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Vinod Khosla Talks Ethanol
IamTheRealMike writes "Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun, has a new obsession these days. Ethanol is the fuel touted by many as an alternative to dwindling oil stocks, but is it all it's cracked up to be? Whilst Khosla is an avid supporter of ethanol as an alternative fuel (video link) his optimistic views have been rigourously challenged by Robert Rapier, an oil industry insider who is also engaged in a quest to discover alternatives. Recently the two debated via phone the merits of an ethanol economy, and Mr Rapier has now written up a report of the debate. What will be powering our cars 10 years from now?"
Probably oil.
Still.
Ethanol has shitty energy density. The solution, if you are using liquid fuel, is to use biodiesel for diesels and butanol for gasoline engines. You can run E95, 95% ethanol and 5% gasoline, in diesel engines just by increasing compression and changing fuel delivery (not sure if it's increase or decrease; I'd guess increase.) You can run butanol in gasoline engines without modification, though low-compression engines may need to have their timing advanced since butanol has a higher octane rating than gasoline, IIRC.
Regardless what we make biofuel out of, the most important point is that it not be topsoil-based. Agriculture is the most destructive technology ever unleashed upon the Earth by mankind. Hydroponic crops make dramatically more sense as fuel feedstocks.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm at my work right now, where I am employed as an energy analyst. It is the opinion of every single person in the industry that there is no real possibility of replacing gasoline with ethanol. It would take the entire corn harvest of the United States to make that much ethanol, not even counting how much ethanol you would have to burn to harvest the corn. We will continue to burn gasoline until it becomes so expensive that people use alternate transportation, or until we all die in some horrible war. The whole ethanol thing is just another wall street fad that's brought in a bunch of suckers.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
I think all new cars will be supporting e85 gas (85% ethanol) within 10 years, but the most commonly used will still be the 15% stuff, cause of all the used cars on the market that can't handle e85. The biggest issue is going to be getting e85 gas stations out there (of course, as more and more cars start supporting it, more and more stations will popup). Here in Wisconsin, I've seen several e85 stations pop up in the last handful of years, so that I now know of 5 e85 stations within an hour of my home.
You really have to understand that when "reading something somewhere" that there is a LOT of money on both sides. If you really want to understand an issue like this, you need to look at the research methodology and references. Article doesn't have any? Article is then useless.
Do you think BP or Exxon wants a non-fossil fuel energy source to flourish in the US? They have billions of dollars into the current infrastructure, and their primary goal is to wring all the money they can out of it while they can. If they have to muddy the waters with FUD, so be it.
On the other hand, the ethanol producers _also_ have a lot at stake in the form of possible future profits. They are likely to paint a too-rosy picture of what an alcohol based fuel can do. But with oilmen in control of the government, you can't really rely on them for an unbiased position either.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
making money.
He's a VC. He sells you on hype. You buy the stock of the companies that he invests in early. He cashes out at or shortly after IPO. He couldn't care less what happens to you afterward.
The only reason Vinod is interested in ethanol is because there is money to be made. For him.
Period.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
The question we should be asking is not what will be powering our cars, but how do shift to a society that needs less cars and less fuel in general. Buying locally grown food, riding a bike, telecomutingm and forcing our city governments to make our cities less car-dependent and more pedestrian and public transit oriented are the real answers to the issue of fuel shortage.
There is a good chance that Coal-To-Liquid will gain quite a bit in popularity. The US is not lacking in coal
and the technology to convert coal into a clean burning fuel has been around for a long time (Fischer-Tropsch).
I believe South Africa started using this type of fuel when they were isolated over Apartheid.
CTL as an option to replace gasoline is on the radar:
http://www.theorator.com/bills109/s3623.html
It is not oil, ethanol, or [insert silver bullet technology here]; it is all of them together.
We don't need a 100% replacement for oil. If we can replace 10% with one economical technology, 5% with another, and 2% with yet another then good. Repeats as additional technologies become economical. Tony
The first caucuses of the Presidential campaign season are always in Iowa. It's always the first news of the season, and the winner of Iowa gets huge amounts of free, positive press coverage.
Iowa is where the corn comes from. No politician who ever expects to run for President can afford to piss off Iowa. Even if you're not running today, if it's even on your mind, you vote the way Archer Daniels Midland (the immense agribusiness that can ruin your political life in the farm belt) tells you to vote.
We wouldn't even be talking about ethanol if it weren't for that little quirk of politics. I'd love to see some party say, "Ya know what? Let's make Iowa third rather than first and see what happens." We might still be talking ethanol, but we sure wouldn't be talking about getting it from corn.
Ethanol sounds promising as a short term assistance to weening ourselves off foreign oil. Unfortunately tho, it's widely accepted by climatologists that the Ogallala Aquifer is on course to dry up within a few short decades, and this isn't taking into account the hundreds of ethanol plants that have been developed accross the midwest recently. There will soon be a demand for corn that will create a demand for water that will no longer exist.
Bio-diesel and ethanol only address the concerns about the supply of oil.
They do nothing to reduce CO2 emmissions of our autos.
The US uses around 880 millionTonnes of oil. However it's important to remember that when refined, 47% is gasoline.
I'm not sure about how the efficiency of ethanol compares but i'd estimate if has an energy density of around 75% of gasoline.
So to meet the US' needs for gasoline, it'd need 1.5billion tonnes of corn or 500million tonnes of ethanol. That doesn't seem an unreasonable target if the US ramps up it's corn production (more demand = more money = more farms). What it can't produce it can import from agricultural nations.
Actually, it is a GROSS understatement.
http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm
Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process.
Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU.
"Put another way," Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU."
Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline.
The Ethanol industry, mainly those companies whose main business is the making and running the Ethanol plants (17 have or are being built in Nebraska alone) has a counter argument:
http://www.ncga.com/ethanol/pdfs/ShapouriEnergyBa
The net energy balance of corn ethanol adjusted for byproduct credits is 27,729 and 33,196 Btu per gallon for wet- and dry-milling,
Now, considering that gasoline supplies 125,000 Btu's per gallon, it will take between 3.5 to 4.5 gallons of Ethanol to replace each gallon of gasoline, (using PRO Ehtanol figures) IF Ethanol is to be self-sustaining. When you compute the total gallons of gasoline the US burns every year and multiply that by 4, then divide by the average US Corn yield, you'll learn that it will take 50% MORE land than the total arable land in the US. You can't grow Corn on rocks or mountian slopes, or in deserts. In fact, it is becoming difficult to grow corn here in the Platte Valley of Nebraska because the Ogalala aquifer is getting low and the Neb Nat Resource district is strictly controlling the pumping of water. You may see a LARGE drop in Corn production to do the extended drought in the Midwest. So much for Corn as a dependable fuel source.
Corn is NOT a renewable resource. It isn't even a fuel. It's a food source. Would you rather someone starve so you can drive your SUV?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
yea 200-400 at current use. Now multiply the number of people needing it for their cars, planes, and lights by 5-10 and see how long it lasts. Also Drilling the permafrost for oil, while possible is expensive, really expensive compared to drilling even in the ocean.
China is literally 4 times the popultion of the US alone. what about india? The problem with most of the long range prediction is that they assume that more oil won't be used in the future or use the modest growth rate of the US or europe. No one is figuring on a billion chinese needing cars or computers. Let alone their childern. On top of the UE or european growth rates.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Not only are Pimental's figures grossly incorrect for corn, but there are much more efficient feedstocks that blow them completely out of the water.
This doesn't even account for ethanol from cellulose. If we can devise a way to efficiently break cellulose down to sugar, then ethanol become trivial to produce.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
According to the Energy Information Alliance of the US Federal Government, production costs and company profits account for 65% of gasoline cost. The same agency also reports that the American average price of gasoline is $3.00. Some rough math says that the cost of producing a gallon of gasoline is $1.95, more than Ethanol.
Once all of these new Ethanol refineries are built the cost should drop substancially. Also as technology increases over the next 5 years or so the efficiency of Ethanol will grow dramatically. This will make it cheaper for the consumer and better for the enviroment. The only loser here is OPEC. The state of California, not known for supporting corn growers for the hell of it, may be voting this November to require all new vehicles sold there to be able to run E85.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.