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I´ve read these days a recent article on The Economist that debunks that.
But thanks anyways.
Do you have a link? I couldn't find that on their web site.
But believe me I´m not making this stuff up: it was an excellent article.
Either way, there are a lot of recent GOOD studies that prove that theory is old: you won´t have trouble finding them.
Corn ethanol is a boondoggle to appease the Midwest. Problem is the only ones making money are the big conglomerate growers and producers. It will fail again just as it did in the 1980s.
There are many vehicles for FlexFuel and have been for more than 10 years. Just be ready to refuel a lot more often as the mileage stinks.
Brazil uses ethanol for political reasons not environmental. A short history of Brazil and ethanol will give you a bit of perspective.
Under the Pro-Alcohol programme, farmers were paid generous subsidies to grow sugar-cane, from which ethanol was produced.
The price at the pump was also subsidised to make the new fuel cheaper than petrol, while the motor industry turned out increasing numbers of vehicles adapted to burn pure ethanol.
As a result, in 1985 and 1986, more than 75% of all motor vehicles produced in Brazil - and more than 90% of cars - were designed for alcohol consumption.
But then it all went wrong.
But despite ethanol's green credentials, Brazilian enthusiasm for the fuel reached its lowest ebb in 1997, just as the world was marking five years since Rio de Janeiro hosted the United Nations Earth Summit.
That year, just 1,075 motor vehicles built to run on alcohol rolled off the country's production lines - a mere 0.06% of the total output.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4581955.stm
Corn mash alcohol is for drinking, if you want good mileage; buy a diesel or a hybrid if your driving is all city.
Driving a car with E10 gasoline (10% ethanol) seems to produce a reported 8% to 10% loss in MPG over pure gasoline because ethanol has less energy than gasoline. Diesel contains about 40% more energy than gasoline so you get about 35% to 40% increase in MPG.
Ethanol has increased from 26.5 Million Tons Oil Equivalent to 34.8 MTOE which is a growth of 30 % +. In the year 1998 only 9.7 MTOE was produced. So in the last 10 years, its grown nearly 4 fold, especially with much of the increase from 2002.
As the oil prices continue to increase, we have to move further into Ethanol.
Also the Cellulose Ethanol has come to the market. Hope the Ethanol production may grow even faster when the E15 standard is allowed.
Also the Ethanol from Sugar Beet is still an unexplored one. Hope that too joins.
Dear gagrice - dont keep posting old articles.
Ever since Brazil introduced the flexfuel E100 vehicles in the year 2003, their Ethanol is a Big Success story.
In
2003 - 6% of their new vehicles are Flexfule
2004 - 17%
2005 - 51%
2006 - 73%
2007 & 2008 - 80% +
Environmental Defense released a report yesterday that tries to calculate the impact that biofuel plants (ones that produce corn ethanol) might have on the massive water source. The report, called "Potential Impacts of Biofuels Expansion on Natural Resources: A Case Study of the Ogallala Aquifer Region," says that pumping too much more water out of the ground for ethanol "could cause Depression-style dust bowls." New ethanol plants in the area would use up an extra 2.6 billion gallons of water a year and another 120 billion gallons would be needed to grow the corn.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/09/21/ogallala-aquifer-and-ethanol-the-potenti- al-for-another-dust-bo/
How about the destruction of the fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico? My concerns for the environment are just as important as your need for alternative fuels. Corn ethanol is now and has always been a knee jerk reaction to the high price of oil. With little or NO concerns for the environment that is being destroyed raising crops for fuel all around the World.
You may be right that Corn Ethanol is a kneejerk reaction to rising
oil prices. But we dont have any other alternative other than CNG vehicles
which is also expensive (vehicle costs 5K more).
Given this scenario, the Ethanol is promoted.
But Corn Ethanol is just the initial part, soon its cousins will join.
Already Cellulose Ethanol has hit the market
Cellulose Ethanol
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/06/shell-e10.html#more
Sugarbeet Ethanol
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2008/10/30/european-council-revises-sugarbee- t-ethanol-gges-qualifying-it-for-eu-biofuel-targets/
Algae Biofuels
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/06/is-the-future-of-bi- ofuels-in-algae
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/belgian-biofuel-secret-algae-development- .php
Pretty soon, all these put together will be able to generate 30 billion +
gallons of Bio-fuels.
Meanwhile the Bio-electricity concept is also gathering steam with some European utilities using
Wood for generating power.
We should also point out the pollution from Oil and also the wars & civil wars fought for this fuel. Its really bad.
First - I have no idea what percentage of ethanol is in the gas I've been forced to use for the last year since at most of the stations I've used the decal on the pump says, "Contains up to 10% ethanol".
Second - What I DO know is that the mileage on both my cars has dropped a solid 10% and even further in the winter. One time in the last year we were at a location where I was able to go through two fillups with non-ethanol-laced gas and my mileage instantly went back up to the numbers I had been getting. As soon as we returned home to fuel with ethanol, the mileage dropped back down 10%
So riddle me this... Looking at the same number of miles driven, my use of gasoline has not been reduced at all, and has probably increased since the reduced mileage I'm getting requires more fillups to drive the same amount.
Why should I be excited about ANY form of ethanol being added being added to my fuel? :sick:
Biofuels are also a decent idea to run in parallel, yes. Sending so much money to the Middle East (among others) and being so dependent on them is a bad idea in general. But corn ethanol was and is a bad idea: it drives our food prices up, uses up too much water to create, and in fact uses about a gallon of petroleum-based fuel to create a gallon of corn ethanol. Considering that said gallon of corn ethanol contains less energy than a gallon of petro ethanol, that's a net loss of energy. 10% I think, wasted, put to no purpose.
The key is efficiency here. Simply because something isn't petroleum based doesn't make it good. It's also important to not be wasteful. That's why I like the idea of trying to chase ethanol based on plant waste. Now, from the article you mentioned, it sounds like there's been some success in creating it, which is an important step. But now we have to look at how many energy units it takes to create an energy unit of cellulosic ethanol...ideally it would be a 0.9:1 or better ratio...I'd settle for 1:1 for now.
Sugar beets, like corn, are a bad idea. Brazil may have been successful with sugar cane, but I'm not sure it was a wise move. Converting any potential food source from food to fuel eventually runs you into the problem of having to decide between one or the other when you run short of one or both.
BECAUSE IT STILL REQUIRES PETROLEUM-BASED GASOLINE!!
What we should really be doing is asking why we're chasing these technologies that require us to continue using imported gasoline in the near future? Yeah, maybe it reduces the amount we need infinitesimally...but then some goofball goes and burns more of it, or probably his kid with his brand new V8 whatever it is going joyriding and so we import the same amount of barrels anyway. We don't save anything doing those blends, and they're not a midway "step" to anything that actually gets us OFF of dino-fuel.
CNG would. Bio-diesel would. E100 wouldn't. If nothing else, there will be a backlash by the Alcoholics Association of America claiming we're depleting their supply of hard liquor. And then we'd have people drinking out of our gas tanks.
I think you are not understanding the concept of net gain. The idea was to replace a gallon of gas with a gallon of ethanol. Or at least some gain. There is NO gain. If I put 10 gallons of regular gas in my car and go 200 miles, then put 10 gallons of E10 in my car and only go 180 miles, the ethanol has gained me nothing. It has only been a source of revenue for those involved in the growing of corn and production of the ethanol.
In the meantime it is destroying the fishery in the Gulf of Mexico. The Dead Zone is a well documented result of the excessive use of anhydrous ammonia in the growing of corn. It is depleting the ground water at an alarming rate.
The US government is not interested in ethanol as an alternative fuel or they would not put a tariff on ethanol from Brazil. Most of the $2+ per gallon subsidy goes to buying the fossil fuel required to produce Corn for ethanol. It is not a stepping stone. It is political pandering to the Midwest where Corn Ethanol is produced. Nothing more.
It is a giant con game. We pay with higher taxes and at the pump. Corporate welfare pure and simple.
To produce Ethanol that generates 100 units, the input is
Electricity (50 units) - For Refining
Diesel (30 units) - For Tractors & Trucks
and the remaining 20 units comes from Sun & Earth.
So we are able to save 70 units of Diesel (Petro fuel).
Its true that Ethanol has 25 % less energy, but gasolene is now becoming a luxury and we have to settle with Ethanol.
As per BP Stats 2009,
Ethanol increases 30 % over prevoius year
Wind - 30 %
Geothermal - 4 %
Solar - 69 %
So all renewables are growing rapidly and fossil fuels are growing slowly.
Electricity (50 units) - For Refining
Diesel (30 units) - For Tractors & Trucks
That's only half the story. You're forgetting the petro-derived chemicals for fertilizer (and mechanisms for spreading it), and you're forgetting transport after refining: you'll use a lot more than 30 units of Diesel energy, since that includes planting, harvesting, transporting corn, and then transporting the ethanol (it can't be pipelined like natural gas).
Where exactly are you getting your figures? They're only giving you half-truths.
Notice I'm not even bothering to get into the whole part where we're reducing our food supply.
But agribusiness can't justify a handout over it, so no one's going there. In fact, diesels have all but disappeared from most cars...why? To keep down any possibilities for a biodiesel solution. And so instead we toss out all of our waste oils...a potential energy source, going right into the trash.
That is the stuff that Pacific Biodiesel is using in Hawaii. A great success story that inspired Willie Nelson to start the Bio-WIllie company. It sells biodiesel all over the Western USA. Mostly used as B20 in trucks.
For those that are so gungho on corn ethanol. Try to find any data that backs up your claims of saving US from imported oil. Make sure it is by an independent source. Not the Ethanol counsel or even the oil companies. Ever wonder why the oil companies don't put out propaganda against Corn ethanol? Duh, they make a fortune off the growing of corn and processing.
Corn ethanol subsidies totaled $7.0 billion in 2006 for 4.9 billion gallons of ethanol. That's $1.45 per gallon of ethanol (and $2.21 per gal of gas replaced).
Even with high gas prices in 2006, producing a gallon of ethanol cost 38¢ more than making gasoline with the same energy, so ethanol did need part of that subsidy. But what about the other $1.12. Not needed! So all of that became, $5.4 billion windfall of profits paid to real farmers, corporate farmers, and ethanol makers like multinational ADM.
http://zfacts.com/p/63.html
Ethanol is all about corporate welfare, not saving fossil fuel.
The Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (ADM) has been the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history. ADM and its chairman Dwayne Andreas have lavishly fertilized both political parties with millions of dollars in handouts and in return have reaped billion-dollar windfalls from taxpayers and consumers. Thanks to federal protection of the domestic sugar industry, ethanol subsidies, subsidized grain exports, and various other programs, ADM has cost the American economy billions of dollars since 1980 and has indirectly cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in higher prices and higher taxes over that same period.
Palm oil production is the leading cause of deforestation in Southeast Asia; the clearance and burning of rainforests and peatlands for oil palm plantations releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide. As a result, Indonesia is now the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.(2) This rampant deforestation is also pushing species like the orang-utan and the Sumatran tiger to the brink of extinction.
http://www.teatronaturale.com/article/536.html
Let's also ask a few other questions:
1 - Where is the arable land being used for this corn, and what does that do for food production?
2 - What water sources are used to grow the corn? What energy sources are needed to move the water? What affect does that have on food crops?
Converting food into fuel is a bad idea and always will be. Waste is a different story. If they can convert plant waste into ethanol and get as much energy out of it as they put in, that's fine (we still get a benefit, as the waste is disposed of). Getting more out of it would be better of course. But it seems like a lot of people, when given the choice of fueling their SUV or feeding their kids would go the direction of fueling their SUV. And that's insane.
Come on, beet ethanol now? What's next, taking our milk supply and converting the lipids into burnable fuel? Not to mention converting all of our grains: why stop at corn? Let's convert all the wheat to ethanol too and get rid of bread, bagels, rolls, pizza crusts, etc. not to mention half the breakfast cereal out there (the other half, being all sugar, is already gone as all the sugar cane and sugar beets are being used for ethanol).
Is it just me or is this a REALLY wacko derivation of the whole "let them eat cake!" scenario?
PS
I saw a brand new G55 AMG with new dealer tags in the window. It seems some folks are not concerned about high gas prices.
Corn Ethanol has a net gain of 1 (input) : 1.24 (output)
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/AER721/
Cane Ethanol has even bigger gain.
Energy balance of Palm Biodiesel
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/4/4/2/2/p244221_in- dex.html
Its 1 (input) : 6.5 (output)
We can talk about the food to fuel, but we need fuel as well, otherwise, we have to dump our used SUV's in countries with cheap gas like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela. Is this acceptable.
Even after using 9 billion gallons of Ethanol last year, the gas prices hit a high of $4.11 / gallon, without this Ethanol, it should have gone past $5 / gallon.
In the short run, we have to use Ethanol from Corn, Biodiesel from Palm and so on.
Yes the subsidies on Ethanol should be phased out, but what about the subsidies on Oil.
Every year we spend $ 600 billion on Defense, on this, even if $60 billion is spent on policing the Persian gulf, that works out to 30 cents / gallon on petro-fuels.
( $ 60 billion / 200 billion gallons of Gasolene/Diesel sold).
It seems all the energy sources (Fossil fuels, nuclear, wind, solar, biofuels) are getting subsidies. Slowly we have to get rid of subsidies on all the energy sources, this will lead to increase in energy prices, which will also improve the energy efficiency.
FYI : By year 2012, we have to phase out incandescent bulbs with Fluorescent / LED bulbs. Start doing this right away.
If anyone has a old SUV and plans to buy a new vehicle, then buy a small vehicle.
Thats the only way to reduce energy consumption. The other alternative is to buy Flexfuelled vehicle.
Answer : Oil is becoming harder to find, parallelly in many countries, the production is declining. Also on energy basis, the energy content of NGL, Sands Oil and Bio-fuels are lesser. All the production info is posted only on volume basis, so if you consider energy basis, the production may have declined.
Also earlier it took 1.9 units of energy to get Oil which can give 100 units of energy
Now it takes 3.7 units of energy to get Oil which can give 100 units.
Message : Oil prices will certainly rise in the coming years and also input energy will start to increase.
Solutions
Replace Oil-fired power plants and heating systems with other alternatives like natgas, electricity and so on.
Buy smaller vehicles that fits your need (a small Wagon has more cargo space than big Sedan)
Buy Hybrid or Flexfuelled or Bifuelled vehicles.
Lets prepare ourself for the future, otherwise, we may face another recession before even this recession is ending.
Renewable energy is a good idea, mind you, but sacrificing our food supply for it is NOT.
Replace Oil-fired power plants and heating systems with other alternatives like natgas, electricity and so on.
Buy smaller vehicles that fits your need (a small Wagon has more cargo space than big Sedan)
Buy Hybrid or Flexfuelled or Bifuelled vehicles.
Electrically powered heating systems are much less efficient than other methods like propane and oil heat, and not really that popular outside of urban areas. This shouldn't be a problem: oil heat is very popular but the oil is so close to diesel as to make zero difference: you could fill your tank from a diesel pump and it would work. This is a great target for converting to biodiesel.
Another popular heating product is propane, which is also used to fuel gas stoves. It's currently made when processing oil, but can ALSO be made from processing Natural Gas, so there's zero reason to even touch that infrastructure for now: just cut over to creating it from CNG until we can convert those systems to use CNG directly.
Smaller vehicles, yeah. Me, I'm a hatchback convert: I think a lot of others are too, but they're used to calling them SUVs. Chevy had the Malibu Maxx a while back that was a moderate success: I wonder why they didn't continue it. More smaller vehicles are coming in a hatch format though (Yaris, Aveo, Fiesta, even the Corolla as the Matrix). Unfortunately, midsizers haven't followed the trend yet: have to see what happens, but a compact SUV is pretty close to a midsize sedan in space and price. It's just that for some reason the US is mentally allergic to a hatch unless it's jacked up off the ground; they'd rather have a trunk.
Flex fuel = ethanol. Ethanol is currently bad: we're robbing Peter to pay Paul, in that we're sacrificing our food supply to fuel our vehicles. That's dumb for many reasons, including the next crop blight or food riots threatening our fuel supply. Hybrids seem to stretch our gas supply better, but they're only a stopgap. Biodiesel combined with CNG may be our best shot.
I agree. I think the best option is to use Algae production for biodiesel. I don't believe it should be mandated as they have ethanol. And I agree with the poster that E10 is giving ethanol a bad name. There is no need for additives with modern engines. Sell E100 and build flexfuel vehicles that will run on either pure ethanol or regular unleaded. VW builds just such vehicles for Brazil. Remove the tariff from sugar cane ethanol and buy from Brazil. Cut back corn production by using less fossil fuel fertilizers. Go back to crop rotation to protect the environment. Share the crop land with Corn, so we do not cause shortages of wheat and soybeans. Common sense needs to prevail and Congress needs to Butt out. They do nothing but screw up the works.
Well, propane is not 'made', it is extracted from oil and natural gas. You don't convert it from natural gas, not and have it make any economic sense. Conversion of methane to diesel is being done now, makes more sense.
That just leaves oil heat. And you just mentioned another way of getting diesel fuel, which is just another way of describing heating oil (seriously, they're both referred to technically as "heavy fuel oil" and are pretty much interchangeable). So that's a way to get much of our heating systems (if not all) off of imported petroleum, yes?
I've been checking different stations and at least I haven't found any gas over 10% ethanol. And the lowest I've found is one station at 6-7% ethanol.
Anybody else do this? Care to compare/share results? Anybody find pure gas at a marina (I have yet to test)?
I have only tested regular 87 octane gas so far. The best has been a BP at Edgewater MD at 6-7%. There is a rumor among boaters that BP 93 has no ethanol - and I want to test it; unfortunately, the results won't help me if its ethanol-free, as my boat motor specifically advises against 93 octane.
I've noticed my gas mileage decrease has recently varied between 3-10% rather than the usual constant 10%. Any ideas why they might be mixing in less ethanol?
my boat motor specifically advises against 93 octane
Any idea why?
Any idea why?
Apparently it doesn't detonate at same compression as the 87 octane the motor was tuned for. I learned this the hard way in actual practice. I replaced a 2-stroke 130 hp Yamaha - in which I'd always used 93 octane, with a new 4-stroke 115 Yamaha. Without thinking, I used the same fuel. When I took it in for service, it had low compression due to carbon build-up & had to be de-carboned. I was advised to use only 87 octane and to run at high rpms for a few minutes at the end of the day.
Well, diesel's a lighter cut than the heavy fuel oil, you can't put fuel oil in your car/truck, but this would increase supplies, certainly. And sorry for getting technical on propane, just wanted to make sure folks understand how that works. That brings up another news item - seems that some domestic natural gas producers are worried about being swamped with LNG imports. Qatar may be able to bring in lots of their LNG on tankers, extract the propane, etc, and make money even if they sell the natural gas for a loss.
Similarly many homes using Oil fired heaters were moved to other sources.
Its not a big deal.
A geothermal system can cut down oil consumption for heat by atleast 30 %.
Also when we go to bed, we can reduce the thermostat in living room to 60 degrees and have portable heater for just the bedroom. This will cut down the consumption by another 20 - 30 %
Where natgas is available, we can use that for heating, otherwise propane or biodiesel or wood or electricity can be used to replace fuel oil.
With nearly 10 million vehicles hitting the world's roads every year, its high time that Oil is replaced wherever possible.
BTW, US has become independent in natgas with the discovery of Shale-gas.
We dont need Qatar gas, it can be shipped to Japan & Korea where there are too many Oil-fired power plants.
It would be nice for Hawaii to get some Qatar LNG, as they produce most of their electricity with diesel generators. Qatar is also on the leading edge of GTL (gas to liquids). The diesel produced from natural gas is super clean and NO sulfur. Great fuel for all the diesel cars that are being sold.
At the present time we are importing natural gas (Canada & Mexico), so we are really not independent nor will we be anytime soon.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/data_publications/natural_gas_mon- - thly/current/pdf/figure_01.pdf
Energy independence is a pipe dream. The only way the U.S. will be energy independent is if we cut our consumption by about 2/3.
"With nearly 10 million vehicles hitting the world's roads every year, its high time that Oil is replaced wherever possible. "
Actually I think the net increase in vehicles is higher than that. This site
http://www.serendipity.li/fe/car_fact_sheet.htm
suggests that the actual number is closer to 55 million new vehicles a year.
And as to replacing oil wherever possible, every fuel has issues be it ethanol, natural gas, diesel, hydrogen or cooking grease. I do not see any one fuel taking over 99% of the market. We are likely to have a broad range of fuels available for decades to come.
http://www.serendipity.li/fe/car_fact_sheet.htm
70 million vehicles were sold every year. They mentioned that 15 million old vehicles were scrapped. In USA alone 14 million old vehicles were scrapped, if you include Europe, Japan and rest of the world the figure should be somewhere between 50-55 million old vehicles beind scrapped.
That means some 10-15 million new vehicles are sold.
gagrice : Yes, Qatar-gas can certainly go to Hawaii. Meanwhile Hawaii has 62 MW of wind energy, it can easily be increased and combined with natgas to replace the Diesel fired power generation.
Yes, no fuel will be able to take 99 % of the market. If Biofuels can capture 10 % with CNG another 10 %, atleast 20 % of the Oil consumption can be reduced.
Of course we will....to be honest, that's the natural order of things. The oil producers don't want that, of course, they want the current oil-universal-cureall status-quo that they helped manufacture instead, and it's gotten people used to the idea of one energy source having to make a big splash and replace oil in all ways. Hence all the hot air about ethanol as a new cure-all.
Real life isn't going to work that way. We'll see a lot more like the following instead:
Electric: Wind, Solar, Nuclear. Hydroelectric where water flow is available.
Heat: Geothermal (heat pump), natural gas, possibly direct solar. Biodiesel for the oil fired heaters until they can switch over to something else.
Transportation: Natural gas, biodiesel, possibly combined with some hybrid tech. Maybe some ethanol, but it's going to be regional because of the problems transporting E100.
Oh, and by the way:
At the present time we are importing natural gas (Canada & Mexico), so we are really not independent nor will we be anytime soon.
I'll settle for getting us independent of the regimes that hate us first, like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia (well, maybe not hate us but they don't really like us either), etc.
"...motor vehicle ownership will increase from about 800 million vehicles today to more than 2 billion in 2030."
http://www.hart-isee.com/index.php?page=world-transport-growth
2,000 million - 800 million = 1,200 million
1,200 million/20 years = 60 million/year new to the market vehicles
The above is just an estimate. I do not think the world has the resources (ethanol,oil,steel,rare earth metals) to maintain more than 1.5 billion vehicles.
Vehicles are lasting longer. (Tables 3.9 & 3.10)
http://www-cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb27/Edition27_Full_Doc.pdf
Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia said the fatality was a woman. The cause of death had not been determined, because Fiduccia had not been able to get close enough to examine the body.
Fiduccia said she did not know whether there were other fatalities.
Crews were still fighting the blaze early Saturday from the derailment of the 114-car Canadian National Railway train.
Officers were called to the scene at around 8:30 p.m., a city police spokeswoman said. The derailment involved automobiles, but it was unclear whether they were on the tracks, the spokeswoman said.
Three motorists who were stopped at a train crossing were burned, one severely, said Rockford Fire Chief Derek Bergsten.
One victim who tried to run from the blaze suffered second-degree burns on his hand while trying to shield his neck from flames, Bergsten said.
Seventy cars on the train were carrying ethanol, a colorless, highly flammable liquid, fire officials said.
The derailment and subsequent fire forced the evacuation of about 600 nearby homes, authorities said.
We don't want your ethanol on the West Coast. Keep it in the Midwest. We have enough fire problems without trainloads of ethanol burning down our towns.