damage from ethanol?

[gfretwell]

You would be a lot better using that nuke plant to simply supply electricity. It is a more efficient way to distribute the energy.

[gfretwell]

It usually comes from natural gas, which is a pretty good fuel, just the way it comes out of the ground.

[Robert Gammon]

Energy use is in several forms, not all of which can be met with wires that carry electricity.

Petrochemicals (oil related, ethanol) are easily transportable, have high energy density, and allow things like cars, truck, trains and airplanes to run. A viable alternative MAY be hydrogen, if we can figure out how to generate, store, and transport it safely and cost effectively

Electricity can be generated using many source fuels, falling water, coal, petrochemicals, nuclear to name the most popular. Electrical generation of hydrogen is possible, but at what cost?????

[Bob]

Thanks for the references. Good reading.

Bob

[HarryS]

Talk to someone who's invested in a fuel ethanol plant. Ask them what kind of profits the plant is generating. Even if you tax the fuel ethanol the same as you tax gasoline, it can be produced at a considerably lower cost than gasoline can be produced and marketed from $50 crude, let alone $70 crude.

Brazil will have a hard time making inroads into the fuel ethanol markets in the interior parts of the U.S. because of transportation costs. They can have an impact near the costal areas. Most of the fuel ethanol in the U.S. is produced in the Midwest, the corn belt. The further you have to transport from the Midwest, the less competitive it becomes. California, for example, imports a lot of fuel ethanol at relatively high cost, primarily because of the environmental benefits of mixing it with gasoline and the fact that they don't have the right crops to produce it themselves.

The oil companies do not favor fuel ethanol (or any other bio-fuel, for that matter). I wonder why, although I suspect I already know the answer. The oil industry has been consolidating for a number of years. They've managed to reduce the number of refineries to the point that they just have enough refinery capacity to meet current demand (note what happened to gasoline prices when Katrina took refinery capacity off line). Any large scale fuel ethanol production will upset their delicate balance and bring more competition to the oil industry. Obviously, not something they want to see, considering the amounts of profits they are enjoying under the current conditions.

For now, corn is the most feasible material to use for fuel ethanol production in this country. And, by the way, the corn is not lost as an animal feed just because it's been used to produce fuel ethanol. The primary byproduct of a fuel ethanol plant is a dried distillers grain, which is a high protein animal feed. A lot of work is being done to develop processes to economically produce fuel ethanol from biomass/cellulose, i.e., sawdust and such. If that happens (and it will eventually), watch what fuel ethanol does. Coal fired fuel ethanol plants that meet all environmental requirements are being built today. If crude prices stay above $35 dollars a barrel, the fuel ethanol plants will do fine. We need to let the marketplace decide if fuel ethanol is feasible.

Harry

[Rich256]

Agree. However, I would like to see a current valid study that shows that ethanol can be produced for those low prices. So many that I see are quite old and it seems to me that most are just reporters making guesses. Since ethanol must be shipped by rail it presently becomes very expensive in many parts of the country.

[Michael Daly]

These "experts" are dumb enough to think you should produce a fuel from an expensive crop. Don't be lead by the most short-sighted nay-sayers.

These experts, OTOH, realize that there's a better way to do things. I've been following this approach for a while, but figure there may be problems with the US accepting it, since many of the patents and such are not American - NIH syndrome could kick in. I was surprised to hear Bush advocate for it recently.

BTW - ethanol will provide more oxygen to the gas mix and will result in a cleaner, more efficient fuel that plain gas. However, if you get above a certain limit (10%? I forget) the extra ethanol burns a tad less energetically.

If you want to burn ethanol in an internal cumbustion engine, you should ideally make a few changes. Volkswagen, for example, sells a conversion kit for their gas engines to convert to very high ethanol fuels. I'm not sure exactly what the changes are (valve timing? injector widgets? air/fuel mix?). You can't blindly take an engine optimized for gas and run it on pure ethanol and expect it to work perfectly.

Take an Atkinson cycle engine optimized for ethanol, add hybrid technology and give up on the ridiculously huge vehicles chosen by your penis envy and the dependence on foreign energy can be reduced considerably.

Forget hydrogen - it's a scam.

Mike

[Michael Daly]

Batteries can store and transport electrical energy safely and have been doing that for a long time. We are now seeing advanced battery technology - e.g. lithium that can be recharged in a few minutes - and the technology can be improved further.

So - why do we need hydrogen? Batteries can return a huge percentage of the energy you put into them.. PEM fuel cells _might_ hit 50% efficiency sometime in the next decade.

We don't need hydrogen. The hydrogen economy is a scam.

Mike

[Michael Daly]

Before you get all hot and bothered about the use of solar hydrogen, or any other solar energy source (including ethanol), consider how many acres of land you need to use to capture the amount of energy currently being used (and mostly wasted) with petroleum. Solar is limited by how much land we are willing to convert to energy production. Realistically, none of these technologies to reduce oil dependency will work unless people stop wasting so much energy. You don't need a 6000lb truck to take the kids to soccer practice.

Mike

[ds549]

i find alot of chainsaws and weedwackers wont restart when hot because the ethenol/gas boils and wont pump... let em cool and they start and run fine. lucas

[Mys Terry]

i find alot of chainsaws and weedwackers wont restart when hot because the ethenol/gas boils and wont pump... let em cool and they start and run fine. lucas

[Rich256]

The last one In retrospect dumping the salt OUT OF the bags into wheel barrow ( clean) spreading around the pool with shovel might of been a better idea, to bad I didn't think of that.

[gfretwell]

Ethanol is 200 proiof vodka How cheap could it be? I certainly don't expect the taxes to be much less.

[gfretwell]

Wise words. I am rethinking electric cars. If you don't drive that far it is a viable option. The problem is we are only moving the "gasoline" problem to the electrical grid. Same shit, different smoke stack.

[gfretwell]

And the cost of the "plant". Bear in mind most "sunny" places also have exciting weather. I had 2 hits and 4 close misses from hurricanes in 2 years. My solar took a beating and it is low tech stuff. Glad I didn't have a hundred grand on my roof.

[gfretwell]

How will you fund the "Ponzi" social programs that are based on exporential worker growth? (Social Security in the US or the policy in most of western Europe) It is going to take a lot of new workers to make our government's promises come true.

[Rich256]

Great point!! The road tax is a lot less than liquor tax. And imagine all the bootleggers driving down the road, perfectly legal with a tank full of liquor. Only when they dump it and drink it can they get in trouble.

[Dan Espen]

The short term lack of workers will lead to a long term solution to many problems.

The idea that we can just keep growing without limit is the real Ponzi scheme.

[trainfan1]

It seems most estimates come in the range of it taking 3/4 to 1.25 (sometimes up to 3)gallons of gas or diesel to produce a gallon of ethanol, & the most favorable studies show it a wash AT BEST.

THEN you have to figure in the lower energy of ethanol on top of that... a 28 mpg(on gas - highway) Taurus(Taurus FFV - the ones with the little green leaf front fender badges) becomes something like 20 mpg on E85(15% gas, 85% ethanol).

It's been a while since I've done it, but you can do a web search for "E85 Taurus" to get some of the empirical data from these tests.

Rob

[HarryS]

I wonder if the OP (mm) expected all this when he asked his question :-)

Harry