

Re:Energy efficiency

[froschmann]

Ever think that maybe, just maybe, he might be talking about the ocean. Marina costs are expensive, and I wouldn't get caught on choppy water in a tiny little boat.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> In Oregon, it is illegal to pump your own gas.

Another big-business-protecting law masquerading as protecting "the People", no doubt. Similar to various states' laws against microbreweries in bars.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Too much heavy-handed, socialist "command and control" thinking.

If you build it, they will come.

ABC or NBC just broadcast a show where pure ethanol vehicles, actually built and sold by Ford and GM in Brazil, also available in the US (note, 100% ethanol, not this 85 crap.)

Let the US farmers shift to Ethanol -- estimates are that our sized economy could quickly drive the price down to 70 cents a gallon. As demand increases, farmers will shift their stuff, at their expense. And not until the price becomes worth it for them (or their banks.)

Re:Energy efficiency

[Mr. Underbridge]

How about someone who owns a boat and needs to tow it to a lake, so he needs a big V-8 or V-10? Should these people "feel the pain" when despite owning gas guzzlers, are driving vehicles they need?

You don't *need* a boat. You *want* a boat. That's a luxury item. So yeah, that guy should most certainly feel the pain.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

sugarcane ethanol is at 8 so were OK.

u stupid americans trying to use corn for this! haa-haa, i laugh at you!

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

Re:Energy efficiency

[pclminion]

Another big-business-protecting law masquerading as protecting "the People", no doubt. Similar to various states' laws against microbreweries in bars.

The law was passed before I was born, but from what I understand it was ostensibly to help provide jobs during the oil crisis in the 70's, as well as because of "safety issues." I don't think that was the real motivation but honestly I can't figure out what the true one is.

Oddly, Oregon is one of the most liberal states with regard to beer and brewing (I say oddly because despite the tyrannical practices of the OLCC, microbrew is considered one of our regional tourist draws and is therefore heavily encouraged). There's practically a brewpub every other city block here. I brew my own myself.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

When is Toyota going to wake up and realize that a diesel engine is ideal for a compact pickup truck?

I drove a 1983 Toyota pickup from 1989 to 1999. It got 35mpg when I bought it, and was down to a little over 30 when the tranny died.

I met one other person who had a Toyota diesel pickup.

Diesels in the US got a bad rep in the 70s and 80s because during the last gas crunch American car companies did a stupid thing and produced converted gas to diesel cars that blew up, and people don't like that in a car. Most people cannot verbalize it today in the US, but there is still a stigma left over from that, and the fact that they don't have the horsepower and pickup of a gas engine.

Those Toyota diesel pickups were excellent. I bought it because it was a diesel, and I knew it was an excellent vehicle, and it was. Extremely reliable and fuel efficient, and a slight heavy foot would smoke out any tailgater that came near me :)

To emphasize the stigma with diesels here in the US, a comedian once said, "I have an antitheft device on my car. It says diesel on the back of it."

Re:Energy efficiency

[iamlucky13]

I wonder if there are any major piece of agricultural equipment that can be set up to "run from the grid" in a sense. Like big batteries on tractors that recharge every day?

I grew up on a farm and I currently work with forklifts (both ICE and electric), so I have some relevant experience to offer a comparison. A tractor runs at a high load consistently for very long times, usually a significant distance from the shop, almost always outside. Tractors on a major farm typically have engine displacements over 6 liters, which is a decent sized engine. The big Deere articulated tractors run up to 16 liter engines, and dwarf semi-trucks. During the peak of the season, they may operate for over 12 hours a day (even longer in areas where dew isn't a problem), and due to limitations on harvesting due the weather, down time is pretty much unacceptable. Refueling typically must be conducted in the field.

In comparison, a forklift alternates high and low throttle as it shifts between lifting, shuttling, and waiting for loads. They may operated only an hour or two per day or as much as 24 hours per day, generally not moving very far from their fuel supply. Forklifts below 5 ton capacity may be electric or ICE (internal combustion), but above 5 ton they are almost exclusively combustion, with ~4 liter engines (compare to the tractors with 6 L). Operators that use electric lifts and must operate for more than 8 hours in a day make the investment in additional batteries so they can swap them out as fast as they become discharged.

The primary reason for using batteries on forklifts is not efficiency, but reduced emmissions, which is important when working indoors, especially for industries that require cleanliness like food services. Despite recent advances in motor and battery technology, their performance still falls well short of ICE lift trucks. Comparing their typical usage on forklifts to what would be demanded on agricultural tractors, I think I can competently say it would not be feasible to utilize electric tractors on the farm.

Of course, I should mention, you probably shouldn't be running your tractors and other equipment that you use to harvest the corn or other agricultural product with oil or ethanol. That doesn't work. It only works if you have a mostly electrical system.

Unless it turns out to be a viable way to use your waste material. Sell the waste to a local processing plant and buy back fuel for cheaper than at the pump. Some farms are already doing this with biodiesel. Of course, the financial savings might not be as great as for the ordinary consumer, since fuel for agricultural purposes is not taxed.

Re:Energy efficiency

[AndersOSU]

Ok lets say a tractor is plowing using this plow (advertised for its energy efficiency).

Power Requirement

All deep-tillage tools are power-intensive. Depending on the number of legs on a Paratill® , figure 30 to 35 HP for each leg. In addition, the tires should be in good condition (adequate tread) for traction. Plows have only CIII capabilities for hitching.

Since the model pictured is a 6 legged plow that is ~180hp or 134kW.

Lets say we want to swap batteries at intervals no less than 1 hr. If I'm doing the math right that means we need to carry 121 batteries like the one you linked to, or 6000 lbs of battery costing $3720 (USD) (used). So if it takes 5 hours to charge, that is just under $20,000 for second hand batteries, or $82,200 new.

Batteries are too expensive, which is why hybrids aren't economically viable.

Re:Energy efficiency

[dooglio]

We can argue efficiency all we want, but America will never stop its affair with foreign oil, at least, according to Congressman Ron Paul:

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr02 1506.htm

"The agreement with OPEC in the 1970s to price oil in dollars has provided tremendous artificial strength to the dollar as the preeminent reserve currency. This has created a universal demand for the dollar, and soaks up the huge number of new dollars generated each year. Last year alone M3 increased over $700 billion."

"Most importantly, the dollar/oil relationship has to be maintained to keep the dollar as a preeminent currency. Any attack on this relationship will be forcefully challenged--as it already has been."

Re:Energy efficiency

[tverbeek]

The ideologue was asserting that the government has no business getting involved in regulating gas guzzlers because consumers want them. In other words: If there's consumer demand, then the government should butt out. All it takes to disprove an assertion like that is one example that's patently unsound. That's not a straw-man argument; it's propositional logic.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Beale]

On a related note, have you heard of the dual-fuel diesel/sunflower oil engines?

Re:Energy efficiency

[karnal]

and the "look I've got SO MUCH horsepower" crap. If it can't do at least 20mpg city/30mpg highway, just melt it down for scrap.

Oddly enough, my Z28 I bought (1995) shortly after college got precisely those numbers, and it was a "look I've got SO MUCH horsepower" vehicle. :)

That was a fun car. My current vehicle comes close, but not quite....

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

I also think that emzymes to breakdown cellulose into fermentable sugar will be developed to increase ethanol effiencies pretty soon so even wood chips, saw dust and especial tree bark will turn up as ethanol in our tanks.

Hopefully lawn clippings an autumn leaves too.

Re:Energy efficiency

[drinkypoo]

I already have one of those, it's called a Mercedes IDI diesel, and if the fuel is the right viscosity (they have heating prefilters) I can inject pretty much any kind of plant oil as if it were ordinary diesel fuel. You can get a kit for anywhere from $250 to about $1200 depending on what you want; a decent kit is around $650. THAT kit adds two heated filters and a fuel tank. $1200 gets you the kit where you can just pour whatever into your main tank and run it; WVO, SVO, diesel fuel, kerosene...

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

So, would it be better to drive 2 vehicles containing 3 people each, or 1 vehicle (SUV) containing my whole family? Which scenario would use more oil, gas, and other resources?

More than likely, using two vehicles to go the same distance/route would use more oil/gas/resources than using the one lone SUV.

That's typically left out of the debate against SUV's.

Re:Energy efficiency

[tomhudson]

That was a fun car. My current vehicle comes close, but not quite....

See what I mean - a decade later, and no change. I'd have expected some improvement. After all, we've got better materials (lighter bodies, etc., should make for *some* improvement), more advances in machining tolerances and engine/powertrain design.

Re:Energy efficiency

[karnal]

Wow... do you have a link to the guy or something? That's a very interesting idea....

Re:Energy efficiency

[Soporific]

1. I don't think over 5K of weight in a trailer loaded is unreasonable. Think gas, ski's, camping gear, food, etc.

2. Semi's are designed to do what they do, even if you put a hitch on your Acura and are a stupendous driver a 5K trailer is going to throw you around especially when it's windy. And that 5K isn't even taking into account what you have inside your vehicle that counts towards the gross weight, including yourself. I'll take a full size truck with a transmission cooler and/or tow package for towing, thank you.

~S

Re:Energy efficiency

[Jim_Callahan]

Forcing industry to alter its behavior, by making it conform to clean-air regulation, costs me in the form of more expensive products (in this case, transportation). This isn't really any more tenuous than one tier up from my previous post, which asserts that we are paying "through artificially low gas prices that don't reflect the costs of maintaining a road network or fixing the environmental damage".

I don't entirely agree that you've succeeded in refuting the point that you were intending to refute, as your example tells me the benefits of you breathing dirty air (filtering of smog?). Regardless, my example aside, "People should bear the entire cost of their lifestyle choices themselves" is a stupid argument because anything done repeatedly, including bodily functions, is a lifestyle choice, and 'cost' is rather arbitrary and easy to define as you like. This was the thrust of my argument.

Thirdly, you've mistaken an example for a premise. You refuted my example. To refute my premise (You can do [this type of argument] with anything) would involved demonstrating that I can't form a statement form such an argument with "breathing clean air"; what you showed was that I haven't. Of course, proving my statement logically would involve either induction or a list of everything in existence, so I think we're probably stuck here as far as pure logic goes.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

It really is based on marketing and the "I need a bigger dick" syndrome. Most men who drive big honcho trucks have a psychological problem with self-esteem and masculinity issues. They are repressed and need the security they think a large truck provides. Frankly, in plain words, they are buying a penis substitute.

I don't think any researcher would be surprised to find a direct correlation between the purchase of big trucks and the and the probability that the same individual purchases "male enhancement" pills.

Re:Energy efficiency

[John Little John]

How about someone who owns a boat and needs to tow it to a lake, so he needs a big V-8 or V-10? Should these people "feel the pain" when despite owning gas guzzlers, are driving vehicles they need?

Well, ultimately the American consumer is responsible for buying the next-model year truck or luxury sports sedan because the '07 model has a 6,000 hp V8 over the '06 model which only has 4500 hp. The new Infiniti's, Lexus's, etc all have 250-300+ HP engines. The trucks are getting up into the mid 300's. The Ford F150 in the mid 90's had an option for a straight 6 with 150 HP. It had plenty of torque. So did the bigger 3/4 and 1 ton trucks from the early 90's. No one needs a V10. No one even needs a 300 HP car. There was plenty of power in these decade-old trucks to allow someone pull whatever they needed (especially the diesels) whose power stats are nothing like what trucks (and cars for that matter) have now. They did not perform well, except for pulling performance, but if it's a work/tow vehicle, then fast quarter mile times are not really necessary are they? If consumers demanded gas mileage over power, we'd have cars and trucks with the same HP as 10 years ago and double the gas mileage. The "need" for these gas guzzlers is really a need for vehicles that can perform such duties as towing. Such duties do not need 300HP engines, no matter which way you cut it. European diesel engine technology is really advanced, but you don't see such vehicles here. You should--they have impressive engines. It's silly to think that effective work vehicles need the horsepower they have now, or that it is technologically infeasible to have effective workhorse vehicles with MUCH better MPG than they have now (in the U.S).

Re:Energy efficiency

[poopdeville]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_stations#Minimum_ service_vs._full_service

Kind of interesting actually. Especially since voters have rejected measures to drop the law (in Oregon, anyway).

Re:Energy efficiency

[nasch]

The price premium for a Diesel is well worth it - it might not be cost-effective initially, but if you're using your truck like a real truck, it will pay off in the long run.

And there's the problem. Almost nobody in the US uses their truck like a real truck, therefore a diesel does not make sense.

Re:Energy efficiency

[JofCoRe]

*cough* hemp *cough*

That will get you oil (seed), biodeisel (at much greater ratios than corn) and it can be grown at lower cost with greater yield...

but, someone might try to smoke it... so we can't have that.

Exactly. Not to mention that it would threaten a few other "big money" industries... like the oil industry, the paper industry, the textile industry, etc... And the people that get their money from these industries don't want to let go of their cash cows. It's not about doing what's smart, environmental, or anything else so noble... Nope, it's all about greed, money, and power.

We're not really interested in finding alternative fuel sources. It's just a show put on to keep the peasants happy while the big players continue to rake in the profits. Sad, really. And not too bright of future it paints either...

meh.

Re:Energy efficiency

[diablomonic]

I thought I'd made a decent case, but not being a farmer, I get the feeling I could well be mostly wrong. I would like to hear from someone that knows whether some second hand purchase prices of $200,000 to $400,000 for 300hp'ish (peak?) tractors is crazy or normal for decent tractors, and if crazy, what a normal price would be for a decent brand high power tractor (ebay seems to have cheaper brands at MUCH cheaper prices to a dealership I looked at, are these your "cheap plastic chinese dvd player" equivalents in the tractor market, or was the second hand site (not sure if i linked it or not) listing the high prices just nuts)

I think in the end, I'll revise my figures a little and say it may still be worthwhile if a NEW quality tractor costs more than ~$80,000 to $120,000. if these are unreasonable prices, then I'll agree with AOSU, and we have to wait 5 years and try again (hopefullly with 2 minute recharge nano based 600 wh/kg lithium sulphur batteries at a cheap price, or 1000 to 6000 wh/kg li-air batteries (I know, optimistic or lala land respectively, to think these will be avail or cheap by then) or cheap membrane high power fuel cells running on ....

I still have a feeling that tractors are generally expensive enough new to cover the cost (with no first hand knowledge to back it up, could a farmer please correct me/confirm my feeling)

Re:Energy efficiency

[Oztun]

Why drink bourbon when you have pure ethanol? =P

Re:Energy efficiency

[diablomonic]

just keep in mind though, energy usage in a car-> mostly used for acceleration/deceleration of said car (assuming city driving), with smaller amounts for maintaining speed and smaller amounts for lights/ A/C etc. Therefore energy usage is almost linearly related to total mass (E=1/2 mv^2). notice that velocity is squared, meaning that a small decrease in peak vvelocity is a large decrease in energy needed.

In the case of a tractor, most energy is used to churn up the dirt or bale the hey, chop the grass, harvest stuff, with only a small percentage going to the (slow) movement (accel, decel and maintaining speed) of the actual tractor. Of this small percentage, I think a tractor often moves at a fairly constant speed, going round the fields, for extended periods, in which case the only extra energy use the added weight neccesitates is due to extra friction with the ground as the vehicle sinks further in the mud. obviously there is some acelleration and deceleration, but overall, weight doesnt matter in a tractor any where near as much as in a car (it's almost irrelevant). also, the setup I came up with in above post, IF it was at all accurate, doesnt actually involve raising the total wieight of the tractor: these things weigh quite a few tonnes anyway by the looks of it. basically we can add 2 tonnes of batteries and still have a working tractor, the question is, can we easily swap out a 2 tonne battery, or get it to contain enough energy (at a cheap enough price) to drive said tractor for long enough time (maybe and maybe?)

Re:Energy efficiency

[Firethorn]

I think it's clear that people will start to use less fuel, but reasonably will take several years until the market rationalizes itself.

I agree, it'll happen gradually, but take at least 20 years before traditional gasoline only cars will be considered 'rare'.

People have started making movements with gasoline in the $2.50-$3.00 range. The SUV market has weakened considerably. I've heard reports of people parking the SUV, of not driving long distances and reducing the number of trips they make, buying mopeds and electric vehicles that are like hopped-up golf carts.

We'd be stupid to assume that significant amounts of people are going to:
A: mod their car to use an alternate fuel
B: Purchase a different vehicle any faster than they normally would

I think the average is something like 4-5 years for the average person to keep a car. It then spends another 10-15(unless it gets wrecked) in the used car market.

But when they do purchase, fuel economy will be much more in the forefront than previously. It'll be a much stronger selling feature, as will alternate fuels.

Personally, I have a year of payments on my car left. There are currently no options right now to replace my 30mpg car with a higher mpg average that would make economic sense for me. So I just take the bite of gas prices, make my payments and wait. I hope to keep the car for another 4-5 years, which would save me enough money to practically buy a new car with cash, making a higher up-front investment for future savings on fuel economical. There are people both ahead and behind me. Some just bought their car, some just wrecked it or decided to trade it in. I'm holding out for it to make economic sense for me. Personally, I think that a good choice would be a hybrid diesel, or at least capable of buring E85. I'd also like it to be 'pluggable', capable of being charged by line power, giving it the capability of all-electric operation for short trips.

Re:Energy efficiency

[njh]

Standard fuel injector systems run happily on 85% ethanol. We certainly run ours here on that without trouble. Locally the lower cost of E85 wins over unleaded even taking into account the reduction in fuel efficiency of ethanol.

Re:Energy efficiency

[njh]

Carbon emissions already include the factor of 25 for methane emissions. There is business in collecting waste methane and burning it just to reduce carbon emissions.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Lumpy]

no link, he works on referrals only and still is jammed with orders.

I can give you a hint though, he is not hard to find in Chicago. He is near the place where they shoehorn in the largest Chevy V8 engines into Fiero and other smaller sports cars.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Firethorn]

$5 a gallon won't make a difference when people will spend $8 a gallon for bottled water. A 20 bottle of water on my school campus costs $1.25. How 'bout $12.80 a gallon for coffee, (two bucks for a venti brewed at Starbucks.)

Yeah, but cheap people like me won't pay $8 for a gallon of water without great need.

Also, do you go through 10-20 gallons of $1.25 20 ounce water bottles a week? You're paying for convienence. I refill a .5L bottle I got a while back.

As for Cato, they're usually pretty good, but I think they're using some pretty pessemistic numbers for their quotes '7 barrels for 8 barrels of ethanol'. Like others have said, ethanol isn't the only product from those 7 barrels, and new technology is in the pipelines to create even more ethanol from a given amount of biomass.

Re:Energy efficiency

[njh]

it produces more atmospheric nuclear waste every year than all the nuclear accidents to date

That statistic has been discredited. For a start, emissions controls systems on coal powerstations already precipitate heavy metals, secondly the study somehow managed to get its base line numbers for the most radioactive coal on the planet.

Re:Energy efficiency

[drinkypoo]

So what should the actual numbers be? Is there a better study I can refer to? And where does whatever waste IS produced end up going?

Re:Energy efficiency

[Firethorn]

In rural areas in the midwest, the mechanics in the nearest town will only look at american made vehicles.

Hasn't been true for a while, and I live in ND.

Why can't the US car industry build an all-wheel drive car? They're too focused on building gas-guzzling SUVs.

I've been bemoaning this fact for years. Subaru seems the perfect option, though if anybody competed against them, I might be able to get one cheaper. I want a fuel efficient, economical vehicle, thus am pretty much stuck with a car. I would like some more storage space, and I have no need to compensate for anything, so my ideal car is a hatchback with AWD. Why AWD? Because I'm in snow country and have gotten stuck a few times with my current vehicle, though never so seriously that I needed a tow.

Re:Energy efficiency

[njh]

Deep till farming causes far more CO2 emissions from damaged soils than burning the oil produces. Use minimal tillage methods and you'll get rid of the energy cost and the extra CO2 in one hit.

Re:Energy efficiency

[k31bang]

*cough* hemp *cough*

That will get you oil (seed), biodeisel (at much greater ratios than corn) and it can be grown at lower cost with greater yield...

but, someone might try to smoke it... so we can't have tha

North Dakota is working on plans to allow industrial hemp to be grown. So some progress is being made.

Re:Energy efficiency

[njh]

No idea, look it up, write it up and submit as a slashdot article.

Re:Energy efficiency

[The Snowman]

It is more fuel efficient to make one long trip to various stores than to cram everything in a sedan and make two or three trips. Also, that comparison was for a minivan, not a truck. Minivans tend to sit between cars and trucks with fuel economy. Some of them get pretty good mileage for their size. Some of them are laden down with all sorts of crap and luxury features and get shitty mileage. I don't want that stuff.

Re:Energy efficiency

[The Snowman]

there are lots of safe vehicles with heavy/long trailers on our roads; they're called semis.

Semis have 18 wheels and are wider even than a big pickup, even a duallie (sic). A semi cab hauling a trailer is not quite the same as a pickup or SUV towing a boat or trailer.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

soy has a higher biodiesel yield per acre than hemp.

but you wouldn't advocate that.

because you can't smoke soy.

Re:Energy efficiency

[The Snowman]

As for towing, you can tow a boat or trailer with a dirtbike, if that's what you want. The point is that a truck is optimized to tow things, i.e. it has better fuel efficiency and lower emissions hauling a two-ton box of furniture than your geo metro. You'd think someone as environmentally conscious as you would understand the advantages of that. And that someone browsing /. would be in a technical field that would require one to understand optimization. /innocent expression

Really? I thought engines produced a maximal amount of torque at a given RPM, and with some math, you can figure out the maximum load of an engine. So, for example, a dirt bike would not be able to produce sufficient force to move a mass of, say, 5,000 pounds while an F-350 could. Am I wrong?

Re:Energy efficiency

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Regarding solar cells, they are finally becoming efficient enough that they can make practical sense. The newer technologies can get you efficiencies of 30% or so, that's almost as good as internal combustion engines which have efficiencies of about 32%. In my opinion, policymakers are making a huge mistake by assuming that it's a good idea to have centralized energy production; this is likely to drive costs sky high due to distribution and bureaucracy. Ideally each property would be self-sufficient.

Re:Energy efficiency

[epine]

Why drink bourbon when you have pure ethanol?

Why eat cheese when you have lard?

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't smoke hemp either.

Re:Energy efficiency

[pfdietz]

Whether the EROEI is 0.8:1 or 1.3:1, neither one is a winner relative to our current consumption of energy.

We don't have a shortage of energy. We have a shortage of liquid fuels for transportation. If the energy input to growing corn is not petroleum, but non-liquid fossil fuels, nuclear, or other non-fossil sources, then it's just fine if the energy ratio is approximately 1. Think of it as solar-assisted synfuel production.

Re:Energy efficiency

[PhineusJWhoopee]

Don't worry - I'm sure you have a faster PC than I do.

ed

Re:Energy efficiency

[pfdietz]

I also think that emzymes to breakdown cellulose into fermentable sugar will be developed to increase ethanol effiencies pretty soon so even wood chips, saw dust and especial tree bark will turn up as ethanol in our tanks.

I suspect thermochemical techniques will ultimately win, since they can also use the lignin that the enzymatic approaches can't break down. Lignin has lots of energy in aromatic rings. According to this link, just the waste biomass available in the US alone (from agriculture, forestry, and organic waste streams) could produce 130 billion gallons of ethanol, 153 billion gallons of mixed alcohols (C1-C5), or 59 billion gallons of very high quality diesel fuel per year.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

You've forgotten about a tourqe multiplying device installed in every vehicle, the gearbox. You can move a semi trailer with a 50cc engine if you don't mind a ridiculous gear arrangement.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Reziac]

Occurs to me to wonder....

Okay, let's say we grow sugar beets and produce 2 energy units of ethanol for every one unit of energy cost. Sugar beets have an advantage that they do well in areas with a short growing season, so can be produced anywhere in the upper midwest.

After extracting the sugar/ethanol, we've got a big pile of beet pulp, normally used as mulch and animal fodder. Probably more beet pulp than we need for such purposes.

But it's mainly cellulose. What kind of processing is needed to *efficiently* convert this biomass into energy units?? could it be "bricked" (compressed) and used to replace coal in coal-fired generators? I'd think at the least, it would burn cleaner than coal.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Reziac]

You can't just switch from one crop to another without changing your harvesting, storage, and shipping machinery and arrangements. And farm machinery is hideously expensive.

I'd guess farmers grow corn because of 1) historical subsidy arrangements and markets, 2) they've already invested in the infrastructure, it's paid for, and they're not inclined to cough up half a million bucks for a new combine for some other type of crop when the old machinery, designed for corn, still works just fine. Show 'em how they can profit with the new crop, and they'll listen, but it's not so simple as "now we're going to grow beets instead of corn".

Re:Energy efficiency

[Reziac]

As I asked up above... might there be a market for "bricked" waste material (beet pulp etc.) as fuel? ISTM it could at least partially replace coal, and likely would burn cleaner. Might also be useful for pellet stoves for home heating.

As to bio-oil, if it were all that cheap to produce, it wouldn't be $3.50 to $5 per gallon at wholesale. (Likely to go up since most of those tractors and combines run on diesel...)

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for him! That's putting your drive and money were your mouth is,and make a buck at it at the same time. It's been proven over and over, waiting for "the market" or government to actually do anything positive is a long lonely wait.

The only reason pure electrics aren't a common niche market now is that they refuse to sell them, not that they couldn't build them or couldn't sell them. I also think it's a threat because of no way to do a road tax on them yet.

If the UAW was smart at the top levels (they aren't but that's another story) they would threaten a strike-not for the normal stuff they might strike for, but based on actually forcing management to make something that would sell, threaten a strike if the majors DIDN'T all start to offer some affordable pure electrics, and not a suicide offering that they bork ON PURPOSE like they did with the EV-1. They could convert some plants and save some jobs. a lot of jobs.

      All cars are niche markets when you get down to it, and the prius proved there's a huge demand for "something different"-something all the bigshots in detroit denied up and down and sideways for years and years until it startted selling and selling and is now around the hottest most in demand car out there. there IS a demand and a huge market for an all electric, cheap commuter vehicle. It doesn't need to hold 8 people or go 500 miles on a charge, most commuting is well under 100 miles round trip and the tech is there right now using normal parts to accomplish this. You can get a heavy duty industrial forklift battery pack for around 1,000 bucks to a few thousand, that could cover the electric battery part easily, even one of the smaller packs. You don't even need 20,000$ of exotic batteries, just design it so well that later on it would be relatively easy to change out batteries to new and improved and cheaper models.

If we all had waited to buy computers until they hit multiple ghz and so on, where would the industry be now? You have to start somewhere, even if it isn't "perfect" right now.

Anyway, good on hi, I wish him well in his business and I predict within afew years you will see similar retrofit shops all over.

I wonder if a lot of it (detroit carmakers recalictrance on the subject) might be because at the top levels they are major shareholders in the oil industry as well?

Re:Energy efficiency

[Reziac]

You can always tell people who have never had to haul or tow a real load, they think any vehicle can do it :)

I've got both a full-size pickup with a V-8 and tow-package, and a somewhat more-efficient car. As it turns out, I need the truck's cargo and towing capacity regularly, and it is not cost-effective to maintain and insure the car as well, even with its better fuel-efficiency.

The car is presently non-op'd, saving me $700/yr in tags, insurance, and maintenance, vs. about $200/yr it could save me in gas (at $3/gal.) for those trips when I could do without the truck. (No, I don't drive much, less than 4000 miles per year.)

IOW, using ONLY the less-fuel-efficient truck saves me $500/yr out of pocket.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Valleye]

Sugar beets cano only be grown once every 4th or 5th season. Cane is the best solution. We need to put all those Carribean countries back to work producing cane. Just think Cuba could be the next UAE!

Re:Energy efficiency

[Quino]

cool thanks for the links!

Occasionally reading slashdot is totally worthwhile ... :)

Re:Energy efficiency

[Yooden_Vranx]

But population and energy usage are anti-correlated. Europe is shrinking in population, and the US is growing largely through immigration, with immigrants traditionally having larger families. Anecdotally (living in Fairfax County, VA), I find that people with larger families are more frugal- they tend to drive large vans or perhaps SUVs, which tend to be more harmful to the environment, but they also tend to be less able to afford luxuries, and thus driving to those luxuries, so that on the whole I would opine that they are far better for the environment per capita than DINKs or small families. And I point the last finger of blame partly on myself, as I have only one child, drive a gasoline car with a turbo, and often choose to drive considerable distances to leisure activities.

Re:Energy efficiency

[smokeslikeapoet]

As for Cato, they're usually pretty good, but I think they're using some pretty pessemistic numbers for their quotes

Well economics is the "dismal science" so I guess it fits Cato.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually in Europe this would be considered fairly terrible.

Re:Energy efficiency

[teg]

most boats -- such as mine -- are over 5,000 lbs with trailer and cannot be towed by a compact SUV or pickup since the length will result in a tail wagging the dog situation. a V6 just doesnt cut it. you need a V8 with a full length vehicle to tow it.

How often do you tow such a boat? I my experience, very rarely (they stay at the marina unless you actually sail said boat), and for those occasions having someone else do the job beats having your everyday car suited for the job. I'd also prefer not driving a large truck just because I might buy furniture, better to just order it delivered.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

So, do you then support regulations or laws governing family size, either through punitive taxes or more Chinese-style childbearing laws? Forced sterilizations? I think in any such case, there would be a huge protest and revolt by the US citizenry.

Did I make any statement whatsoever about how to deal with the problem? Or do you think that my support or non-support of various measures to deal with overpopulation somehow make it more of less real?

It is likely that, perhaps sometime soon, overpopulation will NEED to be addressed in some sort of strategic manner on a world scale. The fact that this is unpleasant does not make it any less true. I, personally, would rather discuss it with a cool head now than with thousands of people per day dying due to starvation/disease/global climate change, because we waited until the very last minute to deal with the problem.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

But population and energy usage are anti-correlated.

I very strongly doubt that. Do you have any credible sources to back that up? The energy required for food production, as well as the waste that an extra person produces, is huge to begin with. And then there's the fact that the number of families -- frugal or not -- increases exponentially with the number of offspring produced per family...

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Sugar cane growing is very poluting. I'd rather $5 a gallon than one more buck for sugar cane farmers.

Re:Energy efficiency

[lowrydr310]

Are those British gallons, or American gallons?

Re:Energy efficiency

[Valleye]

Do you have references to this? I am very interested. I did not know that.

Re:Energy efficiency

[LunaticTippy]

Ooh, you hit a sore point.

I have a 1982 nissan diesel pickup. It gets 30-40 mpg, depending on load/topper. It is also very reliable. I'd love to replace it with a new model, but I'd have to go to honduras or somewhere and smuggle it into the US.

I've heard the problem is California's ban on diesel passenger vehicles, which makes sense since that is 1/3 the country's market right there.

Re:Energy efficiency

[LunaticTippy]

Why ask when doing the math is so easy?

Re:Energy efficiency

[nelsonal]

Generally energy return is a pretty close approximation for price. The only reason everyone is getting excited now has to do with differences in taxation between gasoline and ethanol.

Re:Energy efficiency

[lowrydr310]

My father had an 85 Nissan Pickup (gasoline) that got around 15MPG - that's with the 4 clinder.

Nissan offered a compact diesel up until 1985 or 1986 I believe, as did GM/Izusu. I've tried finding one, and in all the trucks I've looked at the engines run like new but the bodies and frames are rotted away (just like my father's truck).

Re:Energy efficiency

[budgenator]

I've been interested in CWT's thermal Depolymerization Process, and whil patent searching is an arcane art that I haven't mastered, the only patent they seem to have is 5,269,947 which was filed for on, September 17, 1992. This patent doesn't have a lot of life left, which squares with how cagey CWT has been about information on the process. With only a little over 6 years left on the patent, CWT needs to posistion themselves as the authority on the process, and I don't think they have the capital to do that with plants going for $20 million a pop. Of course they promote the process as scaleable and have table-top test-bed and insinuate that semi-trailor sized plant are effective; other than a boutique plant built with con-agra as a partner, they're not doing any comercialization of it that I'm aware of in the United States, and are concentrateing in Europe where animal byproducts aren't used as animal foder.

Re:Energy efficiency

[ArtStone]

Just one of the faulty assumptions built into the "Ethanol from Corn" 130% out study is that there is a perfect crop of corn with maximum yields every year. No person who has ever farmed would make that assumption.

"Profit and Loss" statements are much more accurate at determining whether ethanol is a useful alternative. If it can be produced creating significantly more energy output than its inputs (over time), then it would already be widely produced. A central government mandate does not change basic facts. Didn't we learn anything from the failure of the Soviet Union Command and Control economy? All we need now is the 5 year plan.

My regret about this issue is how quickly "W" jumped on it. That does support the idea the he really has some basic problems in processing ideas... (I voted for him and am not a moonbat)

Re:Energy efficiency

[Once&FutureRocketman]

it's just fine if the energy ratio is approximately 1

Totally false. If the EROEI is 1, then it takes one unit of energy to make one unit of energy. You can do that forever, if the system isn't leaky. But you'll be running in place, without producing a surplus for use to other purposes.

We don't have a shortage of energy.

We don't have an overall energy shortage, in the same sense that we have a pending oil shortage. But we don't have a vast surplus of available energy either.

Domestic natural gas production has peaked, and moving LNG is a huge pain in the ass.

Coal is vastly ecologically destructive in the extraction, and in the combustion. Clean coal technologies? Yeah, maybe, but they also come with an energy penalty.

Nuclear has a very long lead time, and has never been economic without vast government support. It's a boondoggle.

Solar and wind are dandy, but they are capital intensive and slow to ramp up. There's a worldwide shortage of high-purity silicon right now, due to the demand for solar panels. And you're never going to get more than about 1000 watts/sq.m. from solar, no matter how good your PV technology gets.

We're not yet feeling the pinch on other energy supplies the way we do on oil, but watch natural gas prices in the next few years. They're going to go up, not down.

What we don't have is the ability to add generation facilities to produce three times our current use of oil energy, just so that we can keep using as much oil as we're using RIGHT NOW, which is what an EROEI of 1.3:1 would require.

Also, there's the fact that most of the energy inputs to producing corn are either liquid fuels (to run farm equipment) or natural gas (which is used directly to make fertilzer).

And of course there's the ultimate problem of exponential growth of energy use. When your demand increases by 3-5% per year, there's never any such thing as enough.

Re:Energy efficiency

[BlueStrat]

I was only asking out of curiosity. I didn't assume you meant anything of the kind, I was just trying to broaden the discussion. In fact, I tend to agree with your assessment of future population pressures and the need to address them at some point.

Sorry if I came across the wrong way. I *did* find your post interesting and insightful, and hoped to expand on some of your points. No harm, no foul I hope?

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Energy efficiency

[Firethorn]

Well, with the switch from MTBE to ethanol for california, it's undergoing a fairly large price spike, which will in turn spur production of more ethanol facilities, and even more importantly research into more efficient production. Something that might take ten years at 100,000/year might become available in only a year or two when you're dumping 1M/year into research.*

Cato's usually pretty insightful for economics, so maybe they're simply trying to be conservative. I don't think Ethanol will ever be a universal replacement for gasoline, but it can be a major contributer to that solution. Even then, I don't think that once the switch starts that usage levels will stabilize for at least a decade.

*I don't assume that development costs a fixed amount, and can't necessarily be hurried efficiently with more money.

Re:Energy efficiency

[pfdietz]

But it's mainly cellulose. What kind of processing is needed to *efficiently* convert this biomass into energy units??

I'm not sure what 'energy units' are, but converting loosely constrained biomass (including the cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin) into useful fuels can be done by various thermochemical processes. The most common approach is an endothermic reaction with steam to form synthesis gas (a mixture of CO and hydrogen) that, after being cleaned of acid gasem, sulfur, tars, etc., can be converted to fuel + water by the Fischer-Tropsch reaction on various catalysts. FT diesel is one of the more promising fuels being produced by this route, but other fuels are possible, including ethanol, with the right choice of catalyst and operating conditions. Being thermochemical, this is not nearly as picky as approaches that use enzymes to process the biomass; it can even use old tires, garbage, coal, etc. as feedstocks. The downside is the plant has to be bigger to achieve economies of scale. Enzymatic corn ethanol plants can be small, which is one reason why you're seeing so many being built.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Reziac]

Sounds like what would be most efficient in total, is a whole bunch of small plants to process corn, sugar beets, or whatever, and one large, centrally-located plant to process all the waste cellulose (and whatever else) from the smaller plants.

But I was thinking of something a bit more "crude" -- compressed pellets of waste cellulose, to replace coal, wood pellets (such as for home-heating pellet stoves), etc. Easy to ship, no storage requirements other than keeping it dry, growing market.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Sj0]

a winner is you becuz ur speeling si so gud.

Re:Energy efficiency

[RogerWilco]

American (I think) Should be about 3.8 liters.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

This year, they're growing clover.

They are putting nitrogen back into the soil so that they don't burn the ground into a useless blighted spot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation.

Plants aren't magically renewable (I expect you know this; I read a technical post of yours down below, but it's worth saying). They have to have a specific chemical environment to grow, so whatever widespread scheme gets cooked up for using biofuels in the US had better take this into account (does anyone know if Brazil is watching this?)

Small farmers have been nearly stomped out, and I'm worried that a big biofuels push will cause the rest of them to decide to cash out now (and take all their passed-down-through-the-generations knowledge about growing with them).

P.S. I've read your posts below and they're _very_ interesting.

American market protectionism fails capitalism

[spineboy]

Wow - the tiny American alcohol producing industry has a choke hold on keeping pump prices inflated. I'm sure this protectionism tax is left over from trying to protect American DRINKING alcohol interests. Maybe if the alcohol was denatured (i.e. poisoned with a bit of methanol, making it unsafe to drink), could the foreign produced alcohol be imported without the tariff. Hell, I don't see why American sugarcane producers can't produce the alcohol for a cheaper price.

Damn wiould I like to see pump prices drop - I'm paying $3.70 out here in Los Angeles for premium 91 octane (we don't get the good 93 oct out here due to smog :-( ). While this is cheap compared to the rest of the world, I'm sure that we pay for the low gas prices by other means...

I'm sure once the American dependence on foreign oil abated, then the middle east situation (Iragi civil war) wouldn't "require" the American presence anymore......

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Kamineko]

(i.e. poisoned with a bit of methanol, making it unsafe to drink)

You underestimate the tenacity of students. *nod*

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[TobascoKid]

I'm paying $3.70 out here in Los Angeles

So that's approximatly $1 a litre - which is still almost half of what I (in London) have to pay.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[nagora]

I'm paying $3.70 out here in Los Angeles for premium 91 octane (we don't get the good 93 oct out here due to smog

Yes, quite. You don't think that ridiculously low prices like that might be part of the reason you have a smog problem?

TWW

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

91.. 93? Geez, here in the Netherlands you can't get lower then 95.. in Germany they even sell 100 octane fuel. Of course do we pay almost $6.50 for a gallon :)

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[torpor]

While this is cheap compared to the rest of the world, I'm sure that we pay for the low gas prices by other means...

of course, if your city was designed by the same entity/deity that is selling you new pollution-machines every year, i can't imagine this will be easy or feasible advice for you, but another solution might be to cure your own dependence on oil first.

i gave up owning a pollution-machine years ago .. its money i don't have to make and spend, and i feel a lot healthier for not having to live in a wheely box for a major portion of my life.

i conveniently moved closer to work (its a 3-minute walk in this well-designed 700 year old city) and i rarely ever get involved in any situation that requires me to drive anywhere i can't get with a bicycle. its simple. its not so easy for a lot of the consumers out there, but the point is: stop being such a consumer, and watch how much easier life gets.

okay .. i'm not fully cured: i still take the train to places i want to go, a taxi if i really need to (though i dislike doing so), and i use the local bus system (which is excellent) when necessary, and .. yes .. i'm sure there is a lot of oil-abusing infrastructure behind the machines i do maintain (synthesizers) but i sure as hell don't maintain a personal portable pollution-machine just for the apparent advantage it seems to give me.

the majority of the world walks to work: as do i. got no problems with it.

(PS - i also spent 15 years in LA without a car before i moved to europe, and i know for a fact it can be done there too .. its just a matter of social discipline..)

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Random832]

Octane ratings shown on the pump are different in the US - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating

93 octane in the US is about 97-98 in europe.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

• if your city was designed by the same entity/deity that is selling you new pollution-machines every year,
• another solution might be to cure your own dependence on oil first
• i feel a lot healthier for not having to live in a wheely box for a major portion of my life

Yeah, you might have reduced your SMOG contributions, but how about your SMUG contribution?

Use of fossil fuels is a complicated issue. It is not just about drivers in SUVs. Vehicles are common in the US because is has a very diffuse population. The US has less than 1/2 the population density of Europe, and less than 1/6 the population density of western Europe. People do not live clustered together (except in some cities). What may be a 5 mile walk in Europe might be a 20 mile walk in the US. Not a brilliant setup, I agree, but not something that can be fixed in the short term.

Probably the best solution is to switch to biodiesel and ethanol. Economically, oil imports cost about $300 billion a year (though this year will be higher). For a GDP of $12 trillion, this isn't a deadly value. If we changed to biodiesel or ethanol our costs would probably go up $100 to $200 billion. But this would probably be made up by growths in the economy due to hydrocarbon security.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[thing12]

I'm paying $3.70 out here in Los Angeles for premium 91 octane (we don't get the good 93 oct out here due to smog :-(

Then buy regular unleaded. 93 isn't better than 91, and 91 isn't better than 87 -- they're just different. It's fixed at ~15 cents above the price of regular because the additives used to get an octane rating of 91 or 93 cost the same regardless of the price of oil. And if your engine isn't specifically tuned to use higher compression ratios when running on 93, you'll get absolutely no benefit from using it. The energy level in 93 is the same as 87 -- unless the gas has been cut with ethanol as the octane booster, and then the energy level is actually lower. So, spending that extra money is foolish (unless your car uses a knock sensor or dedicated programming for higher octane fuel).

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[thing12]

ridiculously low prices

I don't think that the >100% tax that European countries place on fuel is the answer. But adding 25 or 50 cents to the existing 18.4 cent gas tax, or better, setting it at a fixed percentage of the pump price, would be a good revenue booster. Dropping the tariff on ethanol is a good idea. In fact dropping all taxes on ethanol would be a good idea. If the US govt taxed gasoline at a high rate and ethanol at zero, they could keep subsidizing the corn growers and eventually come to a market value for fuel that would be substantially lower than it is today.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Heywood J. Blaume]

Then buy regular unleaded. 93 isn't better than 91, and 91 isn't better than 87 -- they're just different.
Uhh, wrong. High-compression engines designed for midgrade or premium gas can be damaged under certain circumstances by running on a lower-octane fuel. My car's owner manual specifies 91+ octane. It runs fine on 89, but it pings on 87.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[nelsonal]

This has less to do with potential drinking and more to do with Presidential politics and the original organization of the country (specifically the senate). The midwestern farm lobby wields hugely disproportionate power relative to almost all measures (and they grow most of the country's corn. They don't want competition from Brazilian sugarcane, so they don't have it.

The reasons they hold so much power are first each state has 2 senators and representatives based on population. There is a large bloc of states that grow grains and have a near stranglehold on farm bills. Interestingly (some might say cynically) it the party of each state's elected officials matters little. Democrats like Daschle and Baccas or Republicans like Dole both protect their state's interest.

This area's influence on Presidential politics is twofold, first the President is elected by winning the electoral college, technically the popular vote is for electors and almost all states are majority rules. Because electors are assigned to states by adding their senators and representatives the less populated farm states have a larger voice in this vote. More importantly both parties know that all it really takes to win in the farm states is promise (and deliver) a fat farm bill.

The second reason is more psycological, but just as real. In the primary system, the parties choose their candidates in a series of state votes. These votes occur at various points in time. The nature of American culture worships winning so a candidate who can string together a few early wins has a large advantage in later primary races. Iowa's vote is one of the first two (with New Hampshire being the other early vote). Because Iowa's primary system is not a popular vote, campaign promises are easier to make there (you only need a majority of the politically active rather than all voters). So you have even more pressure to deliver generous farm subsidies.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[thing12]

Yes, but if you had read my whole post you'd see that I wasn't advocating putting 87 into an engine that's designed for premium.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[meringuoid]

If we changed to biodiesel or ethanol our costs would probably go up $100 to $200 billion. But this would probably be made up by growths in the economy due to hydrocarbon security.

But imagine... if the US switched to biodiesel or ethanol, what would become of all those jobs in aerospace and munitions industries? Without the necessity to go to war every couple of years to protect oil interests, the US would lose all interest in the Middle East, and all the war industries would collapse!

Surely you can see how this would be a Bad Thing.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Opportunist]

Try 6-7 bucks a gallon, that's what most of Europe is paying.

How we afford driving? By using cares that don't swallow a gallon per mile. Now, I don't "envy" you for your low gas prices. I don't even have a car. But I'd have to say that I think the low price for gas is one of the reasons for the problems in some towns. Cities are sprawling out, you can't buy anything nearby, if you need to buy groceries, you have to drive to some shopping area. Over here, more often than not there's a supermarket somewhere in the basement of an apartment building. Walk over, buy your stuff and carry it home.

This won't change over night, and it will cost a fortune to change it.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[rootofevil]

You also have a solid and reliable public transportation system. LA does not, by any stretch of the mind.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

I could currently well enough get around without a car if I really wanted to, but I'll admit to still feeling an irrational connection between owning a car and being an adult (comes from growing up in an area where I was a 20 minute drive away from anything. And who wants to ask your Mom to drive you to pick up your girlfriend). The biggest mileage I put on my car lately is driving to visit family who live 2-4 hours away. Not far enough to really justify flying, and the train schedules just aren't structured properly to let me go there and back for a weekend.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[the_Bionic_lemming]

So that's approximatly $1 a litre - which is still almost half of what I (in London) have to pay.

And you forgot to mention your money goes for Health care why? We're not getting anything out of the high prices other than gas in the tank.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[arivanov]

London subway? Reliable? You gotta be kidding mate.

It is an abominable joke that has nothing to do with modern transportation. It is the worst public transport system in Europe. Any other public system I have used around Europe is better organised, more technologically advanced and less crowded. Even some US cities have better transportation than London and it is not going to improve anytime soon.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[rootofevil]

Perhaps we should qualify that and say "more reliable and feasible to use than LA".

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[MarkGriz]

So that's approximatly $1 a litre - which is still almost half of what I (in London) have to pay.

To be fair, that's hardly an apples-to-apples comparison, since much of the price you pay is taxes.

According to Wikipedia

As of 2005 fuel duty in the United Kingdom is:
47.1 pence per litre (83 /L, US$3.13/USgal) for ultra-low sulphur unleaded petrol/diesel
Note: in the UK, Value Added Tax (VAT), currently at 17.5%, is also charged on the price of the fuel and on the duty.

The U.S. federal gasoline tax as of 2005 was 18.4/gal (4.86/L), and the gasoline taxes in the various states range from 10 cents to 33 cents, with an average about 22 cents per U.S. gallon (5.8/L). Unlike most goods in the U.S., the price displayed includes all taxes, rather than being calculated at the point of purchase.

For the UK, ignoring VAT, that's $3.13/gal in just tax. If you factor in the VAT, which gets applied to the
price of the fuel as well as the gas tax (nice, double taxation), you are probably closer to $4.50/gal in just taxes.

In the US, the tax is only about 40 cents/gal on average.

Ignoring the taxes, the fuel prices are pretty comparable.

BTW, you forgot to mention the congestion charge. Driving in London must be damn expensive.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[TobascoKid]

You've not tried to use the Northern Line, have you? :-)

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[TobascoKid]

To be fair, that's hardly an apples-to-apples comparison, since much of the price you pay is taxes.

How is it an unfair comparison? American's are complaining about the price of petrol they pay at the pump, which is still half of what people in the UK are paying at the pump. Yes, the high price of petrol is in many ways our own fault, but as the media keeps hammering home that people should be getting the warm fuzzies from such high taxes/prices as it "helps the environment", it's not going to change soon. It almost did a few years back, but the protests soon fizzled out.

BTW, you forgot to mention the congestion charge. Driving in London must be damn expensive.

I also forgot to mention Road Tax. Just having your car on the public highway costs money. They even have a nifty new computer system that knows when your tax is due, so if you want to take your car off the road for a while (which means that you don't need to pay road tax) you better let the government know, otherwise they'll fine you for not renewing the licence.

I have no idea where any of this money's going, very little of it ends up improving either the roads or public transport and the health system is paid for mainly from another set of taxes.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[TobascoKid]

Last week we had one warm day (warm by our standards anyway) and parts of the tube ground to a halt. Last Saturday, almost every line was part suspended somewhere for "planned" engineering works - usually when works are planned you get a fair amount of notice, I didn't see any notice until the Friday night. The Northern Line is a joke year round and I still feel like I'm taking my life into my own hands when the train goes underground thanks to what happened last year.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[MarkGriz]

How is it an unfair comparison? American's are complaining about the price of petrol they pay at the pump, which is still half of what people in the UK are paying at the pump. Yes, the high price of petrol is in many ways our own fault, but as the media keeps hammering home that people should be getting the warm fuzzies from such high taxes/prices as it "helps the environment", it's not going to change soon. It almost did a few years back, but the protests soon fizzled out

Not saying it's an unfair comparison, just that the gasoline itself isn't generally more expensive in the UK than it is in the US. The media often highlights the significant different in the price paid at the pump, as if we Americans should consider ourselves damn lucky to have "cheap" gasoline. Presumably the huge taxes are going somewhere productive, and I'd imagine the VAT replaces the American income tax system entirely.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Take away its tax and our gasoline/petrol likely have similar costs. That extra tax you're paying is funding your health care system, which costs half of what ours does, while giving you better care.

Add the cost of our insurance premiums (and our employers' shares of it) and I'm sure we're paying twice as much as you.

After all, your government may be full of self-serving wankers like all countries' governments, but at least they're not for sale to the highest paying foreign corporation like ours are.

(thinking of retiring in Europe...)

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Leon_Trotsky]

I'd imagine the VAT replaces the American income tax system entirely.

I thought the VAT was a sales tax on top of income tax.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

It might not be 'the' answer but it does have the benefit of stablising the price at the pump. This gives the advantage of constant interest in improvement of energy efficiency.
It also means that you can be far more certain as to your predicted energy costs, enabling better cost planning for individuals, businesses and shareholders, which benefits long-term economic stability.

I remember my uncle telling me about the oil crisis (when he moved from Brazil to the US). Many US Citizens believed they had the right to cheap gasoline under article 4 of the constitution!*

*Sorry, I'm a Brit so don't actully know the "in's and out's" of your constitution (or our own ;)

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[TobascoKid]

I'd imagine the VAT replaces the American income tax system entirely.

Nope, not even close. Most people's personal tax allowance (the amount of money they are allowed to earn without paying tax) is roughly 5000 pounds a year (there are differences depending on circumstances, but this is a roughly accurate figure). After that, the first £2,150 you earn is taxed at 10%, between 2,150 and 33,300 is at 22% and any taxable income over 33,300 is charged at 40%.

And this doesn't include National Insurance (equivalent to Social Security), which is a somewhat complicated calculation.

Some good info on our taxes can be found here. They're you'll find some of our other taxes like Council Tax, Capital Gains and Stamp Duty.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[AndersOSU]

because we cound never think of another reason to go to war like: religion, expansion, ideology, economy, boredom, general fiestyness, etc.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Martin Blank]

Smog is not nearly the problem that it's made out to be in Los Angeles. Back when I was in elementary school, hot months (basically April to June, then September and sometimes October) would see Stage 1 smog alerts often, and Stage 2 smog alerts with enough regularity that we stopped complaining about having to stay inside during recess and lunch. According to the LA Times, there were 121 Stage 1 alerts in 1977, and that dropped to seven in 1996. I don't even remember the last time that a Stage 1 alert was called in the LA area. All this has happened even as the volume of gasoline consumed has gone up significantly in the last 30 years.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Belial6]

I suspect that there would be more war in the short run. There is a lot of money in the Middle East. If the world stopped buying their major export, they would likely go into a major depression. Countries that go from wealthy to extreamly poor in a very small amount of time have a tendency to go to war. Nazi Germany anyone? Heck, they didn't even have the religious ferver to help in organizing the killing.

The long term war situation may or may not be different, but I suspect the short term would be ugly.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

'I'm paying $3.70 out here in Los Angeles for premium 91 octane (we don't get the good 93 oct out here due to smog'

Yes, quite. You don't think that ridiculously low prices like that might be part of the reason you have a smog problem?

TWW

It is not ridiculously low, your taxes are ridiculously high. Guessing you are from EU.

The LA smog problem is much improved over the years, guessing an order of magnitude over the early 70's and there are probably 30% more people living in LA than then.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[MarkGriz]

"I'd imagine the VAT replaces the American income tax system entirely."
Nope, not even close

You must be getting something we Yanks aren't for all the extra taxes you are paying (National health insurance?)
Granted, most states also have a sales tax similar to the VAT, but it's much smaller (on the order of 5-6%)

Some good info on our taxes can be found here. They're you'll find some of our other taxes like Council Tax, Capital Gains and Stamp Duty.

Interesting info. I love the picture of the woman reading all about taxes with a big smile on her face. Usually when I read about taxes, I've got one hand pulling out my hair, the other on a drink and you can bet there isn't any smiling going on.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

You really should drive on the American Interstates then. Driving from Las Vega to the Grand Canyon was an education and a half. Every bridge over a culvert was an exciting adventure into whether the potholes on the joins would rip the tires off the car. Even the worst stretch of dual-carrigeway in Britain seems like a driving Nirvana as compared to the I40.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Heywood J. Blaume]

Same leap you make when telling the GP that he doesn't need 91. He makes no mention of whether his car owner's manual specifies 91+ octane or not.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[thing12]

Although I did suggest using regular, my post was more commenting on his suggestion that 93 is the "good stuff" which made me think that he'd fallen for the good/better/best marketing gimmick. 93 octane isn't required for any production vehicle that I'm aware of. 91 is fairly common, my car "requires" it.. but I've never heard of a car that requires 89 -- so there's hardly any reason to even make it except to get a few extra cents/gallon from suckers who think it's better.

If you have a knock sensor, your engine should just compensate for the lower octane gas by running at a lower compression ratio. But even then, if a car requires premium, it's going to get better power and fuel economy when using it, and the premium you pay for buying premium is less than 5% these days... so there is little or no incentive to buy cheap gas.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[funkstick]

The smog is not due to the low gas prices, it's due to the climate and the geography. Los Angeles is subjected to a constant costal airflow, and is surrounded by mountains that have desert on the opposite side. The 'smog' is trapped. The only reason you can get away with gas prices as high as they are in Europe is the small relative size of the country and it's age. The US grew up in the oil age. Sticking your nose up and smugly implying "take the train you wankers!" just isn't an option here.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[TobascoKid]

You must be getting something we Yanks aren't for all the extra taxes you are paying

You would think so, but it's sometimes hard to tell. I know a lot is made about how we have more and/or better social services than in the states, but it's hard to believe that the services are so much better for the high price being paid. Ok, we have the NHS and while I'm glad we have it, it certainly doesn't explain the vast differences in tax levels and it's certainly not the be all and end all in medical care (if it was, private medical insurance/practice wouldn't be on sale here). And unemployment insurance doesn't get cut off (well, they do at least try and put pressure on people to get jobs, but I don't think they'd fully cut somebody off of all benefit). Then again, as a single, employed, car driving home owner with no kids I get the fun of paying for everything and getting little back in return, so I may be a bit bitter. Did I mention the TV Tax? :-)

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

93 octane isn't required for any production vehicle that I'm aware of.

Well, there is the Subaru Impreza WRX STI. That is, depending on your definition of "required."

Sure, it will run on 91... and perhaps not terribly badly, except for the early '04 models. It may knock, which may result in poor performance, and engine damage. The owner's manual states you can run on 91 "until 93 is available."

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[j-beda]

It is not ridiculously low, your taxes are ridiculously high.

Be that as it may, is the $1/gallon with or without factoring in the tax subsidies given to gasoline production in the US? this article puts the "true cost" of a gallon of US gas somewhere between $5 and $15. I wonder how we could get that paid directly at the pump rather than indirectly?

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[MarkGriz]

" Did I mention the TV Tax? :-)"

LOL. Always loved that one.

Fear not though. The US is a comparitively young nation, and given enough time I'm sure we'll rise to the challenge of increasing taxation for seemingly minimal benefit of the citizens.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Heywood J. Blaume]

If you have a knock sensor, your engine should just compensate for the lower octane gas by running at a lower compression ratio. But even then, if a car requires premium, it's going to get better power and fuel economy when using it, and the premium you pay for buying premium is less than 5% these days... so there is little or no incentive to buy cheap gas.
My car does have a knock sensor, that's why I'm able to run 89 instead of 91. But 87 still knocks. And a knock sensor doesn't adjust the compression ratio--there isn't a car in production today with an adjustable compression ratio that I'm aware of, forced-induction engines notwithstanding. Knock sensors are usually used by PCMs to adjust ignition timing, backing off on the advance to allow for lower-octane fuel. And contrary to intuition, my car gets better mileage on 89 octane, because the reduced spark advance, while producing lower peak power, produces better fuel economy, at least in my experience. YMMV (I just had to say that, it actually applies this time).

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[mshurpik]

That's a nice idea, I wonder how the study did their math. Their top-end subsidies add up to $1.6 trillion. US domestic oil consumption is 20m/day, at 42gal/barrel that's 306 billion gallons. Divide and you get their low end of $5. If you account for 36 gallons fuel in a barrel, that's still just $6.

Besides, $1.4 trillion of the subsidies are classified as environmental or "other," including travel delays, accidents, and subsidized parking. I suppose this is the point, but it's a huge grey area.

Still, if you're willing to grant all these things, EU gas prices ($4 tax?) make sense. The study doesn't show any way to get to $15 though.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Reziac]

My truck (Ford 302 V-8) can scrape by on our 87 regular, but would rather not... pings under load, doesn't want to go up hills, etc. It's much happier with 91 or even higher (used to be able to get 96, it loved that). You can really tell the difference every time it comes to a hill, especially when hauling a load.

Unfortunately, at SoCal gas prices, we make do with 87 octane, and resign ourselves to going up hills at 45mph.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[mshurpik]

Most people's personal tax allowance is roughly 5000 pounds...After that, the first £2,150 you earn is taxed at 10%, between 2,150 and 33,300 is at 22% and any taxable income over 33,300 is charged at 40%.

That's a complicated way of saying you get to keep $50,000 of the first $60,000 you earn. On $100k income you keep $74,000, not bad. On $300k income (which is possible for a power-earner couple) you keep $194k. An American would keep $214k, not a huge difference imho, and some of that difference would be spent on private health insurance.

Now on a $700k income (highly unusual)...Brit keeps $434k and American keeps $475k. Not too different!

Meanwhile, 8-11% on National Insurance sounds analagous to Social Security.

The big difference is the VAT, 17.5% sales tax whereas in the US, you can have anywhere from zero to 9% (usually state/local policy) and the latter sometimes drives people up the wall.

Here's the American tax chart I used.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

only that once you've got grocery stores in apartment buildings in the states, you are already too dense and the folks with a higher income are moving out toward the rurals and suburbs where the businesses are going. they will pay for all of the public services that go with the sprawled land too. with each leap in transportation efficiency, the further away the jobs will go and the money will follow. that's part of the urban poverty problem in the states that lots of cities in europe just dont face.

there's no need to be smug because gasoline prices are higher than that of the state's. the main issue here is the type of fuel used in transporation, and the bottom line is the less it costs to transport materials and finished products, the less those things will cost to acquire, demand goes up due to lower prices, production goes up, and economies go up. the world is the final frontier for companies today, so forget fossil fuels, and in the long run, forget this entire article.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Carewolf]

Actually the fuel taxes collect slightly less than what is needed to maintain the roads.

The US you just pay for roads over income tax instead of fuel tax.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Carewolf]

I thought the _smug_ was the bigger problem in LA?

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[Builder]

Where are you paying $3.70 a gallon?

Ignoring the fact that $3.70 is half of what we pay in the UK roughly, I just got back from LA last week, and I didn't pay more than £3.20 anywhere.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[torpor]

Yeah, you might have reduced your SMOG contributions, but how about your SMUG contribution?


oh, for sure, i'm far less smug than i used to be, driving 2 hours a day in a big fat mercedes, all alone, sitting in my little box, slowly destroying the world ..

now, when i get to the office, the smile on my face is because the wind blew my hair, the sun shined down, and i was in the middle of it all, and not a drop of oil at all compelled me along ..

you want smug? watch 10 cars drive by on the 405, then another 10, then another 10, then another .. all of those people could've been on a single bus together.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[meringuoid]

I suspect that there would be more war in the short run. There is a lot of money in the Middle East. If the world stopped buying their major export, they would likely go into a major depression. Countries that go from wealthy to extreamly poor in a very small amount of time have a tendency to go to war.

Sure, but it would most likely be with each other - a bunch of recently impoverished nations scrapping over whatever pitiful resources they have left. Assuming (whether by biodiesel, or by nuclear / hydrogen, or whatever) that nobody needs their oil any more, would we even care? Or would we completely ignore the whole lot of them the way we do with all the bloody mayhem in Africa?

I can imagine the EU would be concerned - we'd have a massive refugee problem on our hands - but I doubt the US would pay the slightest attention.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[thing12]

Ah yes -- it's ignition timing I was thinking of not compression. I think I got it in my head a few years ago that they were now making engines with variable compression... but apparently that's not true. Thanks.

Re:American market protectionism fails capitalism

[j-beda]

I don't know how they did the math either - maybe there is some difference between ALL oil consumption and transportation oil consumption? I do think that it would be a very good thing to at the very least, try to minimize the amount of tax subsidies that oil gets - if doing so makes oil too expensive for "the poor" then we could directly give the susidies to "the poor" rather than artificially supporting an industry that we should be trying to move away from in the long term. Heck, put a 20 year gradual reduction on those subsidies to "ease the transition" and we would still be better off in my opinion.

Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Ending the tariff is a good start, but it's pretty hard for corn farmer's to compete with sugar as an ethanol base material.

The obvious solution is to allow farmers to grow hemp - it's one of the easiest crops on the planet to grow (no spraying for pests, low irrigation, etc). Oil from the seeds can be used to run (unmodified) diesel vehicles, and the leftover material can be made into ethanol has four times the energy density of corn (about 2/3 that of sugar).

Oh - but this is in the land of the free - and we can't let the corn farmers compete, lest they plant a few thc bearing hemp plants in the middle of their crop. After all, a few stoners will mean the end of society as we know it.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[PrinceAshitaka]

Four times the ethanol density of corn?(2/3 of sugar?) I find that hard to believe. The property of vegitable matter that determines how much ethanol will be produced is the sugar content of said vegitable matter. Hemp doesn't have that much sugar in it. This is why sugar caen is so much better for producing ethanol than corn. No matter how sweet the corn sugar cane will have more.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Aglassis]

Hmm... I wonder if it is possible to create a GM hemp plant without the THC. Would research on that be banned?

I hear a lot of people discuss the benefits of hemp in one way or another. It seems to me that if that is the case, then removing the THC (if possible) would be a good solution. I think the US government would more easily legalize hemp if you could prove that it couldn't produce THC.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[I(rispee_I(reme]

Don't know if this is a troll or not, but commercial hemp has no THC and has been that way since at least 1999. The politicians kill attempts to introduce it with fearmongering over the possibility of people growing marijuana in the fields alongside the commercial hemp, as the two plants appear identical.

I think the real solution is to throw the current, holier-than-thou administration out on its ass and follow Mexico's lead regarding controlled substances.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

It seems to me that if that is the case, then removing the THC (if possible) would be a good solution.

How about allowing farmers to sell THC rich varieties as well. That way, you can get money from taxes, lower your dependance on foreign weed, reduce funding to criminals and still get the crop benefits listed above.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[/ASCII]

No GM needed, hemp plants without THC have always existed. It's illegal to grow hemp because it is hard to tell 'stoner hemp' and 'non-stoner hemp' apart. And by hard, I mean it's not enough to glance at the shape of the leaves from a distance.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Four times the ethanol density of corn?(2/3 of sugar?) I find that hard to believe. The property of vegitable matter that determines how much ethanol will be produced is the sugar content of said vegitable matter. Hemp doesn't have that much sugar in it. This is why sugar caen is so much better for producing ethanol than corn. No matter how sweet the corn sugar cane will have more.

Hmmmmn, I can't find the story I was reading that had those figures - and they do seem a little too good to be true.

However IIRC it was gallons per acre per year IIRC - hemp was high as you could get more crops per year & had a higher energy unit as you could burn part of the plant to extract ethanol from the rest.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[value_added]

The obvious solution is to allow farmers to grow hemp

Obviously. But maybe start off more slowly so as not to upset the voters in the red states?

My idea would be first to start with buying cheap sugar from Cuba. That'll ease the ethanol transition, lower the price of soft drinks and snack foods, and resurrecting the popularity of smoking by making good cigars more fashionable. From there we can move to growing hemp.

Just think, one day we'll all be able to stay home and drink rum, smoke cigars or get stoned while watching I Love Lucy reruns, or fill up the tank with no worries.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[gowen]

It's illegal to grow hemp

Only in the Land Of The Free (tm).

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Aglassis]

How about allowing farmers to sell THC rich varieties as well. That way, you can ... lower your dependance on foreign weed

I must say that I like your logic!

But that wasn't my point. I'm a realist. There isn't going to be an illegal drug revolution in the US in the next 20 years (even with hemp). I'm just trying to focus on the issue of useful things you can do with hemp, other than smoke it. But as other posters have mentioned (and I wasn't completely aware), THC-free hemp has been available since 1999 and is still not legal. What it will take to change that, I don't know. Realistically, it might be better to import hemp-derived hydrocarbons from a country that doesn't ban hemp. Yeah, I know it is sort of idiotic.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Unski]

You clearly haven't seen the authoritative 1936 anti-drug movie 'Reefer Madness', also released under the following aliases;

Dope Addict (USA) (reissue title)
Doped Youth (USA) (reissue title)
Love Madness (USA) (reissue title)
Tell Your Children (USA) (reissue title)
The Burning Question (USA) (reissue title)

If you saw this movie you would know the evils of driving whilst high, and that it will make you kill people. And if you're killing us, you're with them.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

But that wasn't my point. I'm a realist. There isn't going to be an illegal drug revolution in the US in the next 20 years (even with hemp). I'm just trying to focus on the issue of useful things you can do with hemp, other than smoke it.

It's good to be realistic - but the most realistic point of view is that it's impossible to stop the cultivation of high-thc-content-hemp if you allow the cultivation of thc-free hemp.

THC-free hemp has been available since 1999 and is still not legal.

Yup, its still illegal as it's almost intistinguishable from high-thc-content-hemp unless you actually smoke it. It wouldn't be particularly hard to grow a few hunded kilos of nice high quality weed in the middle of your legal hemp field without anyone notiving (and in fact, this has rumoured to have happenned in countries where thc-free hemp crops have been trialled).

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Inda]

It was not a troll. He was saying the same thing as you.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

You clearly haven't seen the authoritative 1936 anti-drug movie 'Reefer Madness', also released under the following aliases;

You link to the IMDB summary? Dear God man - that classic educational film was made in 1938, has fallen into the public domain and can be legally downloaded from archive.org.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Anonymous Coward]

but it's pretty hard for corn farmer's to compete

LOL, all that land and they can't figure out how to plant anything but corn? I have as much empathy for them as I have for programmers who get their jobs outsourced and can't figure out how to do anything else.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[ChildeRoland]

Do you really think that the current administration is the only reason that marijuana is illegal?

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[hankwang]

it is hard to tell 'stoner hemp' and 'non-stoner hemp' apart.

Fiber hemp is cultivated to make long unbranched stems (like 3 meters high). THC Hemp is cultivated to be strongly branched, and lower, since it is the ends of the stems where the THC-rich flowers are.

Moreover, the THC comes from unpollinated female flowers. Putting the hemp in the middle of a field containing pollen-rich male plants is a surefire way to destroy the 'stoner hemp' harvest, as well as any illegal cannabis farm in a radius of several kilometers. :-)

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

With a quick Googling, it looks like switchgrass has about 4-4.5 the energy density of corn, without the politics surrounding hemp.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[nelsonal]

I think that citation includes the hempseed oil. It was my understanding that soybeans and canola were more energy efficient than corn as well.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

With a quick Googling, it looks like switchgrass has about 4-4.5 the energy density of corn, without the politics surrounding hemp.

True - and I guess from a pure energy-production standpoint switchgrass is most certainly the crop of choice for Northern America.

However - hemp is a far more versatile crop. Itcan be used for paper, rope, & oil-based products, hence is a more attractive cash crop to farmers.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Unski]

Dear Whiney Mac Fanboy,

I apologise for my lackadaisical, mindless insertion of an IMDB link. I did not stop to consider that someone else might have seen it elsewhere on the Internet. The link you give has been most provident, for I seek re-orientation on this matter and will be watching this seminal treatise once more. I think only of the children, a matter upon which I am sure we are agreed upon, and will be showing it to them in order to prepare them for when other children offer them cannabis reefers in the playground at Infant's School. I have already briefed them extensively on the pertinent issues surrounding Crack Whores, and I feel this will round off their social development, enabling them to actuate effective pre-teen habits.

Best wishes,
Concerned of America *


* I'm not from the USA.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[geoffspear]

You think giving the voters in the Red States a newly legal cash crop to grow (guess who the big farm states voted for in the last election) is going to piss them off more than sending money to the Evil Communists Who Want To Kill Us All in Cuba? Your political savvy is astounding.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[pete-classic]

It's good to be realistic - but the most realistic point of view is that it's impossible to stop the cultivation of high-thc-content-hemp if you allow the cultivation of thc-free hemp.

History indicates that it is impossible to stop the cultivation of high-thc-content hemp if you disallow the cultivation of thc-free hemp as well.

I'm of the opinion that we are doomed as a people if we can't get out government out of the business of trying to protect us from ourselves. The governments job is to protect us from outsiders and each other.

-Peter

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[TykeClone]

It was my understanding that soybeans and canola were more energy efficient than corn as well.

Per bushel or per acre? In Iowa, we get at least three times the number of bushels of corn per acre than soybeans.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cane sorghum is the answer, butthe grain industry isn't having anything that isn't grain. Sorghum is drought resistant and has a lower demand on the land. Also, if we use cane sorghum, we can damn near copy the brazilian ethanol plants that burn the stalks to fire the boilers. We still won't come out nearly as well, as we can only get 1 crop a year in most of the U.S., while the sugar cane growing areas of brazil get 2 crops a year.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[tinkerghost]

Would research on that be banned?
It might as well be. When I was in school (87-91), my horticulture prof had a grant from some asian country (S. Korea or Tiawan[sp?]) to do research into getting longer fibers in the hemp plant. In order to grow the hemp, she had 4 bankers boxes of paperwork sitting in her office, and an armed guard at the greenhouse 24/7.
Know what you needed to do to get radioactive material out of the physics storage lab? Say Prof. X needs the canister of ....
By the way, one of the major reasons hemp is illegal in the US is William Randolf Hurst - the newpaper guy. Hemp makes higher quality paper and has 10-20 times the per acre yeald of trees (2 harvests a year vs 1 every 5-10). Mr. Hurst owned vast tracts of forrest in the Pacific NW & felt threatened by that. So money and legality are not new aquaintences.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, then start growing some. Please let us know where so that we can see your crop.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[nelsonal]

Per gallon of input fuel used. If oil is the limiting factor you'd want to make darn sure you were getting more out than you put in. Algae grown in big ponds in the desert would be the most effective of all (it was not far from oil sands extraction).

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Tweekster]

You realize the red states is where much of the illegal marijauna is grown and used right?

There are very few people that are really against pot anymore. Most either dont care, want it legalized, or want some sort of regulations (to varying degrees). Mostly they care about underage people getting it, which is trivial for them as it is.

It has been a while since someone has said, "marijauna should be illegal becuase it is dangerous and wrong"

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Professor_UNIX]

Don't forget you're dealing with stoners when any talk of hemp for fuel or clothing comes up. Naturally in their state of being continually high they'll believe any bullshit they read. Hemp also cures cancer in case you haven't checked lately.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[g0bshiTe]

all that land and they can't figure out how to plant anything but corn

It's quite possible that growing corn yields more $$$ per acre/pound come harvest time. Not to mention corn is used in several different ways, on the cob, cream, can, pop, grits, hominy, cornmeal as opposed to say string beans.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been driving high for 13 years now, have had a total of 5 tickets & I've never even had a fender-bender (knocks on wood).

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hemp also cures cancer

I know you were being sarcastic, but now that you mention it...

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[edunbar93]

Four times the ethanol density of corn?(2/3 of sugar?) I find that hard to believe.

They may have meant that you get 4 times the energy out of hemp compared to corn, not based on the amount of energy per bushel, but when you offset how much energy goes into growing and harvesting corn, which is a hell of a lot. The advocate in question seems to indicate that hemp doesn't require things like fertilizer or pesticides and as such, is a very low cost crop. Of course, fertilizer and pesticides would likely increase the yeild greatly, but that's not the point. ;)

Somehow I suspect that the real reason for advocating hemp is so that pot can be cheap, not gas.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Anonymous Coward]

[Together, congress spits out their coffee in a fit of laughter.]

That's just not an option, sonny, because marijuana prohibition is a huge cash cow for the US government. The US now has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world, due primarily to the jailing of non-violent marijuana producers, distributers, and consumers.

What do you think benefits government more, in terms of both revenue and power over the people: running a huge, out-of-control prohibition racket like we see today, or actually respecting the individual's god-given rights to self-ownership and voluntary association? Consider the simple business model of government: you take money from some people, you distribute it to other people, and you keep a cut for yourself. Of course they attempt to hide the truth -- no politician in his right mind would admit that government makes money on more government. As it stands, the administration costs for prohibition are measured in billions of dollars.

The fact is that prohibition, especially marijuana prohibition, makes government bigger. It provides government with more revenue, more power over the people, and more precedent for futher expansion of power. Short of war, prohibition is possibly the most effective technique for expanding and securing power, and that is exactly why prohibition will never be abolished. (The only reason why alcohol prohibition was repealed is that the people actually recognized they were being scammed. Today, goverment is so entrenched our lives -- from the day we are born to the day we die -- that most people can't so much as imagine anything but big government.)

Imagine if tobacco and caffeine were prohibited -- think how much bigger and more powerful government would become as a result. Don't worry, they're already planning for it (in the case of tobacco, they're halfway there).

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Nimey]

And you can smoke it, which is what this is really about.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[dajak]

Don't forget you're dealing with stoners when any talk of hemp for fuel or clothing comes up. Naturally in their state of being continually high they'll believe any bullshit they read. Hemp also cures cancer in case you haven't checked lately.

Does the qualification 'stoner' include Henry Ford and Rudolph Diesel? The diesel engine was built with hemp seed oil in mind, and only later adapted to use crude-based 'Diesel #2', and Ford used hemp seed oil for fuel, engine oil, and lubricant before WWII.

Hemp was the most obvious source of oil in Europe before crude oil was discovered, and the most traded commodity in the world up to the 1830s. Its best qualities are biomass per acre and that it will grow everywhere and is extremely drought-resistant. Besides that it is also great for making paper (and grows a lot faster than trees).

Sensible farmers in the Midwest will immediately switch back from corn to hemp if the US government allows it. The American and Russian plains are perfect for hemp (and very little else).

Smoking industrial hemp grown in a moderate climate is an extremely inefficient way to get high.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[f1055man]

or at least that's what you've heard, right?

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[eheldreth]

I am a very conservitive person from a "Red" state. I have no problem with leagalazation. The constitution does not set limits on what substances we may or may not consume niether does it give the federal government that power. I think that the current perversion of the interstate conmmerce law to ban drugs and various fire arms along with it's other misuses is extreamly unconstitutionl. I believe each state has a consitutional right to decide for themselvs, that is what that pesky 10th amendment says is it not. Most of the people I know, even the staunchest of republicans do not have an issue with leaglization. My dad who is a baptist minister is for leaglization. I think your assumption that "Red" states are somehow against personal freedom and blue states are not is a bit color blind. You may find that it is not the people of either set who have these issues rather it's the congress critters, and not just the "Red" ones. Just for clarification I consider myself an indy and not a repulbicrat of any color.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[jafac]

Does the qualification 'stoner' include Henry Ford and Rudolph Diesel?

Maybe not, but I'm sure it includes Carl Sagan - well known stoner, and gullible idiot. Yep.

The set of people who are the most gullible that I know of are Rush Limbaugh listeners, who are told that all drug addicts are a threat to society and should be thrown in prison.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[jafac]

I've got an acquaintance (who is an avid Anne Coulter reader and Bush supporter) who smokes more pot on a daily basis than anyone I've ever known. And that includes from back when I was in Art School. I would say that he definately has a psychological dependency on it. He has three kids, and said he would kick their asses if he caught them smoking pot.

He believes it's dangerous and should be illegal. He also frequently drives with open liquor. Of course, I can't do that stuff at all, because I get tested at work.

And I'm trying to carefully undo the damage that D.A.R.E. programs have done to my kids' thinking. While his kids are homeschooled, and aren't even exposed to D.A.R.E.

Yes. We live in backwards-world.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[jafac]

Gene-splicing not necessary.

"Industrial Hemp" is low THC. I've heard that it's not possible to smoke enough to actually get high. Cannabis has been specially bred by humans (for at least 5000 years if not more) to produce both high and low THC varieties.

The argument put forth by Republican congressmen in the past 6 months or so that all the legalization efforts that states have tried need to be STOPPED by federal law, because Cannabis plants are supposedly a lot more potent and powerful than they used to be in the 1960's is complete bullshit. Of course it *seems* more powerful when you're 50 years old, have abused your liver with alcohol, and haven't smoked it since you were a teenager.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[mrcrazyface]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the THC that removes the need for pesticides by essentially stoning the bugs to death when they try to eat the plant? I don't know if there are THC-tolerant/immune bugs out there though.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[jafac]

One more thing about potency:

George Washington grew hemp on his plantation. His farmer's journal says so. And it specifically states that he took the effort to separate the female plants from the males. Which is something you do if you are specifically breeding it for potency. This is not an urban legend. The passage is there in his journal - I googled it years back, you can tool.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're responding to someone from Holland; I'd say there's a reasonable chance they know from experience.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[jafac]

I'm of the opinion that we are doomed as a people if we can't get out government out of the business of trying to protect us from ourselves. The governments job is to protect us from outsiders and each other.

Governments have been protecting people from themselves since Hammurabi's time (x000 B.C.). So, when exactly is this "doom" supposed to arrive? IMO - it already arrived, and it's here to stay. Is it a good thing? I don't think so. Will it "extinct" humanity? I don't think anything's going to prevent that eventuality.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Jim_Callahan]

Um... I don't know how to break this to you, Fan, but Marijuana and Hemp are not the same plant. If you smoke that hemp rope you bought at WalMart, all you're going to get for your trouble is respiratory damage.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[jafac]

Mr. Hurst owned vast tracts of forrest in the Pacific NW & felt threatened by that.

I don't know if I buy that.

Why didn't he just buy some farmland and grow hemp instead?

It's not like we don't have other uses (demand) for wood.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Tweekster]

The pot apparently isnt dangerous, HE IS which is made obvious by the comment about driving with open containers.

Unfortunately most people think that legalization also means Walmart selling it to any child with money and not a situation similar to alcohol.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, you kids today...

Moreover, the THC comes from unpollinated female flowers. Putting the hemp in the middle of a field containing pollen-rich male plants is a surefire way to destroy the 'stoner hemp' harvest, as well as any illegal cannabis farm in a radius of several kilometers. :-)

Back before Reagan tried to get us all to switch from pot to cocaine, almost all pot was seedy. Much of today's pot is seedy, as well.

We would separate the "shake" from the buds, saving th ebuds for when you really wanted to get totally wasted rather than mildly high.

The seeds are only waste weight. A seedy ounce may actually only weigh a quarter after removing the seeds (which taste BAD when smoked). This is one way they can say with a straight face that today's pot is stronger than yesterday's (although killer is far more easily obtainable nowadays).

Your plant's genetics and the amount and intensity of the sunlight it recieves determines its THC content. It doesn't matter if it's polinated or not, nor what polinates it. If it's polinated from non-THC hemp, it will still get you as high, but if you grow those seeds, they'll not produce pot anywhere near as good.

That doesn't matter anyway, because hemp is trivially easy to clone.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[rossifer]

Don't forget you're dealing with stoners when any talk of hemp for fuel or clothing comes up. Naturally in their state of being continually high they'll believe any bullshit they read.

I'll bite. Ad hominem (twice).

Hemp also cures cancer in case you haven't checked lately.

Strawman. Hemp has almost no THC or other cannabinoids and would do about as much for getting you high as smoking a ball of twine.

Smoking marijuana, however, can improve the appetite of those on chemotherapy, which does help with recovery times and outcomes. But nobody believes it cures cancer.

Hemp, on the other hand, makes for a fantastic natural fiber that lasts 2-3x longer than cotton in the same yarn thickness and weave. It also makes stronger ropes than sisal, and the oil is an excellent starting point for biodiesel (with an energy fraction of 3.8).

Finally, and this ought to be a huge win for people who don't like marijuana, farming a field of hemp destroys any nearby marijuana plants. The pollen from the hemp field will cross-fertilize the marijuana and cut the next generation's plant's THC production in half. Do that a couple of times, and it's all hemp. But then, modern prohibition makes about as much sense as alcohol prohibition did...

Regards,
Ross

P.S. Pretty good average on the argumentative fallacies per sentence (3:3). A bit wordy if you're looking for a high fallacy per word ratio, however.

P.P.S. I've smoked pot twice in my life. Both times more than 15 years ago. So, I'm not much of a "stoner". I still think that drug prohibition is idiotic and is simply here to justify the ever-growing police forces around this nation.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[rossifer]

Somehow I suspect that the real reason for advocating hemp is so that pot can be cheap, not gas.

If hemp is cheap, marijuana is more expensive, not less. When hemp is common, you have to move all marijuana production to filtered air environments as the hemp will cross-pollinate the marijuana and destroy THC yields (hemp's THC yield is 1/100 to 1/10,000 of marijuana). If the government wanted to cut domestic production of marijuana by half, they'd subsidize hemp planting and force all marijuana producers to move indoors. No more marijuana stands hiding in corn fields.

But this little dose of reality doesn't seem to have made it very far. Since hemp is the same species of plant as marijuana IT'S BAD!!!

Regards,
Ross

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Suidae]

It's illegal to grow hemp

For now. There are plenty of initiatives to enable farming of hemp. Recently North Dakota started pushing ahead with plans to allow hemp farming.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Secrity]

I think your assumption that "Red" states are somehow against personal freedom and blue states are not is a bit color blind.

What is your source for this assumtion?

On June 15, 2005, the House rejected a medical marijuana amendment by a vote of 161 to 264. Nine representatives spoke in support of the amendment and five representatives spoke in opposition to the amendment. ALL of those who spoke in OPPOSITION to the amendment were REPUBLICAN and ALL of those who spoke in FAVOR to the amendment were DEMOCRATS. The voting also generally followed the same party lines.

On September 10, 1996, the Senate passed H.R. 3396, the Defense of Marriage Act. ALL of the REPUBLICAN Senators voted to take rights away from gays and lesbians and forteen DEMOCRATS voted AGAINST taking rights away from gays and lesbians.

All of the states that have passed anti-gay rights constitutional amendments have been "Red" states.

South Dakota, which is a "Red" state, recently passed a law taking the right away from women to have an abortion.

I believe that it is fair to say that the record for the past 10 years is that Republicans (typically from "Red" states) tend to vote against personal freedoms and that Democrats (typically from "Blue" states) tend to vote for personal freedoms.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[rossifer]

The politicians kill attempts to introduce it with fearmongering over the possibility of people growing marijuana in the fields alongside the commercial hemp, as the two plants appear identical.

Except they should be thrilled about that possibility. A hemp field destroys nearby marijuana plants. The hemp and marijuana will cross-pollinate, destroying the marijuana's ability to produce THC. Widespread hemp production will force almost all marijuana production indoors (with good filters on the air supply), which makes it much more expensive than it is now.

But then, I'm expecting rational thought out of politicians, which really is crazy...

Regards,
Ross

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[MenTaLguY]

Actually, you can't get high off of industrial hemp; the THC content is negligible.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly they care about underage people getting it, which is trivial for them as it is.

This is precisely why it should be legalized. A kid can buy pot in high school. He can't buy beer in high school. Any kid will tell you pot's easier to get than beer.

I don't want them drinking, either, but it seems we're doing a better job keeping them away from the legal, regulated substance than the one that's banned for everyone.

There are very few people that are really against pot anymore.

You'd be surprised. Usually the argument is "pot leads to harder drugs".

The answer is almost always "no it doesn't." What the answer should be is "pot doesn't lead to harder drugs, but the people who sell harder drugs also sell pot. "No weed this week dude, want some coke?"

And some less than honest dope dealers will take schwag and dust it with PCP or whatnot - this argumant against pot is a damned good reaon it should be legalized.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[hackstraw]

commercial hemp has no THC and has been that way since at least 1999. The politicians kill attempts to introduce it with fearmongering over the possibility of people growing marijuana in the fields alongside the commercial hemp, as the two plants appear identical.

AFAIK, commercial hemp will ruin the marijuana because it will pollenate it.

Besides population control, hemp is also illegal in the US because it subsidizes the paper industry out of tradition.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[hackstraw]

Do you really think that the current administration is the only reason that marijuana is illegal?

It will take the current administration to make marijuana legal.

Just ask the Canadians who had limited legal access to marijuana and now that the conservatives are in the government their liberties are declining.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[eheldreth]

I did not say that red states where free from political abuse, rather that both parties share an equal blame. The two parties just atack libirties from different angles. The patriot act was a bipartisan bill, and a continuation of clinton era legislation. Most gun legislation is backed and introduced by the democratic party. My only point is that there are better ways to approach political issues than to blame the other side. We could start by voting for individules who will do what is right and not what is politicaly convinient, regardless of what party they belong to. As for your other comments, all powers not specificaly deligated or prohibited in the consitution are remanded to the states. Each state has a consitutional right to define drug laws, marage laws, even abortion laws as they see fit. There is not constitutional right to a government endorsed marriage. I will agree though that it is not the federal governments place to pass marrage laws any more than I believe it's thier place to pass gun or drug laws.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Secrity]

The PATRIOT act was a bipartisan knee jerk law passed in 2001 (long after Clinton left office). The voting for the PATRIOT Act Reauthorization bill in 2006 was largely along party lines and I believe that only 1 Republican voted against it.

I agree that the Democrats are guilty of pushing for Federal anti-gun laws.

Name one electable person that is likely to do what is "right" rather than toe the party line, and who defines what is "right"?

I agree with you on constitutional "States Rights". Your original argument statement said something to the effect that some some people believe that ""Red" states are somehow against personal freedom". I gave examples of "Red" state laws that abridge personal freedoms and of laws passed or rejected by Federal politicians that abridged personal freedoms. One example I gave showed where "Red" state politicians voted against a "States Rights" issue (the Medical Marijuana amendment).

As you say "There is not constitutional right to a government endorsed marriage." OK, then the Full Faith and Credit clause in the Constitution should not apply to ANY marriage. By the same argument, why does the US government recognize marriages performed in Kansas or Germany, but not recognise certain legal marriages performed in Massachusetts or Canada?

The Constitution does not give the Federal Government the right to control drugs, the Federal Government gave itself that power.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[budgenator]

class of '73 and saw it in health class. We wondered why we could never get that high.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[splatter]

Just so you know, You made a friend today....

Good to see other knowledeable geeks making cross forum posts, and helping to spread the word and cease the FUD!

What other forums are you in CC,OG, spirit,nook,shroomery?

DP

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[splatter]

Your correct in that THC is a pesticide & keeps some bugs away. I say some because growers still have to take measures verse a few types of bugs that didn't get the memo!

I do not know how it functions though so I can not comment on "stoning them to death", I believed though is was the sent that keeps bugs away from the plant not the drug effects, but I recently also read a study that extracts can be used as a natural fungicide and pesticide, so maybe your closer to the truth then I am.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[From A Far Away Land]

It would be an interesting thing to confirm. Do you have a source(s) that can show us that THC production is a recessive trait that will be overpowered by the non-medical marijauna?

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[rossifer]

My original source was NPR, (but keep reading for the summary of a google search). My understanding is that the THC won't disappear or be shut off like a light, but will be diluted by half in the next generation. THC is found in hemp, just in amounts that are vanishingly small. Further, THC appears to be created by the interactions of multiple genes, so you don't have a simple 4-box Punnet square to predict outcomes (more similar to eye color than blood type).

Perhaps I should rephrase my original phrasing from "destroying" to "diluting" or "eroding". In any case, the next generation of marijuana won't be as good as the grower intended, which will reduce it's street value dramatically and force the grower to find new, uncontaminated seeds for his next crop.

When I google for "hemp marijuana pollination", there are 14,700 total results from that search. On the first page are these interesting sites:

Here's been a cross pollination study done in Canada described here which basically says it's an even split in the next generation.

You may not like the heritage of the next reference, but the "North American Industrial Hemp Council" has a Myths and Realities paper which discusses this point briefly.

Here's a marijuana seed supplier which suggests (down in the fine print) keeping a reserve of seeds in case your crops accidentally get cross pollinated with ditchweed (the hemp that grows naturally all over the country) and you can't plant the next generation.

Hope that helps.

Regards,
Ross

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[MyNymWasTaken]

Because he owned significant amounts of land dedicated to growing cotton.

Hemp also produces better & longer-lasting fabric than cotton does, and it doesn't destroy the land like cotton does.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[mizan]

Perhaps you should do some research before spouting off caustic remarks like that. There are quite a few studies that show THC and other marijuana components could have anti-cancer & tumor properties. I've linked a few, you can do the rest of the legwork.

http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract /jpet.103.061002v1
http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/111/1/43
http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/full/17/3/529
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/20 05/08/29/newscolumn6.html

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[Suicyco]

Actually, as I read it, it was collusion between DuPont chemical and Hearst. Hearst published the yellow press which got "marihuana" banned before anybody knew they were banning hemp. DuPont had recently been awarded several patents on the sulfuric acid process used to break down tree fiber to be usable as paper, as well as the invention of Nylon. It meant huge sales for DuPont, and also protected Hearsts vast forest lands as a source of income.

Hemp had in the previous decades become a very viable source of newsprint paper as a new process had also been invented to make it much easier to break down hemp fiber for paper use. The owner of the wood fiber process obviously won out. The hemp process was a machine kinda like a cotton gin. Not a lot of renewable profits for the owner unlike the chemical process of DuPonts.

The DuPont patented process meant huge profits for them in licensing and chemicals. The hemp technique was mechanical and would have seriously cut into their new profit stream.

Really it was all about paper and rope. I am surely not exact in my knowledge so take this with a grain of salt, but I did read the Emporer Wears No Clothes some years ago and it was enlightening. The great thing about the book is half of it is actual photocopy of the public record evidence. The newpaper articles, the legislation, transcripts from congressional hearings, all of it is right there to support the conspiracy theory. At the end the conclusion is pretty clear.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[ChildeRoland]

It takes much more than the White House to legalize something like that (think about who illegalized it in the first place, hint - it wasn't the president).

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[pete-classic]

Allow me to revise.

So long as we demand governments that treat us like children we will never advance to the next stage of social development.

-Peter

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[jafac]

Interesting. Thanks.

Re:Ending the tariff is a good start.

[MtViewGuy]

Hemp? Forget it!!

Especially now with the potential of extracting ethanol from any form of plant cellulose (they've just about reached pilot plant point for this process). Because plant cellulose is VASTLY more common than a high-sugar source such as sugar cane/sugar beets or corn, this could tremendously increase the production of ethanol for fuel, since agricultural waste can be used for this purpose.

By the way, due to the low BTU density of ethanol, I don't think E85 fuel is the best solution even if the engine is optimized for E85 fuel, because you will need to fill up much more often. The better solution is E40 fuel, which strikes a better balance between less need for imported oil and better motor vehicle fuel economy.

Who cares?

[mwvdlee]

Seriously; is anybody thinking that the US will consider any other aspect but "protectionism"?

Re: Who cares?

[Black Parrot]

> Seriously; is anybody thinking that the US will consider any other aspect but "protectionism"?

Depends on whether the alcohol importers' lobbyists have more money than the domestic alcohol producers' lobbists.

Re: Who cares?

[geoffspear]

It's not just about money; no politician with Presidential aspirations (which, although most of them won't admit it, is all of them) is going to risk pissing off Iowa.

Re:Who cares?

[Spy der Mann]

Seriously; is anybody thinking that the US will consider any other aspect but "protectionism"?

Specially when they take advantage of other countries which DON'T have protectionism. I still wonder why Mexico (my country) has to import a fixed quantity of american corn, when we have our OWN corn that hasn't been sold yet? :-/

Re:Who cares?

[bagsc]

Telling voters "I voted for this bill that brought gasoline down five cents a gallon" is probably more votes than $100,000 of advertising. Politicians aren't that stupid.

Sugarbeet?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the sugary sugarcane is more efficient than using corn, why not try to convert sugarbeets into ethanol? Granted I don't know all the complexities of generating ethanol from biomass products, but just following the seeming link between high sugar content of the cane and applying it to our beets.

Re:Sugarbeet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the Sugarcane is more efficient in converting sunlight into chemical energy, and is also far more energy-dense in terms of field size. Sugarbeet plants are much smaller, and can't be grown as close together as stalks of corn can be.

Re:Sugarbeet?

[ocbwilg]

If the sugary sugarcane is more efficient than using corn, why not try to convert sugarbeets into ethanol? Granted I don't know all the complexities of generating ethanol from biomass products, but just following the seeming link between high sugar content of the cane and applying it to our beets.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that the higher yield has less to do with the sugary content of the cane and more to do with the cellulose content of the stalks. That's why they're talking about making cellulose deriveed ethanol from the waste products of paper mills (no sugar there) or orange juice plants (from the leftover peels and skin of the fruit).

Re:Sugarbeet?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, why not GENETICALLY MODIFY sugar beets so that when processed, can produce more ethanol.

Re:Sugarbeet?

[dajak]

(from the leftover peels and skin of the fruit)

What will they use as 'real fruit' in yoghurt then?

Lower MPG?

[opkool]

Reading in the TDI Club I was surprised to read that Ethanol provides worst MPG than pure gasoline.

Does anyone have information on this topic?

Because if Ethanol provides worst milleage, and it is not energy-efficient to prodce Ethanol... this might be just a marketing campaign, not a fuel product.

Peace

Re:Lower MPG?

[TobascoKid]

I don't think it's the MPG that's the point of ethanol, it's that you're not putting excess carbon into the atmosphere. If you grow plants to make ethanol then they will soak up the carbon that was put into atmosphere from the last lot of ethanol produced from plants. With fossil fuels, you just keep puting carbon into the atmosphere and it's not getting taken back out.

Re:Lower MPG?

[value_added]

Reading in the TDI Club I was surprised to read that Ethanol provides worst MPG than pure gasoline.

Does anyone have information on this topic?

Sure.

worst: (adjective) most bad, severe, or serious.

worse: (adjective) less good, satisfactory, or pleasing. 2 more serious or severe. 3 more ill or unhappy.

wurst: (noun) German or Austrian sausage.

Re:Lower MPG?

[blackest_k]

Miles per gallon isn't the critical thing its cost per mile that matters.

For example here LPG gets around 10% less miles per litre than petrol however the cost of LPG means its less than half the cost of running on petrol.

Re:Lower MPG?

[TobascoKid]

For example here LPG gets around 10% less miles per litre than petrol

I read somwhere that it was 50% less - which always made me wonder what the point was, as if it's roughly half the price of petrol but needs twice as much, then there's no net benefit (excluding the congestion charge). If it is only 10% less than there is a point to it.

Re:Lower MPG?

[AsbestosRush]

IIRC, it's because of the power output of ethanol is signifigantly lower than diesel and gasoline, therefore to make the same amount of power with ethanol, you have to burn a bunch more of it. Measured in joules, I think the output of burning ethanol is roughly half that of gasoline, so to generate the same power, you have to burn twice as much of it.

Re:Lower MPG?

[pfdietz]

If that (power output is lower) is the case, it's only because of improper engine design. The vehicle should be able to inject more ethanol without making the mixture too fuel-rich. This should actually cause there to be more mass in the cylinder at a given temperature, so power should be higher. Modern engines with oxygen sensors should be able to tell the difference and adjust the fuel injection accordingly.

Re:Lower MPG?

[hcdejong]

It's somewhere between 10 and 20 %. IDK where you got the 50 % figure, but it's way off.
In the Netherlands, I currently pay E 0,50/l for LPG, versus E 1 for diesel and E 1,50 for petrol.
(Yes, my car runs on LPG)

Re:Lower MPG?

[mangu]

Modern engines with oxygen sensors should be able to tell the difference and adjust the fuel injection accordingly.

They do, and that's why cars made in Brazil today come with so-called "flex" engines, which can burn any proportion of ethanol to gasoline, from 0% to 100%. The driver can adjust his own proportion according to relative price, availability, and fuel economy. Today this usually means they fill with 100% ethanol, but they could change this if there is some scarcity in ethanol for some reason (think higher prices for sugar, which would make manufacturers more reluctant to produce ethanol).

Re:Lower MPG?

[TobascoKid]

IDK where you got the 50 % figure

IIRC, it was from a leaflet from a company that carries out LPG conversions. Maybe they didn't want the work :-)

I often see LPG sold at about 50% of the price of petrol/diesel - usually around 45-50p a litre (last time I looked), with petrol at around 95-98 and diesel now over a pound.

Re:Lower MPG?

[Sique]

First: Ethanol is less dense than Gasoline. If you compare volumes instead of weight, Ethanol is at a disadvantage. Second, Ethanol already contains some oxygene in the molecules, thus the energy density is lower anyway. Ethanol produces about 29,7 Megajoule per kg if burned, Gasoline about 47 Megajoule per kg. Pure Hydrogene would produce 143 Megajoule per kg, while pure Carbon (Anthracit) gets about 33 Megajoule per kg.
In the end it's always a compromise between ease of transportation (pure Carbon wins), energy density (Hydrogene wins), ease of combustion (again Hydrogene), safety of storage and transportation (Carbon), handling of fuel (any liquid fuel like Ethanol or Gasoline) and other aspects of operation.
Ethanol has the big advantage that it's energy source is free (as in beer) and will be for the next 5 billion years. That might help Ethanol to overcome the other obstacles, as the big area necessary to grow the plants, the complicated processes to refine the plants to Ethanol and the low energy density, which makes the transportation of Ethanol more expensive.

Re:Lower MPG?

[KlomDark]

Please define your use of LPG:

Liters Per Gallon?
Lovely Pregnant Girls?
Liquid Propane Gas?
Little Polly's 'Gasm?

Re:Lower MPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, I was thinking "Large Purple Genitalia" myself.

Re:Lower MPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

If sausages were puns, this one would be the wurst.

Re:Lower MPG?

[z-kungfu]

One of the biggest problems, even with flex fuel vehicles, is that they are still primarily set up for gasoline and only view ethanol as an afterthought. Ethanol requires higher compression than your average pump gasoline to get any sort of performance. E85 is rated at 106 octane. Your average pump gas is 87-91. In order to better take advantage of the energy in ethanol you would need to raise the compression a few points. This will offset the energy difference and put them on a more equal footing. Especially since an alcohol engien runs cooler than a gasoline engine.

Re:Lower MPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes me sad that this post got modded +5, Informative for making fun of his incorrect grammar usage, while other posts that intelligently addressing his actual question have only reached +3.

Re:Lower MPG?

[mima1895]

You are obviously misinformed! You should have asked your government. The Michigan Gov. website (www.michigan.gov) says: "The result is a much cleaner burning fuel that is just as efficient as standard fuels." Silly person, of course its better-- you almost committed a thought crime.

Re:Lower MPG?

[ocbwilg]

Reading in the TDI Club I was surprised to read that Ethanol provides worst MPG than pure gasoline. Does anyone have information on this topic? Because if Ethanol provides worst milleage, and it is not energy-efficient to prodce Ethanol... this might be just a marketing campaign, not a fuel product.

It depends on how you look at it. It is a fact that ethanol generates less power per unit than gasoline. Based from this, 10 gallons of gasoline will get you further in a flex fuel vehicle than would 10 gallons of ethanol. I have read somewhere than 1 gallon of gasoline has the energy of roughly 1.5 gallons of ethanol. However, ethanol is also considerably cheaper at the pump than gasoline (at least in countries like Brazil with strong ethanol industries) and even after accounting for the lower fuel economy it is still a net cost savings over gasoline.

There is also tremendous benefit in being less dependent on importing oil from countries that want to destroy America. Firstly, we're not giving money to people who want to blow us up. Secondly, we're not putting our economy in the hands of a country full of people who want to blow us up. Of course, there is also the added benefit of redirecting all of those US oil dollars to the American heartland instead of sending them overseas.

Finally, there is a great deal of debate about the efficiency of ethanol production. Some studies show that for typical corn-based ethanol you get 1.3 units of energy out for every 1.0 unit you put in. That's not terribly efficient. Other studies say you get .8 units out for every 1.0 unit you put in. That's even worse. However, there are several other useful products that are generated from the process of turning corn into ethanol (animal feeds, etc) that may increase the value, if not the efficiency, of the process. Then there is the ability to produce ethanol from other products besides corn, which have a much much higher energy yield ratio than 1.3:1. Brazil uses sugar cane, but you can also use waste from paper mills or even prarie grass.

If you're really interested, posting on Slashdot isn't the best way to find out. Try Googling ethanol and cellulose.

Re:Lower MPG?

[jafac]

There's really two issues here (aside from the spelling/grammar nazism):

If you include the costs of the energy required to make the equipment that would be used to increase ethanol production to replace gasoline, yes, ethanol takes more energy to produce than gasoline.
Of course, this calculation does not include the cost of equipment and human lives to secure petroleum resources in the Middle East to produce gasoline.

In other words, this "Ethanol is a net energy sink" argument is utter bullshit.

However, the other issue - "miles per gallon" - of course. A 20 gallon tank of ethanol takes you less far than a 20 gallon tank of gasoline. About 15% less far. So what? A 20 gallon tank of diesel (petro or bio) takes you farther than a 20 gallon tank of gasoline, (plus, producing petrodiesel from crude is a more efficient process than producing gasoline from crude), but you don't see everyone flocking to diesel.

Why? Because diesel (petro) is a horrible polluter. (and doesn't offer the cold-weather flexibility of gasoline).
But compared to Ethanol, gasoline is a horrible polluter. Gasoline puts carbon into the atmosphere. Ethanol extracts carbon from the atmosphere in it's production phase, and puts it back in the combustion phase.

So the gp poster has a point, but it wasn't clear which one he was talking about. With regard to the production issue - that argument is bs. With regard to the energy-density issue - that problem is resolved by using flex-fuel vehicles. Burn ethanol for commuting the 20 miles to and from your daily job. Burn gasoline when you're driving cross country to see the folks in Florida, if you absolutely MUST have that 400-mile-between-fill-ups range.
(or buy a diesel, and get a 600-mile-between-fill-ups range all the time, and run it on biodiesel to eliminate net-carbon dioxide, particulates, and sulfur oxides from the emissions).

Re:Lower MPG?

[paco3791]

you must be new here.

Re:Lower MPG?

[The Wooden Badger]

The weight vs. density observation is valid, but you have to compare volume's instead of wieght until we can pressurize tanks to contain a weight of fuel rather than a volume of fuel.

The oxygen already in alcohol raises an interesting question in my mind. If the oxygen containing alcohol group in ethanol C2H5(OH) is easily used in the combustion, would it not lend to a more complete reaction? I didn't pay that much attention to the reaction kinetics in my chemistry classes, so maybe someone else could shed some light. If the reaction is more complete, there should hypothetically be less harmful exhaust.

I like the idea of ethanol fuel for cars, due to how renewable it is (and in a certain sense it cleans up after itself). I just wish there was the infrastructure. For those of us that have vehicles that can use ethanol, how many can actualy purchase ethanol? I know I can't, and I want to at least try it out.

Re:Lower MPG?

[Jim_Callahan]

The reaction won't necessarily be any more complete, as it still requires attack by an external oxygen molecule. The barrier to the corresponding reaction in the absence of burning (oxygen gas and heat oxidation) is large enough that that reaction is insignificant by comparison in a fuel situation. Which is a good thing, because otherwise your beer would spontaneously explode (not burn, explode) on hot days.

Re:Lower MPG?

[Sique]

I don't think volume matters that much than weight. You always find some spare room to put a tank in. Space is not that precious in a car. My car can carry 20 gallons of gasoline, but just the trunk has at least 250 gallons, the whole passenger room about 800 gallons. Increasing the volume of the gas tank by 100 percent would just remove 2,5% of space if it were taken from the passenger room. Normally a tank is outside the passenger room for security reasons anyway, and the space between the rear wheels, where the gas tank resides, is not fully occupied by this. This wouldn't even affect overall measurements of the car at all. The sizes of gas tanks are more designed with a 500ml distance to go on a refill than with the maximum capacity in mind.
But weight is precious, firstly because this is pulling each time you are accelerating or braking. A full refill of my tank increases the car weight by 5%, and if I am using ethanol for refill, I would have to take in 50 percent more to store the same amount of energy, thus increasing the weight of the car by 2.5%, and this directly affects the mileage. And transporting the ethanol with trucks or rail waggons would add at least 30% penalty on the transportation costs (it may not be the full 50% because the transporting system has a minimum weight which is independent of the actual freight).
The weight of the whole system is also a reason why liquid gas or hydrogene have not caught on with cars yet: The tanks have to withstand much more pressure, and thus are more heavy, even when empty, and leakage is much more dangerous, thus increasing the weight again for the additional security systems. For more heavy vehicles like busses or trucks there are viable liquid gas systems available, because there the weight of the tank is much smaller compared with the overall vehicle weight. There are several towns whose public busses run on liquid gas instead of gasoline. In Italy liquid gas is available at most of the gas stations, thus also many cars can run on both liquid gas or gasoline, but those cars are more heavy and make sense economically only because of the lower liquid gas prices.

Re:Lower MPG?

[Shao Ke]

Woohoo! I could crank up the boost on my turbo Miata :). Seriously, to offset the reduced energy available from ethanol vs gasoline, car makers could build higher compression engines. This would preclude going back and forth to crappy California gas though, and that would be a long way off.

Re:Lower MPG?

[dajak]

If that (power output is lower) is the case, it's only because of improper engine design.

To prove your point: the Saab Aero 9-5 BioPower engine (designed for Sweden where E85 is common) is 310hp on ethanol and 260hp on petrol. Torque is also 25% higher on ethanol.

Re:Lower MPG?

[budgenator]

it's a lot cleaner burning, I know people who failed their emissions test on unleaded, ran out the tank, put in 10 gal of E10 and added a gal of straight methanol then passed the test with flying colors. Check out Clean air choice for info about cleaner E85, not scamming emmissions tests.

Re:Lower MPG?

[Overzeetop]

According to the EPA (in a report I can't find right now), the Ford E85 trucks running on Gasoline get 14city/18hwy, on E85 ethanol blend get 10city/14hwy.

Re:Lower MPG?

[nCnt]

Best Post Ever by a gnazi.

same in the uk

[celardore]

In the UK there are heavy taxes on ethanol too. It's a shame, because those duties are pretty much restricting alternative fuel uses.

For example: It's pretty much cheaper to use a diesel engine than to use biodiesel that you make yourself. (if you're a 'good' citizen and pay all taxes due)

Reeks of inhibiting progress to me.

Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[node 3]

While this is an important issue, I'd like to see corn lose its protection as a sweetener as well. High fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar as the primary sweetener in our (American) diet, and the studies suggest that HFCS is really quite bad for us. Not only is it a sugar (with all the inherent health issues), but your body doesn't seem to count it when it comes to curbing hunger, so HFCS calories don't replace, but add to, the rest of our diet.

Not to mention cane sugar tastes better. If you'd like to compare, next time you see an old-fashioned bottle of soda, check and see if it's from Mexico. They still use sugar (check the label to be sure), and compare it with the flavor of a domestic bottle of the same brand. You might be surprised at how different sugar and corn syrup taste as a sweetener.

Just imagine, there's an action our lawmakers could take that would help curb obesity, diabetes, fuel prices, and pollution!

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[Garrett Fox]

I thought we were mostly using sugar beets these days.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[shut_up_man]

Interesting side note though - an American friend of mine came to Australia and couldn't stand the locally-produced versions of Coke, Pepsi, etc. He would bring back cases of corn syruped soda when he visited the states, because he greatly preferred that flavour to the Australian can sugar version.

Funny thing is, it seemed to work the exact opposite way for me. In the US, I'd try soda and go "Ewwwww so much sweetness!" and pine for good old cane sugar soda from back home.

Australia pizza, on the other hand, is complete crap.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[plover]

Sugar beets are more popular in the midwest, where they are commercially grown. And I don't like the taste of sugar-beet derived sugar nearly as much as the taste of cane sugar -- I specifically only buy cane sugar in the grocery store for the table and for cooking.

As far as soda goes, I only drink diet and I also notice widely varying tastes of that across the country. Since I figure it's probably the same batch of aspartame used everywhere, I've always blamed the taste differences on the taste of the water at the local bottling plant.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[Pray_4_Mojo]

Just imagine, there's an action our lawmakers could take that would help curb obesity, diabetes, fuel prices, and pollution!

Yes, and at the same time, alienate healthcare lobbyists, energy/oil lobbyists, and the automotive industry. Do you think its an accident that we're unhealthy and drive the average lowest mpg cars in the world?

I'm not fat! I'm.....American.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[ChristTrekker]

Yeah...Mexican Coca-Cola actually tastes good. I merely tolerate the US variety when faced with the absence of Pepsi.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[shotfeel]

Wether it comes from corn or sugar cane, sugar is sugar (AFAIK its the same fructose either way). Is there some reason to think that sugar from cane is associated with fewer health risks that sugar from corn?

Yes, they do taste different, but that's because of the other stuff that's in there.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[Xichekolas]

You mistakenly assume that obesity, diabetes, fuel prices, and pollution are more important than golf, free meals, yachts, and cushy-for-life-salaries... Congress knows what it wants, and knows how to get it.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[runexe]

Down here in the eastern Caribbean, the local Coca-cola bottling companies use the local produced cane sugar as a sweetener too. It really does make a difference - I usually don't like coke very much, but it's much nicer with the cane sugar (and that island rum of course).

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[damian cosmas]

There is at least one domestic soda produced with sugarcane. Kind of hard to get it outside of the Northeast, but not impossible. They don't make cola, but their Root Beer, Birch Beer, and Black Cherry are really quite exceptional.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[damian cosmas]

Wether it comes from corn or sugar cane, sugar is sugar (AFAIK its the same fructose either way).

Refined sugar is sucrose, which consists of a molecule of glucose covalently bonded to a molecule of fructose. Corn syrup is simply a mixture of glucose and fructose. "High-fructose" simply means that there's more less glucose than fructose. Now at the most basic metabolic level, that makes very little difference, since the one of the first steps in digestion of glucose is conversion into fructose. The difference is in what happens to sugars that aren't converted to energy, which is why:

Is there some reason to think that sugar from cane is associated with fewer health risks that sugar from corn?

Possibly. In rats and monkeys and such, increased fructose consumption has been shown to lead to blood chemistry associated with increased risks of heart disease and diabetes.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[MikeXpop]

Interesting side note to *that*. Last month, Coke put out Kosher Coke for Passover in the US. Since grains are not Kosher during Passover, corn syrup is not either, so Coke ships out some bottles with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.

I picked some up, because I had heard of it before and was curious. I had my first glass and.... WOW. That was amazingly sweet. It was sweeter than the HFCS coke. It really didn't make sense to me, since HFCS is a sweeter syrup than cane-sugar-based sucrose. I assume Coke added more sugar to please the Americans.

I may still have the bottle at home. I'm curious to see how much sugar was in there compared to the HFCS coke.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[maxume]

You can also get cane sugar cola buy purchasing two liter coke with yellow tops. Bottlers make it up for passover, when corn is a no-no for some people. It might also be beet sugar, but it's sucrose.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[shotfeel]

Thanks for the clarification. After I posted I started wondering if that was the case (complex vs. simple sugars, different isomers...).

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[wiredlogic]

I'll add that Nantucket Nectars (available in the northeast US) also use sucrose as a sweetener. They are a refreshing break from the corn syrupy crap that is so unjustly foisted upon us by ADM.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[itof500]

Actually this is not the case. Fructose is absorbed from the gut and enters the cells of the muscle and liver where it is trapped by phosphorylation by fructose kinase. One of the fundamental controls of intermediary metabolism is control of the initial phosphorylation of glucose by insulin mediated gluco (liver cells) or hexo (others) kinase. In other words the fructose is absorbed into the cell and there trapped regardless of the hormonal state of the animal. In fact, one animal model of adult onset diabete melitus is to feed a rat large quantities of fructose, wherein they develop the classic insulin tolerance.

Bottom line - sucrose is not especially good for us, and high fructose corn syrup is worse.

duke (M.D., Ph.D.) out

(ref Biochemistry, editor Devlin, 2006, p597)

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just go buy Coca-Cola products from your local kosher supermarket during passover... "Carbonated Water, Sucrose, Natural Flavors, Phosphoric Acid, Caffeine"... The 2 liter bottles usually have yellow caps with hebrew characters on the top as well as having "Passover" printed on the clear section at the top of the bottle

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[can'tthinkofagoodnic]

It's not really a conspiracy as you suggest. In the 70's we switched to corn sweeteners to disconnect us from the world sugar market. Imagine if the price of Pepsi changed every day like gasoline does. Steady prices on staples like this are good for our economy, so that's why the change was made. If we could domestically produce coffee and oil, we would. And we'd be free from the push and pull of the world's biggest commodities markets. That said, yeah the stuff is way worse for you than sugar.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[ehiris]

How much more soda did your American friend drink compared to you? The thing with corn syrup is that it tricks you into thinking that you are still hungry and need more.

The sweet stuff you can't have too much of and having small portions is un-American. I love sugar-cane soda and so do a few other people I know but if I have more than 2 *glass* bottles I get too wired and "sugared out".

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[mshurpik]

Refined sugar is sucrose, which consists of a molecule of glucose covalently bonded to a molecule of fructose.

Well that would make sense. By short-circuiting the breakdown of sucrose, you've just pointed out that fructose corn syrup is a drug.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[mshurpik]

It really didn't make sense to me, since HFCS is a sweeter syrup than cane-sugar-based sucrose.

I don't think anyone's ever argued that fructose syrup is sweeter than sucrose. However, according to some posters, fructose is further down the metabolic pathway. "Sweeter" to your stomach maybe, not your mouth.

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[bagsc]

It's probably Brazil's fault - 420 million metric tons of sugar cane scares the 280 million metric tons of corn produced in the US per year. Gotta save our farmers from being obsolete since we can't even feed our pigs all that corn.

(Though politicians will probably blame Cuba's meager 12 million metric tons, conveniently closer to the Eastern US than the Midwest.)

Re:Corn vs Sugar yet again.

[Reziac]

I can taste the difference between beet sugar, cane sugar, regular corn syrup, "high fructose" corn syrup, and sucralose... in descending order of preference. (Actually, I can't eat sucralose at all, it tastes *too* odd.)

Cane and beet sugar, while the sugar itself is chemically identical, taste different due to beet sugar usually having certain impurities.

Ever notice that Hershey's Chocolate Syrup in the *metal can* is thicker and tastes better than the stuff in the plastic squeeze bottle? The canned variety uses regular corn syrup; the squeeze-bottle type uses high-fructose corn syrup.

A couple years ago, Nestle's sweetened instant tea mix switched from sugar to high-fructose corn syrup (and then to sucralose). I noticed the diff with the first swallow... ick, what'd they do to this? [reads label] no wonder! I called the company and complained, but their attitude was... tough shit.

Sugar probably costs more, and most people can't taste any difference. Or aren't sufficiently offended to switch to another product. Not me, I demanded a refund, then went back to Lipton (still has real sugar, tho the tea fraction isn't as good).

Duh.

[hummassa]

Except that, with oil at current prices, it's Waay cheaper to fill your tank with ethanol than to fill it with gas.

But, seriously, though: the same car, on ethanol, makes 10-20% worse mileage than with gas. Down here we have "flex-power" (ethanol/gasoline flexible fuel system) cars, and if a car gets 12km/l(30mpg, 8l/100km) on gas, it usually will get 10+ km/l (25mpg, 10l/100km) on ethanol. Currently, in my town, the pump price for alcohol is about R$ 2,10/l (US$ 3.85/gallon) and the pump price for gas, R$ 2,50/l (US$ 4.59/gallon), which is a 19% difference.

IOW: renewable and non-renewable fuels break even (with a slight advantage for ethanol) on mileage per dollar.

On the performance side, on ethanol cars tend to have a higher final speed than on gas, but they have some 5-10% less torque.

Re:Duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the U.S., ethanol can't compete on its own merits. The main thing that is driving its use as a main fuel source (e.g., E85) are the huge government subsidies. I would suspect that besides the obvious market inefficiencies (and what happens when it is so widespread and still requires subsidies?) that this new use may cost us in other ways. If we used ethanol purely as a fuel additive then very high octane gasolines could become commonplace nationwide. This would allow for higher efficiency engines because turbos would be able to use more boost and engines could have higher compression ratios. Unfortunately something like that requires long term thinking and people and governments generally aren't into that.

Re:Duh.

[hummassa]

Here in the U.S., ethanol can't compete on its own merits. The main thing that is driving its use as a main fuel source (e.g., E85) are the huge government subsidies. I would suspect that besides the obvious market inefficiencies (and what happens when it is so widespread and still requires subsidies?) that this new use may cost us in other ways. If we used ethanol purely as a fuel additive then very high octane gasolines could become commonplace nationwide. This would allow for higher efficiency engines because turbos would be able to use more boost and engines could have higher compression ratios. Unfortunately something like that requires long term thinking and people and governments generally aren't into that.

I forgot to mention that our gasoline is already 20% ethanol (and our ethanol contains methanol and gasoline so you can't [ou shouldn't] drink it)... The US have another disadvantage: corn ethanol is energy-inefficient and expensive. I think the most energy-efficient/cheaper ethanol is our sugarcane ethanol: but we *do* have a problem when the market is hot for sugar (as it's the case right now) (*)

(*) two years ago, the price difference between gas and alcohol was up to 60% (alcohol being 0.4 times the price of gasoline per liter) because the market was not hot for sugar.

1 gallon petrol != 1 gallon LPG

[PhilHibbs]

I don't think cost is the main benefit, it's the enironmental cost. LPG is still in its infancy and so I wouldn't expect it to be a money-saver other than via subsidy or tax breaks. A gallon is a unit of volume; evaporate a gallon of water and you have many, many gallons of water vapor. I'm not really up on the details of LPG and the chemistry involved but I don't think gallons of LPG are directly 1:1 comparable with gallons of petrol.

Re:1 gallon petrol != 1 gallon LPG

[hcdejong]

Evaporation has nothing to do with this. The L in LPG means Liquid. It's stored as a liquid, and in newer systems, it's injected into the cylinders as a liquid as well (LPi).
One litre of LPG weighs about 0,5 kg. Its energy density is a bit lower than that of petrol.

LPG is attractive for two reasons:
1. It is a waste product from refining oil. You basically get it for free.
2. It's a mix of butane and propane, with very few impurities. This means it burns cleanly.

Re:1 gallon petrol != 1 gallon LPG

[PhilHibbs]

Thanks, that's interesting. If its mass density is roughly half that of water, then that kind of confirms my supposition that volume is not a useful measure of a fuel, and can't be used to compare fuels.

Re:1 gallon petrol != 1 gallon LPG

[dajak]

LPG is still in its infancy and so I wouldn't expect it to be a money-saver other than via subsidy or tax breaks.

LPG has been used commercially - without any subsidies - as a car fuel for some 60 years at about 50% of the price of petrol, and is available at gas stations in a number of countries in Europe. Many European and Japanese car engines can be retrofitted for LPG.

Here in the Netherlands it used to have a market share of 12% 20 years ago but it dropped to 4% over the last years because of rumours that the government will prohibit selling LPG at gas stations. The reason is that the LPG tanks at gas stations are theoretically very dangerous if a customer mishandles the pressurized LPG nozzle and someone nearby is illegally smoking. No accidents with LPG of this kind ever happened, but it is fashionable for governments nowadays to treat its citizens like complete morons just in case.

Re:1 gallon petrol != 1 gallon LPG

[hcdejong]

Well, the huge price difference between LPG and petrol in the Netherlands is mainly due to LPG being almost untaxed, unlike petrol. Not quite a subsidy, but definitely a tax break. The price of LPG is balanced with road taxes, with the result that running an LPG vehicle is cheaper than petrol if you drive more than about 15,000 km/yr.

Re:1 gallon petrol != 1 gallon LPG

[PhilHibbs]

LPG has been used commercially - without any subsidies - as a car fuel for some 60 years at about 50% of the price of petrol,

I'm delighted to hear it. What do you mean by 50% of the price though? If it's per litre, please see my earlier comments about the stupidity of comparing fuels by volume, it's as crazy as comparing sugar and sweetex by volume. See the earlier comment that says "I read somwhere that it was 50% less" (miles per litre). This test indicated around 77% for a conversion vehicle.

Re:1 gallon petrol != 1 gallon LPG

[dajak]

The comparisons here usually compare LPG, diesel, and petrol relative to amount of kilometers per year. Vehicle and road tax for LPG is much higher (the 'risk premium'), but the marginal price difference between LPG and petrol will eventually tend to 1:2 per kilometer.

Per litre it is 1:3, as LPG is normally roughly E0.50 compared to E1.50 for petrol.

The rule of thumb is that you use petrol (cheapest cars) if your car stands still most of the time, diesel if you drive regularly, and LPG if you are on the road most of the time.

sugarcane may be better...

[phlegmofdiscontent]

But where do you think the Brazilians get the land to produce that sugarcane? The same place they get the land to produce the beef that goes into McDonalds hamburgers. I'm surprised the "save the rainforest" people aren't up in arms yet. I'm against protectionism and tariffs, but Brazilian farmers do need to change the way they do agriculture. I'm not sure increasing demand for sugarcane is going to encourage them to change anything.

Re:sugarcane may be better...

[mangu]

where do you think the Brazilians get the land to produce that sugarcane? The same place they get the land to produce the beef that goes into McDonalds hamburgers.

Not really. The Amazon forest is being destroyed for growing cattle, that's true, but land in the Amazon region is not suitable for growing sugarcane. Slash and burn agriculture is very unproductive and not profitable enough to justify the rather complex production of sugar and ethanol.

Cattle eats a large variety of grasses and blades, in a tropical climate whatever grows in the land after the forest is cut will do for low-productivity cattle growing. Beef has a high enough price per kilogram to be profitable under such circumstances.

Sugar and ethanol are a different matter. Their price is not high enough to justify transporting the sugarcane long distances. Therefore, it's usually grown in a far more intensive way than cattle is in tropical regions. Check your local supermarket and gas station if you have any doubt, the price per weight of fuel is much lower than the cheapest beef you can buy.

Re:sugarcane may be better...

[TerminaMorte]

Why do they need to change the way they do agriculture?

I know 'save the rainforest' is a nice and trendy cause to get behind, but the truth is there are MORE trees on the planet today than there were 10 years ago. Probably in part to people in 'save the rainforest' groups, but certainly we shouldn't stop people from farming land just because we like the pretty flowers.

Re:sugarcane may be better...

[pfdietz]

I understand sugar cane actually enriches the soil on which it is grown; there are places near the coast of Brazil where cane has been grown for hundreds of years, with increasing yields.

One theory about this is the charcoal produced when burning back the stubble is causing progressive enrichment of the soil. Charcoal, it has recently been discovered, is a wonderful soil amendment for tropical soils, preventing the loss of many important nutrients that would otherwise wash right out. Pre-columbian inhabitants of the Amazon basin terraformed huge areas by adding charcoal, creating 'indian dark earths' that are highly fertile even today. 'Slash and char' agriculture could be a huge advance over 'slash and burn'; it also sequesters carbon in the soil.

If cellulosic (or lignocellulosic) ethanol processes become dominant, we may see the rain forests being cut down to produce the fuel, and perhaps converted to tropical tree farms (perhaps with charcoal soil improvement). Water and sunlight are available and usable year round in the tropics, so the yields per acre per year would be much higher than in temperate zones.

Re:sugarcane may be better...

[Bryansix]

Don't forget that Cuba produces sugercane as well. Although convincing the US to lift the trade embargo with Cuba might be difficult, it would help us all.

Re:sugarcane may be better...

[phlegmofdiscontent]

There may be more trees on the planet than 10 years ago, but most of those are in temperate and boreal climates. From Wikipedia:

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

"In a span of just ten years between 1990 and 2000, the total area of forest lost in the Amazon rose from 41.5 million hectares to 58.7 million hectares - an area twice the size of Portugal, with most of the lost forest becoming pasture for cattle."

I hate to sound like a tree-hugger because usually they piss me off. I realize most of this comes from an increased demand for beef in the developing world, and where there's demand, supply must grow. But you'd think we could come up with a better way to do it.

Sounds good in theory

[BoredWolf]

but I'm not sure that ethanol is the solution. It is a short-term fix for a long-term problem. Removing the tariff on ethanol made with sugar is sensible, because it produces more energy per unit during combustion. Gasoline is corrosive, as is ethanol. Therefore, by putting it in a car engine, we are shortening the life-span of the car's engine. It would make a great deal of sense to have a more energy-efficient fuel in that car so that you get more 'bang for your buck'. I think what really needs to be addressed in the government, though, is the future of transportation/fuel sources in america. This isn't a battle over obscene profits for oil companies or getting a tariff removed, it's the realization that our fuel source for the past 100 years or so is not unlimited, and that the countries that hold large reserves of oil can (and will) leverage their position against us. Political grand-standing has focused most americans on ineffective issues, and it will likely be left to the states. Recognize that this problem will not ultimately be solved by saving 53 cents-per-gallon on ethanol, but by finding efficient alternative fuel sources and having the public embrace the change.

Re:Sounds good in theory

[Anonymous Coward]

You just keep repeating those lies...

Iowa caucus and Louisiana sugar farmers

[geoffrobinson]

First, anyone who wants to be president (pretty much every senator) doesn't want to mess around with Iowa farmers since they have an early caucus. Reducing tarriffs almost always makes sense, economically. Not politically. For example, steel tarriffs make the steel workers happy. But they increase the price of domestic toasters, cars, etc.

Someone mentioned tarriffs on sugar. The National Review (a conservative magazine) did a front cover article on this a few months ago. Similar political situation but with La. farmers. It costs America a lot of jobs in food industries which require sugar. That's why they use corn syrup. It's cheaper relative to sugar, but only because of the tarriffs.

Re:Iowa caucus and Louisiana sugar farmers

[killjoe]

Isn't it funny how iowa a small and backward state dictates national policy? Can't touch corn, can't touch ethanol, can't touch farm subsidies, but hey lets dogpile on fags, the people on iowa don't like them either.

The last thing we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

is to trade the current Mid-east manipulators of US economy for ones in South America!

Yes, currently Brazil can produce ethanol much cheaper than the US but they have had many years head start. The US must develop this technology for themselves to achieve energy self-sufficiency.

Now, as for the arguments about the corn lobby; where does the assumption that whatever etahnol we produce must come from corn? Corn is not a very good etahnol producer. The farmland devoted to corn might be better utilized with other crops if the goal is etahnol production. The concentration on ethanol production only from corn is due to powerful lobbying and this attitude should be curtailed rather than canceling tariffs!

Re:The last thing we need...

[Valdrax]

The last thing we need is to trade the current Mid-east manipulators of US economy for ones in South America!

I'm going to have to sharply disagree with you there. While energy independence is a goal that we must strive towards, I would rather be dependent (if we had to be) on Brazil than on Saudi Arabia. Brazil hasn't sponsored religious extremism and anti-Americanism worldwide. Brazil is a democracy and respects human rights unlike the Saudis. As a bonus, Brazil is also one of our strongest allies in South America. Plus, money pouring into Brazil might go toward taxes there to preserve the rainforests, and shifting from oil to ethanol would help reduce our impact on global warming. I'm just not seeing much in the way of reasons to say that being dependent on Brazil is the "last thing we need" especially in comparison to our current situation.

The concentration on ethanol production only from corn is due to powerful lobbying and this attitude should be curtailed rather than canceling tariffs!

This attitude is the result of lobbying. Without subsidies to corn production, tariffs on sugar imports, and tariffs on ethanol, we wouldn't have the assumption that corn will be used.

Actually, growing pot in a hemp field is hard...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Because the high-THC plants would be fertilized by all the pollen released by the hemp plants they were surrounded by.

The resulting plants would be seedy and have vastly reduced potency. In order to produce good marijuana, you want unfertilized female plants, to channel all the energy that would normally go into seed production into resin production.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[HighOrbit]

Why does it have to be corn versus cane? Has anybody done a study of the engery density of sugar beets? They grow an a northern clime (like Wisconsin or Idaho or Germany), the tubar yields high surgar content, and the waste (both foilage and mash) can be used for compost or animal fodder. What kind of engery density can you get from that? They would be socially responsible because they are grown in developed countries, produce only reusable waste, and would not be produced by peasants toiling in slave labor. They also would most likely be grown on existing agricultural land instead of slashed-and-burned rain forrest. As part of the US's screwed up agricultural price support system, we pay farmers *not to grow* extra corn and soy. Perhaps we can take all that fallow agricultural land and have them grow sugar beets instead.

Corn for Fuel vs. Food

[north.coaster]

Does it really make sense to use corn to make fuel instead of food? Is there a surplus of corn that ethanol production can use? Will ethanol production cause the price of corn based food products to rise? Doesn't the US government currently subsidize farmers for growing corn?

It seems like this is a much more complicated topic than the media, industry, and agriculture interests are willing to acknowledge.

Re:Corn for Fuel vs. Food

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it does not. It makes slightly more sense than paying farmers to not grow corn. One study has managed to finagle the numbers around to show a net energy gain (1.3), but that study has been questioned. All of the rest of the studies (20 or so) show an energy loss. Yes, it's OK to have an energy loss if I'm turning electricity (that I can't use in a car) into ethanol, which I can (maybe). It's not OK to lose energy turning diesel and gas into ethanol (which is what we do).

Corn is hard on the land, and requires lots of nitrogen fertilizer. This takes propane to make, costs diesel to spread, and is bad for the water when it runs off. The ethanol industry uses lots of natural gas (to cook the mash and to dry the distiller's grains). They also lose lots of water. After an ethanol plant is built, the wells around begin to go dry as they suck the aquifer down. As the gas prices continue to climb, the ethanol price stays the same amount below the gas price (for E10 that's 5 cents locally). This is exactly the tax break that they get, and they claim that they can't produce it any cheaper since their fuel costs go up along with the gas prices.

They claim that they can sell the distiller's grains and the CO2, but they don't try to capture the CO2 (supposedly soft-drink manufacturer's buy it, but it doesn't seem to actually happen). They can sell the leftover mush as "distiller's grains" for cattle to eat. If they can sell them locally, they do OK. If they have to dry them for shipping it costs alot more. So the ethanol plant needs to be surrounded by "concentrated animal feeding operations" (picture a dairy, with the cows packed to close together to actually move. Feed is trucked in, there is a manure lagoon and holding pond. Manure is piped and trucked out and spread on local farms. There's lots of uric (sp?) acid that gets into the water table in additon to the manure runoff issues.

The whole thing turns into an environmental mess. No more aquifer. Surface water poisoned. Burning more fuel to truck the stuff (corn, manure, distiller's grains) and grow the corn (tractors for fertilizing, spraying pesticides and herbicides, planting, disking, etc, combines for harvesting) than you get back.

At best, if they keep the tax incentives (both the ethanal tariff and the others), it's a stop-gap measure. Even if you take the most favorable study. Even if you ignore all the equipment (steel, rubber, etc) that is manufactured and worn out in this process. Note however that much of the above does NOT apply to biodiesel. Beans fix nitrogen, and break a couple of the links in the above visious cycle.

Re:Corn for Fuel vs. Food

[doodlebumm]

Doesn't the US government currently subsidize farmers for growing corn?

The US gov't does a lot of stupid things like that. The worst example is that we STILL subsidize tobacco growers!!!

Re:Corn for Fuel vs. Food

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't the US government currently subsidize farmers for growing corn?

I think the gov subsidizes the farmers NOT to grow corn.

No source for 7x number

[RingDev]

I have not been able to find a single peer reviewed source to back up that 7 times as efficient number. I see many references to the widely excepted 1.34 return, but I have found nothing that says 8.1 units returned. I did find one study that claimed SugarCane could hit 3.7 in production in Brazil, but that can't be directly compared to the US.

1) In Brazil manual labor can be had for $3-5/day. At that cost it can be cheaper to use a fleet of farm labor instead of a tractor. the fuel consumption requred by the work force is not included.
2) Brazil has a much larger land mass that is appropriate for growing sugar cane.
3) Ethanol has to be shipped in sealed tanks. Due to its propencity to attract water, piping it with fuel through the exist infrastructure would result in water contaminated fuel at the pump. The extra expences and fuel needed for the new delivery systems really kill the return. This is also the reason why E10 has been a pretty standard fuel in the Mid-West for years, but not on the costs. Brazil uses a much more localized distribution system (many 20k gallon plants as opposed to a centralized 10m gallon plants).
4) Ethanol has less power per volume then gas. That means those flex fuel vehicles are going to lose mileage AND power on E85. A proper E85+ designed engine could improve the power issue (Ethanol's higher octane rating allows for higher compression, which leads to more power and better efficiency).

I'm not saying Ethanol is bad, just that it isn't as great as GM wants you to believe.

Biodiesel is better (IMO) in that it can be added to the US's fuel infrastructure with no modication to the system or vehicles, it's performance is on par with petrol-diesel (ie: better than gas and ethanol).

-Rick

-Rick

Re:No source for 7x number

[maxume]

Biodiesel has great properties as a fuel. As a replacement for gasoline, it is hopeless; it simply isn't possible to grow enough of it. It isn't really even of much use as a supplemental source, given how much oil is consumed in this country.

Re:No source for 7x number

[RingDev]

It really depends on the source. With soy, yeah, you are looking at 50 gal/acre, Palm oil puts you closed to 650 gal/acre of Bio Diesel. Corn Ethanol produces 300-450 gal/acre (depends on study), I don't have numbers on Sugarcane Ethanol gal/acres though. The holy grail though remains the power plant emission scrubbing bacteria. That stuff is projected to produce 10,000 to 20,000 gallons of Bio Diesel per acre. At that point a handful of power plants with algae farms could replace the entire US decency on foreign oil for Diesel, which would drop the cost of heating oil. If Algae farms prove successful, or even if they are half as successful as projected, then the arguments for ethanol go out the window and the market for light duty diesel's will skyrocket.

-Rick

Re:No source for 7x number

[ferespo]

There is another thing regarding efficiency:

In Brazil, they harvest sugar cane twice a year. They have a proper climate the whole year.

Re:No source for 7x number

[rcastro0]

Interesting post. Let me add to your point #4 with some information from Brazil, where properly designed ethanol engines have, in fact, been built for a while.

4) Ethanol has less power per volume then gas. That means those flex fuel vehicles are going to lose mileage AND power on E85. A proper E85+ designed engine could improve the power issue (Ethanol's higher octane rating allows for higher compression, which leads to more power and better efficiency).

It is not true that ethanol engines have less power, quite the opposite. This is a fact taken into consideration by anyone shopping for an auto in Brazil in the past decade. Consider for instance this article discussing GM's Astra Multifuel, a vehicle launched in the market in September 2004, and which runs on a choice of three fuels: Gasoline, Ethanol, and Compressed Natural Gas. I drive one of these Astras myself, though without the CNG option installed.

The article is in Portuguese, and I quote the interesting bit:

Potência máxima com gasolina: 121 cv a 5.200 rpm.
Potência máxima com álcool: 127,6 cv a 5.200 rpm.
Potência máxima com GNV: 105,8 cv a 5.200 rpm

Torque máximo com gasolina: 18,3 kgfm a 2.600 rpm.
Torque máximo com álcool: 19,6 kgfm a 2.600 rpm.
Torque máximo com GNV: 16,4 kgfm a 2.600 rpm.

I guess the above can be understood without BabelFish. Keep in mind that "cv" means "hp" (cavalo vapor = horse power): the same engine on ethanol (álcool) gets 5.4% more power and 7.1% more torque.

Never having thought about why (I am an electrical engineer, not mechanical) I googled a bit and found an interesting explanation. It is also in Portuguese, but I translate below the interesting part:

O álcool hidratado utilizado como combustível no Brasil tem duas particularidades: alta resistência à detonação (como se tivesse alta octanagem, embora o álcool não possua octanas) e baixo poder calorífico (gera menos energia na queima que a gasolina). Em função dessas características, o motor a álcool pode utilizar taxa de compressão mais elevada, mas requer uma relação estequiométrica diferenciada, ou seja, a mistura ar-combustível tem de ser mais rica (com mais combustível) que no motor a gasolina. Na prática, isso significa que o motor a álcool pode obter mais potência e torque -- o que não ocorre em alguns casos por simples escolha do fabricante --, mas consume mais combustível.

Translation:
The hydrated alcohol used as fuel in Brazil has two peculiarities: high resistance to detonation (as if it had high octane, though alcohol does not possess octanes) and low calorific power (less energy generated compared to the same amount of gasoline burned). Due to these characteristics, the alcohol (ethanol) engine can use higher compression, but it requires a differentiated stechiometric relation, that is, the air-fuel mixture has to be richer (with more fuel) than in the gasoline engine. In practice that means that the ethanol engine can get more power and torque -- when it does not is due to a choice from the manufacturer -- but it uses more fuel.

Cheers...

-Ricardo

Re:No source for 7x number

[RingDev]

"It is not true that ethanol engines have less power, quite the opposite."

Ethanol engines have more power, true. FlexFuel (GM's Gas/E85 hybrid) engines have less power on E85 than they do on Gas.

Ethanol contains more oxygen per volume than gas. That means that you need less air in the mix to get the optimal power, or you can push more ethanol into the cylinder with the same displacement. More fuel = larger expansion after ignition. But Ethanol has less energy per volume than gasoline, so even with more fuel, the power stroke is still weaker than a gas engine.

The place where Ethanol shines is in its Octane rating. With an octane rating upwords of 130 you can really crank up the compression on an ethanol engine and not have to worry about pinging (pre-spark detination). The higher the compression, the more efficient the engine, and the more power you get from the power stroke. So while you Gas engine may have 9.1:1 compression, an Ethanol engine can run close to 14:1. Even though ethanol has less energy per volume, the fact that you need less air in the charge and can compress it more means that you can get more power from it. The down side is that it will still take more fuel to get that power, but with that extra power you can reduce the final gear in the tranny and recoup the difference.

The well designed Gas/Ethanol engines usually use a lower compression ration in combination with a VNT or waste gate controled turbo. A computer monitors nocking (ping/pre-det) and increases or decreases the turbo's boost to raise or lower the effective compression ratio (note that the compression ratio itself does not change, but the effective volumes of fuel/air are altered). This way you can reduce boost and have a gas engine operating at the top end of its ability, or you can pile on the boost and run pure 85.

And just as a final comparison, Diesel engines use no spark plugs. They ignite the air/fuel mixture using compression and heat alone. The lowest compression ratio I have heard of on a Diesel is 14:1 (with a huge amount of turbo boost), and the highest was about 24:1 (with no turbo). Not only do Diesel engines have higher compression ratios then gas and ethanol engines, but Diesel also contains more energy per volume then either. With more potential energy and a more efficient use of that power it's no suprise that Diesel engines look so attactive. My VW Golf (a 4 cylinder 1.9l TDI diesel) hit 44mpg (B5) on my last tank and has 177ft/lbs of torque. My Pontiac Fiero (a 6 cylinder 3.4l HO gas) hit 20mpg (E10) on my last tank and has ~175ft/lbs of torque.

-Rick

Re:No source for 7x number

[rcastro0]

Ethanol engines have more power, true. FlexFuel (GM's Gas/E85 hybrid) engines have less power on E85 than they do on Gas.

Do you realize that the article I pointed to (here again) was discussing a GM FlexFuel (Gas/Ethanol Hybrid) engine as well ? It seems that GM's Brazilian FlexFuel engine, unlike the one you talk about, is able to have more power on Ethanol than on Gas.

-Ricardo

Re:No source for 7x number

[RingDev]

Sorry, I didn't realise you were talking about a GM company. GM in NA is much more limited than their world wide companies. In North America the only FF vechiles availible in the next few years are full sized trucks and fleet vehicles. You can't buy a flex fuel Cobalt in the US. We're talking about trucks that get EPA 14mpg.

-Rick

Re:No source for 7x number

[kilfarsnar]

This may have been addressed elsewhere, but what makes a car flex fuel? It is my understanding that a few hundred dollars' worth of upgrades (fuel pump, spark plugs, etc.) will turn most cars and trucks into flex fuel vehicles. I have a Subaru WRX (2.5L H4, turbo), and I think it will run on E85 without much issue. And it benefits from the higher octane and compression possibilities with the turbo. :-)

Re:No source for 7x number

[maxume]

The land available for growing corn is extensive. The land available for growing oil palm is less extensive. Figuring out how much of what and how much energy you net is a stroll through a quagmire.

It is noteable that no one is running a farm/biodiesel plant and essentially pumping oil off the acreage. Perhaps it is still too costly.

Don't get me wrong, I am hopeful that the energy problem can be solved, just not particularly optimistic.

Re:No source for 7x number

[marcosdumay]

You got the wrong results from your research, what is not hard to happen, since it is very rare to see inforation in english about brazilian ethanol (don't know why). That 3.7 figure is dated, even the 8.1 is old, people are talking about 10 now.

About the other points, 1: That value is true on some regions, but it is still more expensive than using tractors. So, people that use human larbor is normaly too cheap to invest on the refinning process, and ends up with a low EROEI. The highter EROEI farms normaly use tractors.

2: True (land area, isn't it?). But has no relevance for EROEI.

3: Gas also needs sealed tanks. But even if it was completely impossible to transport ethanol without getting it contamined (Bazil already exports a lot of ethanol overseas), you could stil do the third (and cheaper) destilation at the destination. And the bigest problem to ethanol transportation is the fact that it is acid, not hydrophilic.

4: Ethanol cars lose mileage but the power increases. Also, flex cars are able to deal well with ethanol, working the same way is pure ethanol cars. What you don't seem to grasp is that flex cars detect the amount of ethanol and gas on the fuel, and set everyhing according.

Now, a previous poster said that ethanol cars age faster. If that happens, the difference is very small to be detected. Brazilian used cars are priced according to the price of the fuel (and some speculation). When ethanol whas expensiver, ethanol used cars become cheaper, when it was cheaper, the cars become expensiver. I've never heard bout ethanol cars gatting old faster, and could never detect that trend myself.

Re:No source for 7x number

[RingDev]

"That 3.7 figure is dated, even the 8.1 is old, people are talking about 10 now."

Brazil can also pull 2 harvests a year. 10x would be a best of 5x return in the US, likely less due to environmental differences.

"The highter EROEI farms normaly use tractors."

The problem is that I can't find a single peer reviewed article showing a return on switch grass over the 3.7 figure.

"3: Gas also needs sealed tanks. "

The issue is NOT tanks, it's pipes. This has been covered extencively elsewheres in this discussion.

"4: Ethanol cars lose mileage but the power increases. Also, flex cars are able to deal well with ethanol, working the same way is pure ethanol cars. What you don't seem to grasp is that flex cars detect the amount of ethanol and gas on the fuel, and set everyhing according."

I have a good understanding of dynamic fuel engines, and yes using exhaust O2 levels and ping detection the engine can alter fuel mapping and turbo boost pressure to optimize the engine's effieciency for petrol, ethanol, or any mix there of. But in NA the only FlexFuel vehicles (FF is a GM trademark) are non-turbo fleet vehicles. NA engines have a fixed effective compression ratio and can only adjust for E## fuel by increasing the amount of fuel in the mixture and adjusting spark timing. Which can results in a loss of both power and efficiency. There are cars in Brazil that are significantly better at adapting to different fuels by using variable boost pressures and fuel mappings to improve efficiencies. But those car are not available in NA.

"Now, a previous poster said that ethanol cars age faster. If that happens, the difference is very small to be detected."

I have heard the same. Ethanol is rough on oil, running E85 decreases the time frame for oil changes. So I would not be suprised if other issues also arose.

-rick

Waiting for second generation..

[spectrokid]

Corn-fuel is what we call a first-genearation technology. Biotech companies like Novozymes are working on enzymes which can break down corn-waste (leaves etc.) until the starch is short-chained enough to be fermented in the classical way. None of the first generation plants comes anywhere near making a profit, but once they can start fermenting the leftover crap, this picture could change. Raising fuel prices are obviously helping.

Re:Waiting for second generation..

[farmerj]

Leftover crap?
While fermenting the straw as well as the grain of cereal crops would increase the energy production per Ha., it probally wouldn't be the best move from an environmental or crop growing point of view.

The leftover crap as you call is is biologically degraded and brought back into the soil, helping the increase the OM (organic matter) content of the soil and recycling the nutrients needed by the growing crops.
The straw and other residue material is usually chopped and spread over the ground, and this helps in moisture retention, soil erosion and increase the numbers of natural predators.

Now if you have technology to use the cellulose material from the crops, why would you grow cereal crops to produce ethanol? Many other crops such as miscanthus and hemp will produce much higher yields of usable biomass per Ha.

Miscanthus is especially suitable for this purpose, once sown it usable for up to 20 years, with annual harvesting. The harvested stems contain low levels of N, P and K which means that there is little or no transportation of essential plant nutrients off site and consequently no requirement for additional nutrients (fertiliser) after year 2-3.

At the moment in Europe there is a lot of interest in growing miscanthus for bio-energy, i.e. in wood chip, wood pellet boilers and the like.

Re:Waiting for second generation..

[bagsc]

Yes, that's exactly what we need. Turning foliage into fuel. That'll save the Earth, as every Brazilian and Indonesian tears the rainforest apart to sell ethanol...

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[shotfeel]

The big alternative I hear discussed is switch grass. If you google it, you'll get a page full of links to using it as a source for ethanol. Its easy to grow, easy to harvest, and produces more protein and ethanol than the alternatives (soy beans an corn respectively).

As, not more

[Paradise Pete]

Sugercane is about 7 times more efficient than corn

As efficient, not more efficient. "More" is broken for this type of comparison. If it were twice as efficient would you say "two times more efficient?" Of course not. That would be retarded. So to conform to the pattern you'd have to say "one time more efficient." But if you do that, then seven times "as efficient" would be the same as six times "more efficient." And now you're slinging around ambiguity. The "as efficient" form is clear and unambiguous.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Paradise Pete]

and would not be produced by peasants toiling in slave labor.

So you're saying it would be bad for them to have the extra opportunity of work? You make it sound like if it weren't for the Evil Theoretical Sugar Beet Barons then life would be just fine.

People don't take "slave labor" jobs by force. They take them because it's better than anything else they might do. So the problem is not the work, but the situation. And taking away the work certainly does not make things better. You make it sound like *not* using third world products somehow improves the third world condition.

Suck on your premium gas

[Just Some Guy]

If you're buying premium and you don't absolutely have to, then you're an idiot. If you really do require premium, then you have a high-performance engine and have no moral standing to bitch about high prices since you helped cause them.

I believe in every person's right to drive whatever they want, but have zero sympathy for people who make poor choices and then blame everyone else.

Re:Suck on your premium gas

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely not true. Just about every SUV sucks down 87 with glee and gets complete crap for gas mileage. My "high performance" car that requires 91 gets nearly double the mileage of your average full-size SUV.

Re:Suck on your premium gas

[Just Some Guy]

My "high performance" car that requires 91 gets nearly double the mileage of your average full-size SUV.

...and probably less than another car of the same size and weight.

Now, someone's going to prove me wrong by saying how their Obscura Unique roadster gets 50MPG city. That's nice. But in the vast majority of cases, "requires premium" == "high performance" rather than "high efficiency".

Again, you're free to drive what you want, but if your vehicle requires premium gas because it's a performance model, then shut up about fuel prices.

Dublin Dr. Pepper

[pauljlucas]

There is one Dr. Pepper plant in the US that still uses cane sugar. They do mail-order, but the shipping cost is makes it not worth-while for daily consumption.

I want more tariffs

[CrazyJim1]

More tariffs mean more of our manufacturing stays at home and isn't lost to cheap overseas replacements. Steel is a good example of something that needs tariffed.

Re:I want more tariffs

[Bryansix]

More tariffs mean more of our manufacturing stays at home and isn't lost to cheap overseas replacements. Steel is a good example of something that needs tariffed.

Do you see how that was scored as flaimbait? People are trying to tell you something. If you take any macroeconomics class you will learn that if any country ceases to trade then prices for most items will rise. What the United States needs to do is figure out a few things which it can produce with some economic advantage. That is something that we are either better at making or can make for substantially less then any other country. We then employ a huge number of people in making these things and export them en mass. In return the people employed making these things then have the money to pay to import things that other countries have an advantage in making.

Now in the real world things are more complicated. Countries do not adhear to free trade and some countries exploit thier labor force. Both of these thing need to be discouraged. (Note that enacting tarrifs is against free trade). In addition you have currency to think about and countries like China who illegally peg thier currency to the dollar hurt the whole system.

The point is that it rarely makes sense economically to increase tarrifs. Free trade allows prices to fall on consumables or it helps keep inflation in check. Either way means that your money is worth more. Think of just this case where gas prices could be considerably less expensive.

But... but...

[brian0918]

"I'm not saying Ethanol is bad, just that it isn't as great as GM wants you to believe."

But... but... those commercials, that highly optimistic, squeaky voice telling us to GO YELLOW... you're saying that's not a realistic portrayal of the situation?!?

Re:But... but...

[RingDev]

I'm saying GM is not in a great financial position. So for them to invest in a marketing campaign for E85 is a win-win.

They invest a minimum amount in Flex Fuel vehicles (realistically, this is replacing rubber fuel lines and setting up the ECM to switch fuel mappings over a wider range depending on the O2 sensor's readings).

Since this is the 'low tech' way of making a gas engine run on ethanol (some more impressive FF vehicles use dynamic turbos and increase boost pressure when running more Ethanol, but so far as I know, GM's FF vehicles are only changing fuel mappings). It doesn't do anything for efficiency or power, so the vehicle will run significantly worse (power/mileage). But that doesn't matter since you can't really get E85 at any public pumps. I only know of a single E85 pump in all of south central Wisconsin. GM is aiming E85 primarily at fleet vehicles, for everyone else it's just a marketing gimmick. It allows them to look like a golden company in the face of rising gas prices to the public, they get free marketing off anyone talking about E85, and for a minimal investment in R&D and on the assembly line, they get a huge boost in sales.

E85 does have a place in the future of US fuel consumption, but that place is not GM's FlexFuel vehicle line. It's place is in vehicles designed to run on higher compression or those that can increase boost pressure. Vehicles that are designed to take advantage of Ethanol's properties as opposed to a patch kit that allows a gas engine to run on it.

Decreased engine life, shorter duration oil changes, invisible flames (on pure ethanol, not E85), it's amazing what some good marketing and desperate consumers will lead to.

-Rick

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, production and sales of FFVs positively impacts GM WRT CAFE. They get a certain amount of credits that they can then use to sell more expensive, less efficient SUVs and not have to pay the civil penalties (aka "gas guzzler tax") associated with not being in compliance with CAFE

let's clear the rain forest, sugar

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, clear the rain forest for sugar plantations, so we can drive with ethanol. Guys - buying less consuming vehicles is the key.

Aha!

[Godji]

Some studies even show that corn yields only 0.8 unit of energy, resulting in a net loss of energy.

So that's why I never got that A in physics in high school! You see, I wrote on the final exam that you can never gain nor lose any energy under any circumstances. Today, my friends, I stand corrected!

Re:Aha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, you never got an A because you don't understand efficiency. By stating that 1.0 units go in and 0.8 units come out they are saying that more energy is lost to growing, harvesting, processing, shipping etc. than is gained from the usage of the resulting fuel.

Re:Aha!

[Jim_Callahan]

Really? You equated every system with the entire universe? Yeah, I would have failed you, too.

Re:Aha!

[Godji]

WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!

I was joking! You didn't really believe I meant that seriuosly, did you? Please, please tell me you dind't :)

Well, it is true I didn't get an A in physics, but that had more to do with a major game release 2 days before the final exam.

Time to Sell/Short ADM (Archer-Daniels Midland)

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC:
ADM (Archer-Daniels Midland Co.) is the largest producer of ethanol in the U.S.A. Their lobbyists helped pass the tariff. The company has made billions off of their political chicanery around ethanol.

Sugar cane (from Brazil, etc.) can produce 8x the ethanol of corn for the same energy input and, if the tariff is revoked, ADM's ethanol business will tank. (I imagine their lobbyists are fighting like mad to kill revocation at this very moment - threatening Congressmen with photos of past transgressions, etc.).

The underlying issue...

[ModestMotorhead]

...is that U.S. politicians bow too easily and too readily to lobbyist' pressure. Sugar ethanol is certainly a reasonable way to go. The technology is there, the science is sound.
I would like to hope that the spread of cost for a gallon of "fuel" would radically shift. Right now we see the breakdown of cost for a gallon of gas [fuel] here. This shows that

19% taxes
4% dist & marketing
22% refining & profit
55% crude oil

Federal tax is 18.4 cents a gallon. Let's say the average state tax is 20 cents. Assume the average gas price(avg) is $2.97 a gallon:

2.97 =
19% = .56
4% = .12
22% = .65
55% = 1.63
= 2.96

what I think is truly the case for our average state:

13% = .384
4% = .12
28% = .84
55% = 1.63

Although I can't find from brief searching for specific refinery/profit breakdowns, I am sure they are out there. I bet realistically profit per gallon has increased by 75% and refinery cost is held at unreasonably high levels because oil companies are not maintaining their resources. I am *so sure* that any investigation will smoke that out.

Now, will the new "Energy" companies be more realistic with this? I highly doubt it.

Re:The underlying issue...

[mshurpik]

19% taxes
4% dist & marketing
22% refining & profit
55% crude oil

These are oft-cited figures, but as damaging as they are, they are the same figures cited by the industry to hide profits.

A better way to look at this is to remember that gas recently cost $1.25 gallon. Subtract 63 cents in NY taxes and you have $0.62. Subtract dealer profit and you have ~$0.50. Therein lies the cost AND profit of making gasoline. Granted, you left room for the refinery to make 84 cents but I think it could easily be over two dollars. Venezuelan gasoline only costs $0.17 at the pump because Venezuela is an oil-producing nation. How much oil does Venezuela produce? Not as much as Exxon.

ExxonMobil pumps 2.6m barrels of crude oil per day (42 gallons per barrel) and has its own refineries. With a 2005 gross income of $371 billion, that works out to $9/gallon.

Consider, with crude oil prices topping $75/barrel, Exxon would have to make at least 75/42 = $1.78 to even bother refining it at all. At most ($3/gallon), they could collect about $120 billion. What accounts for the difference?

I'm struggling to understand how Exxon can make $371 billion, or $1200 for every man, woman and child in America.

Hmm

[mmalove]

Maybe I'm looking at this from an economic standpoint instead of an energy conservationist standpoint, but - wouldn't the removal of tariffs lead to greater supply, lowering fuels costs? If it becomes more economically feasible to use alternative fuels like ethanol, it could greatly help the US to quit sucking up all the oil, and get us away from this 3 dollar a gallon norm the oil companies would like to press on us.

Show me an economic way to start using ethanol fuels, without huge startup costs, and I'll show you a revolution.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

removal of tariffs is nearly always a positive economic benefit.

but tariffs aren't put there by economists, they're put there by politicians, who believe removing them leads to a net loss of votes.

Re:Hmm

[zerosix]

Completely off topic: but I agree with your sig! If I could only give my humble opionion at times! ;)

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Leon_Trotsky]

Cool! I guess I'll just ignore the problem then. In fact, since it's so helpful, we should have MORE slave labour!

I disagree.

[47Ronin]

While I think that the need to produce ethanol is here and the efforts are altruistic, you don't understand why we have import tariffs. We have those things in place to encourage American companies to buy goods that are made HERE IN THE USA rather than importing them from abroad (which would be more expensive because of the tariff). I completely agree that we should produce ethanol by any means necessary but please keep the import tariffs in place. This would encourage growers in the USA to start their own corn and sugarcane crops, with ethanol processing plants as a bonus. You have to remember that we have a record breaking trade deficit that is completely screwing up the economy and it's doing nothing more than drive production and cheap labor overseas while we lose jobs in our country. Tariffs are often labelled "protectionism" but at this point in time, we NEED it.

Re:I disagree.

[Bob Uhl]

One of the few well-proven things in economics is Ricardo's law of comparative advantage. If the Brazilians can produce ethanol more cheaply than we can, then it is better for us to concentrate on what we do best and for them to concentrate on what they do best--in that way we all end up with more ethanol, more gasoline, more energy, more food, more computers and so forth. If an American invests in an inefficient ethanol operation, that's capital which could be put to better use elsewhere. Tariffs simply add inefficiency--which means that they decrease the amount of goods to go around, thus making the poor poorer (and the rich poorer as well).

Re:I disagree.

[Anonymous Coward]

We've seen over and over how successful NAFTA, CAFTA and GATT have been to the American workforce.

Hah! U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico have risen, but look at the numbers in the NAFTA at 10 report to see that it is Mexico, followed by Canada that are the real winners in that deal.

photovoltaic is more efficient

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethanol (grown without oil, anyway) is ultimately solar power. Photovoltaic cells are more efficient, even if the electricity is used to make some transportable fuel. If we want solar power, we should use them.

it's not just energy, it's health too

[jfruhlinger]

In general, from the perspective of US consumers, corn is subsidized and sugar is tarriffed. This is why so many types food and drink in the US use corn syrup as a sweetener instead of sugar. Corn syrup is much less healthy, but much, much cheaper due to the subsidy/tarriff double whammy.

jf

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[AndersOSU]

I've heard of this, esp. around the State of the Union, and briefly looked into it, and it just doesn't make sense to me. Anyone care to fill me in?

The way I understand it is that the more sugars a crop has the more EtOH you can make, simply because it is easier to ferment sugar than starch. Basically this means that order of EtOH viability follows order of tastyness. Sugarcane, sugarbeet, then corn, then soy, and so on. Grass doen't have much sugar, and it takes energy to convert starches and cellulose (of which grass has plenty) into sugar, and then you can ferment it. Since it has been my experience that we obey the laes of thermodynamics in this country how is it ever going to be more efficient to get EtOH from grass than corn? The fruit of corn will always provide the advantage. If you are going to convert cellulose you can convert the ears and stalks of corn, or just the stalks of grass.

Is switchgrass all hype, or am I missing something?

OT

[lowrydr310]

Do you really have an Elise? What's the maintenance like? How often/how much $$$/how easy to do yourself?

Re:OT

[PhineusJWhoopee]

Do maintenance myself so far. I'm using it on the track mostly (not a daily driver), and so I don't have lots of miles (4k after 1 year). But changing the oil/filter, air filter, and brake pads is simple (easier than most other cars), with only the added complication of removing an undertray for the oil, and the left rear tire for the air filter.

Great car on the track, and - despite the wisdom of our Mustang friend - quite quick (don't need much power to move 1900 lbs.)

ed

Energy inefficient? Incredible. Truly incredible.

[Tim C]

You mean you ethanol has uses other than drinking?!

Tariffs protect our jobs.

[pkbarbiedoll]

We need to grow the damn sugarcane in the states.

Why are we hell bent on offshoring every industry that might earn someone a good living? One day YOUR job will be offshored/outsourced.

You my fine sir are full of it....

[codepunk]

Ethanol is cleaner burning by a huge margin and the largest contributor to engine failure is dirt generally dirt caused by burning petroleum fuel. Ethanol will burn cleaner actually extending the life of a engine considerably if designed to burn it. Alcohol also has a much higher knock rating and burns cooler which also contributes to
longer engine life.... so you are dead wrong sir...

Re:You my fine sir are full of it....

[The Wooden Badger]

That and growing a crop that will yield ethanol is made possible by photosynthesis which has CO2 as an "ingredient" and O2 as a "byproduct". In some sense it is a short term fix, in that ICE's are still involved, but it is a short term fix that we can live with more easily for longer than burning fossil fuels. I imagine that ethanol burning and production would be more of a long term fix that can be made obsolete through future upgrades. I won't argue with raising crops to fuel vehicles until we can switch to the hydrogen economy if/when that happens.

Ethanol will kill your engine

[Anonymous Coward]

Engines are built for a particular reference blend of gasoline.
Makes me wonder what kind of MPG you'd get if you could actually buy this at the pump instead of the MTBE or Ethanol laden crap they sell now.

Ethanol destroys these engines over time between running hotter and destroying rubber.

Re:Ethanol will kill your engine

[QuasiEvil]

Seriously, you might lose some power. Ethanol has only 60% of the energy density of gasoline. Assuming a 10% mix, that means you're losing about 4% of your net energy concentration. There's some evidence that not all of this is a loss, however, since ethanol burns somewhat faster, leading what amounts to really about a 2-3% drop.

As far as destroying engines, I highly doubt it. I used to live in Iowa, and you pretty much can't get gas without EthOH. I've owned several cars that ran their entire lives on ethanol-blended gas, and all of them were at nearly 200k miles before I sold them, usually still running fine with original engines and fuel systems. My current everyday car is a 1995 Honda that's pushing 250k, and ran blended gas for its first 200k miles. (I bought it at 100k, and know the previous owner and what they did with it.) Unfortunately, the last 50k have been on non-blended gas, and I've more problems with injector fouling than I ever did when pushing ethanol through the system. Difference in running on straight and blended fuel (it's blended here in the summer, and I get back to Iowa for a week or two at a time)? Net wash in perceptable MPG, and yes, I keep records on every tank.

I realize that my experience does not a peer-reviewed study make, so I won't say authoritatively that it does not. However, my experience is such that leads me to think that you have no idea what you're talking about, unless you can back it up with some sort of evidence, preferably real studies.

Re:Ethanol will kill your engine

[mshurpik]

Well I'm glad to hear that ethanol is not so toxic to engine health, but a 2-4% drop in horsepower is a lot. Consider 87 fuel is a 6.5% drop in octane over 93 premium. Add it together and you have ~10% difference.

In system optimization, that's a killer. Imagine a system where you have 10 parts in series, each operating at a 10% loss.....no it's not zero, but it's about a 65% drop.

The point is, I think I notice the difference. A 3% difference for ethanol represents how many tranny-unfriendly downshifts over the life of the car?

Re:Ethanol will kill your engine

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is, I think I notice the difference. A 3% difference for ethanol represents how many tranny-unfriendly downshifts over the life of the car?

From what I hear the trannies like it when you grab their shift knob and they find it quite friendly. But I do agree that you will liekly notice the difference. :)

Re:Ethanol will kill your engine

[Anonymous Coward]

maximum torque (ie foot to the floor) tends to be the single biggest killer of automatic gearbox components. 3% less maximum torque is probably more likely to protect the transmission than having to kickdown slightly more often on hills.

I've never seen a manual gearbox break due to a hill downshift. Clutches take more wear from a standing start than from a hill downchange, and the most worn components inside a manual gearbox are almost always second gear, due to frequency and harshness of the upshift.

You also don't lose 35% of your power in a car, by burning 3% less powerful fuel. You only burn the fuel once.

Re:Ethanol will kill your engine

[mshurpik]

You also don't lose 35% of your power in a car, by burning 3% less powerful fuel. You only burn the fuel once.

It was a theoretical argument about optimizing a system in series, which should be useful in cars or not. Why post AC?

Re:Ethanol will kill your engine

[Anonymous Coward]

What all of you "smart" people are missing is that if ethanol takes more energy to make than you get out of it then you have to import more energy than you do now.

Heck if are of the farming and hauling uses oil then using ethanol may make our dependence on foreign oil worst. We may import more oil to make ethanol than we get from it. Yuck! Folks, DC is dumb as dirt. They only know how to buy votes, and ethanol buys a lot.

Make diesel from coal. Use diesel engines for cars. Build lots of nukes, and require all cars to be plug in hybrids by 2010. All of the tech is developed. All we have to do is act. Then we can be free of foreign oil. Let them pound sand.

I disagree.

[pkbarbiedoll]

We've seen over and over how successful NAFTA, CAFTA and GATT have been to the American workforce. Tariffs protect jobs and industry.

The obvious solution is to grow sugar here, in the States. Not offshore more industry to neighboring countries. Haven't we lost enough jobs here as it is?

Re:Mod parent (meh)

[Jim_Callahan]

Wait... you're saying that dividing one empirically derived mumber by another empirically derived number equates to agenda-pushing? I feel sorry for your middle-school math teachers and laugh at them at the same time.

Agreed..

[pkbarbiedoll]

America used not to have income tax. We survived on tariffs alone.

As you pointed out, tariffs not only protect American workers and industry they encourage other countries to pay their workers fair wages. The fact that tariffs are discouraged in NAFTA, CAFTA, and GATT shows how evil these trade policies are.

Well.. we *are* pretty good at...

[pkbarbiedoll]

Slitting our own throats by allowing our industries to be offshored en masse. Does that count? Or should we take pride in being the best burger flippers and coffee servers in the world?

Re:Well.. we *are* pretty good at...

[Bob Uhl]

You don't get it, do you? Offshoring manufacturing has led to more people being able to afford goods: that is, it has improved the quality of life of the poor. Free markets have done more to alleviate human suffering than any welfare program in existence.

Re:Well.. we *are* pretty good at...

[killjoe]

The problem is that free trade leads to boom and bust cyles in the third world as corporations jump from country to country chasing the lowest wage. This leads to a boom cycle where the wages go up from 10 cents per day to 25 cents per day and then a bust as the factory moves to an even poorer country.

Re:Well.. we *are* pretty good at...

[mshurpik]

From Wikipedia:

A common critique of Marx points out that the increasing class antagonisms he predicted never actually developed in the Western world following industrialization. This problem with classical Marxist theory was known from the beginning of the 20th century, and much of the work of Vladimir Lenin was dedicated to answering it. In essence, Lenin argued...through imperialism the bourgeoisie of wealthy countries is using "superprofits" from the imperial colonies to effectively bribe the working class back home in order to appease it.

Pyramid schemes work when you're at the top.

Re:Well.. we *are* pretty good at...

[47Ronin]

The problem is that free trade leads to boom and bust cyles in the third world as corporations jump from country to country chasing the lowest wage. This leads to a boom cycle where the wages go up from 10 cents per day to 25 cents per day and then a bust as the factory moves to an even poorer country.

Case in point: Mexico. We moved a lot of American production factories to Mexico. Looked like it would work out for a while then Mexico figured they could follow the same philosophy and outsource THAT to Asian countries for even less money. Now the Mexican people are as poor as they've always been (this time without jobs) and we've created yet another slave labor industry in the far east. On top of that, we haven't solved how to get all these goods made in the USA in the first place.

I agree

[pkbarbiedoll]

And am unsure why your post was tagged as it is.

We've lost sooo much industry since NAFTA & CAFTA & GATT. According to BLM stats, 28 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the past five years alone. Revocation of tariffs is one reason why. Corporations are *rewarded* for offshoring industry and jobs, thanks to congress.

When we wake up one day and find that all of our good paying jobs (the few that remain) have been sent overseas, and our country is slipping further and further down the porcelin alter.. maybe then we'll realize tariffs weren't such a bad thing after all.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

When we wake up one day and find that all of our good paying jobs (the few that remain) have been sent overseas, and our country is slipping further and further down the porcelin alter.. maybe then we'll realize tariffs weren't such a bad thing after all.

You know it. People bleat about "competition" and my retort is: when India, China, and a number of other third world countries have worker protection and social safety nets then maybe we'll talk about competition. Until then I see little reason to pit our folks up against people in China working six ten hour days a week making 25 cents an hour until they can no longer physically do so.

It's not a race to the bottom on behalf of corporations, folks. The next time you buy that thirty dollar DVD player you might think about that.

An aside: I work with attorneys and CPAs. Guess what? They're doing tax returns in India now and having one of our CPAs "inspect" and then sign off on it! That's right motherfuckers, it's no longer just the IT and production wonks, you're all vulnerable now.. heheheh.

Tariffs also lower the liklihood

[pkbarbiedoll]

of your job being offshored or outsourced.

Re:Tariffs also lower the liklihood

[mmalove]

If the currently produces US ethanol is not cost effective against oil, then it's not going to be produced/purchased anyways. Therefore I fail to see the loss of American jobs/income. If it can be produced outside the US for less, and gets us out of the oil trap, by all means we should do it!

Re:Tariffs also lower the liklihood

[Jim_Callahan]

The point is to make domestic sources on par costwise with petrol, and foreign sources not so much. That's what all tariffs are attempting to do, and it generally works. In this case, the tariff is also protecting workers in US oil, which, from the Democratic party/ Union standpoint, is great! And because it would piss off the average worker to remove the protections, Repubs won't touch it with a 49.5 foot pole either.

Think of the american farmers!!!

[Bluude]

As I understand it, Hemp naturally gains a THC level when fertalized, so to avoid this where it is legal, like in Canada, they have to separate out all the male plants from the crop or some crap.

So by the time you do all that it is probably cheaper to just grow corn or soybeans or something.

Hemp should be grown for paper too though. But in our country it probably costs less to grow trees because of the above bullshit as well.

I would like to see a real study that shows all the possible crops and how much ethanol a 1 acre field of that crop could produce in 1 season. Then we can offset that by production and fertilizer costs as well per crop. Too many studies are out to prove the bennefits of just one plant. we need some real data on the subject from an unbiased source.

My family owns a farm though, and I must say I want to keep the tarrifs or we would go broke. We barely squeeze out 30 grand a year in take home profits right now. (that is about half that has to go back into the farm) If you let foreign farms compete that don't have to meet all the regulations and standards we would go broke in a year. Plus our farmers are forced to rebuy all our seed every year. There is no such thing as letting some of your crop go to seed anymore. there are laws against it thanks to our screwed up patent laws.

Oh yeah, american farmers can't just stop farming and sell the farm either. You have to pay back taxes when you sell a farm and that can be hundreds of thousands of dollars which usually just about equals the price of the farm.

The american farmer is basically screwed.

End the Cuban Embargo

[NatteringNabob]

If the WSJ really wanted to get radical, they ought to advocate ending us sugar price supports and dropping the embargo on goods from Cuba where they produce sugar cane at a fraction of the cost that it is produced in the US.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[HighOrbit]

So you're saying it would be bad for them to have the extra opportunity of work? You make it sound like if it weren't for the Evil Theoretical Sugar Beet Barons then life would be just fine.

No, I am saying its just like buying from a sweat-shop. You would be supporting an exploitive system. And its not the Theoretical Sugar Beet Barons, but the Real Life Sugar Cane Plantation Barons in Latin America who exploit peasant labor for pennies a day. By using sugar beets instead of cane, we would have relatively well paid farmers in regulated economies in Canada, US, and Europe instead of exploited peasants in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. I would much rather support a group of yeoman family farmers in Manatoba, Rhineland, or Idaho than an exploitive sugar cane system of peasantry in Brazil and Honduras, in the same way that I would rather pay a few dollars more to buy a shirt made in a union textile factory in Missouri than a seat-shop in China or Vietnam.

We'll be eating our neighbors.

[Belial6]

"Yes. Those are lifestyle choices. People should pay the costs of their lifestyle choices, not force the rest of us to pay them through artificially low gas prices that don't reflect the costs of maintaining a road network or fixing the environmental damage created by large, fuel-hogging vehicles."

Great, so lets get rid of the school taxes while we are at it, and of course no sidewalks, space program, no funding to collages, and so forth. We are only going to pay for what we directly use right?

Given that the largest and most fuel hungry vehicles on the road are semis, I would suggest buying some pretty powerful firearms if we were to ever stop subsidizing the roadways they use with our much smaller vehicles. Since the price to deliver food will skyrocket and most will quickly stop delivering. Without food delivered to metropolitin areas, you can expect people to start eating their neighbors.

Energy conservation at this point is a red herring. What?!?!?!? Did I say that?!?!?!? I must be insane!!!!! No, actually, given that we are still using non-renewable energy sources, we will eventually run out. We will eventually get to the point of using renewable energy sources, but that simply will not happen until we are seriously hurting due to our current non-renewable sources running low. So, basically, we can all lower our standards of living for the next 20 (30?, 50? 100?) years, and leave the hurting and conversion to our children, or we can keep our standard of living, go through the big hurt ourselves, and get moved to renewable energy sources.

I am thoroughly convinced that our current level of technology would allow us to either move now, or easily within a decade if we started to feel the big hurt of running low on non-renewable energy.

There is a general belief by the poser-environmentalists that living crappy, and being good to the environment are the same thing. Extravagant lifestyles and environmentalism are not inherently seperate. Those that push the idea that they are, have either been conned, or have alterier motives. Whether they realize it or not.

Factual correction about the NYT article

[ThiagoHP]

The NYT article says:

Already the use of ethanol, derived in Brazil from sugar cane, is so widespread that some gas stations have two sets of pumps, marked A for alcohol and G for gas.

In Brazil, all gas stations have both gas and alcohol pumps, not just some of them.

For the best

[xenocide2]

If we're going to switch over to what is essentially a food burning system, then we can't be playing games about which farmer is more important--every one of them will be needed. What we should do is, worldwide, encourage the best use of land. It appears that the US is better suited to produce lots of grains and corn, and Brazil (and many other equatorial states) sugar cane. What should happen then is that Brazil produces more cane, and imports food goods like corn and beef. Tarriffs distort this optimal usage by discouraging these sorts of trades.

American farmers will likely feel a crunch if foreign competition is their domestic market isn't compensated by a new foreign market. So the tricky part is getting Brazil to reduce their own tarriffs at the same time. The WSJ article is desperately short on this aspect of the bill, and how the Brazil market currently stands tarriff wise.

Re:For the best

[ThiagoHP]

For you information, Brazil produces more corn than it consumes and exports beef to many countries.

Re:For the best

[rcastro0]

So the tricky part is getting Brazil to reduce their own tarriffs at the same time. The WSJ article is desperately short on this aspect of the bill, and how the Brazil market currently stands tarriff wise.

You are aiming at the wrong direction. Brazil is extremely competitive in virtually all agricultural products, and have comparatively little import tariffs for those things in place. Also consider that Argentina, just south of the border, complements with temperate/mediterranean products what the tropical/temperate agriculture of Brazil cannot supply.

Fact of the matter is, with the exception of the American Sugar/Ethanol lobby, which protects an inefficient sector, the United States usually sits on the same side of the table as Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and most other Latin American countries when it comes to negotiating lower agricultural tariffs. On the other side of the table are highly protective Japan and Europe -- and that's where you should be aiming at as a potential market.

Of course as the Chinese and the Indian economy grow all of these potential (or actual) "agricultural powers" should not fear the lack of a market.

Re:For the best

[Anonymous Coward]

But you're forgetting that equatorial states are at an inherent advantage. If they can grow sugar cane better than we can, they can also grow soy beans better than we can, and feed them to cattle for much less than the cost of US beef.

Unless we find a niche of crops that *absolutely can't be grown in the tropics*, free trade will long-term screw us and we'll all be working in factories to feed ourselves. /Ross Perot was right

That's because.

[Belial6]

That's because you broke the 2 sentence rule.

"If an explination takes more than two sentences, 90% of the population won't understand it."

Someone tell the car manufacturers!

[InfiniteWisdom]

I'm sure they have NO IDEA that fuels are blended, and would be eternally grateful to the anonymous slashdotters for telling them so that they can take it into account when designing engines!

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[TykeClone]

Is switchgrass all hype, or am I missing something?

I think that they're talking about using enzymes to reduce the cellulose into something fermentable - so any vegetable matter would likely work with that process (I think). The same process could be used to convert corn "field trash" along with the kernels into ethanol. Or Hemp. Or (presumably) yard waste.

I think that switchgrass is talked about because it grows over a large portion of the cornbelt and would make a good drop-in replacement for a corn crop. Switch grass is also a perennial plant that would require less field work to grow than corn or soybeans do.

No

[Belial6]

They subsidize farmers to NOT grow corn. My aunt and uncle recieve a yearly check from the government to NOT produce food on their Wisconsin farmland.

Eat This

[BoredWolf]

Temporary Solution . Your comments are, once again, a wonderful example of avoiding the actual problem we face. Cars designed for ethanol blends will work fine, but that is because they are made of (more expensive) corrosion-resistant parts. Damage will still be done when sediments are dissolved/stripped-off from the gas tank's interior during the change to an ethanol blend. It doesn't get much more efficient than riding your bike. Who knows... you might even get a tan.

Slaves again

[toy4two]

So the US weans itself away from the Middle Eastern Teet only to go suckle the Brazilian one (at least I hear they're sweeter).

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[jtcm]

Has anybody done a study of the engery density of sugar beets?

From here:

Growing, transporting, and distilling corn to make a gallon of ethanol uses almost as much energy as is contained in the ethanol itself. Sugar beets are a better source, producing nearly two units of energy for every unit used in production.

How does this make him a coward?

[weremook]

Somebody forgot to take their meds.

Besides, are people who own large boats a sizable portion of U.S. car owners? Even truck/SUV owners?

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but the problem is people who own gas guzzlers simply as a status symbol. What ever happened to the sports car?

truth = censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

truly evil.

nobody thinks outside the box anymore, and when someone does they get censored -1

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[RightSaidFred99]

You don't listen, do you? OK - let's simplify this. Situation A: Evil Cane Baron pays Poor Slave $1 a day (pennies a day..come on) Situation B: Evil Cane Baron goes out of business or hires fewer Poor Slaves. Poor Slave gets $0 a day. Explain to me with your Leninist theories how situation B is _better_ than situation A?

Which means what?

[cubicledrone]

producing ethanol from corn is highly inefficient and consumes 1 unit of energy for each 1.3 units of energy that burning ethanol provides

So what? Should we attempt to invent technology that produces energy and consumes none? Wouldn't that contradict nearly every law of thermodynamics?

Sounds like "it'll never work" speak, which is the greatest asset of the status quo, anti-competitive and anti-free-market.

Re:Which means what?

[kilfarsnar]

I think it means that we should concentrate on producing ethanol from sugarcane and other sources that provide more return on energy used. What did you think it meant?

Re:Which means what?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why we are doomed. Even supposedly "educated" Americans believe that liquid fuels *must* be produced at a 5 to 1 energy ratio to be productive. We are so used to getting something for nothing that (thermodynamically) reasonable solutions are completely ignored in favor of pie-in-the-sky free-energy bullshit.

gasoline is already shipped in sealed tanks...

[YesIAmAScript]

First of all, because if unburned gasoline evaporates to the air, it's pollution.

So you can strike that off the list.

Re:gasoline is already shipped in sealed tanks...

[RingDev]

Gasoline is piped from refineries to distribution points, not trucked. Those pipes sweat moisture in from the ground. Gas and water don't mix. If you fill a jug up with half water and half gas, then wait a while, the two will separate. Ethanol on the other hand will suck up water and will not separate on its own. So you can not pipe ethanol from the mid west to either cost. You have to load it onto a train or tanker truck and ship it across the country. Just think of how much fuel it would take to ship enough ethanol from the mid west to southern Cali to full fill an E85 fuel base.

-Rick

ethanol tariffs

[BigJake4589]

Let me get this straight, Wall Street wants to remove the tarriffs from foreign imports of ethanol. This will make us dependent on foreign ethanol and foreign price controls in the future. So, we're looking at a repeat of the petroleum industry problem in the near future.

Cuba as an ethanol OPEC member?

[markdowling]

As Cuba could export sugar cane to a third country ethanol producer they would still have an US originated income which would drive the Helms Burton people nuts. This would put Cuba in the front door of an Ethanol OPEC group if they had a significant influence on cane prices.

I'll buy you a clue.

[HornWumpus]

You generally don't want the trailer to outweigh the towing vehicle by much. Granted Semis do but they are just different (requiring greater skill and going to limited locations).

I once towed a bobcat behind my Mazda b-2200. The low gearing made it possible to get it moving. I will NEVER do that again, if only because I upgraded trucks, I note my new truck, '97 RAM 1500 4x4, matches your recomendation for those working off paved roads.

Trucks have such heavy frames simply because they must weigh enough not to be moved around by the load. They need the weight so why not make them stronger then hell. To a lessor extent that is true for all trucks.

The real problem is people using trucks when they should be using an econo-box. For those not obsessed with image two older vehicles do nicely. OK I admit I've got three but the classic is strictly a showpiece. 200 miles on it last year (that's about one tank of gas) and my version of an econo-box is a 200HP AWD turbo four banger.

Not a fix, buys time

[gone.fishing]

We need to break our addiction to foreign oil. Reducing or eliminating a tax on imported ethanol is a temporary stop-gap "fix" that will help to reduce the cost of fuel at the pump a little bit which may help us to buy some time while we work on other things that can help address the real problem. For that reason alone, at this time, it is a good idea for the United States.

Making ethanol fuels more available and less expensive will help to speed the adoption of ethanol blended fuels on the coasts and also help to speed the adoption of E-85 for those newer flex-fuel vehicles. Making this fuel more affordable will help to speed it's adoption and will create the demand that will allow gas stations to justify the expense of installing new pumps and tanks. All of this is good.

Sugar cane is a crop that can be grown in much of the United States. Over time we can start to produce ethanol from it (and other sources) allowing us to produce more of our energy domestically which is good for our economy and will allow us to be less dependant on foreign energy which will be a great economic stabilizer meaning that over-seas economic pressures can not hurt us as badly. This is a very good thing.

It is just as vital that we develop other sources of energy as well. Dependance on any single commodity puts us at risk - if we hinged our energy economy on ethanol from sugar cane and there was a crop failure, our economy could suffer badly. Therefore we have to develop other near-term solutions as well. For transportation fuels these solutions should include coal gasification, ethanol from cellulose, thermal depolymerization and bio-diesel. We do not need to completely ignore conventional oil, there are still a number of domestic sources of this energy available. If we look at energy as a North American issue rather than a national issue, the Alberta Oil Sands could provide us with a great deal of conventional oil. With the CO2 produced from coal gasification conventional oil wells can be returned to production. There are also untapped sources of oil on Alaska's environmentally sensitive North Shore. Tapping these resources is economically feasible but is a politically sensitive and highly charged issue. With high fuel prices and our economy suffering from it, the politicians may find North Shore exploitation more acceptable with their constituents.

We should not count out gaseous fuels such as hydrogen, propane, and natural gas as transportation fuels but I see them as being either niche players or, further out in development. For the foreseeable future, I think most transportation fuels will be liquid because they are easier and safer to handle, transport, and use.

Energy is not just about transportation, we also use energy to heat and cool our homes, to manufacture things, and to save labor in many different ways. Stationary powerplants can use different kinds of fuels - everything from biomass (Including garbage) to nuclear power!

Because of issues with safety and waste disposal, nuclear power plants have not been built in the United States in several decades. These dynamics may be changing. Nuclear reactors are very efficient, it is estimated that one pound of enriched uranium produces the same amount of electrical energy as 800,000 tons of coal. Pebble bed nuclear reactors have been proven safe and effective. In the United States, the Yucca Mountain Repository is expected to start accepting radioactive waste for long term storage (disposal) in 2010. For all of these reasons, in the recent past some notable environmentalists have come out in favor of building a new generation of nuclear reactors.

Energy is an important part of modern life. The way we make it and the way we use it has to evolve and adapt. If it doesn't we will make it too valuable a commodity and we will be unable to afford it. Failure to change and adapt will without a doubt cause of a great deal of pain and suffering. We are reaching a point where we can no longer just talk about it. We need to take action that will help us now and we have to find ways to go forward using different fuels, methods, and processes. If we don't, we will wither away.

Import Sugar Cane

[bloobamator]

Why don't we just import the sugar cane itself, and process it here in the states?

Re:Import Sugar Cane

[Anonymous Coward]

uh because that make too much sense? or the grower in FLorida would oppose to that? or it is illegal to birng in plants from the tropics?

Or - we dont have the sugar cane factory

Goal: Repeal the laws of physics.

[HornWumpus]

I've got a goal for you AC.

Pass middle school.

How to turn Coke into Pepsi.

[HornWumpus]

Leave it in an open glass in the sun for about a day. Viola Pepsi.

Answer: Invade Cuba! Blood for Sugar!

[duffolonious]

Haha! It's so simple. Invade Cuba, convert their sugar to ethanol and get away from OPEC.

All we need to do is cook up some crazy scheme - something like how we invaded Iraq. We could probably even be blunt about it - nobody in the US likes Fidel Castro.

Homer Simpson was right: "First you get da sugar, then you get da power, then you get da weemen!"

Re:Answer: Invade Cuba! Blood for Sugar!

[mshurpik]

OPEC is not the short-term problem because OPEC charges a maximum of $30 per barrel of oil. And, OPEC is frequently undercut by their own members.

In fact, invading Iraq is the leading reason why prices have hit $75/barrel. With Iraqi production offline, OPEC doesn't have the price-regulating surplus they always had in the past. In fact, OPEC is currently powerless (unless they really want to screw us, but they're already making two to three times what they normally do).

What do you add to get the water out of your tank

[HornWumpus]

A mixture of ethanol and methanol.

It mixes with the water which then mixes with the gasoline and is in turn run thru the fuel system and goes out the exhast.

Otherwise your fuel lines would freeze up and/or your car would die when you got to the water layer.

A LITTLE water in your fuel is not a problem. Water injection is a common way to boost performance.

Also tell my how pipes 'sweat' in water without leaking out gasoline? That must be a good trick.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[AndersOSU]

So that begs the question how much energy do you have to put in per gallon to go from grass to sugar, since enzymes work best at elevated temperatures, and is that in any way proportional to the pay-off of growing grass instead of corn?

Anyone know?

Private aviation?

[mcrbids]

You need methanol or ethanol to make biodiesel anyway. Also, diesels can be run on E95, a 95% ethanol and 5% gasoline mixture, so you have flexibility there. The only conversion needed to run E95 is to raise base compression and to be able to vary fuel delivery, which is a feature of any TDI diesel anyway. Diesels with mechanical injection might be more difficult, but should still be convertible.

Biodiesel is a great fuel. It's extremely dense, (high energy content) and can be used interchangably with diesel without requiring any engine modifications whatsoever.

However, it won't work for Aviation. Biodiesel has a tendency to get very thick when cold, and it often gets below freezing at altitude on an otherwise sunny, beautiful day, simply from the altitude.

Ethanol is the only biofuel I can think of that could be practically used to replace the high-octane gasoline used in a private plane. (I don't know about jet fuel)

I didn't know that tidbit about E95 in diesels, I'll look it up. What most people don't realize is that the diesel engine can run on just about *anything*! The hard part is getting the fuel injection and compression ratios right for whatever the fuel source is.

The original diesel engine was designed to run on coal dust...

Re:Private aviation?

[inode_buddha]

For that matter, many people fail to take into account the fact that ethanol has a nearly infinite octane rating. In order to produce comparable power to gasoline, one must increase the compression ratio (racers do this), or increase the size of the engine.

I suspect that increasing the compression for a pure-ethanol engine would make the energy spent vs. energy received ratios (1:1.3) much more favorable for the corn-based ethanols, making it feasible for North America. Perhaps extreme turbocharging could do the trick relatively cheaply, making for a smooth conversion of the national fleet.

gasoline is trucked...

[YesIAmAScript]

It's trucked a lot. In my state (California) it's almost exclusively trucked. The pipelines coming from the rest of the country don't reach here.

Anyway, as the other poster mentioned, a little water is okay. And besides, what you call "sweat" is condensation. Water doesn't spontaneously appear in the pipelines. So any sweat on the inside of the pipe is merely the water that was already there in another form.

So keep the water out of the pipeline, and you won't have problems, sweating or no.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other factors as well. Corn requires fertilizers to get a decent yield. Fertilizers are a huge energy input. And the useful part of corn is only a tiny percentage of the total growth. Switchgrass grows like a weed, producing a huge yield with no fertilizer and no pesticides.

More directly, it's a misunderstanding to believe that, since enzymes work well at high temperatures, any (fixed) input of energy is required for conversion. You can add as much energy and/or as much capital in the form of insulation and heat exchangers as is economically prudent.

But then there is also the prospect of using the same cellulose-to-ethanol technology to convert leftover corn stalks as well, so the answer is *shrug*. I'm under the impression that we won't be digging up the corn belt to plant switchgrass any time soon. More likely other, less fertile areas of the midwest will be put into use growing switchgrass.

Re:What do you add to get the water out of your ta

[RingDev]

As per the EPA:

"If ethanol-blended gasoline is exposed to water or even water vapor (as in pipelines), ethanol will bring the water into solution and make the gasoline unusable. In addition, if ethanolblended gasoline is stored for an extended period, the ethanol will begin to separate from the gasoline. As a re-sult, ethanol is often manufactured close to the point of use or shipped by rail, increasing the cost of its use."

As per ADM:
"Because ethanol's water-retaining tendency prevents it from being shipped via pipeline, California officials have voiced concerns about obtaining adequate supplies."

My assumption that the pipes were "sweating" is based on the assumption that there is air in the pipes, and the pipes are run above and under ground. When the pipe temperature drops (going underground) the air temperature drops and condensation forms on the pipe walls. Given that a major fuel distributor and the EPA have concerns about the feasibility of piping ethanol blended fuels, I would figure that it is likely a major concern. I could be wrong about the sweating, but none the less, Ethanol is not piped as gasoline/diesel is, it is shipped.

-Rick

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you don't seem to know the facts. Those Evil Cane Barons have robbed the lands from the local farmers (yes, literally), and farmers have become Poor Slaves with bad health (harvesting by hand is a very dirty job, since the crops are flamed first). Not to mention the harm they've done to the rainforests.

You don't have to be Lenin to see why situation B is better.. Poor Slaves would become Slightly Less Poor Farmers.

Hempcar.

[The Queen]

Follow the antics of crazy biodeisel travelers, won't you?
http://www.hempcar.org/

Energy Independance

[Tighe_L]

This tariff is encouraging Energy independence, something that is just starting to get into the heads of Americans. We need to cut our reliance on foreign energy, in the short term drill more oil wells, produce more ethanol, and produce home hydrogen plants (solar and electrical powered).

The last thing we need to do is to start importing fuel from Brazil (who is not our friend). Besides where do you think they get the land to grow sugar cane? That's right my eco freak friends - the rain forest.

Bush Agrees with Dropping Ethanol Tariff

[TheSync]

From Larry Kudlow's interview with the President:

MR. KUDLOW: Well, yesterday, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman hinted that you might change position on the ethanol tariff, particularly with respect to Brazil. I guess there's a 54-cent tariff on that thing.

And the market responded--gasoline futures dropped nine cents, a huge drop. If you had a few of those you'll be back to $2.25 at the pump. Will you drop the tariff on--

PRESIDENT BUSH: I do want to work with Congress on that. I think it makes sense to--when there's a time of shortage of a product that's needed, so that the consumers can have a reasonable price, it seems to me to make sense to address those shortages, and dropping a tariff will enable the foreign export of ethanol into our markets, which will particularly help on our coasts. And yeah, I've talked to Congress about that.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[maxume]

The definition of slavery is forced labor. I agree that people don't take low wage jobs by force, but it is probably a good idea to boycott products that are made by literal slave labor, and a bad idea to confuse the term.

Maybe a horrible idea

[maxume]

In the sense that Brazil is both one of the primary exporters of ethanol and controls much of the Amazon. Creating an American market for Brazillian ethanol likely encourages the destruction of that rainforest. Land use practices in Brazil are *not* friendly to the environment.

If there's a vote, I'm choosing ecological diversity over NASCAR.

Re:Maybe a horrible idea

[iksrazal_br]

"Creating an American market for Brazillian ethanol likely encourages the destruction of that rainforest."

Maybe is just that. I'm an American expatriot living in Brazil, and last year I did a 20 day trip in the rain forest. I also own a flex fuel car. In short, no one grows sugar cane in the rain forest. 99% of the people there do slash and burn farming for mandioca - a starch like a potato. Its just not the right land and weather for sugar cane.

Between fuel economy and price, ethanol in Brazil is about even. The huge pluses are that Brazil is essentially energy independant (1.7 million barrels of oil per day)in an age where the oil exporting countries are under threat to be invaded (Iran, venezuela), or are somewhat politcally unstable dictatorships with serious pressure groups (Saudi Arabia, Russia), You can always grow sugar cane, but some countries in the mid east such as Quatar are about to go dry. I consider fuel independance one of Brazil's biggest advantages in this century.

An over looked possibility is that USA crude-oil production capacity is about 5 million barrels per day and consumes 20 million barrels per day. A move to flex fuel cars in the USA could significantly reduce the price of oil - but I'd bet against it actually happening.

Re:Maybe a horrible idea

[maxume]

I'll admit I'm not well informed on the issue. Here are a couple of questions anyway:

How closely are you watching? The sugarcane fields could easily have been jungle 15 years ago. Are you sure they weren't?

Could the land being used to grow sugarcane be used to grow food otherwise? Is land being cleared to grow food so other land can be used for sugarcane?

The answers to questions like these aren't easy or clear. I certainly don't have them.

The flex-fuel thing isn't going to work as well in the US, the optimistic 30% gain from corn ethanol isn't quite on the same scale as the gain from cane sugar alcohol.

Re:Maybe a horrible idea

[rcastro0]

I'll admit I'm not well informed on the issue. Here are a couple of questions anyway:

How closely are you watching? The sugarcane fields could easily have been jungle 15 years ago. Are you sure they weren't?

Let me take these. I am a Brazilian and have some familiarity with the theme.
The sugar cane plantation in Brazil is concentrated in two regions. #1 is the State of São Paulo, SE Brazil, the most populated area of the country. #2 is the State of Pernambuco, on the NE coast. Both of these states are home to the oldest towns in Brazil: it is where Portuguese colonization begun. The city of São Vicente, on the coast of the State of São Paulo, was founded in 1580, if I am not mistaken. The City of São Paulo itself is over 400 years old. Olinda, in the State of Pernambuco, was also one of the oldest areas of colonial exploration in Brazil -- it was disputed between Dutch and Portuguese settlers in the 1600's . At the time both the Dutch and the Portuguese were fighting for sugar cane plantation land. After expelled, the Dutch colonist went to the caribbean to (you guess) grow sugar cane. Soo... what I mean to say, the sugar cane areas were not deforestated 15 years ago. More like 150 years ago or, in some cases, 400 years ago.

Both Pernambuco and São Paulo are thousands of miles from the Amazon rain forest, by the way (which is of course huge, but not the whole of Brazil -- in fact very little of the Brazilian population is in it or close to it).

Could the land being used to grow sugarcane be used to grow food otherwise? Is land being cleared to grow food so other land can be used for sugarcane?

Of course the land could be used to grow food. But Brazil is a major exporting country for most food items already, and stopping with sugar cane would only change the profile of the exports. Land is being cleared, you are right, to grow food -- soy beans and cattle are the frontier -- but the advance is much more in the semi-arid "cerrado" region (western Bahia state, for example) and in the "Pantanal" marsh land in the Brazilian mid-west (Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul states) -- these are NOT the amazon rain forest. As the previous poster said, unfortunately the amazon is being brought down much more for the wood itself than for building productive agriculture.

And it is not for the lack of laws -- if I may add. The wood extraction happens in indian reservations, national parks and government owned land illegally, protected often times by gun-holding criminals and corrupt authorities (wild west memories, anyone?). In fact the government laws sometimes hurt what they are trying to protect -- a tropical agriculture that could take place in the amazon rain forest would be palm trees (for palm oil, bio diesel, etc.). However, since the amazon rain forest is protected by law if you have 100 acres in the forest you can only bring down 10%-20% of it to grow other things -- which nobody finds interesting to do. In the end, if lawful ways are not economical, the unlawful way wins.

The answers to questions like these aren't easy or clear. I certainly don't have them.

Information exchange is a beginning. Take a look at maps of the country, look for São Paulo State, Pernambuco and the Amazon Jungle. You will see what I talked about. Brazil is larger than the continental USA, and tremendously varied in terms of climate, soil, vegetation, demographic and income distribution.

Re:Energy efficiency of Lawn clippings?

[whimmel]

So what's the energy density of lawn clippings?

Me and each of my neighbors are already growing about 1/3 acre of various kinds of grasses and shrubs. There's already a mechanism to come pick up those clippings every week and takes them to--who knows? county composting?

Perhaps I should keep them and distill it in my garage.

There is a significantly better fuel than ethanol

[bobdickgus]

Butanol is a far superior biofuel, it has a higher octane rating. Higher energy density than gasoline and requires no modification of car engines to run(you could increase the compression to get higher power though). It can be made at about the same weight per weight of input sugar/starch as ethanol. Oh and it does not absorb water like ethanol does.

Pimental and Patzek are shills...

[aquarian]

...for the petroleum industry. They're basically paid to discredit biofuels. Look at where their funding comes from. No one in the scientific community takes them seriously, just the sensational popular press.

Re:Energy efficiency of Lawn clippings?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget lawn clippings. Turf is selected to grow slowly. Your lawn mower burns more gas than you would be able to produce.

You want something like switchgrass or bamboo. Grow that in your front yard and you can use it to heat your house and run your car.

Or get a few of these, throw away your lawn mower and call it even.

remixing..

[YesIAmAScript]

"As a result, ethanol is often manufactured close to the point of use or shipped by rail, increasing the cost of its use."

Again, in my state, it's not much of an issue. I know it is for the rest of you. We just don't have as many pipelines as the rest of you.

I can't imagine it would cost much to put a mixing system in. I mean, concrete has to be mixed all the way to delivery and it it's not very expensive at all. So it's an obstacle, but not a big one, at least financially. Logistically, it's probably a bit bigger problem.

Re:remixing..

[RingDev]

I live in Wisconsin, Ethanol distribution here is no problem since there are major refineries with in a few hundred miles. California is a major problem, Ideally we would pipe ethanol through/over the mountains from the mid west to the west coast, but due to problems with condensation and seperation of the fuel that isn't an option. The other option is load up trains to haul tank load after of fuel over the mountains. Marching a train over the mountains is significantly less efficient and more costly then pumping fuel down a pipe.

-Rick

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Paradise Pete]

but the Real Life Sugar Cane Plantation Barons in Latin America who exploit peasant labor for pennies a day.

Nobody is forced to work on the sugar cane plantations. So obviously, the people who do work there don't have a better alternative, or else they wouldn't work there. If the sugar cane work was not available then the workers, the very people you'd like to help, would be the ones most harmed.

Without coercion there can not be exploitation. As long as people can choose to not work there, then they are better off having the choice.

Clearly the Plantation Barons are offering an option that is at least as good, if not better than, anything else available to the workers.

Dr. Pepper with REAL sugar Re:Corn vs Sugar

[MrSnivvel]

If you'd like to compare, next time you see an old-fashioned bottle of soda, check and see if it's from Mexico.

No need to go past the border, the Dublin, TX Dr. Pepper bottler still uses Pure Cane sugar in the production of Dr. Pepper. You can even order it online. http://www.dublindrpepper.com/

Re:Energy efficiency of Lawn clippings?

[njh]

You could grow veggies instead of lawn and make even more oil!

Kit Cars?

[Firethorn]

Huh, you'd think that, given volume purchasing, he'd be able to arrange a deal to get the cars without the engine, saving a significant amount of money, both in purchase cost and labor for yanking the unused gas motor out.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Paradise Pete]

it is probably a good idea to boycott products that are made by literal slave labor, and a bad idea to confuse the term.

I agree completely.

Also an advantage in carbon balance.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Ethanol has the big advantage that it's energy source is free (as in beer) and will be for the next 5 billion years.

Except for the cost of using the land on which to collect that energy. B-)

Ethanol has another advantage: It's carbon neutral. The carbon in the carbone dioxide that is released when it burns is carbon that the plant extracted from atmospheric carbon dioxide in the first place. No greenhouse gas emission. Most of the other inputs to make it can also be produced and used without releasing fossil carbon, too.

(Actually a slight reduction, since a small amount of the plant material, on the average, ends up as stuff that gets buried for geologic time.)

Re:Also an advantage in carbon balance.

[Anonymous Coward]

if you consider it that way, then you have to say that crude oil is carbon neutral as well, because it is mostly the remains of algae that formed millions of years ago. the difference would be that ethanol is neutral within our lifetimes and oil is neutral across millenia.

Re:Also an advantage in carbon balance.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Nope.

Crude oil pulls carbon from fossils to the air, releasing carbon that has not been in the atmosphere for geologic time, increasing the atmospheric carbon.

Crop ethanol pulls carbon from the air - most of which is released back to the air. The carbon in the air is unchanged, except for the reduction by the amount that goes into the inventory of ethanol and plant materials in the fuel cycle, plus a tiny leak that leaves the fuel cycle without being put back into the air.

Already solved

[Optic7]

The engines in cars being sold in Brazil today are 100% flexible - in other words, you can fill your tank with gasoline only, ethanol only, (neither is actually 100% pure at the pump), or any combination of the two. When they say flex-fuel, they're not talking about the not-that-flexible E85 (85% gasoline/ 15% ethanol) engines being sold in the US.

Two words.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try 6-7 bucks a gallon, that's what most of Europe is paying.
Fuel taxes.

GM corn that is sweeter than sugar cane

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you know it - Monsanto is comming out with GM corn that is sweeter than sugar cane, or maybe they should put sugar cane DNA in corn?

woo hoo.. more outsourcing

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah.. i would preffer to keep paying more as a consumer of the end product than to relieve the taxation on imported ethanol. At least it helps us keep the jobs and refineries here in the US. Besides, its nice to see the good old farmers(corn) reap some benefits from their crops for once. We can grow sugar cane here in the US in some regions. If you're that worried about it, give some funding out to create the sugar cane farms here. What happens when we have another world war and most of our gas and automobile plants are overseas?

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Reziac]

And according to TFA (or one linked from it, I forget), sugar cane produces 7 units of energy for every unit used in production. That's a helluva lot more efficient even than sugar beets.

The advantage of sugar beets is that they do well in areas with short growing seasons and long winters -- North Dakota and Minnesota both produce a lot of sugar beets, and are close to markets for the principle waste product (beet pulp, useful as mulch and livestock fodder).

The only downside I can think of is that you don't want to live downwind of the sugar plant, cuz man, do "used" sugar beets ever stink!

The U.S. used to grow a lot of sugar cane (mainly along the Mississippi delta) and there's probably no reason we can't return to that, especially since a good deal of what used to be cane fields 200 years ago is now... er, no longer urbanized, thanks to certain hurricanes. Sugar cane used to be very labour-intensive, but I understand there are now harvesting machines for that job.

Learn to drive!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, a giant V8 truck that can't be parked anywhere, drives like a drunken elephant and gets 12 mpg is hardly a "decent vehicle."

-----------------

I've driven all sorts of big vehicles- giant old sedan, oversize pickup truck, and gas guzzling SUV, and I've never had a problem parking them anywhere, not in my small hometown, not in any metropolitan area, never!

People in the rural midwest don't care too much about handling, we don't have much geography for the roads to curve around! We'd rather have room to be comfortable driving/riding, and have the ability to transport big stuff. Not exactly the strong suit of tiny asian cars.

Interestingly, the same thing happened in 1991

[tlambert]

Interestingly, the same thing happened in 1991.

In 1991, the Honda CRX HF was introduced with an EPA estimated 49/52 MPG.

Like most competition, the U.S. auto manufactures lobbied for the introduction of a lot of new destructive safety tests that their cars were known to already be capable of surviving, but the CRX HF was not. They actually had to go out an buy a bunch of them themselves to take them apart to see what sheer stresses they could apply that the HF would not survive.

And so, like the Yugo before it (which didn't have good gas mileage, but was kicking their teeth in on price), they saved The American Way Of Life by keeping the foreign competition out of their markets.

I have no doubt the SMART will suffer similarly, if the Santa Clara people who have the exclusive $10M import deal fail to mark it up sufficiently to drive people away from buying them instead of American cars.

-- Terry

Needing a boat?

[ErebusNT]

"How many people who own boats really "need" them?" I think we should also remember that some people tow sailboats that while requiring a heavy tow vehicle do not consume fossil fuels once underway on the water. Not every boat own owns a motorboat.

What About Straw?

[ErebusNT]

Don't forget straw. Iogen is has built a small pilot plant in Ottawa that uses straw (a natural normally almost completely useless byproduct of wheat farming) to make ethanl. http://www.iogen.ca/company/technology/cellulose_e thanol.html

importing oil - bad.. importing ethanol - good ?

[vinnymeyer]

Ah.. I think I get it.. we can give up our dependence on imported OIL so that we can become dependent on imported ETHANOL.. Got it.

But...

[tfcdesign]

We have the tariff and taxes and subsidies to protect OUR famers. Flooding our market with foreign agriculture will hurt OUR industies. What about all our farn unions!? Ceaser Chavez would rise from the dead and smite you.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, the slaves would farm the land (that was stolen from them) themselves. I've seen a documentary about the situation, and it clearly showed how the barons have robbed the land and then "employed" (=forced) the former land-owners. Sure, the slaves have no alternative than to work on the fields for 14h/day.

what??

[tunesmith]

Look, so what if it's inefficient that way?

The energy it takes to produce ethanol from corn is not portable. But ethanol is portable. That's an advantage.

It's the same diff with hydrogen. It takes more energy to create liquid hydrogen than the energy you get from liquid hydrogen. But it's seen as a good thing *there* because of the portability aspect. Why not with ethanol?

What am I missing here?

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[zCyl]

Growing, transporting, and distilling corn to make a gallon of ethanol uses almost as much energy as is contained in the ethanol itself.

I've heard of many people calculating this... But has anyone ever tried to prove it? Use farm equipment running on ethanol, convert the corn to ethanol using ethanol powered facilities, distribute the ethanol with an ethanol-powered supply chain, and fuel all of these things from the ethanol produced in this manner. The proponents of ethanol from corn could easily demonstrate the validity of the approach with a working example of this sort.

FUD calculations

[Mr Europe]

"Yet, producing ethanol from corn is highly inefficient and consumes 1 unit of energy for each 1.3 units of energy that burning ethanol provides."

That calculation has not much value. The only what counts is the price tag the energy has when ist at the consumer. The point is that the produces may get ist own energy VERY cheap, so cheap that wasteing it does not matter.

91 octane gas - sad

[spineboy]

Well, instead of assuming that I've fallen for gas company prices - you could have held your tongue. I finally bought a Porsche that has a high compression engine, and it is recommended to use 93 octane of higher. As a result, by using a lower octane gas, the engine senses pre-detonation occuring, and retards the ping, thus reducing the power output.

Now before someone else rants about me using a gas wasting car, I've spent the first 20 years of my driving career using cars (87 oct) that got 30-40 mpg. As of now I only live 10 miles from work.

Premium gas, and prices rose again

[spineboy]

I'm hoping you "didn't pay more than £3.20 " cause that would be around $5 a gallon ;-P

I'm not complaining about the prices, I think they're good for the environment.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Jonner]

I understand not wanting to support what you see as an exploitive system in a third world country, but do the workers there do when they lose that work? Should they come to North America where labor is more fairly regulated? It seems a lot of people are complaining about that too.

Mass transit CAN'T work in Los Angeles as of yet.

[spineboy]

Your comment about route 405 (it goes from the Valley into West L.A. for those not in the know) is probably wrong. People are mistaken about Los Angeles when they think it's a city - it's NOT! L.A. is a giant suburb, with really no center to speak of...it's too spread out. That's why mass transit won'r work well, cause no 2 people are coming/going in the same direction, even on the 405
Mass transit will work when L.A. becomes more crowded, and then trains/busses will be a viable option.

Good point.

[Belial6]

That is a good point. As long as they can't get the religious/racial unity to start sweeping int Europe, it probably wouldn't be too bad for us in the US. Given their history, you are probably right that they would be too busy killing each other to worry about us.

Re:Energy efficiency of Sugar Beets?

[Paradise Pete]

Nope, the slaves would farm the land (that was stolen from them) themselves.

I've no doubt that that happens, and in those cases I agree with any sort of boycott. The more general case, such as in the Latin American banana industry, no theft of land took place, and the people that work in that industry have plenty of other options. I personally know a couple of banana workers, and while it's hard work for not much money, it's the best job available to them. If they were better educated of course things would be different, and that's (one of) the real source of the problem. But that's a whole different set of problems.

It's a complicated issue, and the "simple" answer of boycotting the evil exploiters, while it may make people feel good, directly harms the ones they'd like to help. If those banana workers had to find other work then their children would have even less of an opportunity to get an education, extending the problem to the next generation.

doesn't matter...

[YesIAmAScript]

Again, we don't have pipelines from California to the rest of the country for gasoline anyway. There is a pipeline that runs from Arizona to Texas (that direction), but it never reaches California.

So again, it just isn't an issue for us here in California. We will have to truck it, or tanker it, but we already do so with gas, so it probably won't be a big cost adder for us.

Re:doesn't matter...

[RingDev]

Only issue is that you'll need to add another 1800 miles to that truck/tanker route. Last I heard Arizona didn't have the best corn growing climate ;)

-Rick

Ethanol

[gas hog]

Oil is the crack of the world and as the president stated "America ia addicted". Eventually world war 3 will be fought for it if something isn't done fast. Some people say that removing the tarriff will result in bringing more ethanol in. I say to you now, removing the tarriff will only result in killing or setting back ethanol production in this country. Exactly what the crack head oil people want. Right now ethanol is the only answer. We must push foward with it full throttle. If you look around I don't see much sugar cane growing in this climate. So if you want this country to be energy independent don't listen to the friggin bullshit these money grubbin basterds are putting out. These pricks would kill us all tommorow just to make an oil buck today.