FREEDOM FROM FOREIGN OIL WITH ABUNDANT RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE - FOR REAL!

[JohnWxy]

We are currently in an energy crisis that is not going to go away. The latest Energy Bill signed into law does little to address our dependence on fossil fuels and commits the Government to funding directly or through tax abatements projects which really do not reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. So far, another viable alternative energy source has been almost entirely ignored. This unrecognized energy source is abundant, domestically sourced, renewable, cleaner than gasoline and CHEAPER THAN GASOLINE. This energy source could reduce our dependence on foreign oil, strengthen our economy immeasurably and enhance our national security. This energy source can be grown right here in the U.S. by American farmers. This ‘mysterious’, miracle fuel is called ethanol.

Ethanol fuel (E85 and E15) is now priced about $2.00 per gallon (April 2005), is less polluting than gasoline, cheaper than gasoline and DOES NOT REQUIRE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF INVESTMENT IN R&D TO MAKE IT COMMERCIALLY VIABLE. Fuel cell cars are a long ways off and will require Billions of investment in R&D to make them practical. The only solution (other than fuel cell vehicles ) I hear spoken of is HYBRID vehicles. This is a poor solution. Hybrid vehicles still require additional billions in investment to make them practical and they currently cost the buyer quite a bit more than a standard engine car. AND THEY STILL BURN GASOLINE. THE AMOUNT SAVED IN GASOLINE IS REDICULOUSLY LOW COMPARED TO THE HUGE INVESTMENT REQUIRED TO GET THIS MEAGER SAVINGS. And they really are no solution to the dependence on fossil fuels.

Ethanol fuel is renewable resource made from corn or plant waste (e.g. one company is currently building a facility in Louisiana to make ethanol from sugar cane waste). Areas not suitable for food crops would be viable producers of plant products that could be used for ethanol production, bringing an income to many areas which now have none. By using Ethanol 85 in autos we would be reducing our imports of crude oil and thus improving our balance of payments (significantly), strengthening our economy and improving our national security (for every 100 gallons of E 85 used you would be reducing the demand for gasoline and oil by 85 gallons!). AS THE PRICE OF OIL KEEPS GOING UP AND UP IT IS CUTTING INTO OUR ECONOMIC GROWTH. LESS MONEY IS AVAILABLE FOR INVESTMENTS IN PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENTS. REDUCED ECONOMIC GROWTH MEANS REDUCED JOB GROWTH AND A REDUCED STANDARD OF LIVING IN THE U.S. Switching to Ethanol 85 in our cars would help strengthen our economy by reducing or virtually eliminating this draining away of capital which could be better invested in the U.S. If we significantly reduced our imports of oil I think our relationship with OPEC nations would be put on a different footing. This change would certainly be for the good.

ETHANOL 15 CAN BE BURNED IN ANY ENGINE THAT BURNS GASOLINE - WITH NO RETROFITTING REQUIRED. ALL THE MAJOR AUTO MANUFACTURERS ARE SELLING, RIGHT NOW, FLEXIBLE FUEL VEHICLES WHICH RUN ON ETHANOL 85. And they sell them at little OR NO price differential to the buyer!! (compare that to hybrid vehicles!) GM sells two models of the Impala that are Flexible Fuel Vehicles at NO price differential! (actually, Flexible Fuel Vehicles can run on regular gasoline or any mixture of ethanol with gasoline. So if someone bought a Flexible Fuel Vehicle and couldn’t find E85 he can still run regular gas in his car!) If the oil companies were required to make ALL gasoline include 15% ethanol that act in itself would reduce demand for gasoline and oil by about 15%. This would have a significant impact on gasoline price spikes. I think the Government ought to threaten Big Oil with excess profits taxes and then offer them this as an alternative: if they agree to make all gasoline 15% Ethanol – then no excess profits tax will be levied!

Ethanol doesn’t deliver quite as good miles per gallon as gasoline does but at about 20% cheaper than gasoline the cost advantage clearly goes to ethanol(and how long do you think it will be till we see $3.00 gas again?)! There is some disinformation out there to the effect that it takes more energy to make ethanol than it delivers to the consumer. This is NOT TRUE. A study done by the Argonne National Laboratory (a U.S.Depeartment of Energy Laboratory) found that there is a 38% GAIN in the overall energy input/output equation for the corn-to-ethanol process. That is, if 100 BTUs of energy is used to plant corn, harvest the crop, transport it , etc. 138 BTUs of energy is available in the fuel ethanol. OF COURSE IF YOU USED ETHANOL FUEL, INSTEAD OF GASOLINE, TO PRODUCE THE ETHANOL THEN HOW MUCH ENERGY (IN TERMS OF FOSSIL FUEL) DOES IT TAKE, ZERO?? Well, actually if you used Ethanol 85 you would be using 1/7th as much gasoline. This points out the beauty of a renewable fuel resource as opposed to fossil fuels. Once you use a gallon of fossil fuel, it's gone forever, until you drill for more. But a given amount of ground producing an Ethanol crop can produce one (or more ) crops per year, year after year. Ethanol 85 will extend the limited supply of fossil fuels seven times!

Note that ethanol is BIO-DEGRADABLE, so you don’t have the pollution concerns you have with oil. At every stage of the process of taking oil from the ground, transporting it, refining it and then delivering it to the final consumer and then burning it in cars you have pollution issues to be dealt with (remember the EXXON-Valdez?). You don’t have this with ethanol. Producers of ethanol are capturing CO2 generated in the manufacturing process and selling it for commercial uses! This is not a technically difficult thing to do.

The Government needs to get behind an aggressive program to enhance the availability of Ethanol 85. Right now few people even know of it existence let alone it’s benefits. I think if people knew that it was cheaper, less polluting and could reduce our dependence on foreign oil they would embrace ethanol with a passion. But who is going to buy a Flexible Fuel Vehicle when there are almost no stations supplying ethanol 85? This is why we need a coordinated campaign to promote the availability of Ethanol 85 (as well as 15% ethanol content in ALL gasoline). First of all every car that uses gasoline can run on gas with 15% ethanol. All gasoline should be required to be 15% ethanol to reduce the demand for oil and gas by 15%. This would have a healthy affect of gas prices right away. (if Big Oil isn’t interested in incorporating E85, tha’s okay we will just help out the independent refiners and stations to supply it to America. Somehow I think this would “help” Big Oil to find a way to keep gasoline from spiking in price so much. Surprise. Surprise!!) Further, it would reduce the demand for imported oil. IF necessary, we should incentivise making Ethanol 85 available with tax breaks to help station owners during the transition to Ethanol 85. This investment would be worth it in terms of reduced demand for gasoline and for the energy independence it would produce in time.

Once we build up the demand for Ethanol this country could become not only the breadbasket to the world we could become a major supplier of this “Freedom Fuel” to the rest of the world.

So what do you think, abundant, renewable, domestically sourced, less pollution, bio-degradable, cheaper and cleaner than gasoline, will reduce dependence on foreign oil, improve our balance of payments and strengthen our economy. It’s time we started a national commitment to dramatically expand the use ethanol fuel, our “Freedom Fuel”. Using Freedom Fuel will be the patriotic thing to do. I think people would love to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. This could be a campaign issue for the Democrats. It helps people in the pocket book while it strengthens our country economically and in terms of national security (greatly strengthened position vis-à-vis the Arab states). And who knows, it just might save a lot of lives in the future. How’s that for an unassailable initiative!

[benburch]

1. Compute how many square miles of corn field we would need. nt

[Don Claybrook]

2. I've wondered about that

Do you have a handy answer? I've been wondering how many automobiles could be fueled by the "spare" farmland we have in the country. What percentage of our daily oil consumption could be replaced with bio diesel?

Thanks.

[Massacure]

20. 1650 x 1650 miles.

One acre of corn produces 300 gallons of ethanol. 640 acres in a square mile and you get 192,000 gallons, or about 4570 barrels.

The U.S. uses about 8 billion barrels of oil per year.

Hence you would need about 1,750,000 square miles of land. However ethanol only has 77,000 btu, versus about 120,000 for gasoline. Hence you need 2,730,000 square miles to make a barrel equivalent of oil. It ends up being about a 1650 x 1650 mile square.

[benburch]

21. Exactly!

We cannot make this work.

[htuttle]

38. Triple the average gas mileage of cars, and what do you get?

Let's just say we could triple or quadruple the average gas mileage of our transportation. We're going to have to start giving up a lot of things, and one of the first we should look at is acceleration and top speed.

It makes no sense to design vehicles that can do 120 mph when you can only drive half that fast. It makes no *energy* sense to design personal commuter vehicles that can do a quarter mile in under 6 seconds. If we start driving vehicles that top out at 60 mph, and have the acceleration of a golf cart, we would need a LOT less petroleum (as I understand it, almost 1/2 of US petroleum useage is for automobiles). We should honestly be able to drive lightweight commuter vehicles with no bigger than a 20 hp engine. You're likely to get upwards of 70 mpg in a rig like that, and that's just with the drive trains you can get off the shelf today (for scooters, delivery vehicles, etc...).

I'm not for an entirely ethanol-based energy infrastructure, and I doubt that one is feasible. We're going to have to use a mixed basket of energies. However, I do think that with smart utilization of existing technology, we could have an ethanol-based personal transportation infrastructure.

After that, we only have to figure out how to generate electricity (probably from nukes), heat our houses (probably a whole combination of things), and power things like cargo ships (that's a tricky one...I'm thinking multi-fuel steamers are going to be popular) and airplanes (I predict dirigibles will come back!).

But one thing I can guarantee -- we will have to use a LOT less energy than the equivalent of 8 billion barrels of oil per year. In the past, energy efficiency was the LAST design consideration in almost every engineering endeavor (even taking a back seat to 'appearance' and 'fun'). It will have to become the FIRST design consideration.

[One_Life_To_Give]

48. Cut the cross section

At highway speeds the weight and acceleration of a vehical are not significant factors in fuel consumption. Fluidic friction with Air is the dominant term. The quickest way to reduce fuel consumption is to reduce the frontal cross sectional area. (Make the car alot smaller.)

[htuttle]

49. That's true of highway mileage

...you could use a very small engine to cruise on the highway.

However, the reason that people end up wanting 200+ hp engines is that they want to remain traveling the same speed up hills, and be able to 'get out in front' at the stop lights. That's when engine sizes swell, somewhat proportionally to car weight, which also fits in here.

So if we want a small engined/super efficient vehicle, we need to get much lighter (and have less acceleration) if we want to use that small crusing engine all the time.

Think about how much energy it costs to avoid slowing down up hills. Is it REALLY worth it? I say no. My second car was a 40 hp VW bug. Sure, it wasn't great going up hills, but it always made it to the top. If it hadn't had a full metal body, it wouldn't have had half the trouble it did.

[One_Life_To_Give]

51. Actually few use their 200HP

Many like to say they have 200HP. When in fact they rarely will use more than 50 to 75 HP peak. The US driver has a aversion to using the upper RPM ranges where all of the power actually lies.

Hills, it only takes 3-400 HP to keep a 40ton truck up to speed on most hills you will find on the Interstates.

The trick will be to develop a efficient car that people want to trade in their current vehicals for.

[indepat]

3. Seem to recall at time of the energy crisis in the 70's shale oil on the

slopes of the Rockies could provide the US with energy for centuries, but the cost then would be, was it, $40 a barrel. Seems we would be better off developing any number of home-grown sources that importing god-zillions of dollars of oil annually, but don't think that is what the oil companies or this administration have in mind at the present.

[tocqueville]

5. shale oil is extremely polluting

both for it's extraction methods and for it's high sulphurous and nitrogen contents. Some of those shales have a very high content of uranium too.

You'd need to dig up most of Wyoming and Colorado to produce the energy needed for 50 years anyway.

[indepat]

7. Shucks, what a bummer

[tocqueville]

18. some facts here (wikipedia)

Surface-mining of oil shale deposits has all the normal environmental effects from open-pit mining. In addition, the pre-refining process to obtain crude oil generates ash, and the waste rock (a known carcinogen) must be disposed of. Oil shale rock expands by around 30% after processing due to a popcorn effect from the heating; this waste then needs disposal. Oil shale processing also requires water, which may be in short supply.

The energy demands of blasting, transporting, crushing, heating the material, and then adding hydrogen, together with the safe disposal of huge quantities of waste material, are large. These inefficiencies, plus the cost of environmental restoration, mean that oil shale exploitation will only be economical when oil prices are high (and projected to remain so).

These inefficiencies and potential environmental problems make possible in-situ processing very attractive.

Current extraction methods produce four times as much greenhouse gas as does conventional oil production.

read here too

http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/reports/ser/shale/shale.asp

Green River oil shale contains abundant carbonate minerals including dolomite, nahcolite, and dawsonite. The latter two minerals have potential by-product value for their soda ash and alumina content, respectively. The eastern oil shales are low in carbonate content but contain notable quantities of metals, including uranium, vanadium, molybdenum, and others which could add significant by-product value to these deposits.

[indepat]

23. Thanks, have bookmarked

[Oerdin]

44. Shale oil is big business these days.

The majority of Alberta's new oil fields are all shale oil. The problem is shale is extremely fine grained so there is no porosity or permiability in the formations so the only way to recover the oil is to stip mine like we do for coal. At current prices this is viable in many places and that is exactly what they are doing.

Since we don't have enough farm land to produce an entirely ethinol based fuel system we should blend gasolne with ethinol (most modern cars run well on a 15% ethinol blend) and some states even sell E85 which is an 85% ethinol blend. Brazil uses it's excess sugar cane to make ethinol and blends it with gasoline to produce gasohol which cuts down on oil usage and is some what more sustainable. At least it would immediate produce less green house gases and improve prices of farm goods so maybe we wouldn't have to subsidize farmers so much.

[tocqueville]

4. as a complement yes, but not as the primary source

no country has the possibility of growing that much plants to produce ethanol in the quantities required. Add to that the massive destruction of biodiversity in areas used for other agricultural or recreation purposes.

Besides ethanol requires ENERGY to be produced in form of fertilizers, pesticides (=oil) and heating for destillation, so the input should be mimimal compared to the output, which is not the case.

Biodegradable ? any coal-based product BURNED in presence of air, produces NOx and coal particles.

The alternatives to oil are not ONE, but many. They must be used depending where they are most efficient. The solution is to use an ARRAY of solutions, instead of - as usual - looking for the magic one.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Some links for you to consider... would that it was easier to

"crack" H2O....

www.CH2BC.ORG

www.Ballard.com
Ballard-Powered Citaro Fuel Cell Buses Surpass One Million Kilometers of Service
20th October, 2005
Vancouver, Canada – Ballard Power Systems (TSX: BLD, Nasdaq: BLDP) today announced that the fleet of 33 Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel cell buses currently operating in Europe, Iceland and Australia has surpassed one million kilometers of service. The buses, which are powered by Ballard fuel cells, have been on the road since late 2003 as part of the Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE), Ecological City Transport System (ECTOS) and STEP (Sustainable Transport Energy for Perth (STEP) programs.

www.FuelCellenergy.com

Recent News
11/15/05—Successful Test of FuelCell Energy's Ultra-Clean Power Plant Confirms Ability for Onsite Generation of Electricity and Air Conditioning

11/7/05—FuelCell Energy Partner Commissions Europe's First High Temperature Fuel Cell Wastewater Treatment Power Plant to Operate on Sewage Gas

11/3/05—FuelCell Energy Sells 1.5 Megawatts of Fuel Cell Stacks to European Partner MTU; Six Fuel Cell Stacks to Be Incorporated into Power Plants for Installation Throughout Europe

10/31/05—FuelCell Energy's Korean Alliance Partner Announces New Agreement with KEPCO Subsidiary; POSCO Enters into Joint Marketing and Development Venture with Electric Utility to Advance Adoption of Efficient Fuel Cell Technology in Korea


www.PlugPower.com
http://www.plugpower.com/products/prime.cfm
Plug Power's GenSys™ combined heat and power fuel cell systems are designed to generate continuous, clean, efficient and reliable power on-site. Operating in parallel with the grid, GenSys systems convert readily available fuels into electricity and heat for stationary applications.

[JohnWxy]

43. I'll check this out. thanks for info

[achtung_circus]

8. Some ethanol facts to consider

"Biofuels such as biodiesel, ethanol, methanol etc. are great, but only in small doses. Biofuels are all grown with massive fossil fuel inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) and suffer from horribly low, sometimes negative, EROEIs. The production of ethanol, for instance, requires six units of energy to produce just one. That means it consumes more energy than it produces and thus will only serve to compound our energy deficit.

In addition, there is the problem of where to grow the stuff, as we are rapidly running out of arable land on which to grow food, let alone fuel. This is no small problem as the amount of land it takes to grow even a small amount of biofuel is quite staggering. As journalist Lee Dye points out in a July 2004 article entitled "Old Policies Make Shift From Foreign Oil Tough:"

. . . relying on corn for our future energy needs would
devastate the nation's food production. It takes 11 acres to
grow enough corn to fuel one automobile with ethanol for
10,000 miles, or about a year's driving, Pimentel says. That's
the amount of land needed to feed seven persons for the
same period of time.

And if we decided to power all of our automobiles with
ethanol, we would need to cover 97 percent of our land with
corn, he adds."

Taken from <http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html>

also see "The Oil We Eat" here:

<http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2004/Oil-Food-Chain-Iraq1feb04.htm>

it's not just oil, it's energy.

[rfkrfk]

10. this is BS, the energy comes from the sun,

so can be cosidered 'free', in a way.

the 'human involved' input,
to sow, harvest, and process the crop-ethanol,
is a fraction of the output.

[BlueEyedSon]

12. Hello??? All energy on earth comes/came from the sun

(with the exception of nuke, which came from an ancient, long-dead sun). The energy in fossil fuels came from primordial plants and animals who stored our sun's energy in their cells.

The statistics mentioned above are the IN ADDITION to the light energy captured by the ethanol crop plants.

Even if you fuel the agricultural process with ethanol biofuel, if it takes more than one gallon in to get one gallon out (and it takes much more than one), it's just not feasible.

[achtung_circus]

15. And to mine the iron ore and coal

that is smelted into steel to produce tractors and combines and the energy used to produce fertilizer and pesticides and fuel used to harvest, dry, store, transport the crop?

And so on

And so on.

[JohnWxy]

14. Claims that Ethanol has a Negative Energy Balance are Outrageous

TO REPEAT AND TRY TO READ THIS, THIS TIME: A STUDY DONE BY TEH ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY DETERMINED THAT THERE IS A GAIN OF 38% IN THE OVERALL ENERGY INPUT/OUTPUT EQUATION FOR THE CORN TO ETHANOL PROCESS. That is, if 100 BTUs of energy is used to plant corn, harvest the crop, transport it , etc. 138 BTUs of energy is available in the fuel ethanol. OF COURSE IF YOU USED ETHANOL FUEL, INSTEAD OF GASOLINE, TO PRODUCE THE ETHANOL THEN HOW MUCH ENERGY (IN TERMS OF FOSSIL FUEL) DOES IT TAKE, ZERO?? Well, actually if you used Ethanol 85 you would be using 1/7th as much gasoline. This points out the beauty of a renewable fuel resource as opposed to fossil fuels. Once you use a gallon of fossil fuel, it's gone forever, until you drill for more.

NOTE RE SRUDY YOU REFER TO: "This new study by Pimentel and Patzek is just the latest regurgitation of Pimentel's research from 1979. It is an amazing routine of mathematical gymnastics to prove a political point, one that is no longer true"

FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION ON THIS SUBJECT GO HERE:

[MrMonk]

16. So we are to trust the ethanol/corn lobby over the petroleum lobby?

The articles on the www.ethanol.org site look interesting. If only we had the time to take a critical look at them . . .


Until we do, I would be sceptical against any conclusions presented by the lobbyists.

[BlueEyedSon]

17. No, YOU are outrageous (esp. the all-caps shouting!)

"Ethanol is another case in point. Some research has shown a negative EROEI for ethanol. Newer research from Oregon shows a slightly positive return. Ethanol is, at best, a slightly beneficial temporary alternative - not a substitute."

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html

http://www.eroei.com/eval/net_energy_list.html

http://www.peakoilandhumanity.com/delaney_folder/ethanol.htm

[JohnWxy]

32. VAST MAJORITY OF CREDIBLE STUDIES ON ETHANOL EROEI SHOW POSITIVE EROEI

OKay. I'll show you some good links to solid info on ethanol. The vast majority of studies show a positive EROEI. I pasted the conclusion expressed in the study report at the link below. These studies get quite involved.

as I stated in my original post THE ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY concluded the energy balance for Ethanol produced a 38% GAIN in the production of Ethanol. The ANL has credentials of the highest order for these kinds of scientific investigations and does not work for any Agricultural lobby.

Something very interesting is that Ethanol can be produced from cellulose crops. THIS INCLUDES AGRICULTURAL WASTE. All agricultural products produce waste material which is currently being burned or buried as waste. What is the opportunity cost to turn waste cellulose material into Ethanol. Do I need to state that?

Our agricultural industry produces millions of tons of plant waste every year which is currently not being used for anything (some is used as ground cover to reduce evaporation and loss of topsoil due to wind erosion). This should allay concerns some have raised about the amount of land needed to produce ethanol crops. We are currently producing this cellosic material. Were just not using it.

I am not a lobbyist for any agricultural group. I just recommend people get informed on this issue before we spend more Billions of dollars on deep drilling research (money to be provided by the Government) and Hybrid cars which still burn plenty of polluting fossil fuel and do nothing to address our dependence on foreign oil. Ethanol technology does not require billions of dollars of investment in R&D and years of development to make practical. If you think $3.00 / gal gas is gone forever, think again. It will only get worse. And how many people think we would be in Iraq right now if we were'nt so dependent on that fossil fuel?

a Government site: ETHANOL FACTS ... see what they say.

THE link to a study:
ETHANOL EROEI STUDY

THe CONCLUSION TO THE STUDY linked to above:

Assuming an average efficiency corn farm and an average efficiency ethanol plant, the total energy used in growing the corn and processing it into ethanol and other products is 81,090 BTUs. Ethanol contains 84,100 BTUs per gallon and the replacement energy value for the other co-products is 27,579 BTUs. Thus, the total energy output is 111,679 BTUs and the net energy gain is 30,589 BTUs for an energy output-input ratio of 1.38:1.

In best-existing operations, assuming the corn is grown on the most energy efficient farms and the ethanol is produced in the most energy efficient plants, the net energy gain would be almost 58,000 BTUs for a net energy ratio of 2.09:1. Assuming state-of-the-art practices, the net energy ratio could be as much as 2.51:1. Cellulosic crops, based on current data, would have a net energy ratio of 2.62:1.

There are circumstances where ethanol production would not generate a positive energy balance. For example, one could assume corn raised by the least energy efficient farmers, those who use continuous corn planting and irrigation, being processed by ethanol plants that do not use cogeneration and other energy efficient processes. In this case ethanol production could have a negative energy balance of about 0.7:1. However, a relatively small amount of ethanol is produced in this manner, possibly less than 5 percent. We think it reasonable to look at least to columns one and two for the answer to our initial question. Based on industry averages, far less energy is used to grow corn and make ethanol than is contained in the ethanol. Moreover, we think it is a safe assumption that as the ethanol market expands, new facilities will tend to incorporate state-of-the-art processing technologies and techniques so that each new plant is more energy efficient than the one before. It is less certain that farmers will continue to become more energy efficient in their operations because of the many variables involved. Nevertheless, it does appear that growing numbers of farmers are reducing their farm inputs and that this trend will continue.

A final word about cellulose. If annual ethanol sales expand beyond 2 billion gallons, cellulosic crops, not starch, will probably become the feedstock of choice. The data in the last column suggest a very large energy gain from converting cellulosic crops into ethanol. Cellulosic crops, like fast growing tree plantations, use relatively little fertilizer and use less energy in harvesting than annual row crops. The crop itself is burned to provide energy for the manufacture of ethanol and other co-products. A major co-product of cellulosic crops is lignin, which currently is used only for fuel but which potentially has a high chemical value. Were it to be processed for chemical markets, the net energy gain would be even greater.

Our conclusion is that under the vast majority of conditions, the amount of energy contained in ethanol is significantly greater than the amount of energy used to make ethanol, even if the raw material used is corn.

NOw, I am not a lobbyist for any agricultural group. I just recommend people get informed on this issue before we spend more Billions of dollars on deep drilling research (money to be provided by the Government) and Hybrid cars which still burn plenty of polluting fossil fuel.

Keep in mind, I don't think anybody knows what the actual price of gas is as the tax breaks to Big Oil are so manifold and complex nobody that I know of has actually figures out what the real price of oil is.

As I said in my original post a company is building a facility to make Ethanol out of Sugar Cane waste. This is material which is currently not producing anything of value. It is treated as waste. What do you think the opportunity cost is to turn waste material into something useful - especially when the energy balance is 2.00 to 2.5 to 1 (for cellulose products)???


later, John W

[BlueEyedSon]

33. ERoEI needs to be more like 10 to 1 (not +38%) to be useful

thx for playing

[JohnWxy]

41. Argonne National Laboratory study

I think you should take a look at this:


Ethanol vs Fossil Fuels

[BlueEyedSon]

45. 404 page not found

Site is a corn advocacy site, BTW

[Dogmudgeon]

25. I appreciate your efforts -- yet, there are also painful pitfalls.

Your pique is understandable -- even if the ARGUMENTUM AD CAPSLOCK is a little hard on the eyes. I will explain as best I can.

First, you are quoting from a quote mill. Ethanol.org is strictly an industry website, and the link you give doesn't lead to the Argonne study at all. In addition, I'm not clear whether they're/you're referring to ethanol, or to ethanol/gasoline blends. This may be my own misreading.

Incidentally, I'm not an automatic proponent of Pimentel and Patzek's 25-year-old work. It has been difficult to do EROEI calculations in almost every area of energy research, in spite of EROEI being a simple figure. There are issues of politics, availability of the base statistics, and even proprietary and "secret" interests. We badly need better, easily-audited EROEI statistics, but we don't have them.

We don't even know if we're post-peak yet in oil production.

Ethanol/gasoline blends will take some of the pressure off, but the working solutions will require a full change in the way we use energy as well as the way we organize our whole civilization. Literally thousands of business and engineering processes will have to be re-thought, re-tooled, and re-introduced. The closest thing we will have to a universal solution will be nuclear energy, which will still carry enough tag-along problems that it will not be an easy step.

We are not at the end of the Age of Oil, or the Age of Cheap Energy. We are at the end of the Age of Easy Solutions. Sure, ethanol is a drop in the bucket, but we're going to need every drop we can get. It's time for all of us who are aware of these issues to "knuckle down to brass tacks" and wipe the tears from our eyes. The compulsory agenda of difficult decisions and hard work is preferable to mass death.

Thanks for posting about it -- and don't take our criticisms personally. This forum is a crucible in which all our pet projects are subject to the most merciless criticism a bunch of lay readers (and two or three scientists) can level. And it's only a start. There is very little room for error, delusion, or fraud in our future. It's better that we are disabused of our illusions, have our mistakes corrected, and get the frauds flushed out NOW, rather than in the middle of a major power-down or financial crash.

The main decision we face is as nasty a fork in the road as we've ever encountered -- one road leads to a happy, healthy, spacefaring, universally benevolent civilization, and the other leads to the deaths of 95-99% of our fellow humans from starvation, exposure, and poverty. That's plenty of motivation for me.

Are you with us?

--p!

[BlueEyedSon]

26. "We are not at the end of the Age of Oil, or the Age of Cheap Energy."

Maybe not the first, but almost certainly the the second is true.

I wish I was as sure as you.

:(

[Dogmudgeon]

29. Ah, but I had a third part to it --

"The End of the Age of Easy Answers".

You could substitute "Solutions" for "Answers", which I probably would have done if I'd given it an hour to ferment before I posted it. It is NOT going to be an easy transition, though I remain optimistic that it can be done.

Alas, I'm not sure of anything, really, except the magnitude of the problems and the scope which our ambitions will have to assume.

I actually consider myself one of the less informed people here when it comes to the details and their devils. NNadir, jpak, and Coastie are all far ahead of me -- and like me, they're also "Big Picture" thinkers.

(Plus, I've left out some others who are in their league -- my apologies!)

--p!

[JohnWxy]

36. USDA STUDY OF ETHANOL PRODUCTION: 38% ENERGY YIELD

I appreciate your comments. Sorry about the "ARGUMENTUM AD CAPSLOCK" but it seemed to not register that I quoted the Argonne National Laboratory (DoE) (?!) who's credentials are beyond repute in these matters. (I may also add that it seeems to me that sometimes people can be a bit sensitive.)

You are absolutely right this is a forum for debate and that is just what I am doing. I am trying to make people aware of information that is not being heard in the Corporate Media. They certainly should not take my word for it, but investigate it for themselves. But please don't dismiss something out of hand without looking into it yourself first.


I agree sometimes it's not clear to which they refer. I rely on context. I am assuming when they mention ethanol, without caps, its pure, and when they mean the blend they use Ethanol or "Ethanol 85" (15% fossil fuel).

When I post I admit I don't always have my links ready for pasting though.

Here is what I found at the ANL site:

Argonne expert addresses energy, environmental impacts of fuel ethanol

"Argonne researcher Michael Wang, a world-leading expert in this field, presented the results of his research today at the Ethanol Energy Open Forum."

Conclusions from Wang's presentation include:

Energy balance value alone is not meaningful in evaluating the benefit of ethanol or any other energy product. For proper evaluation, a product's energy balance must be compared with that of the product it replaces.

Compared to gasoline, any type of fuel ethanol substantially helps reduce fossil energy and petroleum use.

Ethanol produced from corn can achieve moderate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Ethanol produced from "cellulosic" plants, such as grass and weeds, can achieve much greater energy and greenhouse gas benefits.

Okay, here is a site from the USDA for your examination. I said in my original post that you do not have to use fossil fuel entirely in the production of ethanol This means that the of the 100 BTUs used to generate the 138 BTUs of ethanol, (pure)only about 15 BTUs has to come from the fossil fuel (gasoline). This means, in terms of fossil fuel devoted to ethanol production, you get about a 7 to 1 return on your energy investment (just in terms of limited resource fossil fuel). NOte they say the same thing in the conclusion below.

Now, here is a USDA report you might like to check out:



I quote the 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,
and farmers achieve average corn yields. Our NEV
estimate of over 21,000 Btu per gallon could 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 1.34; that is, for every
Btu dedicated to producing ethanol there is a 34-
percent energy gain. Furthermore, producing ethanol
from domestic corn stocks achieves a net gain in a
more desirable form of energy, which helps the United
States to reduce its dependence on imported oil.
Ethanol production utilizes abundant domestic energy
feedstocks, such as coal and natural gas, to convert
corn into a premium liquid fuel. Only about 17 percent of the energy used to produce ethanol comes from
liquid fuels, such as gasoline and diesel fuel. For every
1 Btu of liquid fuel used to produce ethanol, there is a
6.34 Btu gain.

When looking at past NEV studies, it appears that
energy requirements for producing a gallon of ethanol
are falling over time. One of the primary factors for
this increase in energy efficiency is the increase in
U.S. corn yields. When ethanol first emerged as a
gasoline extender in the 1970s, corn yield was averaging
about 90 bushels per acre. This study used
1995-97 average corn yield of 125 bushels per acre,
which is about 39 percent greater than the yields of the
1970s. Corn yields continue to rise in the United
States—the average corn yield per acre for the past 3
years (1999-2001) was about 135 bushels per acre. If
the 1999-2001 average corn yield were used in this
analysis, the total energy used to produce a bushel of
corn would decline by more than 4,200 Btu. As corn
yields increase over time, we can expect the energy
balance of corn ethanol to increase, as well. Other
major factors causing this increase in energy efficiency
are related to the energy-saving technologies adopted
by ethanol producers and manufacturers of fertilizers
and other farm inputs. Higher energy costs will likely
continue to provide incentives for these industries to
become more energy efficient, which will continue to
push the NEV of corn ethanol higher.

Now, one thing this study does not address is ethanol produced from agricultural waste. All agricultural products produce abundant waste products which, as the name implies, is currently of no economic value, until now. Ethanol can be produced from plant waste (cellulose) at even greater efficiencies than it can from corn. Since plant waste is already being produced this should address some concerns raised about the amount of land needed to produce an ethanol crop. Currently a facility is under construction which will produce ethanol from Sugar Cane waste. Also, ethanol can be produced from switch grasses which are very fast growing and can thrive on ground unsuitable for food crops.

Here is another site covering ethanol production efficiency. It has links to other sites and studies:

Ethanol Efficiency

I will provide more later. Until then, I advise all to just Google "Ethanol" and investigate for yourself. The fact that agricultural waste can be turned into a valuable product is in itself important.

I'm afraid I can't agree with you on Nuclear. I don't think the costs and feasibility of long term sequestration are really known yet. Once again, I can't give you a web-site but there are serious questions about the studies of containability and isolation from groundwater at the Yucca Mountain site. I just think producing more radioactive sludge with an average half-life of 50,000 years is too reckless to embark on building more reactors.

Did you know that the wind power potential of the U.S. is three times our current total electricity production? Did you know that the wind power is now cheaper than coal, natural gas and of course heating oil? But wind-mills just aren't 'sexy', I guess. The plains states have the greatest wind power potential (California is high too). Wind power permits dual use of land ,farming and grazing, provides distributed power production (less attractive targets for terrorists) and of course produces ZERO pollution. (okay. before somebody bothers to post saying "Hey, pollution is kicked out making the wind turbines!" Yes, that's true, but the amount of pollution is trivial compared to that produced by coal and oil (some power plants use heating oil for fuel). OF course coal gasification is experimental, produces massive amounts of pollution and still will required billions of dollars of R&D expenditure to see if it can be made clean and efficient. Wind power is working right now. More R&D is not necesary ( although additional R&D will be done resulting in even more efficient generation of power from wind - slower wind speeds in particular, which will wring out more power from lower wind speeds thus increasing that wind power potential estimate!)

JohnW

[BlueEyedSon]

46. Corn ethanol is energy efficient, as indicated by an energy ratio of 1.34

Do you realize how poor that is compared to every other commercialized power source? When oil was first discoverd, it was >100... now closer to 10.

[achtung_circus]

9. This may be nitpicking on my part

but please do not use the expression "Freedom anything"

be it fries or fuel.

[JohnWxy]

40. maybe I got carried away.

[melody]

11. Freedom Fuel? Eek

Welcome to DU, btw.

Based upon the output from Washington alone, if we could rig the grid to run on hot air, we'd be cooking with gas for generations to come.

[tocqueville]

19. not to talk about the spin...

[BlueEyedSon]

13. BTW, corn ethanol is only cheaper than gasoline because of subsidies.

[JohnWxy]

42. WE DON'T KNOW THE REAL PRICE OF GAS BECAUSE OF THE SUBSIDIES FOR OIL

The subsidies to the oil industry are so massive and manifold I don't think anybody knows what the price of gas really is.

Big Oil wants us to foot the bill for researching deep drilling under the Gulf of Mexico.

[IrateCitizen]

55. Nor do we know the real cost of corn because of subsidies for agribusiness

Seriously, do we have any idea how much a bushel of corn would cost, grown through conventional (petroleum, fertilizer and pesticide dependent) means WITHOUT massive federal subsidies?

ConAgra, ADM, Monsanto, etc. all want us to foot the bill for them to produce ethanol. They're no different from big oil in that regard.

Further, as attractive as you've made this proposal seem, it fails to address the ravaging of arable land through monoculture farming practices. Where the Great Plains had over 2 feet of topsoil only 150 years ago, in many places that figure is down to less than 2 inches. Much of this is due to the kind of modern agriculture techniques (till up the ground, throw the seed down and saturate it with nitrogen-based fertilizer and chemical pesticides) that would be used to grow the amount of corn required for large-scale ethanol.

Finally, the "miracle" of ethanol seems to assume that we will be able to continue our car culture indefinitely into the future. I'm a big believer that any sort of long-term solution will have to be centered on moving the automobile from the focus to the periphery of our everyday lives. Of course, convincing the American public of this reality is another thing altogether....

[JohnWxy]

58. Fine lets get rid of all the subsidies - then what would you be paying for

gas? ----

A 1997 editorial in the New York Times put the real cost of gasoline – including military expenditures to protect oil interests – at $5 per gallon.(NOTE; this is before the expenditures for IRAC invasion-JW) Therefore, on balance, ethanol receives fewer tax incentives than other forms of energy.

Oil subsidies - if you dare look


A recent study by the U.S. General Accounting Office found that, since 1968, the oil industry has received approximately $150 billion in tax incentives. By contrast, the ethanol industry has received $11.2 billion through a partial exemption of the federal excise tax and $200 million in income tax credits.

And what will it cost us to do nothing, but just keep going on as we are? 1/4th of our negative balance of payments are for the purchase of imported crude oil. How much would it benefit our economy to reduce this enormous outflow of wealth which could be used to invest in our own country.

[padia]

22. photovoltic cells & electrical cars

we create our own electricity and use nothing but it. No R&D no emissions no dependencies. You create jobs by building and installing the solar panels. Home grown industry and good green technology.

[Township75]

31. The best PVC offers about 5% efficiency

So we will have to wait a while.

[padia]

54. @calpolySLO

they participated in a contest sponsored by the DOD or energy department with other schools around the country. The contest was to make a self sufficient house including a car that can go at least 200 miles. Eve if it is 5% we can be fully self sustaining.

[Coastie for Truth]

57. That's 5% of total sunlight.

The "physics" (see Streetman, Sze) of PV cells.

The wavelength of the light has to be at the same energy as the "bandgap" of the semi-conductor. That means (for Si, Ge, Compound, whatever) - ultra violet. Conversion is much higher is your "denominator" is UV and not "total light."

[Coastie for Truth]

24. The Michigan Answer

You posted

Hybrid vehicles still require additional billions in investment to make them practical and they currently cost the buyer quite a bit more than a standard engine car. AND THEY STILL BURN GASOLINE. THE AMOUNT SAVED IN GASOLINE IS REDICULOUSLY LOW COMPARED TO THE HUGE INVESTMENT REQUIRED TO GET THIS MEAGER SAVINGS. And they really are no solution to the dependence on fossil fuels.

That is the position of such leading Michigan automotive luminaries as Rick Wagoner and Bob Lutz, backed by University of Michigan's Dean David Cole (wasn't his Dad GM CEO Ed Cole), and Carnegie Mellon University economist (GM Endowed Professor) Lester lave, and Penn State University energy economist (Exxon Mobil endowed professor) Andy Kliot.

Perhaps if Mr. Wagoner's predecessor Roger "Squeaky" Smith (The same "Roger" as the "Roger" that Michael Moore was looking for in the movie) hadn't spent so much money on his frivolous law to keep "Magnequench" and metal hydride batteries of the market Wagoner and Lutz and the American motorists would have competitively priced hybrids.

AS to your statement that "Hybrid vehicles still require additional billions in investment to make them practical" - maybe the Big Three should "off shore" the research to Japan, and hire some "good engineers" - like from Todei and Sendai instead of from Ann Arbor and East Lansing and Flint and Cass Corridor and Southfield.

[GumboYaYa]

27. Biodiesel, particularly with oils made from algae,

offer greater energy return on energy investment. I have seen conflicting studies on Ethanol, in terms of efficiency. Given the fact that Ethanol production is embraced by the Bush administration, I tend to think it must be a bad idea, simply b/c Bush has substantially more bad ideas than good ones.

[BlueEyedSon]

28. Wow! Please name a commercial producer and their ERoEI...! nt

[GumboYaYa]

30. I believe the first Commercial Biodiesel producer in the US was Interchem

out of Overland Park, Kansas. The company was founded in the mid-90's. They use mostly rapeseed oils as the feedstock for biodiesel, which is less efficient than the energy investment in algae-produced oil (but the technology with algae is in the development stage and not in commercial use yet). While Interchem was the first, there are around 15 commercial biodiesel facilities operating around the country, with more coming on line this year. I think we have three operating in Missouri with a fourth to-be added in the near term-future.

With respect to the energy return on energy investment, Interchem reports for each joule invested in the production process 3.2 joules result. I have not seen a detail of how they calculate the energy investment so I can not be certain that all energy costs are approriately included, but given the fact that they are a commercial enterprise trying to make money (in the absence of giant federal subsidies) the energy investment versus energy return will at least be efficient enough to make the enterprise profitable.

[achtung_circus]

34. You said

they are a commercial enterprise trying to make money (in the absence of giant federal subsidies)

but I would suggest that the giant subsidies are in play in the form of support to agriculture.

[GumboYaYa]

35. No question that the costs of feedstock is lower b/c

of current subsidies to the agriculture industry. But generally, the subsidy for oil seed production (other than Soybeans) is the lowest of all subsidized agricultural products. It has some effect on the price of feedstock, but as the price of oil increases the costs of feedstock will be competitive with or without subsidies and most likley is already.

Having said that, the original technology that I referred to (using algae to produce oil) is proving to be much more efficient and most lilely will provide feedstock at lower prices than rapeseed or other seed oils. The added benefit of using algae is that it helps clean-up the water where it is grown, feeding off organic pollutants in the water.

[Dogmudgeon]

37. Wikipedia has a good biodiesel page

There are even a couple of algae biodiesel links.

Algae biodiesel research is being underwritten by the Department of Energy. It has the potential to far outproduce rapeseed, jatropha, or palm oil biodiesels.

I don't think it's being produced commercially yet, but it's a good lead to follow, one of those "drops in the bucket" that could become a big, valuable drop. EROEI stands to be pretty high, but again, it's still a nascent technology. Louisa Aronow, a biodiesel (non-algae) entrepreneur in northern California, quotes a ballpark-figure EROEI in a letter to the Ukiah Daily Journal at 2.5, or 250% (letter archived at Biodiesel Council website). I would assume that algal biodiesel would have a higher EROEI, even for small-scale operations; theoretically as high as 100, or 10k%, based on test yields, but actual production figures are still a year or two away.

Algae biodiesel is still in the start-up stage; it's one to keep our eyes on, though.

--p!

[JohnWxy]

39. Argonne National Laboratory report on ethanol fuel

I think biodiesel is great. It sells for about $0.76 a gallon, can be run in any diesel engine (this is what the diesel was intended to be run on by the inventor) but try to sell this to people. They think it's too wierd. They'll get over that when gas gets much more expensive.

Bush supports ethanol? I agree, ordinarily this would be a BAD sign. But I think you should check out the Argonne National Laboratory's report. I put the link in this post: Agonne National Laboratory report on ethanol fuel

[BlueEyedSon]

47. "They think it's too wierd." No, they think it voids their new-car

warranty.

I have been looking for a new car that I can put B100 in.

[JohnWxy]

53. I thought any diesel engine could operate on bio-diesel.

I thought any diesel engine could operate on bio-diesel. Not so? I think people aren't too crazy about their car exhaust smelling like french fries. What do they have against the French??

[IrateCitizen]

56. Biodiesel will work, but it will also void your warranty...

Check out VW's TDI models as an example. They explicitly tell you that if you use biodiesel, it immediately voids your engine warranty.

[Strelnikov_]

50. I View Corn Ethanol As An Energy Carrier, Not A Source

Most reputable studies of corn ethanol seem to be clustering around an EPR of 1 to 1.2. When byproducts (remaining food value, most of which is preserved) of corn ethanol processing is accounted for, the published EPR is 1.7+.

Most of the energy used to produce ethanol is consumed by processing at the plant (67%+/-). This opens up opportunities for the use of co-generation (waste heat) or renewable resources (wind). Therefore ethanol is a method for converting renewable/waste energy into a transportation fuel. A proven, scalable energy carrier.

When compared to H, corn ethanol looks like a clear winner as an energy carrier, considering H produced through electrolysis (the only scalable method to produce H in quantity w/o methane) has an EPR of 0.2.

I envision a future of ethanol fueled PHEV's for personal transportation, and biodiesel fueled farm/construction/industrial equipment.

Without a reduction in transportation fuel use, however, there is no way ethanol/bioD, or any other renewable source, will meet liquid transportation fuel demand.

[Massacure]

52. 1.2 usually refers to corn. Switchgrass is 3, if I recall.

But switchgrass is mainly cellulose which we don't know what will happen if we scale the technology up commercially.

Biodiesel probably needs the least land of anything. However, that doesn't even have a pilot project yet.