Ethanol as a fuel, mileage

[Fledermaus]

It is often said that ethanol gives lower mileage than gasoline. What people don’t understand and opponents to ethanol don’t want to explain is; ethanol can actually give better mileage than gasoline.

Thermal efficiency of an engine tells us how much energy in a fuel can be turned into useful mechanical energy. The thermal efficacy of a car engine depends on many variables. One variable is compression ratio. Change the compression and the efficiency of the engine changes.

The ideal Otto cycle efficiency is shown as a function of the compression ratio in Figure 3.11. As the compression ratio increases, efficiency increases
http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node26.html

Engines are tuned for a particular fuel, and the compression is selected for the type of fuel. Because of ethanol’s lower energy content, running ethanol in a engine tuned for gasoline (low compression) will give a driver lower mileage. However, ethanol can run at a higher compression ratio. An engine tuned for ethanol has better thermal efficiency than an engine tuned for gasoline, and will actually give slightly better mileage per gallon than gasoline. The higher thermal efficiency more than makes up for the loss in energy content of ethanol.

Detroit has taken the cheapest option to gain their flex fuel tax write off, they tuned their vehicles to run on regular gasoline not a high octane fuel. In other words, ethanol is not a substandard fuel. However, Detroit flex fuel cars are substandard.

ECONOMICAL, HIGH-EFFICIENCY ENGINE
TECHNOLOGIES FOR ALCOHOL FUELS

CONCLUSION
Substantial improvements in brake thermal efficiency have been demonstrated with neat alcohol fuels in a cost-effective port-fuel injected, spark-ignited engine configuration. Recently, this work has been extended to include alcohol-gasoline blends, showing significant benefit with fuels containing as little as 30% alcohol.
From the results presented above, it is concluded that:

1.Over 40% brake thermal efficiency can be obtained in a high compression ratio, PFI SI engine using neat methanol and ethanol fuels, resulting from the favorable combustion properties of alcohols.

2.Decreasing the fuel alcohol content generally gives lower brake thermal efficiency and somewhat decreased load range.

3. High efficiency was demonstrated with fuel blends down to 30% alcohol content. Such fuels may present a more economical and efficient means of utilizing alcohol fuels, and provide a path toward their more widespread, long-term use.
http://earth1.epa.gov/otaq/presentations/epa-fev-isaf-no55.pdf

[msongs]

1. the true cost is the increase in food prices as foods are used to make ethanol....

replacing dollar gas with dollar ethanol PLUS the increase in other things...

Msongs

[Zachstar]

2. Agreed

Show your little chart to the people who are going without because of that damned fuel raising prices and destroying the ecosystem.

[truedelphi]

3. No I do not think that is true. Corn has Always always always been a surplus item

We have so much excess corn that we turn it into corn syrup and throw about five times as much as we need to in everything from cola beverages and soft drinks to bread. We continue as a nation to boycott Cuba's sugar so that the corn farmer in Iowa has a ready market for his crop.

Even back in the very early days of this nation, there was a glut of corn on the market. Farmers controlling the cornfields of Kentucky and Illinois turned the corn into mash that became whiskey.

Did you know that workers in the USA demandeed an eleven Am break, called the elevenses (just saying the word makes me think I need a drink)

The brew of choice at that break was whiskey. Which the employer was expected to provide.

Now we have the ability to run our automobiles on ethanol. If corn was really ins hort supply, then we should give up our soft drinks and use that corn for our autos.

We would be healthier for that.

Of course, the way we could really get healthy and make the planet a better place woul dbe with all the neat automobiles that can run on everything from compressed air to solar. But our nation has a dozen reasons why those cars are not feasible and so it is happening in Europe, Mexico and India -everywhere but here.

[Zachstar]

4. What a messed up view.

Hint: Moderately rich people don't give up soft drinks to drive their cars. The poor give up things they would have been eating had you ethanol supporters thought about what yall were doing.

Oh BTW ANYONE who feels that it is somehow "Good" for our health that these crops continue to rise needs to do some ethical research. Yes it may make person A who is prone to becoming diabetic drink less soda. However person B who is on a low income gets to see the same higher prices on his FOOD and have to give up much more.


I can hardly believe the mindsets of some of yall! It is basically telling the poor to go ***** themselves!

You want a clean solution I will give you one!

Fusion running on the fuel PB11! price per reactor: 100 million
Cars running on ultracapacitors!

Anything (Even drilling in alaska for oil for cars that run 10 MPG) is better than continuing this unethical crap of ethanol expansion.

[truedelphi]

5. We are talking about corn.

I agree with you that our nation should not ride changes on the backs of poor people.

Especially these days as I am close to bankruptcy due to partner's medical costs.

I was not debating whether or not the poor should suffer for our energy needs.

But the fact is that the corn lobbyists see a good thing. And the farmers (and their communities) initially got into it because as early as 1979, people in the MidWest knew that the traditional gasoline mixture could be augmented with ethanol up to 10% and then the gas prices would lower overnight.

It is just as good for a poor person to be able to have cheaper gasoline than a rich person. In fact, it probably is MORE IMPORTANT for the poorer person to have gas prices lower - because then the cost of many food items in the store will go down. When you see the beer truck pull up, the bread truck, the local meat vendor's truck arrive at the grocery store - if those truck drivers have cheaper fuel to put into their vehicle, everything will be cheaper. (It won't affect the huge semitrailer trucks that use diesel, but a good amount of food arrives via UPS sized trucks that use regular fuel.)

Every other rich person I know has bought a Prius, so they care about cheaper fuel less than the rest of us.

[malakai2]

45. Wait, what are the necessities?

Something like food, shelter, water, seasonal heating if you live in most of the US? I don't think people who are suddenly priced out of one of those essential markets will find themselves excited at the thought of rich people characterizing those necessities as luxuries to be traded for the simple convenience of driving an automobile.

[patch1234]

6. are all non-food use-of-crops immoral, or just ethanol? n/t

[GliderGuider]

7. It depends on whether those uses are bounded or not.

Minor non-food uses of food crops that are unlikely to expand can be tolerated. An example is the use of linseed oil in paints.

The problem with using ethanol as a fuel is that its potential use isn't bounded. We could could convert all our starch-bearing crops into ethanol and still not come close to meeting the post-peak requirement for fuel replacements. That potential makes all policies that promote the general, unconstrained use of crop ethanol as a fuel unethical and immoral. More people will survive the loss of transportation than would survive the loss of food, and our ethical responsibility is to prevent the deaths of as many people as possible.

[Fledermaus]

10. The only ethanol opponents advocating using all of our corn for ethanol.

It easy to set up a straw man and then nock it down.

Perhaps, it feels good to believe we feed the poor people of the world.

According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), U.S. corn does not feed the hungry of the world. The ten countries with the highest percentage of undernourished people receive less than one-hundredth of one percent (.01 percent) of U.S. corn exports. The 24 countries in which at least a third of the population is undernourished receive less than 0.1 percent.

In reality, rich nations purchase our corn and use it mostly for animal feed.

In reality, we have been dumping our corn on the world markets for decades and driving traditional farmers out of business. The dumping of cheap US corn is decreasing and will probably come to an end.

[GliderGuider]

12. You really need to read Stuart Staniford's analysis at The Oil Drum

Fermenting the Food Supply just went up today. It's the most objective, comprehensive, detailed indictment of biofuel production I've ever read.

Africa as a whole imports 25% of its calories. Anything that puts pressure on the global food supply will have ripple effects. Biofuels are one of those pressures. Given that oil and cereal are both global commodities, any unbounded non-food use of crops will, through direct reductions or indirect substitution effects, influence food supplies even across borders. It's not a difficult concept.

[Fledermaus]

16. I like to go the oil drum for a good laugh

I like it when they talk about the net energy gain of oil/gasoline.

Ha ha, what a crazy mixed up world you people live in.

[NickB79]

19. JohnyWaxy, is that you?

Or a clone of him?

[GliderGuider]

8. We turn corn into syrup and ethanol because of the subsidies.

Both HFCS and ethanol are more properly viewed as subsidy vehicles, not food or fuel. If the subsidies weren't available, the excess corn would either be exported or would simply not be grown in preference to other crops.

Give Green, Go Yellow: How cash and corporate pressure pushed ethanol to the fore

Ethanol's revival is intimately linked to one company, the giant grain-trading firm Archer Daniels Midland, and one seemingly unrelated product, high-fructose corn syrup. The story centers on a man who arguably counts as corporate America's most generous and influential political donor of the second half of the 20th century, former ADM CEO Dwayne Andreas. To understand the weird and lucrative nexus between an industrial sweetener, a gas substitute, and a grain magnate, we need to go back to the days of disco.

...

In the mid-1970s, ADM had begun tinkering with a method developed in Japan for making a concentrated liquid sweetener out of corn -- high-fructose corn syrup -- that might appeal to the booming soft-drink industry. The process involved what's known as "wet milling" corn -- the same process ADM uses to this day for making ethanol.

...

ADM, meanwhile, has thrived. The company's third-quarter 2006 financial statement testifies to the strength of the business model built by Andreas. Its corn-processing division (read: ethanol and high-fructose corn syrup) generated $290.5 million in operating profit, up from $136.2 million a year earlier. From ethanol alone, the company earned $177.5 million. Overall, the company churned out $575.2 million in profit for the quarter. That means that ethanol and corn syrup -- two business lines that wouldn't exist without heavy and persistent government support -- supplied half of the company's profit.

Just how much does government manipulation on behalf of ADM's twin corn-processing units cost U.S. taxpayers and consumers? That's a tricky question, because the subsidy programs are so indirect and complex. For example, the corn subsidies that have kept ADM's feedstock of choice cheap for so long don't go to the company, but rather farmers. Nor does the sugar quota involve direct payments to ADM. Consumers pay the tab in the form of higher food prices. In addition to these difficulties, several states and even municipalities have put in place policies that favor corn processing.

In a landmark study this year for the Geneva-based International Institute for Sustainable Development, researcher Doug Koplow attempted to come to terms with the situation. Here's how he described the "major challenge" of quantifying the value of government support for ethanol and other biofuel: "Virtually every production input and production stage of ethanol and biodiesel is subsidized somewhere in the country; in many locations, producers can tap into multiple subsidies at once."

After 50 pages of detailing seemingly every one of those supports, Koplow reaches his estimated bottom line: total government support for ethanol clocks in at somewhere between $6.3 billion and $8.7 billion per year.

[patch1234]

14. many countries have tarrifs and/or export subsidies

I view the ethanol subsidy as
an 'avoided-import' subsidy,
Let me know when Europe gets
rid of their VAT export rebate.

[losthills]

15. Hey Razzleberry,

I was just looking at your "tombstone....."

[Javaman]

9. Another hit and run post that doesn't take in all the long term effects.

sigh. I get really tired of these.

[losthills]

11. I don't think it really matters how efficient ethanol is,

or how many miles to the gallon you get.

The more interesting question is-- how much oil per gallon goes into producing the ethanol?
I've researched this several times, and the opinion I have formed is that it's a lot. I've seen studies that say that it takes as much oil to produce a gallon of corn ethanol as it does to produce a gallon of gasoline. That's probably an extreme view. I don't see that anyone has really pegged it, because it's a complicated question to answer, but everyone agrees that it takes a lot of oil to produce a gallon of ethanol.

Now here's what that means to me: As the price of oil increases, the price of corn will increase along with it. That will mean that farmers will be able to make more money per acre growing corn than they can growing other food crops. Farmers all over the world will feel pressured to grow corn or other fuel crops instead of food, and basic economics will dictate that the price of food will be pegged to the price of oil...

This will be a never ending spiral, because the price of oil is going to continue to rise until we run completely out of it. Now imagine where we will be when we come to realize that we are about out of oil, and we can't produce large volumes of ethanol without it... It won't even get that far-- because before it does the prices of both food and ethanol will have torn world-wide economies asunder. That's after the rainforests have all been burned down to grow the shit and we have witnessed global extinction of species on a biblical scale.

Have a tortilla-- while you can still afford one....

[CRH]

13. Subtract the energy to grow, transport, and refine corn into ethanol, ...

from any extra mileage that might be realized in its use, and you will find the process is a net energy loser.

[Fledermaus]

17. Sorry Dudes, the net energy gain for ethanol is positive. It’s a proven fact.

And its getting better all the time.

[NickB79]

18. A 1.3:1 EROEI for any energy resource is pretty pathetic, actually

Sorry to burst your bubble.

[CRF450]

20. That why the point was made in this article for raising the compression ratio

To make use of that fuel and make it more effecient! The current so-called flex fuel vehicles could make better use (and better milage) of ethonal if they raise the compression ratio of the engine, but then it wouldn't run very well on regular 87. The computer would have to pull the spark timing so much that the engine would make shitty power and fuel milage. Its the same deal on a vehicle made for premium 91+ gas, running regular in it would reduce fuel milage and power.

[patch1234]

21. nothing wrong with trading one energy for another ...

when it displaces the use of crude oil

[Fledermaus]

23. Over 2:1 for the latestest closed loop corn ethanol plant, over 4:1 for sugarcane

Oh please please tell us the energy gain for oil/gasoline

[GliderGuider]

24. EROEI for oil depends on the source

EROEI is estimated at 20:1 for conventional Middle East crude from existing fields like Ghawar, 8:1 for new discoveries in Siberia, perhaps 2:1 for tar sands syncrude.

Refining removes 15% of the oil, so the refined products from ME oil at 20:1 (of which gasoline is only one) would come out the refinery gate with an EROEI of 17.5:1, refined products from those new Siberian fields would give you 7:1, and products from tar sands syncrude would show 1.75:1

Thanks for asking.

BTW, are there enough commercial closed-loop ethanol plants operating at this point to permit a credible analysis of the process, or is the 2:1 you quote still a paper EROEI? One more question regarding closed loop processes, I understand they will reduce FF use, but I'm unclear on why their energy input requirements would be lower than the 1.3:1 currently quoted for FF-driven processes. If it was just process efficiency, couldn't those same efficiencies be applied to a FF-driven process? After all, a BTU is a BTU is a BTU, right?

[Fledermaus]

26. So the whole oil/gasoline system

Exploration, wells, pumping, refining, transportation, bla, bla, bla, the whole system has an energy return of 20:1 or what ever?

[GliderGuider]

28. No, only the oil system.

Refining doesn't figure into that base 20:1, as refining eats up about 15% of the input energy. The EROEI is usually calculated on the crude oil at the refinery gate. I assume that's because the energy costs from that point on are constant, independent of the source of the oil.

The reason recent finds have been calculated as having a lower EROEI than fields already in production is mainly due to the rising energy costs of exploration, drilling and pumping, along with some additional transportation costs if the oil is in a remote area. In the early days of Texas and the Middle East, their crude was estimated to have an EROEI of 100:1.

There is good reason to believe that an industrial society can't sustain itself if the EROEI of its overall energy mix drops below 5:1 or so. Charlie Hall's cheese slicer graphs give a general indication of why that might be true. Certainly the higher your overall EROEI the more net energy you have left over for consumption and investment.

[Fledermaus]

30. Congratulation! You are the proud father of a perpetual motion machine

You and the other charlatans at the oil dump have solved the world energy crisis. We will put just on unit of energy into your mythical energy scheme, reinvest a small portion of the energy output, and the system will just keep running and running.

I’ll put your name in for the Nobel Prize, but I can’t guarantee anything.

[GliderGuider]

33. Not too numerate, eh?

You might have noticed that I mentioned how the EROEI of recently discovered oil is lower than that of oil discovered a few decades ago, which was in turn lower than the EROEI of oil discovered a century ago. What does that monotonic progression imply? It implies that oil is getting more and more costly to find and extract, and that at some point the EROEI will drop below 1:1 at which point we're done, the oil game is over. Oil is a finite resource which is costing us more and more to utilize as time goes by. Eventually we'll be (for all practical purposes) out of the stuff - when it costs more than a BTU to extract a BTU. There is no perpetual motion involved at all. What do you think I am, an economist?

[Fledermaus]

34. Don’t understand physics, do you.

Apparently, you understand FrontPage better than physics. Your post speaks for itself. You claim to get more energy out than you put in.

Biomass has a positive energy balance because of photosynthesis and the energy input from the sun.

Your positive energy balance comes from deceitful bookkeeping. It’s like using a cash card to make a withdraw. Dividing the money you withdrew by the service fee and then claiming a positive cash flow. Well, eventually you will run out of cash or oil in this case.

Let’s take the refinery for instance. Let’s say 100 barrels comes in with a known BTU content. Part of the oil is diverted and burnt to power and heat the refinery. (This is how it’s done. I have worked at several refineries.) The remainder, less than 100 barrels, is processed into gasoline. But, you claim there are more BTUs in the gasoline than in the original 100 barrels. Your statement violates the first law of thermodynamics. More energy comes out of the system than what went in. This is a classical error in perpetual motion devices.

However, what you have provided is how the accountants keep track of costs and how charlatans like to fool people.

[GliderGuider]

36. Try thinking of it this way.

Imagine I own an oil well.

I pump up 105 barrels of Arab D light sweet crude. I know from my accountants that the energy cost of pumping up that amount of oil and transporting it to a refinery, plus the pro-rated sunk energy of the infrastructure required to do that is the energy in 5 barrels of oil. So I take out 5 barrels (to "pay back" the energy I used, or if you will, to prepay the energy cost of the next 105 barrels). I'm left with 100 barrels of oil at the refinery gate, for which I've "paid" 5 barrels. The EROEI of those 100 barrels is therefore 20:1 (for every barrel I spent I got to keep 20). Now I have 100 barrels of oil free end clear. I start refining it, and I use 15% of the energy for process heat and various process losses. Out of the fractionating column comes 85 barrels, divided up roughly into haldfgasoline and half heavier fractions - for the sake of simplicity let's say it's half gasoline and half diesel fuel. So I have 42.5 barrels of gasoline, and 42.5 barrels of diesel. I have a total 85 barrels of refined product, whose overall EROEI is 17.5:1. In fact the EROEI of the gasoline is 17.5:1 and the EROEI of the diesel is likewise 17.5:1.

This 85 barrels of gasoline and diesel is real energy, not "something from nothing" as you imply, because we are simply retrieving and manipulating the stored solar energy that was captured millions of years ago by the original algae and zooplankton and cooked into petroleum. So oil doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics any more than a battery does.

[Fledermaus]

37. Excessive had waving, five yard penitently

Those of us who understand the subtleties of physics know there are no energy systems with a net energy gain.

The only way biomass can claim a positive energy balance is with added outside energy, the sun via photosynthesis.

But if you want to argue against the first and second laws of physics go right ahead. No one can stop you, but you do look really foolish.

[GliderGuider]

38. Uh, that's what I said...

we are simply retrieving and manipulating the stored solar energy that was captured millions of years ago by the original algae and zooplankton and cooked into petroleum.

[Fledermaus]

39. So, now you are claiming time travel?

So, now you are claiming time travel?

Using your own numbers, 15% of the crude oil going into a refinery, with is associated mass and energy, is used up in the refining process. And yet you still claim that the refined products have more energy than the original total input because of time travel?

[GliderGuider]

42. You're kidding, right?

If so I love your dry sense of humour.

In any case, no, I don't claim that the output has more energy than the input. It definitely has less. We started with 105 bbl at the wellhead. We drove out the back end of the refinery with 85 barrels. That's almost 20% less energy than we started with. Since all barrels have approximately similar energy content (actually a barrel of gasoline has a bit less because it's a lighter fraction) we lost about 20% of the energy along the way, completely consistent with the laws of thermodynamics.

Look, either you're jerking my chain exceptionally well, or you have a real blind spot regarding net energy analysis. In either case, there's not much value to either of us in continuing this debate.

[Fledermaus]

44. Ethanol has a positive energy balance & gasoline has a negative energy balance

From an energy point of view, its better to invest in ethanol than oil.

[losthills]

46. I'm sure you already know this....

but there is not enough land or enough water to grow enough fuel crops to replace gasoline with ethanol. You also know that ethanol can't be produced without large inputs of oil. You also know that large scale ethanol production is unnecesary with recent developments in electric vehicle technology. So one has got to wonder what your purpose here is....

We can make fuel to run internal combustion engines out of a lot of stuff. Corn, if that's your thing. But not on a scale to replace gasoline. On a scale to earn Archer Daniels Midland a few bucks, sure, as long as the rest of us are footing the bill.....

[patch1234]

47. the oil-to-ethanol energy-gain ratio is ten to one

is that not good enough for you?

link available, if anyone is interested

[losthills]

48. Is this the link?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=210015

[GliderGuider]

49. Close, but not quite

patch1234 is the reincarnation of the razzzleberry, its style is a dead giveaway. I'm pretty sure our angry Fledermaus is a sockpuppet for JohnWxy. We've been over this exact territory a number of times before, for example in this thread. I think the link Fledermaus is talking about is this one (PDF alert) from Argonne National Labs. I believe that neither JohnWxy nor the Fledermaus incarnation actually understand EROEI or net energy calculations, or at least don't clarify (even in their own minds) the role of incident solar energy vs. stored solar energy. As well, the linked Argonne paper talks specifically about the amount of FF used to produce either ethanol or gasoline, and as a result isn't a standard net energy analysis. Standard analyses are agnostic about the form of the input and output BTUs, which of course can be one of their shortcomings when the issue under discussion is sustainability.

It's true that ethanol may show a net energy gain regardless of the source of the input BTUs (current estimates range up to about 1.35:1 depending on the efficiency of the process). However IMO that's a trivial consideration compared to the big ones: sustainable vs. finite resources, and the real biggie, scale.

[Fledermaus]

50. deleted message

[Fledermaus]

51. More charlatan silliness from GliderGuider

Now, he wants to time travel while fantasizing that I’m some one else.

Using real energy balance methods, not some bogus made up fantasy charlatan methods he uses, gasoline has a negative energy balance -.86 vs. 8 for sugar cane ethanol.

[losthills]

52. I know this won't do any good, but....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063001480.html

"The False Hope of Biofuels
For Energy and Environmental Reasons, Ethanol Will Never Replace Gasoline"

By James Jordan and James Powell
Sunday, July 2, 2006; B07



"Biofuels such as ethanol made from corn, sugar cane, switchgrass and other crops are being touted as a "green" solution for a large part of America's transportation problem. Auto manufacturers, Midwest corn farmers and politicians are excited about ethanol. Initially, we, too, were excited about biofuels: no net carbon dioxide emissions, reduction of oil imports. Who wouldn't be enthusiastic?

But as we've looked at biofuels more closely, we've concluded that they're not a practical long-term solution to our need for transport fuels. Even if all of the 300 million acres (500,000 square miles) of currently harvested U.S. cropland produced ethanol, it wouldn't supply all of the gasoline and diesel fuel we now burn for transport, and it would supply only about half of the needs for the year 2025. And the effects on land and agriculture would be devastating.

It's difficult to understand how advocates of biofuels can believe they are a real solution to kicking our oil addiction. Agriculture Department studies of ethanol production from corn -- the present U.S. process for ethanol fuel -- find that an acre of corn yields about 139 bushels. At an average of about 2.5 gallons per bushel, the acre then will yield about 350 gallons of ethanol. But the fuel value of ethanol is only about two-thirds that of gasoline -- 1.5 gallons of ethanol in the tank equals 1 gallon of gasoline in terms of energy output.

Moreover, it takes a lot of input energy to produce ethanol: for fertilizer, harvesting, transport, corn processing, etc. After subtracting this input, the net positive energy available is less than half of the figure cited above. Some researchers even claim that the net energy of ethanol is actually negative when all inputs are included -- it takes more energy to make ethanol than one gets out of it.

But allowing a net positive energy output of 30,000 British thermal units (Btu) per gallon, it would still take four gallons of ethanol from corn to equal one gallon of gasoline. The United States has 73 million acres of corn cropland. At 350 gallons per acre, the entire U.S. corn crop would make 25.5 billion gallons, equivalent to about 6.3 billion gallons of gasoline. The United States consumes 170 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel annually. Thus the entire U.S. corn crop would supply only 3.7 percent of our auto and truck transport demands. Using the entire 300 million acres of U.S. cropland for corn-based ethanol production would meet about 15 percent of the demand."

Let's read this part again:
"Some researchers even claim that the net energy of ethanol is actually negative when all inputs are included -- it takes more energy to make ethanol than one gets out of it."

[Fledermaus]

54. Oh God, Pemental and Patzek recycled

Let's read this part again:
"Some researchers even claim that the net energy of ethanol is actually negative when all inputs are included -- it takes more energy to make ethanol than one gets out of it." Text

"Some"?The only two researchers to claim ethanol has a negative energy balance.
Pemental and Patzek

Claiming the fuel value of ethanol is only about two-thirds that of gasoline is only true when run in a low compression engine. That’s the premises of my original post. I think you will find it hard to argue against the mathematical proof and the supporting research I provided with start of this post, but I’m sure you post some sort of gibberish anyway.

[losthills]

55. As I said earlier,

it doesn't matter how efficient ethanol is, you can never beat numbers like these:

"the entire U.S. corn crop would supply only 3.7 percent of our auto and truck transport demands. Using the entire 300 million acres of U.S. cropland for corn-based ethanol production would meet about 15 percent of the demand."

It is not possible to meet our transportation needs with crop derived fuels. Attempting to do so would lead to mass starvation and economic and environmental ruin, as has been pointed out to you previously in this thread.

Go on and continue making a fool of yourself, though, just don't delude yourself that you're fooling anybody....

[Fledermaus]

56. You’re the only one proposing to use all available corn for ethanol.

Who in their right mind would believe we, as a nation or a people, would ever turn every kernel of corn into ethanol?

Only a quack would make such a statement.

[GliderGuider]

57. Just to clarify, if I said "It would take you a year to walk from New York to Los Angeles"

Would that amount to me proposing that you do it?

[Fledermaus]

59. Oh please, do go on

Its quackery when someone is asked to choose between two options when there are obviously many other options available.

[GliderGuider]

60. Sure.

You could roller skate to Los Angeles in four months.
Or ride a horse there in two. But I digress.

My point was, nobody was "asking" anyone to choose turning all the food into fuel. The example (and it's a traditional one, by the way) was being used to illustrate the disparity of scale between the energy embodied in our food supply and the energy it takes to run a civilization. As the illustration shows, the difference is so great (almost two orders of magnitude, in fact) that even significantly encumbering our food supply would not result in a very thick wedge when it comes to fuel depletion.

The global appetite for fuel is so vast that we must be cautious when proposing any replacements. Oil is essentially single-use - it's a fuel. If a resource is dual-use, such as food, we need to be cognizant of the effects that a re-partitioning of usage (increasing one use while decreasing the other) will have on the overall well-being of humanity,

There are people like your president who are advocating such a reallocation, to an extent that I believe threatens the world food supply. Because of that, illustrative examples of what would happen if "all food becomes fuel" are useful to define the end-point of the process. They help us decide if we should be proceeding down that path any further at all - whether the risk of impacting the food supply is balanced by the benefit of the fuels provided.

I'm not sure why you're hostile to such explanations - they seem utterly uncontroversial to me.

[Fledermaus]

61. I’m a realist you’re a fearmonger.

mon•ger
–noun
1. a person who is involved with something in a petty or contemptible way (usually used in combination): a gossipmonger.
2. Chiefly British. a dealer in or trader of a commodity (usually used in combination): fishmonger.
–verb (used with object)
3. to sell; hawk.

[losthills]

62. Troll : T*R*O*L*L....

1. troll 1931 up, 127 down

One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument

[LSK]

40. you have to base it off of 105 barrels

What the hell kind of funny math are you trying to do?

[GliderGuider]

43. Just trying to get 100 bbl at an EROEI of 20:1 for a starting point, yerhonor

I hoped to make the follow-on arithmetic easier to follow for the calculation-impaired.

Let's see - we pump 100 bbl of crude at 20:1 to get 95.24 bbl of net oil, then refine that at 87.8% efficiency and wind up with an output of 83.62 bbl of refined product. I find round numbers and whole fractions so much easier to grssp, don't you?

[Fledermaus]

41. The current U.S. refineries are believed to have an overall efficiency of around 87.8%

Allocation of Energy Use in Petroleum Refineries to Petroleum Products
Implications for Life-Cycle Energy Use and Emission Inventory of Petroleum Transportation Fuels

Center for Transportation Research, Energy Systems Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue,
Argonne, IL 60439, USA

The plant overall efficiency of 93.1% seems too high for
current U.S. refineries. One reason for this is that the refinery
evaluated in Brown et al. (1996) could represent a simple
refinery, while current U.S. refineries are usually complex,
with configurations for high gasoline production. Also,
U.S. refineries have been under pressure in the past 10 years
to produce better-quality fuels, although the quality of crude
input to refineries has been deteriorating. All these factors
contribute to increased energy use in U.S. refineries in recent
years. The current U.S. refineries are believed to have
an overall efficiency of around 87.8% (see General Motors
Corporation et al. 2001).

http://www.transportation.anl.gov/software/GREET/pdfs/IJLCA-2004.pdf

[NickB79]

53. So, if you believe it takes more energy to extract oil than you get from it

What's kept the world's oil-based economy running for the past century on it? :shrug: You'd think the whole system would have ground to a halt long ago if we were using more energy to extract a barrel of oil than the oil had in it.

[Fledermaus]

63. Yep, when the oil runs out, the free ride will be over. Because

Because, no one in the here and now is using the sun/photosynthesis to put it back. It’s not renewable like biofuel.

Unless, you GliderGuider can prefect your perpetual motion machine and travel back in time with all of today’s carbon and recycle it. I will fantasize that he is a treepig and you are a bughead. From what I understand, my thoughts will somehow help you travel the eons.

[NickB79]

64. You seem to have misunderstood my question

If an oilman in 1920 sunk a well in Texas, but he was spending, say, 1.5 barrels of oil to extract 1 barrel, he would have shut down the operation that day. We wouldn't have progressed to where we are now if the EROEI of oil weren't positive, because no one would touch the stuff for an energy source.

[Fledermaus]

66. Nonsensical babble

The book keeping you want to use is how the accountants keep track of cost. It cost .2 barrels to extract and process 1 barrel. .8 left to sell. Therefore the oil company will make money. Make money until all of the oil is gone.

You want to use one set of real energy book keeping for ethanol and a different set of bogus book keeping for oil.

.8 is less than 1.

If oil had a positive energy balance, it would be renewable and we would not be running out.

[NickB79]

67. Wow, you really don't understand EROEI, do you?

EROEI: Energy returned over energy invested.

If you pumped up 1 barrel of oil, and it cost 0.2 barrels of that oil in extraction and processing (the invested energy) to convert the remaining 0.8 barrels into gas/diesel (the return), it's EROEI is 4:1 (0.8/0.2), which is a net energy gain. You proved my point, thanks.

"If oil had a positive energy balance, it would be renewable and we would not be running out."

Renewability has nothing to do with a material's energy balance. To make that claim is laughable. But thanks for playing.

[Fledermaus]

68. You are a joke and have no understanding of physics or thermodynamics

You started off with one barrel. After your extraction and processing you are left with .8
You put one barrel into your system and got .8 out.

Energy balance what you get out divided by what you put in .8/1=.8 …less than one.

A real honest to God energy balance not the bogus EROEI that defies the laws physics.

What you are doing is pulling money out of your savings account with a debit card. Dividing the withdraw by the service fee and claiming a positive cash flow.

[GliderGuider]

69. Here's another discussion of the issue from a fellow who has written a lot about biofuels

This is from the writing of Robert Rapier, someone who has spent his life working in the energy industry on both sides of the petro/bio divide, and has spent a lot of time thinking about the issues that get raised in the debate over the relative merits of fuels from different sources. it's from http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com:

Isn't the Energy Balance for Corn Ethanol Better than for Gasoline?

I think most people are starting to accept this as a debunked myth. But let's review the history, because I do still hear this claim occasionally. A few years ago, Michael Wang from Argonne National Labs invented a metric, which was fossil fuel inputs into both the ethanol and gasoline production processes. This metric was neither an EROEI nor an efficiency, it was a hybrid, and has led to a lot of apples and oranges comparisons between gasoline and ethanol.

I have dealt with this claim several times in this blog. I addressed it here in response to a claim from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (which they seem to have since removed):

In summary, the finished liquid fuel energy yield for fossil fuel dedicated to the production of ethanol is 1.34 but only 0.74 for gasoline. In other words the energy yield of ethanol is (1.34/0.74) or 81 percent greater than the comparable yield for gasoline.

I addressed it here, in response to a letter from a reader in which Michael Wang and Vinod Khosla were both copied, and both got involved in the debate:

If your assessment of the ethanol fuel cycle energy balance (and its comparison with the petroleum fuel cycle energy balance) is right, then not only is Vinod Khosla wrong, but many others of us in the energy community — including the U.S. Department of Energy and Argonne National Laboratory (see attached summary) must also be wrong.

Now I will address it here for the last time. What's the issue? For Wang's metric, the inputs aren't considered in a consistent manner. For instance, the fossil fuel inputs into the ethanol process are burned. Gone. The fossil fuel inputs he is considering for gasoline production includes the barrel of oil that gets turned into liquid fuels. So, he is including only expended fossil fuels in the ethanol case (which is what you want to do for an EROEI) but in the case of gasoline he is also including fossil fuels that were not consumed and are still available as fuel. What Wang has done, by defining his metric as he has, is to measure the EROEI of ethanol - at 1.3, versus the efficiency of gasoline, which according to Wang's most recent modeling, is 0.8 (from crude in the ground to gasoline in your gas tank). And I can tell you that this is reasonably accurate. But to compare the two different metrics causes the kind of confusion that you might expect.

So, let's compare EROEI to EROEI and efficiency to efficiency. At an ethanol EROEI of 1.3, that means that burning 1 BTU to produce 1.3 BTUs only results in a net of 0.3. Therefore, the efficiency is 0.3/1.3, or 23%, versus Wang's estimate of 80% for gasoline. Comparing EROEIs, an 80% efficiency for gasoline means that to produce 1 BTU consumed 0.2 BTUs, for a net of 0.8. The EROEI for gasoline then - the energy return over energy invested - is 1 BTU/0.2 BTUs, or 5/1. This was the source of the claim to that effect in the Rolling Stone article.

In summary:

EROEI of producing ethanol - 1.3/1
EROEI of producing gasoline - 5/1

Efficiency of producing ethanol - 23%
Efficiency of producing gasoline - 80%

Even this discussion may be moot, though, because as I understand it your concern is primarily about the non-renewability of petroleum (it's a stock rather than a flow), which is a legitimate issue. However, even when you take petroleum out of the picture entirely and simply consider biofuels on their own merits their value to an industrial civilization is highly questionable. The reason is that they have such low net energy, because their energy gain is entirely derived from sunlight, mediated by photosynthesis which is an extremely low-efficiency process.

There is real concern about whether an industrial civilization can continue (even over the short term, well within the limited lifespan of the remaining gas and oil) if the overall EROEI of its energy sources drops below 5:1 or so. In other words, if we spend more that 20% of our total energy budget just in making the energy the jig may be up. From that perspective, an energy source like ethanol isn't terribly helpful, and in fact may even be counter-productive. If we took the energy being used to produce ethanol and applied it instead to higher-return processes like wind or solar or better yet energy conservation, civilization would probably be much better served.

There is no question that petroleum is a dead end as an energy source. It's finite and will eventually be finito. Will biofuels of one sort or another eventually replace it? Of course they will. What conditions will be like when that happens is the subject of countless other threads.

[Fledermaus]

70. Mr. Rapier deletes any post that disproves his distorted view of the world. Just one big circle jerk

He runs i-r-squared blog spot and controls the content. Reminds me of Mr. Limbaugh.

Your math and sicnce are nothing but BS

[NickB79]

71. So, when you can't (or won't) understand how EROEI works, it's bogus?

Frankly, John, we've had this argument several times before here on the E/E board, with people much more intelligent than myself pointing out your errors in logic. And yes, it is painfully obvious to anyone who has been reading this board more than a year who you are.

Enjoy your sTroll through DU :hi:

[Fledermaus]

72. For some one like you, I’m sure I am a Troll.

Calling me a troll does not change things. Perhaps you could explain how your energy balance defies the laws of physics. Now that would be a change.

[CRH]

58. Horse feathers, ...

There is nothing that illustrates the wishful thinking of a perpetual motion machine better than the ethanol from biomass being a net energy gain.

Yes I realize energy is picked up from the sun, but if the ethanol system is otherwise closed, meaning the ethanol is used for production of fertilizer, pesticides, pumping water, replacing the depletion of humus, transportation, refining, mechanization, support of labor, etc.; you do not end up with more energy at point of use than the system and the solar energy has used to produce said energy. Otherwise, if we were to solely use fossil fuels to produce one giant ethanol crop, and then forever use ethanol to repeat the process, we would never need any other energy source, and perpetual motion will have been realized when the energy was transferred into mechanization, heat, motion and whatever.

I will also add, the laws of thermal dynamics, will have been proven wrong. This is with the help of solar energy, added into the otherwise closed loop of the ethanol system of wishful thinking.

[CRF450]

22. The article states exactly whats wrong with these so called "flex-fuel" vehicles

They have a low compression ratio so they can still run on regular 87 octane. They cant make any use the increased octane in ethonal. Thus they cant burn the ethonal completely/less effeciently, basically burning more gas. On the flip side, had they been ACTUALLY made for ethonal they would get better fuel milage, and not only that, but ALOT more powerful!

My Trans Am has a high compression v8 engine making 345hp at the crank. It gets nothing but 93 octane. For such a high powered car can go 0-60 in 5 seconds, it averages around 23mpg, and has reached 31mpg on the highway. So yes, higher octane in an engine made for it is more effecient than a similar type of engine running on lower octane along with a lower compression ratio.

[Fledermaus]

25. Exactly, Detroit’s flex fuel cars are crap.

If they were really serious, they would produce small flex fuel cars tuned to run on premium.

Then consumers could choose between premium gasoline or E20 or E30. Assuming the blenders are honest, E20 and E30 would cost less than regular. Now that would be a good deal for everyone.

I can hardly wait till I get my SmarCar.

[NickB79]

27. That would be a tough sell for most Americans

Seeing as there are pathetically few stations out there selling much more than a 10% ethanol blend today. I live in the Twin Cities, almost in the heart of ethanol country, and of the dozens of gas stations within 10 miles of me, I can count on one hand the number that actually advertise E85 at their pumps.

Until you have widespread distribution of E20/E30/E85 pumps, your theoretical car won't sell if it can burn only premium (ie EXPENSIVE) gas as a substitute. And gas stations won't put in the pumps unless either demand is there, or they are forced to by the government.

[Fledermaus]

31. Ethanol blending has exceeded 50 percent for a couple of months over the past year

http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/fall_07/article3.aspx

In Sweden, all 95-octane gasoline is in fact E5. I think we could do the same, probably better like E10

[NickB79]

65. And that has nothing to do with the availability of E20/E30 fuel

Again, here in MN, all gasoline sold (except that for small engines like snowmobiles) has to have ethanol blended at 10%. This is widely accepted because all cars that can run on 85-octane can also run on E10. Much higher than this, though, and most cars start having engine problems. That is where you run into problems.

You essentially run into the old chicken-and-the-egg problem. You need those specialized pumps to make the car sell, because until they are installed most people won't buy a car that demands premium gas (unless they drive luxury vehicles, and in that case they don't care about gas prices anyway). However, the gas station owners won't install those pumps without a guarantee that they will make money off of them, and basing your profits off of the success or failure of a car that isn't widely sold is a risky proposition.

That is why modern automakers went with poorly designed, E85-capable engines. They realized that a very specialized vehicle, tuned for maximum performance but also to burn a hard-to-find fuel, would flop.

[CRF450]

29. Problem is, people will bitch about having to buy premium.

Which is really no big deal, most small cars have around 15 gallon gas tanks and premium would only cost a few bucks more than regular. If the fuel milage is increased enough, it can offset the price difference. Thats how it is with my car.

[Fledermaus]

32. In Sweden, all 95-octane gasoline is in fact E5.

http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/fall_07/article3.aspx

In Sweden, all 95-octane gasoline is in fact E5. I think we could do the same, probably better like E10.The problem is getting the blenders to pass the savings on to the consumer. You probably already are getting some sort of ethanol blend.



http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/2005/printable_versions/fcvt_fotw354.html

[CRF450]

35. But why do that right away? Most auto's cant make use of the higher octane

If auto makers start making most of their lineup for premium or higher octane levels in ethonal, then yeah, we can start using it. But it wouldn't be easy since most are used to buying regular gas.