[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
If oil becomes so expensive that ethanol is economically viable I will embrace it. Until then it reeks of corporate welfare.[/quote]
That’s a catch-22. Until somebody invests in increasing production, it will be expensive. As I mentioned, Brazil reduced the costs in half through R&D and economies of scale. We need to start working on achieving the same. Now. We do NOT have any viable alternatives.
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
There are not stereotypes in my message.[/quote]
“machete wielding peasants”?
I have family in Brazil and I found it offensive, since some of their ancestors were those “machete wielding peasants”. I don’t think you can honestly blame me.
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
pat36 wrote:
Fuck ethanol, I want nitro-methane! Ethanol is totally viable. It will just take a while to develope the infastructure. I think all this crap that ethnol won’t work is a load of shit. It works in internal combustion engines. You’re current car will run ethanol. Change the fuel lines and adjust the timing.
The main people who do not like ethenol are the oil companies. Fuck them.
You are missing the point.
Ethanol productions in the US and in most of the world uses more fossil fuel energy to be produced than is can replace.
Got it?[/quote]
Nope, don’t got it. Who said we have to completely replace fossil fuels? Why not just reduce our need to what we can produce. We do not have to move from all petroleum to all ethenol.
[quote]hspder wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
There are not stereotypes in my message.
“machete wielding peasants”?
I have family in Brazil and I found it offensive, since some of their ancestors were those “machete wielding peasants”. I don’t think you can honestly blame me.
[/quote]
Peasant definition:
The word ‘peasant’ is not negative to me but a factual description.
Would you feel better about my description if it read?:
“poorly paid, machete wielding agricultural worker”
I do not use the work in a derogatory mannner but as a factual descriptor.
I will use “poorly paid agricutural worker” in the future.
Happy now?
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
I will use “poorly paid agricutural worker” in the future.
Happy now?[/quote]
Yes.
By the way, you do realize we have plenty of poorly paid agricultural workers here in the US too, right?
I don’t see any good reasons for not drilling in the USA other than the possibility of us not using the oil… what if we keep and refine every drop and only drill in the “middle of nowhere”? I think drilling a hole in the ground is better for the environment than a few hundred thousand acres of corn.
Well, we’re either subsidizing farmers to grow corn for ethanol, or subsidizing farmers not to grow ANYHTING (we’re already doing this), or we’re subsidizing oil companies for deep sea drilling and exploration among other things (we’re already doing this). …so don’t use “corporate welfare” as an excuse! Oil companies have been sucking up our tax dollars for YEARS upon YEARS, thanks to the bushes.
Frankly, I’d rather see my tax dollars go towards a PERMANENT solution to the simple fact that oil production HAS PEAKED, and the price of oil will only go up, rather than continue to line the pockets of oil companies that keep reporting windfall profits. Face the facts: Drilling in Alaska is a TEMPORARY solution, but will cause PERMANENT problems, same with deep sea drilling. Granted, agraculture has wide scale impact, but proper land management can minimize that (that, and we already have TONS of farms, and more corn and land than we know what to DO with). Besides, subsidy of Ethanol producers will only be temporary - once infrastructure is in place and efficient, those subsidies can start to be gradually removed.
Making sure that we’re using electricity to help in the production of ethanol, and that we’re MAKING that electricity with clean renewable energy sources like pebble bed nuclear reactors, NEEDS to be a top priority.
Bio Diesel IS a good solution for Diesel vehicles - it doesn’t have to be made only from fast food oil - there are many other sources of lipids. If there wasn’t enough to make it, how is it so readily available at so many gas stations in Europe? The novelty factor with BD is only due to the fact that you can make it yourself. Don’t confuse a novel idea with a novelty item. From what I’ve read, BP is already working on bringing Bio Diesel to gas stations in the US of A.
Air transport: We should probably be investing in high speed electric rail systems, like the Japanese, in order to take some of the load off the airline industry. I’m not sure that there ARE any solutions to the eventual connundrum, maybe fuel costs will be so high more people will take trains, busses, drive electric cars, or SAIL.
Spectacle may have been the most important aspect of the Twentieth Century, but I can assure you, EFFICIENCY is going to rule the Twenty-First.
-Kris
[quote]PantyPeePunch wrote:
Does anyone have a good reason why we should not be drilling for oil in the U.S.A. ?[/quote]
We’re drilling like crazy. The last time I saw a rig count it was over 1800 rigs operating in North America. (This was a few months ago. I think it is around 2000 now- check out the Baker Hughes website.)
There is a lot of activity, but there isn’t much oil out there to find.
[quote]hspder wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
I will use “poorly paid agricutural worker” in the future.
Happy now?
Yes.
By the way, you do realize we have plenty of poorly paid agricultural workers here in the US too, right?
[/quote]
You want to deport them.
[quote]hspder wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
If oil becomes so expensive that ethanol is economically viable I will embrace it. Until then it reeks of corporate welfare.
That’s a catch-22. Until somebody invests in increasing production, it will be expensive. As I mentioned, Brazil reduced the costs in half through R&D and economies of scale. We need to start working on achieving the same. Now. We do NOT have any viable alternatives.
[/quote]
I completely understand but I get the feeling they are pulling the wool over my eyes.
How expensive does gas/oil have to be to make ethanol economically viable?
I realize the cost of ethanol is difficult to estimate but there has to be some decent projections.
Do you have any links?
Regarding Brazil what does their cost structure look like? What are they paying for gas now and what were they paying a couple years ago?
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Regarding Brazil what does their cost structure look like? What are they paying for gas now and what were they paying a couple years ago?[/quote]
Google it.
Ethanol fuel from corn faulted as ‘unsustainable subsidized food burning’ in analysis by Cornell scientist
FOR RELEASE: Aug. 6, 2001
Contact: Roger Segelken
Office: 607-255-9736
E-Mail: hrs2@cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. – Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what one Cornell University agricultural scientist calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.
At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some lawmakers, Cornell’s David Pimentel takes a longer range view.
“Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning,” says the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. 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. His findings will be published in September, 2001 in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology .
Among his findings are:
o An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel’s analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.
o The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline. o 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.”
o Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. “That helps explain why fossil fuels – not ethanol – are used to produce ethanol,” Pimentel says. “The growers and processors can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn’t afford it, either, if it weren’t for government subsidies to artificially lower the price.”
o Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. “Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol.”
o The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: “In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace.”
Nickels and dimes aside, some drivers still would rather see their cars fueled by farms in the Midwest than by oil wells in the Middle East, Pimentel acknowledges, so he calculated the amount of corn needed to power an automobile:
o The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix) would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans.
o If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.
http://www.ncga.com/ethanol/pdfs/EthanolfFuelsRebuttal.pdf
I can’t format the text well enough but this page triesd to refute the Cornell study.
http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/aer-814.pdf
A better report with a more positive energy balance.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/aer-814.pdf
A better report with a more positive energy balance.
[/quote]
Same guys. Most recent report from July 1995. They have downgraded the positive energy ratio to 1.24 Btu available from ethanol for every 1 Btu used to produce the ethanol.
The engineer in me is extremely skeptical but of course with a billions of dollars to be made I suspect ADM’s lobbyists will find a way.
Conclusions
We conclude that the NEV of corn ethanol is positive when fertilizers are produced by modern processing plants, corn is converted in modern ethanol facilities, farmers achieve normal corn yields, and energy credits are allocated to coproducts. Our NEV estimate of 16,193 Btu/gal can be considered conservative, since it was derived using the replacement method for valuing coproducts, and it does not include energy credits for plants that sell carbon dioxide. Corn ethanol is energy efficient, as indicated by an energy ratio of 1.24, that is, for every Btu dedicated to producing ethanol, there is a 24-percent energy gain. Moreover, producing ethanol from domestic corn stocks achieves a net gain in a more desirable form of energy. Ethanol production utilizes abundant domestic energy supplies of coal and natural gas to convert corn into a premium liquid fuel that can replace petroleum imports by a factor of 7 to 1.
WOW, great info Zap!
That was truly a brilliant rebuttal, although there is something to be said for some of the points in the previous article - Ethanol in and of itself is NOT going to be enough. Efficiency is going to have to drastically increase.
The other thing, is that one can use electrical power to produce ethanol as well - one doesn’t have to burn coal or natural gas.
Another thing that’s been TOTALLY forgotten about is the concept of entirely electric cars - now, electric cars HAVE had their problems, primarily due to battery issues (length of time required to charge, capacity, longevity, resources require to produce, etc). It dawned on my that using capacitor banks in place of a large battery in an electric car could make sense if there was a smaller intermediary battery to “smooth out” the sudden output of a capacitor. Capacitors are lightweight, charge fast, discharge fast, and store INCREDIBLE ammounts of electricity. There’s this talk about subsidizing hybrid manufacture, etc. but everyone’s completely forgotten about the idea of an EFFICIENT, well designed electric vehicle. I believe we need to invest in developing that technology as well (which, incidentally, will also help make hybrids more efficient).
[quote]knewsom wrote:
Another thing that’s been TOTALLY forgotten about is the concept of entirely electric cars - now, electric cars HAVE had their problems, primarily due to battery issues (length of time required to charge, capacity, longevity, resources require to produce, etc). It dawned on my that using capacitor banks in place of a large battery in an electric car could make sense if there was a smaller intermediary battery to “smooth out” the sudden output of a capacitor. Capacitors are lightweight, charge fast, discharge fast, and store INCREDIBLE ammounts of electricity. [/quote]
High power output, or “sudden output” as you say, is not a problem other than a safety problem. Power output depends on the load. To the contrary, ultracapacitors are used to provide burst power and load-leveling in applications where batteries provide the majority of the energy storage (including some hybrids and EVs). Batteries have a much higher energy capacity (per weight and per size) and lower cost. Energy capacity of ultracapacitors will improve in the near future, but unless there is some completely unexpected breakthrough, cost will be a problem for a long time. In a pure EV, higher leakage would also be an issue for Sunday-drivers, but not for commuters.
Instead of the 9 cents/gallon the oil companies make on gas, how about cutting the 50 cent/gallon tax the Feds put on it?
It would be better in the long run to simply fire most Federal employees except law enforcement, judicial, and military, sell off everything else, eliminate most taxes and let the market take over. All these regs and taxes are killing us!!
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Ethanol fuel from corn faulted as ‘unsustainable subsidized food burning’ in analysis by Cornell scientist
[/quote]
The flaw in the theory is that ethenol has to be made from corn. You can distill chicken shit and make ethanol. If it has sugar in it, ethanol can be made out of it.
Efficiency is the only answer.
FYI - We use natural gas to produce fertilizer.
Care to guess how much energy that takes.
Corn ethanol is a losing proposition.