An Inconvenient Fuel

[XtremeJibber2001]

Read this today in Forbes ... interesting to show that we'll need more oil to make Ethanol produce the same level of energy as oil. Never knew that.

As a longtime fan of Forbes I was shocked that you would lend credence to the false concept of global warming caused by CO2 and greenhouse gases ("Where Coal Is King," July 3, p. 112). Greenhouse gases released by extracting energy from coal actually accelerate the growth of plants and animal life. Interestingly enough, it takes the equivalent of 1.8 gallons of oil to make one gallon of ethanol when you consider the oil required for planting, harvesting, transporting, and processing the vegetation. One gallon of ethanol has only 63% of the energy of one gallon of gasoline. Yet the federal government subsidizes ethanol at 52 cents a gallon. We have as much coal as the nation of Saudi Arabia has oil and still have vast reserves of undeveloped oil and gas here in the US. As China and India challenge us with cheap labor, this is not time to let political enviornmentalists destroy our economy.

So why the big push towards ethanol? Is it just because it burns cleaner?

[ski_adk]

It might be b/c the idea that ethanol comes from plants and leaves a nice warm fuzzy feeling for the people who support it. It is cleaner, but not as efficient as a fuel alone...let alone all the fuel that's used to grow the plants, harvest them, take them to the ethanol plant and distribute...

[shortski]

It might be b/c the idea that ethanol comes from plants and leaves a nice warm fuzzy feeling for the people who support it. It is cleaner, but not as efficient as a fuel alone...let alone all the fuel that's used to grow the plants, harvest them, take them to the ethanol plant and distribute...

Left to the private sector with no government sanctions or undue regulations I'm sure one of the giant Agra business will find a way to genetically engineer a plant to provide 10 times what the top plants now produce. Additionally the processing plants for conversion to fuel can be done by the same business on the same land that grows it, and the only help the government should supply is in the switch over of the infrastructure to support ethanol fuel distribution.

[yeti]

Interesting, but I would want to know just how much oil it takes to get a gallon of gas to your gas tank as well.

I would also wonder if they were talking about ethanol produced from corn, which is indeed very inefficient when compared to ethanol produced from sugar cane and beets.

If the infrastructure used to produce the ethanol (tractors, combines, fuel trucks, ect) were burning enthanol, how would that change the inequality?

[Dr. NO]

Interesting, but I would want to know just how much oil it takes to get a gallon of gas to your gas tank as well.

I would also wonder if they were talking about ethanol produced from corn, which is indeed very inefficient when compared to ethanol produced from sugar cane and beets.

If the infrastructure used to produce the ethanol (tractors, combines, fuel trucks, ect) were burning enthanol, how would that change the inequality?

Change that around just a bit. Take the stalks and other bi-products from the field, store in a silo for a bit and tap the juices from the bottom. Now if you can run on White Lightning, you might have something there. Or, just sell the good stuff to pay for the fuel to harvest. HICK!

[Cityskier]

Because it's not as simple as the author would like you to believe.

I'm not entirely sure what this guy is talking about. He goes from coal to oil like they are interchangeable.

Anyway, just as it requires energy to get ethanol to market, the same goes for the drilling, pumping, transporting, refining of oil, and distribution of gasoline. I don't have any numbers on the costs, but the author might be a little more credible if he compared the two.

Additionally, oil involves costs you don't see at the pump, primarily seen in our military costs in the middle east. I found this article interesting:

http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section ... 11520&url=

You can read his full senate testimony here.

http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimon ... 060330.pdf

As well as in the construction of Camp Bondsteel in the Balkans, curiously close to the trans-balkan pipeline. It's the US's largest base built since the war in Vietnam.

http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/ ... p?nid=1837

Funny how the envirommentalists are ruining our economy. I'd like to see the boom caused by these billions of dollars in the hands of US consumers.

[Dr. NO]

Nice part about OIL and GAS wells is that the pump runs on the product or bi-product. A normal Oil well is run on Natural Gas wish comes out of the well and due to the nature of the well is not used. So, you run a on cylinder engine with a big wheel and boom, cheap energy to pump out the energy.

Unfortunately at many wells, there is too much gas which is burned at the well.

[yeti]

It is amazing to me that they burn that gas off. There has to be a way to capture it - speaking stricly from a financial POV, they are literally letting money slip through their fingers.

[Bubba]

Some natural gas used to be burned off, way back when, but no longer. Natural gas is far too valuable a commodity to simply flare off as was once done. If my understanding of offshore production platforms is correct, what is flared today is simply relatively worthless byproducts that come with the processing of oil before it is pumped onshore. Onshore production of oil and gas captures whatever can be captured, including sulfur which is sold into the market separately

[XtremeJibber2001]

Because it's not as simple as the author would like you to believe.

I'm not entirely sure what this guy is talking about. He goes from coal to oil like they are interchangeable.

Anyway, just as it requires energy to get ethanol to market, the same goes for the drilling, pumping, transporting, refining of oil, and distribution of gasoline. I don't have any numbers on the costs, but the author might be a little more credible if he compared the two.

Additionally, oil involves costs you don't see at the pump, primarily seen in our military costs in the middle east. I found this article interesting:

http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section ... 11520&url=

You can read his full senate testimony here.

http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimon ... 060330.pdf

As well as in the construction of Camp Bondsteel in the Balkans, curiously close to the trans-balkan pipeline. It's the US's largest base built since the war in Vietnam.

http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/ ... p?nid=1837

Funny how the envirommentalists are ruining our economy. I'd like to see the boom caused by these billions of dollars in the hands of US consumers.

That's a crazy huge base.

After looking over the links and the authors quick little facts/assumptions ... it appears ethanol/oil are both poor solutions. Although ethanol maybe cleaner overall and maybe even slightly cheaper, neither fix the problem.

It's like we're stuck on stupid. I'd love to see someone make a car work on water or something very cheap. The problem is, many people are trying to build an engine that can produce the same amount of energy as todays cars, but running on something other than oil. Cars that used oil progessively got more powerful, but it didn't happen right out the door. Seems like there are many solutions, but no ones 'good enough' to sustain the auto life we all know and love.

[yeti]

>> It's like we're stuck on stupid. I'd love to see someone make a car work on water or something very cheap

Water is getting progrsseively more in demand by the day. It takes in incredible amount of energy to separate water into its constituate elements. Perhaps solar electrolisys on a large scale to produce hydrogen, but that will still be very expensive. Forget water, and while nice in theory forget hydrogen (takes too much energy to produce it).

As far as something other than water that is "very cheap", well, we are all ears.

Personally I think electricity is the way to go in priciple. Not so easy in practice.

Stuck on stupid indeed. In general we get power to ways - we burn fossil fuels to heat up a gas so that it expands, or we spin magnets. That is how the human ape powers it toys. Virtually every thing I can think of is one or the other, or a combination of both, That is where we are technologically speaking. I am sure the LGM would be thouroughly disgusted by us.

[ABushismaDay]

Corn shortage predicted by 2008
Posted on : Sat, 12 Aug 2006 10:08:00 GMT | Author : Darya Zarin
News Category : Environment


WASHINGTON - Analysts in United States have cautioned that unless corn planting is expanded drastically, the country could be facing corn shortage by as early as 2008.

Even as the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated the first forecast of the fall harvest of the corn crop to be at 10.98 billion bushels, which is the third biggest harvest ever, the amount of corn consumed by U.S. ethanol manufacturers, food makers and livestock feeders could well lead to the corn stockpiles being depleted within two years.


Mark McMinimy, analyst at Stanford Washington Research, said, "There's definitely need for more corn. Especially with the ethanol industry growing bigger and hungrier each year".

Analysts say that even if the Agriculture Department's prediction turns out to be right, it will only postpone the corn supply crisis by a year. They estimate that around 85 million acres of corn should be planted next year, as they would need an extra 800 million to 900 million bushels of corn in 2007.

As per the current consumption rates, analysts predict that stockpiles would go down by nearly 40 percent to 1.23 billion bushels by next fall. With the oil price increasing every week, motorists in US have been turning to ethanol, which is produced from renewable resources such as corn, sugar and soybeans. US ethanol consumes as much as 2.15 billion bushels of corn, which is about 18 percent of the total crop produced.

[RJSVermont]

So why the big push towards ethanol? Is it just because it burns cleaner?

Ethanol is merely a bunch of BS hype. Under current production standards it does not offer any cost benefit over regular gasoline as well as the fact that there is a 25% reduction in efficiency over gasoline. So basically if you have a Chevy Tahoe that gets 20mpg on regular gas, you can expect 15mpg on ethanol. Great cost savings there........

And, while ethanol does offer a reduction in some pollutants, it actually creates more hydrocarbons because ethanol has such high octane rating (~105). Ethanol is being pushed by the big American Auto manufacturers as a way to relax their CAFE requirements. Manufacturers have to maintain a certain MPG average over their entire lineup of vehicles otherwise they end up paying large sum penalties in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars. To get around this they produce thousands of "flex fuel" vehicles which can run on E85 (85% ethanol and 15% gasoline). So, for every flex fuel vehicle produced, only the gasoline portion (15%) is calculated into their MPG figures for CAFE purposes so this inherantly brings up their MPG figures across the board. Nevermind that they E85 infrastructure sucks and doesn't even exist in every state. Good luck finding an E85 filling station here in New England.


Obviously it's just another sh*t maneuver by the dolts at our fine American auto manufacturers to save money. Sure, we'll produce E85 vehicles even though 2/3rds of the country can't get E85.

Don't even get me started on hybrids...........waste of money.