Ford on President’s Ethanol Call: Bring it On!

[JohnWxy]

OF course you don't have to wait for cellulosic ethanol. We are producing corn based ethanol right now. And you don't even need a Flexible Fuel Vehicle to use ehtanol 10% (Gasohol).

ANY CAR THAT RUNS ON GAS CAN USE GASOHOL - AND YOU WILL CUT YOUR GASOLINE CONSUMPTION BY 10% WITHOUT BUYING A NEW CAR. Or you can get a FFV at NO EXTRA CHARGE and burn regular gas or any blend of gas and ethanol. With Ethanol85 you would be cutting your gasoline consumption by 65%!! AND FOR NO EXTRA MONEY FOR THE FFV!!

http://www.jalopnik.com/cars/ethanol/index.php

" Bill Ford responded today to President Bush’s indication in last night’s State of the Union address that ethanol will gain gov’ment support as an alternative energy source. The FoMoCo CEO pointed out that Ford has already put more than 1.5 million ethanol-capable vehicles on the road, and will produce 250,000 more this year. (Note: GM and Chrysler also produce such vehicles). “We believe focusing on alternative fuels such as ethanol will bring this issue where it belongs — to the forefront of the national agenda,” Ford said."

[PDJane]

1. There are several problems with corn-based ethanol.

One of which being it takes more oil and oil-based products to grow and harvest the corn than the ethanol gained this way can replace.

Add to that the fact that it's a food product, and you have a major objection to the stuff.

[rogerashton]

2. Why is it a problem

that it is a food product?

[Coastie for Truth]

4. Actually, you bought into the "Petroleum Refinery Paradigm"

of the Chemical Engineering discipline -- "Go to elevated temperatures, elevated pressures, transition metal catalysts to get short residence time (i.e., you want to minimize residence time to get maximum productivity of that expensive, high temperature, high pressure process equipment.)"

I would look at the bio-engineer paradigm from the food, beverage, and pharma industries - "Go to standard temperatures and pressures, biocatalysts (don't worry about long residence times, your process equipment is cheaper, no pumps to pressurize, no heaters to heat it)."

You have taken the oil and petrochemical out of the synthesis process.

I have suffered through "McCabe and Smith" and "Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot" and "Sherwood and Pigford" and "Smith and Van Ness" myself... and used Raschig Rings and Berl saddles as paper weights, and learned my trade in the days of Kueffel and Esser "Log Log Duplex Deci Trig" slip sticks, and did my home brewing and home vintnering and home distilling.

[JohnWxy]

5. OH boy, the disinformation just lives on like cancer.

You are repeating discredited disinformation paid for by the oil industry.

Wang: (Argonne National Laboratory) study ethanol returns 38% MORE enrgy than is consumed in producing it. Gasoline is a net energy loser of 19% (19% less energy recovered in gasoline compared to the energy consumed to produce it). Dr. Wangs study

Michigean State University study: Ethanol net energy GAIN 56%

USDA 2004 study ethano net energy GAIN 67%

Regarding Patzek and Pimentel (an entomologist): "The recent erroneous report prepared by Cornell University's David Pimentel and the University of California at Berkeley's Tad Patzek continue to perpetuate the myth that the production of biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel has no energy benefit. Mr. Patzek is the director of UC's Oil Consortium, which receives funding from the oil industry including Chevron and Phillips Petroleum. Previous partners have included BP, Mobil USA, Statoil and Unocal."


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=36988


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=35706

[NickB79]

6. Those are still poor numbers

As someone on another thread posted, that gives an EROEI of only 1.67.

0.67 / 1.67 => 0.40

So in a carbon-neutral system (no oil-based or natural-gas based fuels, fertilizers, etc), for every 100 gallons of ethanol we make, we would have to use 60 gallons to run the tractors and semi-trailers to make more ethanol, while only 40 gallons are available for fuel.

While it's good you get more energy out of ethanol than you put in, it still does very little to help us out of the energy crisis we are entering into. We as a society have grown fat on oil pumped from the ground with an EROEI of 20-100. The only biofuel that comes close to this is biodiesel from algae cultivated in manmade salt lakes.

[JohnWxy]

9. I am for exploring and developing anything that will lead us in the right

direction. I am just not in favor of non action.

But remember time is an important factor. Ethanol is something that works right now. Does it compare with cellulosic ethanol, no. But it's going to take 5 to 6 yrs to get cellulosic ethanol going. We should do that. But lets not do nothing in the mean time!

the story of Tommy the Turd: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x41836

[NickB79]

11. The solution is only partly ethanol

I use ethanol every time I drive my car (it's mandated here in MN, 10%). I would use E85 if I could simply because it's cheaper, but my car isn't capable of running off it.

But if I were to list all the things we could do to stop from becoming like "Tommy the Turd", ethanol would be a ways down on my list. It would go something like this:

-mandate much higher CAFE standards from auto makers. Force them to build small, 40mpg+ vehicles. Most likely this will finally force domestic automakers to build a hybrid to compete with the Toyota Prius, and competition is a great thing in the automotive world. While they're at it, get them to build plug-in hybrids that double the fuel efficiency by running on battery power more.

-stop surburban sprawl and focus on redeveloping existing cities to put people closer to business sectors while at the same time maintaining green spaces in the forms of parks and ponds. As much as I'd love a big home on 5 acres of land in an exurb, I realize that this would destroy us in the long run. Apartment living appears to be the way to go to conserve energy and oil.

-invest in more light-rail and heavy-rail construction. We need to revitalize our rail system to get semi-trailers off the roads for transporting goods. We need to give people fast rail transit to give them an alternative to the car.

-end many of the subsidies to factory farms. Bring back the smaller, more efficient family farms that use far less oil per acre and produce more food per acre than corporate factory farms, while maintaining better stewardship of the land.

-finally, mandate all gasoline sold in the US by 2008-2010 contain 10-15% ethanol. Mandate all diesel sold in the US by that time has a similar blend of biodiesel. Mandate that all cars be capable of running on E85 by 2010.

If we had another 20 years to go before hitting Peak Oil, I would probably be more optimistic, but I don't think any of these changes will make much difference anymore. Our car-centered way of life in the US is about to come to a crashing halt within the next 5-7 years. When it does, our economy will face a crisis the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Depression, crippling the development of oil independence by removing much of the cash needed to invest in building rail, ethanol plants, and hybrid cars. In relation to your "Tommy the Turd" analogy, we don't have a sump-pump. We have a teaspoon to shovel ourselves out, and I don't think that's gonna cut it.

[DemInDistress]

3. better still...."HEMP FOR VICTORY"

CANT ARGUE THE VIRTUES OF HEMP !!!

[iconoclastNYC]

7. Ethanol is better made from Switchgrass

Which uses 100% of the grown plant...versus just the corn. More efficient!

Also there is the idea of using Algae which is even more efficient.

The key to biofule is dramatically increasing the yield per acre. Until we do that we won't be able to make much progress on fuel independence. Let's hope these algae farms take off.

[JohnWxy]

8. yes, we should aggressively push ahead with this technology.

MOre has to be done to bring down the cost of producing the enzymes necessary to make ethanol from cellulosic sources. IT will take about 4 to 6 years to do this.

Meanwhile, we should not ignore a practical, clean, renewable energy source which is being used now, is cheaper than gasoline, will reduce imports of fossil fuel, improve our balance or payments, strengthen our economy and of course reduce GHGs - while we are working to make cellulosic ethanol cheaper.

Switch grasses will be several times more productive than starch sources - once we get the cost of enzymes down.

[4dsc]

10. BS Alert

The making the ethanol has never been meant to "will reduce imports of fossil fuel" but rather supplement our wasteful use of fossil fuels..

Ethanol will never be the "replacement" for oil everybody is dreaming about!!