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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...
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
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.
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.
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
"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".
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 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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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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.
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.
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.
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...
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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yea 200-400 at current use. Now multiply the number of people needing it for their cars, planes, and lights by 5-10 and see how long it lasts. Also Drilling the permafrost for oil, while possible is expensive, really expensive compared to drilling even in the ocean.
China is literally 4 times the popultion of the US alone. what about india? The problem with most of the long range prediction is that they assume that more oil won't be used in the future or use the modest growth rate of the US or europe. No one is figuring on a billion chinese needing cars or computers. Let alone their childern. On top of the UE or european growth rates.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Not only are Pimental's figures grossly incorrect for corn, but there are much more efficient feedstocks that blow them completely out of the water.
This doesn't even account for ethanol from cellulose. If we can devise a way to efficiently break cellulose down to sugar, then ethanol become trivial to produce.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
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.'"
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
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.
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.
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.