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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 powered drivers are already behind the wheel of many American vehicles. This seems more of a problem than a solution. Though the Fred Flintstone Engine would seem to work well, especially with enough ehtanol in your system that you don't notice that you just lost all the skin on your feet at the last red light.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
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 myself support Biodiesal as an alternative fuel - just so much more 'waste' areas could be used. (Even LITERALLY! Human waste could be used) Clearly, there are still limitations to it, though.
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 obviously haven't been to Indiana.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
not the fuel itself but its engines, normal diesel engines with slight alterations can run on grease, fry fat, and a lot of other natural substances, why this potential has not been tapped more
is beyound me.
Corn based ethanol is certainly not a good deal. Our subsidies are so high that, should they disappear (another topic entirely), ethanol would be dead. Sugar (i.e. sugar beets, sugar cane) produces a much more energy-dense ethanol, but we are up against the corn lobby (yes, there is one) in making that transition.
An interesting read, regardless. I do believe that most oil companies are aware of environmental concerns, though most will not agree as to how successful (or sincere) they are. As a business person, it would make sense for the traditional oil companies to get their hands in the ethanol coffers (ahem, I mean, business) sooner rather than later.
Ethanol may not be the be-all-end-all of fuels, but it would be a heck of a lot better (as a renewable resources) than relying solely on petroleum.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
even if true.... why would the US have to be the only place growing corn? 97% of the landmass of the US, spread out over all the airable land in the world, isnt nearly as extreme.
I don't know about ethanol, but i remeber some MIT students found a way to make bio-diesel using 100% algea. They said it would take a land mass about 100 square miles to replace all current oil production.
the largest cause of gas prices being so high? Oh yeah that stuff.
The US imports a majority of the ethanol from Brazil for mixing with gasoline, currently their is a shortage of that garbage which means higher prices. Ethanol is a pipe dream right now, but forced down our throats. Oil prices dont help the situation, but ethanol is a major cause of gas prices right now. Not to mention the gas companies have about a 100 different blends they have to make for every state and region and even in different counties.
The blending of ethanol with gas is not only worse for the environment, but it destroys your engine, causes a significant drop in MPG. Basicall the entire ethanol gas blend is simply a subsidy to Archer Daniels who crams that junk gas down our throats.
Supposidly pure ethanol is much better, but the mixed stuff should be outright banned. (Ever wonder why Iowa, one of the biggest corn producers for ethanol does not have or want the blended formula).
The US needs to stop wasting time worrying about gas taxes (and taking a nickle off the price) and get rid of mixed gas and come up with a federal standard for gasoline. Enough of the, 5 mile difference equaling different gasoline formula.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
What will be powering our cars 10 years from now?
Can you say Mr. Fusion?
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
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
But there is more than corn in Indiana.
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.
that in order to replace gasoline, 97% of the land mass of the US would have to be nothing but corn
Irregardless, the ethanol effort to me seems not to replace gasoline, but only supplement it. Thus, we're not talking about cars running on 100% ethanol, we're talking 85% max, and many cars less than that. Thus, I do believe the 97% of the land mass statement you mentioned is a vast overstatement. Plus, the US I guarantee will not be the only country growing corn to contribute to the ethanol supplies.
The oil people (Bush included) will do whatever to keep their monoploy - oil runs the world finances, so to actually admit oil is running out will destroy their wealth overnight. These people will not do a thing to move to other alternatives, nor either spend R&S to source them.
Welcome to Mad Max very soon.
I'd wager that in the future bacterially manufactured fuels, be it ethanol, butane, or whatever new thing comes along, will all be made via bacteria on waste--or a catalyst. Hell, we've got bacteria that eats grass and poops ethanol now, and you can "grow" a batch of bacteria anywhere. All we'd need is a plot of space for a big-ass building to house the stuff in and tubes that drain the fuel into external tanks. Once Economies of Scale kicks in, it's worth the massive start-up cost.
We'll have to do something, and bitching about energy efficiencies and densities isn't the answer, doing is.
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
They said it would take a land mass about 100 square miles to replace all current oil production.
Sounds interesting, but you can't put that out in the open all in one big area, or you risk a single attack bringing the U.S.'s mobility to a screeching halt. You'd need a secure facility, somewhere well protected. I hear Cheyenne Mountain has an opening!
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
"If there was no more oil. What would we use?"
Yes there's tons of oil left in the world. There's enough for at least 20 years if we don't find more and if we find more, more than 20 years. The problem is oil companies tend to think oil is the ONLY solution. So basically according to them once the oil runs out cars will stop running. That's a good theory, except it's wrong, and we'll find a way to avoid it soon.
But at the same time let's figure out what works. The oil company always says "that won't work" but why don't we get a reason. Is the refinery process to expensive (not meaning the cost of upgrading the refineries which is always a big number)? Is the fuel source too expensive (batteries)? Is it dangerous to contain (Plasma, Hydrogen fuel cells)? or is it too hard to come by on the scale we're talking about(nuclear power and fusion)?
That's not to say Ethanol is the solution. Solar power is certainly not (too expensive to update cars and parts).
Personally you have to give american and japanese car companies credit. They are at least trying to figure out the solution. European companies have basically ignored the alternatives and just switched to diesel acting like it is the solution. It too might be for the time. But at the very least we have to stop listening to the oil companies' opinions unless they are well thought out opinions. Not because they are bad people, or idiots but because they have something worth protecting (our reliance on them), and they won't just give that away or tell us "yes you CAN get energy from other sources".
Some form of gas or disel that we use now. There is a lot of infrastructure in place that can't be replaced (cheaply) in ten years. Either we'll have powerful hybrids, or super efficient gasoline/disel engines, but replacing the vast amount of infrastructure out there isn't going to happen quickly. I'd buy a total conversion in maybe 30 years, but in the short tern, we're looking at gas. There are research projects that are looking at making synthetic gasoline, and doing so would allow you to use the same infrastructure while reducing the CO2 that we add to the air. (Synthetic fuel would come from plants, plants use the CO2 in the air to grow.)
And lastly, most ethanol is produced by corn in an extremely wasteful process that requires an enormous amount of energy which cuts in on its overall efficiency.
Worldwide, most ethanol is actually produced by sugarcane. The corn thing is a US-specific thing based largely on the economics of government subsidies. Per-acre ethanol yields for sugar cane (Brazil and India) and sugar beets (France) are reportedly double that of corn in the US.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
the word economy after everything. Like when they say "hydrogen economy" wont work or "ethanol economy" is not viable. What they really mean is they havent totally figured out how to make you pay for it.
Actually, there is a desire in the ethanol industry to go 100% ethanol. E85 (85% ethanol) is already here for some mixed-fuel vehicles.
Even then, the 100% ethanol vehicles would only (likely) be 100% ethanol for comustion in a hybrid ethanol/electric vehicle (e.g., ethanol Prius hybrid).
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
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.
If you want to get energy independent quickly and reliably, this is the answer. If you want to create a lot of sloppy hype and get people to spend stupid amounts of money on shoddy technology that's going to be under development for decades, then micro-pile atomic reactors are a better bet than Ethanol.
Ethanol is not perfect. It's only being hyped because GM et al are selling E85 engines. They aren't selling Diesel engines because they don't know how to make small ones. VW, BMW, Peugot, Reanault, and Mercedes all have decades of experience with small block engines. E85 is being pushed because if they pushed Diesel engines what little is left of the big three would collapse over night. Personally, I prefer Diesel. It isn't going to explode.
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.
> the price is not going to be cheaper with out federal subsidies to artificially lower it
Just eliminating the import tariffs would be enough to make ethanol much more acceptable as a substitute.
Sometimes, when you are faced with a problem which seems to have only complicate answers, it's important to step back and try to understand what problem you were trying to solve in the first place. Let's take inventory.
i t
* We have people and things which need to move around. That's definate.
* We cannot instantaneously make them appear in their next location. That's definate for now.
* We have a lot of people and things and they have to get around one another to get to where they want/need to be.
Then there was a solution: A carraige. So now there other problems, a long line of solutions, and subsequent problems.
* The carraige needs to be pulled or pushed - get a horse
* The horse needs to be kept alive and poops - replace the horse with a gasoline engine.
* The engine makes the car' go very fast and it kills people when run into one another - plate the carraige in metal.
* The metal is very heavy and the car is sinking in the mud - make the tires larger and the steering better.
* The cars are going faster and the deaths are still occurring - make safety features.
* Enclosed or open, the cars are really hot - make an air conditioner and power it with the engine.
* Gosh I'm bored - add a radio and other entertainment
* I'm distracted and drunk and people are still dying - Add some laws and a highway infrastructure to keep the drivers in order.
* I'm hungry - Make some drive-throughs restaurants.
* There are more people - make bigger roads
* The more people are causing more deaths - make bigger vehicles
So on and one it goes. But the problem was people and things need to get from point a to point b, not I'm bored, I'm hungry or the ground is muddy.
So someone gets an idea somewhere in there - a train. more problems
* We aren't all going to the same place
* I don't like these other people
* You can't fit a train stop in my neighborhood
* trains bring hooligans
But if the main goal is point a to point b for people or packages, doesn't a personal rapid transit system seem more logical?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_trans
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Sure, just bulldoze the rest of the Amazon basin and raise corn...
:(
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
> 97% of the landmass of the US, spread out over all the airable land in the world, isnt nearly as extreme.
Sarcasm, right?
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
What's the point of replacing gasoline with ethanol when you have to use almost the same amount of fossil fuel energy, in the form of natural gas and coal, to make the stuff? Producing ethanol from corn produces little net energy, and the whole process produces nearly the same amount of CO2 as just burning straight gasoline.
source
Since 2 major university studies (See previous Slashdot articles) have shown that for every gallon of Ethenol produced, it takes 1-1.18 equivalent gallons of oil to farm, transport, and distribute, you are NOT PRODUCING ANY ENERGY ! You are transporting Oil Energy through Ethanol to the end user. The ratio has to be less than 1 to show a true source of energy.
Politians are not engineers. They repeat what is popular. People are not asking the right questions. There are viable bio fuels but the corn industry is popular for a lot of farmers, and businessmen making a profit on a growth industry based on a falicy.
There is no doubt the local politicians and some business people are revved up about building more e85 refineries and when the first pumps launched the e85 was cheaper then gasoline, not so anymore since the businesses behind e85 need more capital to build more refinineries. Course I can't bring myself to buy an American car, not after driving Japanese and German cars the past couple years. The American car (branded anyway, I know many 'foreign' cars are built/assembled here in the states) is just crap.
> Also algae grows in water. So if it's landmass you'd need a 100 square mile tank to hold it.
.1 square miles.
Or, 1000 tanks, each
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
As The New Republic has revealed, I use hydrogen in my 1972 Dodge Charger and 1996 Jeep Cherokee. Check the link in my .sig :)
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
The EROI for ethanol is 1.67 to 1 while the EROI for biodiesel is 3.2 to 1. That is, both have a positive energy balance. But that still doesn't change the fact that corn and soy are crummy energy crops. It just so happens that they have huge agribusiness lobbies behind them. Of course, trading ExxonMobil and Chevron for ADM and Monsanto isn't a big improvement.
That having been said, ethanol and biodiesel don't have to come from these feedstocks. The folks at SUNY ESF have figured out how extract simple carbs from cellulose for fermentation using only heat and pressure with only water as a solvent. And then you have the enzyme approach the Iogen folks in Canada are pushing. Likewise, the algae biodiesel folks are really close to turning the corner.
My point? Just because corn and soy based biofuels aren't a magic bullet doesn't mean that liquid biofuels don't have an important place in our energy policy.
Disclaimer: I drive a 2003 VW TDI that gets 46mpg lifetime (paper log, not dash readout). By using the B20 pump near my house, I can go 57.5 miles for every gallon of petrodiesel consumed.
Why don't you verify it yourself using a little bit of common sense:
Sunlight energy: 1kW/m2 at noon measured at ray-perpendicular plane
USA land area: 9,161,923,000,000 m2, adjust this for sun angle (Rearth=4,000 miles)
Daylight hours/day: use your best judgement here.
From this, calculate how much sunlight energy hits the US of A per day.
Corn sunray-biomass efficiency 5-10%
Fermentation efficiency (sugars/cellulose to EtOH): 30-70%
From this, calculate how much sunlight energy hits the US of A per day.
How much of the energy can be converted into Ethanol?
Now compare the total energy convertable to ethanol with the oil energy currently consumed:
USA oil consumption: 20,000,000 bbl/day
Metric: 159 liters/bbl
Oil energy: about 15 kWh/kg; density: about 0.8 kg/L
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Bio-diesel and ethanol only address the concerns about the supply of oil.
They do nothing to reduce CO2 emmissions of our autos.
> Plus, the US I guarantee will not be the only country growing corn to contribute to the ethanol supplies.
If the US, with such abundant land resources, can't produce enough energy using corn for itself, where on Earth are we going to import it from?
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
And what he doesn't want talked about is the fact that he would like to see oil companies taxed around $4B to subsidize this for California. Great, just what the public needs. More taxes on the cost of their already expensive fuel. Ethanol becoming cheaper? Sure "looks" that way when taxes artificially inflate the cost of oil even more.
I'm against subsidies, but if you're going to do them, then do it on things that make sense like that Tesla Roadster. If I were in CA, I'd be furious at this elitist ass who wants me to pay for a technology that is useless to me. If the people of CA are smart, they'll send a $100M in R&D funds to Tesla to build general purpose cars instead of this rich man's scheme to line his own pockets.
you don't need foodstock to create ethanol, you can use waste cellulose as a more ecologically friendly source of ethanol. Wiki article.
And as far as biodiesel gelling in cold temperatures (as another poster points out), you don't have to have 100% biodiesel all the time. You can use a coal-based fuel oil/biodiesel mix (not ideal, but better than 100% crude oil diesel) or you can mix with alcohols to change the properties of biodiesel as needed.
More music, fewer hits
I hate to tell you, but the German cars are crap. Take a look at Mercedes, BMW, and VW (especially) quality ratings some time.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Actually, It would probably be 95% Ethanol since the azeotrope with water, makes simple binary distallation impossible, also 100% Ethanol is hydroscopic enough to pull moisture out of the air, so it won't be 100% ethanol when you put it in your tank.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
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.
I'm hoping your comment was tongue-in-cheek. I cannot imagine any consumer wanting to handle coal (even if compressed nicely into little briquettes). It may be a decent energy source, but it is messy, and messy does not go with a power suit.
Besides, have you ever smelled some coals burn? Much of the coal mined in northern Illinois had so much sulfer in it that companies avoided using it when I was a child. Technology has improved much over the last 20 years, so that coal is used regularly, but whooooooo.... if you think car exhaust stinks now, I can only imagine...
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
If Congressman Fred Upton has his way, our engines will be running on 10% ethanol by 2012. This is a good policy that deserves consideration.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
well either exxon and BP get behind it today, or in 50 years they will be bankrupt as the rest of the world's oil supplies are bone dry. China is rapidly using up copper, aluminium, steel, and oil as they try to become a second or first world country. As china modernises the price of oil will skyrocket as supplies dwindle to new lows. That's a billion plus people trying to become like the west. The price of oil is high enough with just US's 300 million people. think about how high it will go when it needs to be split 3-4 billion ways with world wide supplies dwindling.
We have to begin moving off of Oil in the next couple of years, or we will face a complete power collapse as there won't be enough power for everyone. WW3 will be over Oil, and Electricty. We can't just continue to on spending resources and make our childern pay for them.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
There's no such thing as a "more energy-dense ethanol". Ethanol is ethanol. It may be more efficient to produce using sugar cane or beets than corn, but the end product is identical.
If pollution kills algae, how the heck does this work?
Ethanol Sucks
W00t Ethanol
Whenever someone pushes ethanol that hard, they're really pushing for corn subsidies. If he starts talking wood chips or sawgrass, that might be something worthwhile, but as it stands it's just another pork project.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Would that I had mod points, I'd mod you insightful. I think you're on to something...
The biggest strike against bio-diesel is that it doesn't require a huge industrial infrastructure to provide it. It can be cooked up in the backyard if one were so inclined. So, don't expect much political support for what is a pretty good solution. Big campaign contributions don't come from small scale outfits and do-it-yourselfers. They come from vested interests that expect to make ridiculous profits. Archer-Daniels-Exxon-Mobil.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I agree with you. I'm always surprised when so called progressives want to dramatically increase the tax on gasoline consumption. This only hurts those folks at the lowest end of the economic scale that have to spend a higher proportion of their income on gasoline. Take, for example, a recent immigrant who is starting his own gardening business. He has to drive his own truck to do his business. He's barely breaking even and then you double his fuel costs. Now you've taken a hard working free man, a potential employer, and you've wrecked his business. Now he'll be on welfare and haunting the ER everytime he has a cold. How is that progressive?
I guarantee you that oil will be used by a vast majority of the worlds vehicles by 2016, however there will be a few alternative fuel vehicles on the road *imho* at that time. What they are.. I have no idea, because if there's one thing history has shown us, that when we try and guess and tech advances.. 9 times out of 10 we look like utter fools in retrospect.
The best I can see in the energy as such is that some processes can be done in bulk, which reduces overall polution for that process. However, I doubt that makes up for the amount of energy used.
Also, I doubt that any soil could take the pressures of the necessary corn production. Perhaps with a lot of crop rotation... but in the end, it seems like more effort should be focused on transportation methods such as batteries and hydrogen, and energy sources like wind, nuclear, and solar.
I have freaks! I did something right...
But seriously - solar power could be used for electricity generation in this case.
Actually, Brazil (which encompasses much of the Amazon basin), manages a great degree of self-sufficiency for vehicle fuel using ethanol, and they haven't had to use 97% of their land to do it. A large part of their success stems from the fact that they use sugar cane, not corn, to make ethanol, which I read is far more efficient in terms of both land use and energy required for conversion than corn.
Corn is not a great source for producing ethanol, but the reason it is the highly touted source in the US is because there is already a massive and highly subsidized infrastruture for growing corn in the US, and corn farmers have a powerful lobby. Ethanol from corn may well not be a long-term energy solution, but that doesn't mean that ethanol form other sources can't be viable, and Brazil has shown that.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Brazil, and it won't be corn, it will be sugar cane. Sugar cane is around 3 times more energy dense than corn for ethanol, and is the best source of ethanol known on the planet.
Brazil already has a LOT of ethanol they'd love to sell us, much cheaper than the gas we're currently buying. The problem is the U.S. government places a HUGE import tariff on it (on the order of 100%, doubling the cost), making it too expensive to be viable.
For the record, the tariff on oil coming to the U.S. is zero, zilch, nada, 0%.
A good documentary about this is Addicted to Oil, by Thomas L. Friedman.
So for some reason the government wants to keep our money funding terrorism in the middle east and the slow destruction of our planet rather than funding Brazil and a clean, efficient fuel.
Maybe they're afraid of soccer...
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Corn sucks for ethanol. The only reason we use corn is because certain senators from certain agricultural states are pushing for more subsidies for their damn corn farmers. You can make ethanol out of a lot of things, and a lot of them are way lower maintenance than freaking corn. Using more advanced processes like those for Cellulosic ethanol you can get cleaner fuel at a higher energy return rate from crops that are easier to grow.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I can not spell this out enough! Use of ethanol means 7% - 10% worse mileage for every car using it. This in turn means higher consumption! This means higher demand. In turn, we already don't have enough ethanol to go around. This in turn means lower supply. Put it all together and we are now all paying even more for fuel! To make matters worse, ethanol from corn is stupid. The only people this helps are corn growers. We are paying two or three times for ethanol from corn. On top of that, I believe we are also importing it from Brazil, which is based on sugar cane rather than corn. At least that part makes sense!
AFAIK, the only currently viable sources for ethanol is sugar cane, sugar beats, and hemp. The later or which, Canada is currently testing. AFAIK, the other, often touted sources are very research intensive and experimental at best.
Unless you enjoy paying lots more per gallon, always say no to ethanol from corn! For now, we should all say no to ethanol, period. Ideally, we'll shift to hemp based ethanol! And note, hemp is not pot! If you smoke hemp, you get a killer headache, but not high. Pot can be used as hemp, but not the other way around. But wait, hemp is illegal in the US because it competes with oil, petrochecmial, and cotton industries. That's a short list of powerful enemies.
He believe as a company that the most important source of new energy is energy efficiency and the company is investment on a number of alternative energy search. Seems quite astute for an oil man.
Straight vegetable oil derived from wild plants that grow like weeds, that are innately resistant to pests, and drought tolerant are more viable. In India the IISc and IITs are reseraching on plants like jatropha. Indian Railways has a locomotive running on it. SVO is not viable for cold climate and it will need elasticizers to convert it into bio-diesel.
Methane derived from dairy farm waste can replace 15% of the crude oil imports and provide organiz fertilizers on the side.
I think some day we will have "artificial cow stomachs" that will accept all kinds of weeds and grasses in industrial scale as input, grind them, and use microbes to break down the cellulose and release methane.
Ethanol? It is a great fuel for politicians whoring for votes in corn belt and venture capitalists hyping up their investments before unloading them. Not for cars and homes. Just my humble opinion.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
China is rapidly using up copper, aluminium, steel, and oil as they try to become a second or first world country.
China is already a Second World country.
Or one really tall tank.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
Even the numbers from the National Corn Growers's Association only indicate that ethanol from corn produces only 30% more energy than goes in. That's a poor energy return. Numbers from opponents of ethanol are much worse.
The more promising idea, if it can be made to work, is "cellulosic ethanol". The idea is to develop bioengineered enzymes that can digest agricultural waste (straw, corncobs, sugar cane, wood chips, etc.) into something more useful. But so far, no process to do that is beyond the pilot plant stage.
As a kid I went with my dad to his job in facilities for a large company. This company had a bank of diesel-powered generators in their basement - huge 24-cylinder beasts. On this trip there happened to be a 20 gallon bottle (think old water-cooler bottle) sitting on the floor with about 6 inches of diesel fuel in the bottom. I inquired as to whether this was a safety hazard - and then watched as a co-worker deliberately struck a match and dropped it in the bottle.
The match fell to the liquid and was extinguished.
As a slightly older youth I attempted to repeat this experiment - only this time with a) a plastic container, b) gasoline, and c) outside on the driveway.
I think my eyebrows grew back within a week or two.
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!
I think we are using 10% ethanol already. At least here in Virginia. Maybe it's nothing, but I have noticed a slight change in the way my car sounds since they made the switch. It kind of sputters randomly if I deccelerate with the clutch engaged, and my car only has 46k miles. Spark plugs aren't due to be changed for another 14k... I hope it isn't related to this change, I know they were warning boaters against using ethanol blends in some cases.
Good point, too much of the commentary I've read so far seems fixated on the false idea that corn is the only possible source for ethanol.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
I think Germany invented it in World War II. I know it was used in Apartid South Africa though. I'd be shocked if we aren't still using some sort of fossil fuel. Solar is really the only other reasonable option and that's probably not practical for a good 25-50 years.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Last year, total exports of ethanol from Brazil were about 700 million gallons. Despite the high tarriff, the US actually imported over 100 million gallons of that. In contrast, the US produced about 4 billion gallons. Total Brazilian exports don't look to increase any time soon, due to increased domestic demand. The scale simply isn't there.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
It works very well as an additive to gas, according to the pumps, I've been burning 10% ethanol in the gas for like 30 years here in the Chicago area. Doesn't poison the groundwater like MTBE does, and helps clean the fuel system.
Not going to totally solve our energy needs, but it has a place in it.
I understand that corn is not the best crop from which to produce ethanol. Two crops that are better than corn for ethanol production are sugar cane and switchgrass. In Europe, surplus wine has been used as a feedstock for ethanol fuel. I wonder if sugar beets, which can grow in many more areas than sugar cane, would also be better than corn. If E85 usage took off in Europe and/or the US, better feedstocks and production methods would become available.
Random notes:
I believe that E85 ethanol contains 15% gasoline in other to fully denature the alcohol. I noticed that there are articles about E85 fires presenting some unique problems because it both floats on water and absorbs water. The selection of currently available vehicles that can run E85 is severely limited, and most of them are gas (or E85) guzzlers. It will be interesting to see how E85 competes with gasoline on price; whether it is compared by volume (litre or gallon) or the cost is compared based upon heat energy available.
Fortunately, USA has government-imposed tariffs to keep cheap cane ethanol from ruining the lives of poor agribus^W corn farmers.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Americans need to be aware of the problems that their energy dependence on middle east oil causes. Granted Ethanol may not be the answer but if its even close, and if we can move to a marginal 25% of energy consumption to this source, this can be a significant strategic step in energy independence as well as reducing the image of imperialism which America carries in the Middle East. Khosla maybe professing pipe dreams, being a VC, but it's time we understood the bigger picture. For starters, watching Syriana maybe a healthy exercise for everyone interested in their progeny having a good life.
not to be terribly redundant...but it *is* all of them together. Have you ever seen a society, especially one based on capitalism, try to go backwards? We need as many options as we can find and as much innovation as we can sponsor...right now. That discussion over on that blog is pretty darned good. I, too, if I had any mod points would up the crap out of this idea.
.. then gas stations will have to be very very big. You'd lose most of the benefits driving around trying to find the right pump.
Sorry. I think you might have missed the point.
He wasn't talking about 37 different niche fuels - he's talking about using a bunch of different technologies that each contribute a small percentage toward reducing our petroleum consumption instead of waiting/hoping for a one-size fits all magic bullet.
For example, what if every state required E10 like NY,CT, HI and MN already do?
Now imagine that states required that all diesel be a B5 blend like Portland, OR or B2 like MN has done. That's millions of gallons of petrodiesel that the trucking industy isn't burning.
Now imagine that Detroit started selling Americans the diesels they already build. Diesels get about 30% better mileage (give or take) than a comparable gas engine. If even 20% of the cars on the road were diesels, that would save a small but very real percentage right there.
Now imagine that mass transit rideership use increases by just 5%. That's how many millions of cars that aren't on the road?
My wife and I just moved. Her commute is now under 5 miles compared to 25 before.
Nor do you need to focus just on transportation.
My brother in law's home heating oil supplier offers a B15 blend for a *lower* price than straight petroleum based home heating oil. At our old house, I switched every fixture that was feasible to a CF bulb and electricity usage dropped by 20 or 30%.
We shouldn't wait for a magic bullet when lots of little choices can, when aggregated, get us closer to where we want to be.
Oil? Nope. My prediction: Fred's big feet. (think "Flintstones")
On a positive note, all those oil company bigwigs'll be turned into Al Bundy-style shoe salesmen...
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...that is the sole reason Mr. Khosla is interested. He is very VERY smart, and has made lots of money for himself and his venture firm (KPCB accounts for a significant percentage of ALL venture profits). KhoslaVentures,http://khoslaventures.com/resources .html> his new gig five and a half degrees apart from KPCB though they share office space, has some of his recent powerpoint presentations including the somewhat controversial ones on Ethanol. But if one goes through it rigorously, it can be seen that it is long on "collecting" other people's observations and short on brilliant insights contributed by Vinod Khosla. If I was to place a bet at this point in time, I bet he walks away having made a few hundred million $$ in 10 years time from this alternative/clean-tech investing. For more fawnish coverage on 'the man', see valley wag Om's http://gigaom.com/ and Matt Marshall's http://siliconbeat.com./
Err... couldn't you solve that by converting the coal to a liquid before selling it to the end user?
That depends on the coal. There are actually several kinds, catagorized by the amount of metamorphism they've experienced. I don't know about Lignite and Bituminous, but Anthracite (the hardest, most metaphorphosed form) is actually clean to handle.
The big problem with coal is not the logistics of it, but the fact that we can't afford to pump all that carbon into the atmosphere. I mean, at least oil is somewhat limited by the fact that we're running out, but there's so much coal that we wouldn't have an economic incentive to stop using it until the massive crop failures etc. from global warming started (and then it would be too late).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Money. For his oil company reps.
He works for the oil industry. I read that summary, which was surprisingly matter of fact as to what the viewpoints were, but it's clear he has a pro-oil viewpoint.
Using precious third world children going hungry as an argument against using corn as fuel? Wow that's stupid, didn't we just have a World Trade Summit where the fundamental argument was over first world countries killing third world farming operations with subsidies and the like? There's an oversupply of food in the world, it's politics and war that cause localized starvation conditions, usually by preventing aid supply operations from working properly. In cases of true localized overpopulation, there is no humanitarian solution, feeding over-procreating societies produces even more starving mouths. Plus, from what I've read, from a fundamental standpoint freshwater is the true limiting factor on human populations, not food availabilty.
I find it amusing this oil company shill can't beleive that a carbon tax is politically impossible. The lobbying of his industry is primarily responsible for this via fake research, extensive funding of pro-industry Republicans (and some Dems where needed), funding of environmentally hostile, anti-regulation, anti-taxation, radical free market think tanks, and right-wing media like Fox News, right-wing "commentators", and many others.
And please people, stop arguing as if corn is the only ethanol production potential. The reason it is the primary game today is the political bullshit known as agriculture subsidies, which the Republicans are now the staunchest supporters of (they own the breadbasket, so screw laissez-faire principles, bring on the subsidies). I'm no true expert, but every crop from soybeans to sugar shows substantive improvements over corn in ethanol yield. True scientific muscle hasn't been exerted on this yet.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
Enzymes and genetically engineered bacteria can make the demand on agriculture much less. Still, it won't be possible to replace our entire energy infrastructure with ethanol alone. But why should we fall into a false dilemma? Use every renewable energy source available.
Think about it: given the choice between having enough food to eat and fueling our automobiles (and trucks, etc.) which do you think would win? (hint: it ain't us!)
We've created an insatiable beast that WILL be fed, or else.
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If you RTFA, Khosla is against grain-based ethananol, he's pushing cellulosic ethanol - and I agree with him. Cellulosic ethanol means any type of biomass will do.
That's what it would be if you used corn (and even then, it's the worst-case estimate). But the only people who want to use corn are idiots or corn lobbyists, because it's incredibly inefficient compared to a bunch of other stuff. I hear, for example, that hemp would work much better.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Many people believe that Ethanol and Biodiesel are the answer to the shrinking oil supplies and global warming. There are some major obstacles to overcome, though.
In the case of biodiesel, it actually produces more NOx than diesel. While other pollutants are often reduced, this is the major one that forms that orange cloud over heavily polluted cities. NOx is a major pollutant of diesel engines due to the high compression ratios and still has not been effectively solved. While particulate matter is less than diesel, it is still significant, far more than gasoline. While technologies exist to reduce NOx, they are sensitive to sulfur, and while sulfur is virtually eliminated from biodiesel, it would mean that an engine designed to run on it could not use regular diesel without destroying the NOx smog equipment.
For ethanol there are other problems. First of all is the amount of energy required to harvest the corn that is currently used in this country. The best efficiencies are around 20%. In other words, for each gallon of ethanol produced, 0.8 gallons are used for growing and harvesting the corn used. Additionally, a lot of fertilizer and fresh water is required for growing the corn. I am assuming no pesticides, though pesticides like glyphosphate (RoundUp) are also often used as well, even with GM corn. The fertilizer often ends up in the waterways, causing significant pollution, like the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Other sources of ethanol are better, such as sugar beets or sugar cane and possibly other sources. New techniques are being developed to produce ethanol from cellulose, meaning that agricultural waste and other crops like switchgrass or even hemp could be used to produce ethanol.
One other potential energy source is to use reverse polymerization. This process can convert almost any form of organic waste into oil and is fairly efficient and not very complex. This could easily supplement much of our current demand for oil. It can also use agricultural waste like ethanol.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Oh wait, Grandpa needs to lecture you some more. The world can not support all 6 billion people living like we do here in America. We take a lot of stuff for granted. Like clean water. Or a mostly-working electrical grid. It gets up over a hundred farenheit daily in Iraq and those poor bastards don't have much in the way of electricity or air conditioning. Mainly because we blew up their electrical grid. Most of us don't have to walk a mile or more daily to get water of questionable quality. Most of us have more than enough to eat. The world doesn't owe us each a personal vehicle. We have artificially high expectations and, well, I'm afraid you kids are going to have to lower yours. Personally I'm going to spend all your social security and die before I have to worry about it too much.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That would be stupid -- Brazil is already fueling almost all of its cars on ethanol made from sugar cane. (Note that making ethanol from sugar cane is much more efficient than making it from corn, but we can't grow sugar cane here because we have the wrong climate. We've got other options, though, such as switchgrass and hemp.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Now the next useless fact: Gasoline does not explode in the engine either. If it does it is called detonation or knock and will eventually wreck the engine. Although it burns much faster than Diesel (hence gasoline engines running at much higher rpm) it is flame not explosion.
Finally, (and this perhaps needs to be posted all over this thread because a lot of people do not understand it) ethanol has a higher octane rating than standard gasolines and has more charge cooling. As a result it can be made to burn more efficiently in an engine because the compression ratio can be raised. A modified Atkinson cycle (compression ratio lower than expansion ratio) ethanol engine can have quite reasonable efficiency, not as good as Diesel but better than lead free gasoline. And it should lose less power in the catalytic converter.
Although the fuel tank needs to be bigger than that for a gasoline engine, because of the lower energy density, this has little to do with cost per Joule which is the important thing. It does not matter if I need 6l/100Km versus the 5 used by my Diesel engine if the cost per Joule is comparable.
And finally finally, ethanol fires can be put out with water and reduced in intensity very quickly with water mist. It is comparable in safety to Diesel, as is recognised by the experts - marine safety agencies. The main problem with ethanol is that it doesn't really mix that well with gasoline, but this is the only way to introduce it gradually.
Pining for the fjords
" I hear, for example, that hemp would work much better."
That what i keep telling the judge.
Hmmmm, crap eh? I drive a VW Jetta TDI (Turbo Direct Injection = diesel) and it runs quite happy on 100% US grown and processed biodiesel. 45 mpg and runs on a renable fuel. Damn that german crap. Oh wait, mercedes has diesels in the US too? Maybe those germans know something about making cars.
Whatever you think about the major oil companies, they aren't stupid. Of course now they're saying "this won't work" to any alternative (and they're mostly right), because there's enough oil for now. However, they are doing quite a bit of research into both other oil sources, such as shales or tar sands, and other alternatives, like solar or hydrogen.
Of course, someone buying a BMW might have a different expectation then someone buying a Ford and as such it might skew how they rate things since much of it is against their own expectations and not a head-to-head comparison of the vehicle.
For the last fucking time!!! ETHANOL can be made FROM OTHER THINGS!!!
It was invented in the 1920s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-tropsch
However, the Germans did use it quite a bit in WWII as more of their oil supplies were cut off.
We're not -- we're going to produce it using a less stupid crop (that is, unless the corn lobby gets its way, in which case we're fucked).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The issue with brazil and ethanol is that we missed the boat. Some 10-20 years ago when we could have gotten all the ethanol from them we wanted, but we chose not to. Since then Brazil has been building up their own ethanol economy. Most cars in brazil can be run on ethanol, some as high as 100% by utilizing dual tank systems so they can be started on regular gas and switched to ethanol when the motor is hot enough to run on it properly. They have truely taken advantage of a flex fueled economy and because of this their countrys internal demand for ethanol has gone up greatly and thus reduced their surplus available for export. This will make it much harder for us (the US) to make them a very feasible source of ethanol for our own vehicles.
Biodiesel also produces MORE NOx than regular diesel (look it up). It may reduce particulate emissions, but still puts out far more than gasoline. Now it might make sense to run existing diesel vehicles on biodiesel, but it still does not make sense to convert gasoline vehicles to biodiesel until these problems are solved.
The NOx problem with any form of diesel is caused by the high compression ratio required.
Now it may cut down on other pollutants, but NOx is still a significant one that causes that orange haze over polluted cities.
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I know the congressman's policies and he runs every other year on cutting pork. Unlike most politicos he really means it. There is a lot of corn production in his district, so that is the example he uses. I don't think he's ever spoken out against alternate means of production, but I'm not 100% sure.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
Worldwide, most ethanol is actually produced by sugarcane.
But corn tastes great. You can feed investors some fried corn and they'll love you for it (as some ethanol corps have done)---that, or bribes.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Why not hemp? Some info
Proove of concept to be found here
Making your own bio-diesel here
The smog will solve road-rage at the same time (No, it won't)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Good point on the fact that most of the E85 vehicles are "gas" guzzlers. You ever wonder why? The vehicles are awared a 2 mpg credit towards their CAFE rating by being "flex fueled vehicles". So that 14 MPG suv is now considered a 16 MPG suv in the eyes of CAFE since its flex fueled which helps significantly for the manufactueres overall fleet mileage rating.
For those not familiar with it, The Ergosphere is an excellent blog that tackles energy related issues from an analytical/scientific/empirical point of view, neatly cutting through any associated hype. Definitely recommended for anyone with an enviro-geek mindset. :-)
As a teaser, here's the conclusion to the article, after a lengthy analysis, complete with verifiable stats:
In my less than humble opinion, the powers-that-be are promoting ethanol because it serves up subsidies to various interests while not threatening the status quo (oil companies). If you can make an end-run around those interests, you could improve the environment, the economy and the prospects of the average American while making a huge pile of money. Isn't that better than just being a shill for GM, the corn farmers and ADM?
Actually, it's not nothing. They are warning boaters against using ethanol, becuase it dissolves fiberglass, which boat fuel tanks are made from. The interior of the fuel tank dissolves and gums up the engine, causing really bad things to happen.
In regular engines, there is evidence (informal, no scientific studies to date) that ethanol produces a buildup on parts exposed to combustion much more rapidly than regular refined fuel, which, in your case, would cause your spark plugs to need replacement sooner (you might pull them and check, it's pretty easy, really). I don't know of the effects on engine horsepower and torque, but it shouldn't be a drastic change from gasoline.
just an analog boy living in a digital age.
United Nuclear, everyone's favorite company, saves the day, again! http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/ One load will get you 500 miles, and it comes free with a solar-powered hydrolysis machine. (Still in beta testing, not for sale...yet)
key word is "measured outside the earths atmosthere". a good portion of the energy is lost to dissipative effects.
1kW/m2 at the equator is fair. 1kW/m2 in Wisconsin is not.
Not to mention cloudy days, rain, etc. All dissipative effects that further reduce effective energy transfer.
The Early Days of Coal Research
e ls_history.html
Wartime Needs Spur Interest in Coal-to-Oil Processes
In 1944 General George S. Patton's Third Army was racing across southern France. In his haste to be the first U.S. commander to cross into Germany, however, Patton overextended his supply lines. His armored columns ground to a dead stop. Faced the choice of waiting until he could be resupplied or draining the fuel of captured German vehicles, Patton chose the latter. His tanks and armored personnel carriers continued to steamroll toward Germany, powered by the German's own ersatz gasoline synthetic fuel manufactured from coal.
The leaders of World War II, on both sides, knew that an army's lifeblood was petroleum. Ironically, before the War, experts had scoffed at Adolph Hitler's idea that he could conquer the world largely because Germany had almost no indigenous supplies of petroleum. Hitler, however, had begun assembling a large industrial complex to manufacture synthetic petroleum from Germany's abundant coal supplies.
When Allied bombing of the German synfuels plants began taking its toll in late 1944 and early 1945, the entire Nazi war machine began grinding to a halt. More than 92 percent of Germany's aviation gasoline and half its total petroleum during World War II had come from synthetic fuel plants. At its peak in early 1944, the German synfuels effort produced more than 124,000 barrels per day from 25 plants. In February 1945, one month after Allied forces turned back the Hitler's troops at the Battle of the Bulge, German production of synthetic aviation gasoline amounted to just a thousand tons one half of one percent of the level of the first four months of 1944. None was to be produced afterwards. Lack of petrol meant the end of the war and the end of the Third Reich.
http://www.fe.doe.gov/aboutus/history/syntheticfu
That's assuming corn as the only means of obtaining alcohol.
Jerusalem artichokes, for example, get 2-3 times the potential ethanol yield per acre per year as corn, at the small cost of needing a small amount of malt to break down the starches.
Getting ethanol from cellulose would be even better (for example, using hemp or fast-growing trees), ranging 40-50 times the yield of corn.
The research is being done now. I'll call you in a year or so when production starts.
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The problem in the US with corn is that it's not really good for anything. It's really low in nutrition as food, and not high enough in sugar to be an efficient ethanol producer (with the sunlight-to-energy conversion yields you get off corn, you might as well solar-panel the countryside).
Yet, there's almost government enforcement for growing the stuff.
Just boggles my fricken mind.
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...but I know from first-hand experience that a few cans of an ethanol solution at around 5% by volume will power me through a night's clubbing for a good 7 or 8 hours.
It's about 4x as expensive as petrol though (but it tastes a whole lot better)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This is why the current the current crop of hybrid cars annoy me. Just give me an electric car with a plug for the power source. I can go all electric when I'm local, and drop in the ethonol/petrol for a long trip. When Mr. Fusion becomes available, I don't need a new car. Just a new power module.
Brazil is absolutely HUGE, larger than the continental 48 United States.
They have plenty of room to grow more sugar cane, and they are adding refineries at a very rapid pace.
If the U.S. market were there (ie. level playing field with equal tariffs or no tariffs), you would see production ramp up very quickly.
The cool thing about sugar cane to ethanol is that it is very, very efficient. The distance from the cane fields to the refinery is usually less than 25 miles. Start to finish it's a very efficient, clean process.
I hope it succeeds and grows rapidly, despite our foolish, oil-loving government.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Anyway methane(CH4) is odourless. Almost all the livestock odours come from Hydrogen Sulfide H2S and Ammonia NH3. Infact natural gas is methane. It has no natural smell. They add a very highly stinking compound to the gas to make it detectable. Since methane/CH4/NG/CNG are gases they are always stored, sold and used from sealed containers and you get much less chance to smell them.
Getting fuel out of farm waste benefits all.
1. The farm waste is contained to capture methane, that also captures H2S and Ammonia thus reducing stink for the neighbourhood.
2. Captured methane originally came from the atmosphere, so it does not add any extra green house gases to the atmospher. When it is burnt the carbon in CH4 is released as CO2 from the tail pipes, which is 100 times better for the atmosphere than releasing all that unburnt methane into the atmosphere like we are doing now.
3. After extracting the combustible compounds from the farm waste, what is left behind is high quality organic fertilizer.
4. USA has 100 million cows and about 200 million pigs. The methane released from their excreta can cut our oil imports by 15 to 25%. Saudi Arabia will be begging us to buy their oil at 10$ a barrel if we alter the supply/demand equation by 25%.
The only downside is that we have to go through a phase where we have to endure sophomoric jokes about cow farts from every newscaster in this country.
No new tech breakthroughs are needed. The basic technology is more than 30 years old. What is needed is making it economically viable. As oil price goes up, they will become viable. It is just a matter of time.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
My petrol car died at the weekend, and I got myself a diesel this time. Soon, I will be fitting a kit to it that will enable it to run on vegetable oil. It's cheaper than regular dino diesel, is renewable and CO2 neutral.
-- Fuck Beta
Not everyone who likes hemp is a stoner, you know.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Whew...would have to be better than THAT to catch on. I can't imagine having to worry that I'm on my last hours worth of gas....to have to plan to drive that far to refill.
Until it gets to where you are about 1-2 min from nearest e85 station....that ain't gonna work.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Hmmm...reminds me of the War of Drugs, the US enacts a bad policy and blindly follows it down the road to ruin without ever reconsidering whether such a policy has become counterproductive or even self-destructive.
I guess you could say the US is "Stuck in the Corn Hole".
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
And, why not use what you do have a lot of? Thing is...no one is saying that we in the US ONLY need to use corn...we've got lots of sugar cane and other fermentable things growing about we can use in addition to corn...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Not sure where in the US you are fella...but, I've driven by miles and miles of sugar cane down here in the southern part of the US. We can grow plenty of it down here...where do you think a lot of the white table sugar you get comes from? Louisiana has a pretty big sugar production area alone...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Crisco Canola Oil 1.89 for $7.69 (CAD, i think) That's just over $4 / litre. I'm thinking it may be possible, but not practical right now.
Where do you get such drastic figures? I've heard there is between 200-400 years of oil supply left out there....some of it harder to get than others, but, still can be used...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Hell... screw all that sun bull shiat.
Just find out how many gallons/liters(whatever your favorite volumetric unit is) of ethanol can be produced per bushel of corn.
Find out how many bushels of corn you can produce on average in Iowa or some other corn producing state.
Find out how much energy is produced from the oxidization of ethanol vs. oil.
Now you should be able to compare the ammount of energy in a barrel of ethanol vs. a barrel of oil and solve for the number of acres you'd need to farm to produce enough corn.
And don't forget to preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
We've got other options, though, such as switchgrass and hemp.
oh i can see it now... kids getting the bright idea that they can get high off of the fumes
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.
By 1996 we will have at least 3 bases on the moon... by 2000, the world will have ended...
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
And it accounts for the other 3%. :)
Meh, Indiana Beach is so-so. Good for a lazy Saturday when you've got nothing better to do, but not really worth planning a trip for. On the other hand, they've got all kinds of classic arcade games there, so...
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
I live in Georgia. I assume it's hot enough to grow sugar cane here, but I'm not sure it's wet enough. I haven't seen anybody growing it, but then again I usually drive by miles and miles of Atlanta sprawl rather than farmland.
But that's not the point -- whether we can grow some sugar cane in the south or not, it wouldn't be enough for the whole country. We'd need to get a significant amount of biomass from the midwest, for example, and that part really isn't suited to sugar cane.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I think this entire post could be summaried with a little experiment.
Get to tissues (facial tissue). Crumble each seperately. Poor a teaspon of ethanol onto one, and a teaspoon of an oil derivative onto the other. Ingite both. Attempt to hold both in the palm of ones hand. Observe
Ofcourse, do at possiblity of personal injury.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Where did I say that corn shouldn't ever be used? It's just not an efficient source from which to produce ethanol as a long term option.
Well, if you look up to where this thread started, the assertion was:
This view is likely based on a study often used to refute the idea of ethanol as a fuel (cited elsewhere on this thread), and it only considers corn as a fuel crop.
So yes, some people out there ARE only considering corn.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Brilliant! I can't wait to roll up to a gas station and have 30 pumps to chose from! That's economy-of-scale for ya!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
"I hear, for example, that hemp would work much better"
Yeah, but how many industries would be fighting you against growing large scale hemp crops? Apart from corn... cotton... err... paper? I dunno, it certainly wouldn't be popular.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
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").
dude, our ethanol production would have to grow tenfold or more to even matter to the US... we used to have like 100% of our cars powered by ethanol in the 1980s (and then things got fucked up, unfortunately), but our car fleet is ridiculously small when compared to the US's fleet. We are 3rd world, ya know...
cheers
``If a program can't rewrite its own code, what good is it?'' - Mel
yeah this is quicker.
I was just saying that corn doesn't go everywhere, so it will have to be different plants. What the GPP meant to ask was whether enough solar energy could be farmed into ethanol.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
If price is no object, you should check out Tesla Motors's roadster. Although I believe a recent Wired article on the company stated they're planning a more average-joe sedan in the not-too-distant future.
Actually coal mining is still hugely dangerous and more people die in coal mining accidents worldwide every year than have died working in (say) nuclear power over the history of mankind.
The mining operations themselves have huge negative environmental impact, as well.
The biggest problem with coal is everything.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Get off your high horse. Besides, maybe if american cars were gulping down less gas per mile we might be able to save a few years to develop alternatives. Just a thought.
This sig is intentionally left blank
Any fuel for which taxes have not been paid is illegal for on-road use in the USA (unless you bought it out of country, maybe.) They actually put dye in off-road fuel in order to identify it. Not sure if all diesels have a clear fuel filter, but mine sure does, in addition to a larger canister filter which does the final filter before it gets to the injection system. They put it not only into diesel fuel, but also into kerosene, which in some engines (like old mercedes) is a direct subsitute for diesel fuel, and which is occasionally cheaper than diesel. The sole reason is the taxes - using an off-road fuel on-road is tax evasion. Kind of makes you feel like Al Capone. Anyway, homemade biodiesel and vegetable oil are equal in the eyes of the law. Unfortunately the alternative to fuel taxes is use taxes, which means lots of tollbooths, which means lots of tollbooth operators, which means lots of inefficiency. Well, that or accepting the GPS tracking proposal made here in California not so long ago.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We've got other options, though, such as switchgrass and hemp
But, until fairly recently, those weren't suitable for conversion into ethanol because they don't have the necessary sugar/carbohydrate levels. Too much cellulose.
And yes, part of the issue is climate. Sugarcane requires more heat and water than corn. Corn, while affected by drought, actually has a complex system to withstand drought type conditions and conserve water, though it costs growth. Sugarbeets, while able to produce more ethanol per acre, also require more water.
I think that when it comes to ethanol production, many crops will end up being used, customized to maximize production per acre, available water, etc... Sugarcane in the south where water is readily available, but it's a little more complicated up north.
I don't read AC A human right
veggie oil modders don't use fresh oil for their vehicles though. They tend to beg used oil off restaurants and pretty much get it for free. At least that's what i'm told. I'm also told that their vehicles invariably smell like a fast food joint.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
There are actually production vehicles that can run on 100% ethanol. More common is the "flex-fuel" vehicle which can run on 100% gasoline or E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) or anything in between. There is also an E95 fuel (5% gasoline) that is used in diesel engines with only minor modification. The people who claim that 100% ethanol won't work are full of shit, but it is true that you have to use it more rapidly than gasoline, or it will collect water and bind up to it, rendering it nonflammable (why do "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing?)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
One word: bicycle. OK, want another one: Scooter. How about four: Left foot, right foot. Like "conserving" is a new concept. If you are driving something that gets less than 30 MPG you are a pig.
You said common sense for the method in your post... for a math major probably! ^_^
One of my roomates in college was a math masters student, he was one smart fucker.
True, but you don't need food grade oil, which can drop the price substantially.
I don't read AC A human right
If the US, with such abundant land resources, produced all its fuel from topsoil-based plant feedstocks, it would be a fucking desert in relatively short order.
See, when the land is left alone, it has grasses on top of it, which protect the topsoil, which in turn protects the soil beneath it. When you cut down the grass two things happen. One, the soil is exposed, so it dries out, and the wind is going faster, so when you put these things together the soil can be blown away. At the same time, when you uncover the soil, the rain falls on it in a way that it did not previously, and the rain can wash it away.
As the rain washes away the topsoil, which is the best at holding water, the soil has less capacity to hold water (duh) but water also takes longer to soak in, in the first place. That means that there is more runoff. More water, moving faster, means more soil is washed away. Eventually, you have two things left; rock and sand. They're left behind because they're heaviest. Ultimately, you end up with desert, and the US looking like Egypt. Which, not coincidentally to this conversation, used to be a whole fuck of a lot greener before they invented agriculture down in that part of the world.
Besides the issue of the soil, as the soil washes away, it runs into rivers. Since there is less soil, and less water soaks in, that means more water reaches the rivers - both in a given period of time, and period the end. A lot of water that would normally soak in, and either be carried in the water table, carried in underground rivers, or which would rise back up to the surface and evaporate is not making it to those rivers. Since it's carrying soil, it chokes rivers and river mouths, and actually kills ocean life in a large area around the river mouth since the water coming from the river is filled with choking silt, but is not filled with oxygen since the decomposition of organic material consumes oxygen. (This is why the rain forests are NOT significant oxygen producers - their rapid growth means they also rapidly fall, and decompose. They do serve as filters, cooling and cleaning the air, however.)
In other words, topsoil-based fuels would be incredibly fucking stupid. If Brazil doesn't realize this, then the largest nation in south america will become the largest desert in the americas.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Right, and if we can devise a way to offer copies of naked women through bittorrent, slashdotters can get laid.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No, but just about all stoners like hemp, and there's an absolute fuckton of stoners in the US, so that does suggest that most hemp advocates are potheads :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
All of the analysis of corn ethanol that I have read leaves out the critical point that you also get cattle feed as a side product.
Think about the ratio of corn sugar/corn stalk in the corn plant. Only the ear of corn is used for fermentation currently. The rest is not thrown in a landfill, but instead winds up as agricultural feed (read cattle who can eat the complex cellulose).
Sugar cane has a much higher ratio of sugar / stalk (thus the name). Thus it's a much more efficient fermenter.
This explains the excitement over "swtichgrass". If we can find a way to turn complex cellulose into sugars for fermentation (or directly to fuel) the land efficiency will be much greater. Thus the search for a cheap enzyme a previous poster made.
The beauty of ethanol is that it can essentially work with existing infrastructure and it's a home grown fuel. That's a really good start.
It's happening
As gasoline prices rise, other solutions become economically viable. As they become viable, resources are spent to develop the techniques even further, increasing their viability.
When the demand for ethanol reaches levels tens or hundreds of times what it previously was, investments that wouldn't be profitable in the past become so. Right now the prices are spiking because of increased demand while suppliers are lagging a bit behind. It takes time to build an ethanol plant, after all, and the switch away from MTBE and states requiring it as an additive aren't helping.
I don't read AC A human right
Uh, erosion control/prevention is a core part of farming today. Additionally, they don't have to pull the whole plant out when they harvest.
Not to mention that with some crops like switchgrass, it's essentially industrial mowing. Live plant is left on the ground, which proceeds to grow higher again.
I don't read AC A human right
Except that E85 vehicles are simply gasoline vehicles that have been modified to not contain any parts in the fuel system that dissolve or corrode in the presence of high ethanol blends. An E85 vehicle works fine on gasoline. The ignition control computer automatically adjusts the mixture to compensate for whatever blend you happen to have at the time.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"Err... couldn't you solve that by converting the coal to a liquid before selling it to the end user?"
Great idea! We could call it....gasoline!
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
And that's a fact. Even if you got all 1.3 billion tons/year which ORNL believes might ultimately be available (after years of reforming to make it possible), you'd only get enough alcohol to replace about 65% of US gasoline consumption. That leaves nothing for diesel, heating oil, jet fuel, LPG, chemicals, or other fuels like coal and natural gas.
I've detailed all of that in my own open letter to Vinod Khosla. Supporting information is all over my blog.
This can only lead to disaster when the salvation that people have been waiting for, fails to arrive (like the Ghost Dance). What's scary is that Khosla has to know this... but he's still pushing it as hard as he can. I can only think that he intends to clean up from the misery of the American public.
If you think Khosla isn't blowing smoke, tell me where we'd get the biomass and what kind of yield is required. Otherwise, shut up.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Butanol is a dead end mostly because it's only fit for the same 15%-efficient internal-combustion drivetrains which are wasting so much petroleum today.
Old thinking isn't going to solve this problem. The mountains of horse poop on city streets weren't solved by making poopless horses, and the problem of piston-engine inefficiency and pollution isn't going to be solved by better piston engines. We're going to have to go with batteries of some kind, because electricity is the sine qua non for clean and efficient.
Since we have to scrap the internal combustion engine anyway, we might as well go for a scheme which is tailored to get renewable energy down to wheels as efficiently as we can. Zinc-air fuel cells are a really good one (you can use bio-carbon to reduce ZnO to metal, or regenerate using electricity from any source) and direct-carbon fuel cells are also pretty good if not so flexible (they require a source of carbon, not just electricity).
Sustainability and energy independence essay
No shit, Sherlock! The difference, though, is that it would be gasoline from a vastly larger, domestic source. And remember, making it as "gasoline-like" as possible (in terms of ease of use, compatibility with existing infrastructure, etc.) is one of the goals of just about all of these alternative fuels.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm sorry you did not see my attempt at humor as such. If you view my other posts, you'll see I've already referenced the energy density of sugar as superior to that of corn.
I just know that a lot of deforestation is still going on in the Amazon basin, for a variety of crops. That's the sad thing, and it was the crux of my attempt at a joke (in response to the "farm all of America" line of thinking).
AJR
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Nah, people dying only makes it a big problem. It would still pale in comparison to the big problem, which would be everyone dying because global warming made Earth uninhabitable by humans.
Never the less, point taken. I wonder how it compares with oil drilling?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I realize you weren't seriously suggesting it; it's just that it came off very sarcastic and negative such that I felt more like replying than laughing (even if only for the benefit of others who happened to read the thread).
As far as the gallows humor goes... better luck next time, eh?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, that or accepting the GPS tracking proposal made here in California not so long ago.
I remember vaguely hearing about that. Seems we could just keep track of the odometer and charge for use at registration; much simpler albeit lower tech and less sexy. One could even modify registration fees to reward clean or fuel efficient vehicles.
Anyway, thanks for clearing up the legality question. There was a recent article in the L.A. Weekly about alternative fuels and local places to find them. There was a side bar about the guy that mods diesel cars for straight vegetable oil; he was quite irate about the fact that he was "illegal", but (at least before the article!) had been flying below the radar.
The other side of the equation, tax evading notwithstanding, is how much revenue would be lost to home bio-diesel brewers and people getting free used cooking oil from restaurants. My guess is that very few would actually brew their own if it was readily and commercially available. And right now, restaurants are happy to give away used cooking oil to a few enthusiasts rather than have to pay a disposal fee. But if there was enough demand, they'd be even happier to sell it to whomever. And with a traceable commercial transaction, that fuel becomes taxable as a practical matter.
Interestingly, one of the bio-diesel outlets here in L.A. is a cooperative. You have to be a member to buy fuel, and they do charge taxes. (I don't think there is even a membership fee.) They buy from a someone else who actually manufactures the bio-d from California agricultural byproducts (iirc). It's not that big a stretch to imagine co-ops that manufacture their own bio-d, pay their taxes, and reap the rewards of cheaper and sustainable fuel.
Personally, I'm waiting for diesel motorcycles to become commercially available. There was a company that was going to sell them to the public, but they're running at full capacity to supply various militaries with diesel bikes. They make a really cool dual sport for the Marines (they modify other manufacturers bikes, basically adding their own engine). Maybe in 20 or 30 years it will be available as surplus.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Brilliant! I can't wait to roll up to a gas station and have 30 pumps to chose from! That's economy-of-scale for ya!
Petroleum is used for more than gasoline. What is saved in other areas may be applied to gasoline demand.
Brazil's vehicle fuel mix has about twice as much diesel as gasoline; ethanol is up to about 60% of the gasoline number, but Brazil's "miracle" is 90% oil drilling vs. 10% ethanol.
And yes, my blog IS the first on Rapier's blogroll. That ought to tell you something.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
You can grow corn in the continental United States, but it is not naturally economically efficient. The Southern US is not an ideal climate, so it takes a bit more work to grow. There is a fairly stiff tariff on imported sugar to make domestically grown sugar able to compete economically. Hawaii has a much better climate for sugar cane, but does not have the landmass to support the large scale production that would be needed for energy.
That being said, sugarcane still could prove to be one of the most efficient crops to grow for ethanol in the region, as not only can the sugar be directly fermented, but the leftover bagasse (basically the rest of the corn plant) can be direcly burned for producing heat or electricity, or digested via industrial processes to various energy bearing compounds, including more ethanol. Bagasse can also be used to feed livestock or... a whole host of other uses.
And corn probably would not actually take up 95% of the landmass as many critics claim... IIRC that number came from assuming that only the starch and sugar of the kernels was converted to ethanol, leaving behind a large amount of fiber and other compounds in the stalk, leaves, cob, etc which can also be used for energy, much like the bagasse of sugar cane. At the time the 95% evaluation came around, the kernel was the only part that could economically be converted to ethanol, but technological advances have arisen which makes that number quite obsolete. Although we would have to be careful just how much of the stems/etc are used for energy production, as they make ezcellent silage and help maintin the health of the soil in which the corn is grown. Corn does require fairly fertile soil with moderate fertilization needs, and some claim that the fertilizer needed negates the environmental benefit gained by using corn as a fuel, but this in itself ignores the fact that sewage derived fertilizers would not pose as much of a health risk or perception of health concern that using sewage derived fertilizers would on food crops.
But there are indeed many different crops that could be used as biomass feedstock for making ethanol or biodiesel, while the monocot grasslike plants (corn, cane, sawgrass, bamboo...) are usually the first considered, there are several other plants that could be used including of course the favorite of a large portion of the population who is into biofuels: hemp. Ugg... sorry about the ugly run-on sentence.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: biofuels represent a major part of the key to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, but I doubt they will be able to do it alone. Solar, Geothermal, and even (OH NOES!) Nuclear power will all have to be used where appropriate to reduce the need for fossil fuels. Some energy needs will be best filled with fossil fuels for the time being, but reducing the consumption so there is some petroleum left for the most suited uses only makes sense.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
If only it was possible to attach a device to the axle of a car to estimate the miles driven based on the number of revolutions. I'd probably be a hundredaire if I could patent that!
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Don't forget that sugar beets are highly subsidesd in France and Germany. One of the great reasons why Sugar Cane products are so cheap is because a sugar cane mill is completely self suffcient. The fibre extracted from the cane is used to run boilers which in turn steam power most of the equipment in the plant. The left over steam is used to make electricity to run the office and rest of the equipment. Not only that but also the wax that comes off the cane is used as a fertilizer.
I agree. German cars have been getting worse ratings than American cars. Look at JD Powers reports. I own two toyotas as daily drivers. I also own a C6 Corvette. None of my cars ever saw the dealer for repairs. American cars have come around.
Intelligent Design
If I understood it correctly, Rapier claims that using corn for alcohool would diminish American corn exports and cause the third world suffer from hunger.
Oh please... the USA has certainly done some nice things for the world. However, killing the local farmers from Africa with their subsidized food is not one of them.
There is a lot of corn production in his district, so that is the example he uses.
Case closed... He is pandering to the corn lobby, that spends hundreds of thousands each year forcing legislation down our throat that requires us to use Ethanol... This is all about handouts for corn farmers... A big part of the reason why gas went up to $3 a gallon was the combined aftermath of Katrina with the Ethanol requirements passed after heavy lobbying by the corn lobby. Refiners couldn't get easy access to Ethanol, but the law required it, therefore gas prices jumped.
No thanks, I don't need to pay an extra $0.25 a gallon just so that corn farmers in Nebraska can make more money.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
After a little digging, I found that he has talked about other sources of Ethanol. Imagine reducing our foreign imports of oil by up to 10%. That would be good for everyone involved, including the enviroment. And don't be so quick to dismiss the midwest farmer. Farmers have fallen on hard times. The way that I see it, Ethanol would create fewer corn subsidies because of the rise in demand. Gas prices are high in part because there are not enough refineries. Ethanol prices are high because there are not enough refineries. The difference is that there are many Ethanol refineries under construction.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
Accelerated decay of radioactive waste could make nuclear power much more practical:
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/10/7/13/1
That would allow us to power electric cars off the grid.
It virtually always requires more input energy to create stored potential forms of energy than can be recovered from it later to perform useful work. We got petroleum "for free", because it was created by biologic and geologic processes over millions of years. Solar cells and batteries require energy-intensive industry to manufacture and maintain, and ethanol and biodiesel require processing and, if produced and used in quantities comparable to petroleum, would completely deplete soils to the point of making them useless.
There is no free energy lunch.
This is why we've met no extraterrestrial aliens: they passed their own peak-oil crises without first establishing a self-sustaining presence in space, and were then stuck on their respective rocks with the consequences of their shortsightedness. It's what we're about to do as well... peak oil for us is likely to arrive before we even get a base on the moon at the rate we're going.
Get used to subsistence farming and horse-drawn buggies, because they'll be enjoying an unexpected renaissance soon enough.
A much bigger mass ratio of the sugar cane is able to be transformed into ethanol. However, if some bacteria capable to readily transform celulose into ethanol can be found/used on large scale, corn will be much more useful. Maybe a better solution would be to produce bio-diesel (as at this time, the edible oils like sunflower are cheaper than diesel fuel in Romania, and probably elsewhere)
Neither you nor the other respondents seem to understand the difference, in IC terms, between a controlled burn and an uncontrolled explosion. The core problem is that you don't really have an in-depth knowledge of what goes on in the combustion space, you are just parroting and trying to make paper points.
Anyway, to recap: detonation is an explosion in the cylinder head with excessive and uncontrolled rate of temperature rise, usually caused by hot spots (exhaust valve, carbon deposits.) It can occur after the spark in engines with early ignition; the symptom is an initial controlled pressure rise with a sudden spike, as fuel remote from the flame propagating from the spark gap suddenly explodes. What you are referring to is pre-ignition. The use of either of the low MW alcohols - methanol and ethanol - have significant benefits in reduction of carbonisation and reduction of tendency to detonation. That happens to be true.
Pining for the fjords
See my other post in reply. Your definition of "explode" is deficient. What does "sudden" mean? It is not a term in physics that I recognise. The difference between an explosion and controlled flame propagation is not the subject of debate in IC engineering - at least, not since the 1920s - and was exhaustively explained by Sir Harry Ricardo before WW2. Please refer me to a real engineering textbook that uses the word "detonation" to describe the normal combustion process in an IC engine.
Pining for the fjords
Why don't we just remove ALL the subsidies, all the tax breaks that exist purely to prop up failing forms of agriculture, and all that other bullshit. Then we can let all of these different forms of fuel compete and evolve. Natural gas, petrol, diesel, ethanol (from diferent sources), butanol from algae, oil from therman depolymerization, etc -- let 'em fight it out. In fact, I'd say it's this ridiculous idea of "technology X will replace gasoline" that is holding us back. Let some people drive electrics, let some people drive ethanol/biogas dual-fuel engine cars, let long-haul truckers gradually use up the last of the petroleum, etc. Multiple solutions, recognizing that what we actually have is a whole bunch of different problems. The free market, despite its weaknesses in some areas, can absolutely stomp the power "crisis" to pieces, if we just ditch the protectionism and corporate welfare.
Either that, or you're the worst analyst in the world and lack the basic mathematical skills necessary to analyse corn yields.
China and India throw a monkey wrench in many things out there. There are *a lot* of people getting ready to consume resources like any westerner (I'm too lazy to look it up, but I reckon at least doubling the population of resource eaters). I suspect that we will not really work to solve them until hit by them, but in the mean time it will suck.
This is true for oil, ethanol, hydrogen, geothermal, tidal, wind, nuclear, and pretty much everything there is (I guess the amount of solar available is fixed based on area under the sun, that's about the only one I can think of and it's currently not efficient enough). The old saying of "There is no such thing as a free lunch" is especially true in energy (the whole three laws of thermodynamics ensure that).
I can't say which one will end up working. For general energy needs I can not see anything other nuclear working - though then waste will need to be addressed (while currently quite effecient it is a different story when a few billion more people use electricity like there is no tomorrow). As for personal locomotion - I don't know. I would guess anything over hydrogen will die, there just is not enough (I read a few years ago that old oil fields were refilled and the way oil is produced was being re-researched - even if true it still isn't enough). Of course there is the whole "other" classification which I really hope holds something we can find in time.
I don't mean to sound like someone who thinks our energy consumption is going to kill us - I do not (I know I used some language that implied that - that was intentional as when those countries fully come one line we will have a problem). I just do not think we have really been hit by the crunch yet. I think it will take that before we meet our needs for a longer term. Nor do I mean to imply I oppose such a thing, after it is all over I think humans will be in a *MUCH* better place - I just hope I live to see the whole cycle.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Parent is correct about oxygenated fuels.
Here is a quote from EPA documentation to that effect:
"In a vehicle with a properly functioning oxygen sensor, the feedback control of the air/fuel ratio acts to defeat the purpose of adding oxygenate to the fuel. The vehicles that will benefit the most from oxyfuels are high emitters, generally older vehicles or newer vehicles with broken emission control systems (PRC, 1992)"
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/regs/fuels/ostp-1.pdf
-- Terry
For example, in Poland, 30% of sold fuel is prophane-butane. In germany some buses use hydrogen.
Popularity of gasoline with addition of bio sumplements also rises (in europe).
In Brasil, gasoline contains 25% of ethanol produced from sugar cane.
The current trend is to mix pure fuel with suplements producent from biological material or to use "what you have".
So there is no need to discuss ethanole-powered cars. It is already economicaly proven idea in coutries where sugar cane grows good.
...and part of my day job involves keeping track of how surprisingly successful Brazil has been at doing exactly what the parent says can't be done. How a real grown-up energy analyst like the parent can have failed to notice, I'm not sure :)
Brazil's success, of course, is due to the fact that they had vast swathes of sugar cane and the political will to make large-scale changes in energy sourcing. The US has neither of those things (at the moment) but a much bigger problem is the corn lobby. A mini version of the energy switch actually played out previously:
US: World, you must use high-fructose corn syrup in your soda, because although it doesn't taste as nice and it causes diabetes and obesity, it's all we can make from corn at the moment and a vast proportion of the US is covered in cornfields and there's a powerful lobby and corn isn't all that useful.
Brazil: Hm, no, as sucrose is better and equally available, we'll use sucrose.
US: (forgets about Brazil and goes off the bully the EU instead)
Brazil: (takes a sip of Coke)
In general, though, the corn lobby is a US-specific problem that affects all biological energy within the US, not just fuel ethanol. In other countries, conversion occurs if/when the local economics are right -- which in Saudi Arabia is 'never', but in equatorial countries with miles and miles of sugarcane is 'already'.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Irony overload. Big Oil man doesn't like ethenol and questions opponents motivation. In the article he refers to the Energy Return on Investment and ethanol is only viable is because of the subsidies. This in relation to corn ethanol. Yet Brazil can manage to replace 40% of its forign Oil demand with ethenol. A viable long term solution that actually returns revenue to the local economy through the cultivation of sugarcane.
.. corn ethanol would be around as long as the subsidies were there."
...
* assuming Big Oil actually pays for the oil and doesn't invade some country and liberate it.
* EROI = Energy Returns on Ethanol Production.
"I started off on the energy balance of ethanol versus gasoline. We went back and forth on efficiency versus EROI
"The Brazilian ethanol industry is based on sugarcane; as of 2004, Brazil produces 14 billion liters annually, enough to replace about 40% of its gasoline demand . Also as a result, they announced their independence from Middle East oil in April 2006"
"In my recent essay Vinod Khosla Debunked, I challenged Mr. Khosla to a written debate on his recent ethanol claims"
Why is it deemed necessary to 'debunk' Mr. Khosla. If wrong, then the Ethanol market will wither through the action of the market. I see here you dispute the 40% claim.
Oh, wait it gets even funnier. "Many so-called oil subsidies don't benefit the oil companies at all; they benefit consumers". And I suppose the reverse being that ethenol subsidies only benefit the companies"
Quite frankly I am confused with all these graphs and acronyms that I never heard of. I have a few simple question:br>
How much does it cost to produce a gallon of sugarcane ethanol?
How much does it cost to produce a gallon of oil?
What subsidies/tax breaks do the oil companies get?
What subsidies/tax breaks do the ethanol producers get?
Include the cost of drilling and Oil Rig construction
Include cost of clean up of any environmental damage
I'm sorry but this get even funnier. "I did indicate that as we continue to ramp up corn ethanol, our corn exports will fall and people in 3rd world countries will go hungry". The ethenol industry will steal food from the 3rd world. This is even more bizarre considering it is first world subsidies to the food industry that is currently destroying third world agriculture.
You're just one big shill for big OIL
davecb5620@gmail.com
Amusingly enough, it's been termed like that before.
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Carefully designed studies tend to, not always mind you, but tend to support the hypothesis of those who carefully craft them (ie - Microsoft studies say their OS is more secure then others, but we wouldn't necessarily make a purchasing decision on that information would we?). I'd rather read reviews from actual users, sure they're not carefully crafted but they are usually more honest and a more accurate description of what kind of performance can be expected - especially for products sold direct to end users.
The way that I see it, Ethanol would create fewer corn subsidies because of the rise in demand.
Sure, people voluntarily using Ethanol would be fine, that's the way free markets are supposed to work. When the corn lobby (don't think small farmers, think Archer Daniels Midland) forces refineries through law to add Ethanol to our gas, raising the cost of gas for everyone, and lowering our gas mileage, that is called a subsidy. The government is mandating that we buy it, how else is that anything other than a handout?
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Thanks, I knew they were big in it then, and know I saw that article some time ago, but had forgotten that it had been around for some time.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
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.
... and do some Googling. Brazil is NOT closing in on self-sufficiency.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
> I'm hoping your comment was tongue-in-cheek.
maybe by coal power, he means take the radiation from coal, and we will have nuclear powered cars (transported by a electric battery from the actual generator I hope.)
Consequently, the energy content of nuclear fuel released in coal combustion is more than that of the coal consumed!
basically if you were to break up into small enough piecies, and burn the nuclear waste from nuclear plants, releasing all waste to the atmosphere. The population around these plants would have less exposure (per Kw electricity produced) from nuclear power, than that of the current coal power.
It would be trivial to add a device that would halve either the number of rotations of the speedometer cable, or to halve the number of pulses being sent to a digital odometer (internally digital; some of the needle types, most of them these days actually, fall into this category) in order to cut your reported mileage in half. Cutting it in half would halve your taxes while still allowing you to have a usable speedometer. Hell, it would actually be a USEFUL hack for those people who like to drive the proverbial bat out of hell (or greaser from the freezer) but have an 85 MPH speedo :)
There's actually a place up here, I think it's in Hopland, where you put in a certain number of hours of work, and they will give you all the waste oil you can take away. No taxes though.
I want this. (It used to have a page on eCycle.com, but it's down now) - it's [ostensibly going to be] cheap and light, hell it weighs less than I do.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Because you are seriously incorrect here. For example BP Oil is investing in ethanol research, and has acknowledged it's potential to supplant gasoline. Shell is actually the largest ethanol purchaser of ethanol and marketer of ethanol blended fuels. Shell is also investing in cellusic ethanol technology (they have also partnered with IOGen) Thus your first statement is totally without merit.
There are several facts about Ethanol you are either ignorant of or avoiding to make your biased point.
1. An ethanol driven infrastructure is more efficient.
Flex-fuel E85 vehicles today only get slightly betyter to a little less mileage on E85 than gasoline due to the need to run low compression for gasoline. An engine only running E85 can be run at approximately 19 to 1 compression ratio. This means better economy. By way of example, diesel only has about 12-15% more energy by content but generally acheives 25%+ better fuel economy. The source of the increase is the higher compression. While E85 has less energy, you get more energy out of it. What good is having more energy than you can extract? There is no good there. I'd rather have a system that extracted 40% of 80 than 20% of 100.
Also, higher compression (and even "low compression") E85 engines are more efficient under load. This means you can run a smaller engine in place of a larger one without the performance and economy losses of the larger engine. A four cylinder E85 engine can generally substitute for a G100 (gasoline) six cylinder engine. This, too decreases overall fuel consumption. Indeed, E85 is a more efficient fuel under a broader engine speed range than a gasoline engine is.
Reductions in fuel consumption for an E85 driven infrastructure are on the order of 35-50% better than gasoline. Better fuel economy means you need less. Thus your "calulations" (and I do use the term lightly here) are based on woefully inaccurate assumptions. If tomorrow the entire US car/truck fleet and infrastructure were magically converted to E85, we'd see a reduction in US transportation oil demand of about 70%. The fuel demand for ethanol would be about 35-50% less than the current demand for gasoline.
Additionally, ethanol is a distributed system. By colocating ethanol plants with other industries[1] the production of transportation fuel is spread out and localized. This increases security by redundancy as well as reduces the need to transport as much fuel as far. This reduces pressure on the trucking/transport industry.
Yield increases. Even short of "full blown" cellulosic ethanol plants (see below), the addition of current cellulosic technology is underway. DuPont, for example, is working to add corn stover processing to existing plants. This would use the stalks and leaves that currently the farmers don't have a use for. This one change doubles the ethanol output of a field of corn. This one technology would allow all existing US corn fields to collect their current "wastes" and convert them to ethanol. No additional fertilizers, no additional fields. The only additional energy use would be transporting the wastes to the processing plant. Larger farms installations would do this locally keeping transportation costs and pressure low.
Indeed if we were to accept your claims above, that it would take 100% of todays corn fields, this one change would supply over 50% of our need. Using yo
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
"All we'd need is a plot of space for a big-ass building to house the stuff in " ... and everyone would be going "... but not in my backyard!" I've been following the wind generator movement. Everyone loves it until you offer to put it anywhere near them. That attitude will only disappear when people's backs are well and truly against the wall. As is always the case.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Probably oil created from processing oil sands and shale.
(Though maybe there will finally be a biodiesel seller in my area by then??)
Termites efficiently convert cellulose to ethanol in a room-temperature, carbon nuetral process. Whoever is the first the duplicate *that* trick on an industrial scale will become very wealthy.
I have been running 10% ethanol in my truck since it was new. I have 55k miles on my plugs and no adverse performance. With ethanol I get slightly lower mileage per tank, but I have no water in my tank either. I also haven't had any problems with injectors or overheating. Not even on days like today when it's 103 and idling with the AC on.
Ethanol is also used in some summer blends of gasoline. Cities that have air quality problems are requiring it. It the past it was the same price as regular unleaded, with an 89 octane. Now, with the push for ethanol, high gas prices, and EPA requirements for cleaner fuel blends, ethanol prices are way up and I pay 4 cents a gallon more than regular.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
I had two ideas, but one would have involved armed men summarily executing anyone who used the phrase "two-party system". The other would have involved people thinking before they vote, and hopefully not voting for parties that behave in ways that are diamterically opposed to the philosophies that they claim to follow. The former idea is almost certainly the more realistic one.
EG: why does America still have medicare and medicaid? Bush has had 6 years to scrap it; instead he just lets them stink up the national debt to the tune of 2 trillion dollars a year, despite the fact that they help very few people. A conservative would have scrapped it, cut taxes, and let the improved economy make it easier for people to afford their own health care; ergo, Bush is not a conservative.
Similarly, why doesn't America have universal healthcare? Clinton had 8 years to implement some kind of solution. A liberal would have developed a brilliant blend of public and private care, public and private health insurance, job-benefits and welfare programs, and ended with most people covered and vast numbers of new jobs to run the beauracracy; ergo, Clinton was not a liberal. Both of these presidents have NOTHING stopping them, since they both had/have near-total support in congress. Bunch of jackasses, I tell you.
Why not methanol?
Pure Ethyl or Methyl alcohol gives horrid economy.
Simple example, numbers close but not perfect:
10 gallon tank.
Burn 100% gas: 200 miles per tank
Burn 100% alcohol: 50 miles per tank
Burn 75 alcohol & 25% gas? 180+ miles per tank.
Point is that you can dilute gas a lot while maintaining most of the energy density, as a bonus all the oxygen in the alcohol reduces emissions to ridiculously low levels. Subsidies are not required once production begins in earnest. Maybe reduce the tax rate on blends to encourage consumption preference but that's it. The cost of production will drop to low enough amounts quickly.
Other option? Biodiesel.
-nB
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You can run gasoline rich, too. The only bad things it will do are reduce power, kill your catalytic converter, and spew unburned hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. In fact, you want to run slightly lean if you can, retarding timing to avoid knock as required. The engine is most efficient there.
I meant richer than gasoline. Ethanol may have certain simularities to gasoline, but it is a different chemical, with different properties. Burning ethanol in the same air/fuel ratios as gasoline is running it extremely leanly. That may be why some states are requiring 'oxygenates'(which ethanol is) to be added to gasoline. It's forcing engines to run at an effectivly leaner level, reducing pollution. You have to put more fuel into a given cylinder with ethanol to have it run at the same effective leanness level. Because it's oxygenated, that means more fuel for any given amount of air in the chambers.
I drive 30 miles to work. If I should have to leave a couple hours in, I won't be able to, and when my batteries start to degrade, I'll probably notice because I won't be able to get there.
Why wouldn't you be able to get there? I'm talking about a PHEV, not an EV. Your IC engine would start up on the way back to get you home. You'd hardly notice, other than needing to fill up a little more often if you live outside of the 'electric only' range. That's why I said: 'charge the batteries at night enough that at least the shorter commutes don't even need to use it's IC engine.' (it refering to the PHEV vehicle).
PHEV stands for 'Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicle'. It's a hybrid with an EV style charging system, and some additional battery capacity to be able operate in a pure electric mode for a longer period of time. Less than a full EV, of course, but they have all the range of pure gasolines and hybrids, maybe even a little more. You can even get the battery to be cheaper per kw/h of capacity(as compared to a standard HEV), as you're spreading the load across more battery, reducing the load. More battery to absorb the many watts pushed into it during regenerative braking, more battery to provide the amps for acceleration.
For example, my commute is 26 miles a day. If I get a PHEV rated for a 30 mile range, I might use a tenth of a gallon per trip, because highway speeds take more energy(which most of my commute is), so it'd probably start up the IC during the acceleration to highway speeds, plus a little bit at the end if the batteries run out. Probably use more in the winter, of course, as it gets cold up here(I hardly use AC, but heat is necessary in winter). Right now I use most of a gallon each day. That requires me to fill up every other week. That would switch to about three times a year with the PHEV. If it's rated for 50 miles, I'd actually have to worry about adding fuel stabilizer to my tank, I'd fill up with fresh so little. It'd be mostly for my trips to see my parents (700 mile trip).
I don't read AC A human right
That's triply true in the case of fuel cells. Hydrogen fuel cells are outrageous because they (until now) require hand-fabrication, have short membrane lifespans and need precious metals to catalyze their reactions. Zinc-air doesn't need precious metals, and direct-carbon fuel cells run hot enough to get by with thermal activation. These technologies require some R&D to get them to mass-production status, but they are potentially very cheap.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Uh, thanks, I guess...
All things equal, coal is better than nothing, and it has the advantage of being the floor of Pennsylvania and eight other states. Which do you think is more dangerous: funding middle eastern princes using religion as an excuse for territorialist expansion (it's been going on for thirty years,) or losing two dozen miners a year? All things equal, yes, it's a tragedy that these good men and women are dying, but it's quite a bit better than the three thousand a year that have been added to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Yemen's death toll since the black gold started flowing in earnest.
I certainly don't want to see coal go back into use. I come from Pittsburgh. I know exactly how bad coal is. But it's better than going to an economy without energy, and I'm of the opinion that we're going to have to start finding some alternatives in 10-15 years. I don't buy into the peak oil concept, but production is going down, and demand is going up; simple market economics show that the current quadrupling of gas prices is the start of something much worse. E85 isn't viable in the long term, and it's unclear whether the political mess around nuclear can be cleared up in time to make hydrogen as a storage source a viable way to construct a portable nuclear economy. Commercial fusion is several decades away.
The simple fact is, we need options. Coal may be bad, but it's not as bad as it used to be. Natural gas isn't an option. Wind isn't a realistic option. Hydro doesn't scale to demand. Solar isn't reliable enough. Either we can go back to horses and carriages, or we can use coal and aggressive filtering to make a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen isn't a fuel, it's a storage mechanism. The power has to come from *somewhere* .
And look, if you've got a better idea, prepare to be the next Rockefeller. Find a way to stop diverting 1/8 of the US economy to Persia, and the world will beat a path to your door.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Brazil is absolutely HUGE, larger than the continental 48 United States. // They have plenty of room to grow more sugar cane, and they are adding refineries at a very rapid pace.
Pesky rainforests. Someone needs to investigate sugar beets. We have a pretty big sugar beet industry, mostly because they produce more sugar per acre than cane, and they'll grow in a pile of burning tires if someone goes to the trouble of planting them.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
the US isn't 'relying' on the middle east for oil. us oil imports have never been more than 20%. however the US is interested in the mideast's CHEAP oil.
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http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=19165 3&cid=15748549
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
Why would this get modded as flamebait? I remember now why I started going to digg. Friggin moron moderators on /.
Other option? Biodiesel.
I like Biodiesel much more because it has higher energy density than alcohol or gasoline, but I see your point about reducing emissions. That's why they mix ethanol with gas right now during the winter in cold areas.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Hydrogen is a fuel, and a storage mechanism. We don't pump gasoline out of the ground, either.
I don't think that coal is the right answer. I think nuclear is the right answer. It actually pollutes less and we do have technologies to allow us to use nuclear in an efficient factor - breeder reactors, to reprocess the fuel, which will reduce the amount of fuel needed by something like three orders of magnitude. I realize that the political situation is a huge SNAFU.
I have a way: kill all the big oil execs. Unfortunately the people have not yet congregated at my house to begin the pogrom.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hydrogen is a fuel, and a storage mechanism.
Not in current settings, it isn't. Hydrogen is only a fuel if it can be acquired at less energy cost than it can be used. Currently, the hydrogen for our hydrogen fleet is gotten by electrolyzing water, which costs more power than the hydrogen in turn generates. Once we can do wacky stuff like mining the solar wind, or once we get a semipermeable membrane that can sort hydrogen out of the atmosphere at near-zero energy input, then it will be a fuel.
Until then, it is only a storage mechanism.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Does that mean that gasoline isn't a fuel, because in order to get it, we have to spend trillions of dollars, which represent energy input?
Anyway, maybe you should look up the definition of fuel which says absolutely nothing about ratio of energy input to energy output. To borrow an already liberally-used phrase, I do not think that word means what you think it means.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Probably oil. The corporate bunch, i. e. neo-cons, immediately bad mouth any likely competition to oil. The present mess is destroying the power and prestige of the U. S. but all that oil money is keeping the monied aristocracy in power around the world. Notice any complaints from Wall Street about oil prices? When Georgie Porgie goes home, oil prices will come down.
Ought... implemented...nice....