How useful is ethanol?

[Deja Q]

Govn'r Pawlenety wants the amount of ethanol in gas doubled within a few years (heard on TV, no link).

What are the benefits to ethanol and who will benefit from this push?

Thx!

[slutticus]

1. here's a good link...

... http://www.greenfuels.org/ethaques.html

[Jacobin]

2. saves gasoline helps farmers

what's wrong with that?

[Deja Q]

4. Links with included points - iron pyrite, anyone?

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/053103_aspo.html

He was particularly critical of ethanol stating that it was not energy efficient.


French presenters confirmed that ethanol was only viable in France due to a three hundred per cent government subsidy to farmers. Otherwise it was a net energy waster.

http://www.uforia-research.com/savinar2.htm

You're forgetting about biomass and ethanol. Can't we just grow our fuel?


In an article entitled The Post Petroleum Paradigm , retired Professor of Geology at the University of Oregon, Dr. Walter Youngquist addresses the severe limitations of biomass and ethanol. The following is an excerpt from that article:Oil derived from plants is sometimes promoted as a fuel source to replace petroleum. The facts and experience with ethanol are an example. Ethanol is a plant-derived alcohol (usually from corn) which is used today, chiefly in the form of gasohol, a mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline. Because it is used to some extent,it is commonly thought that ethanol is a partially acceptable solution to the fuel problem for machines. However, ethanol is an energy negative - it takes more energy to produce it than is obtained from ethanol. Ethanol production is wasteful of fossil energy resources. About 71% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy contained in a gallon of ethanol. Ethanol production survives by the grace of a subsidy by the U.S. government from taxpayer dollars. Continuing the production of ethanol is purely a device for buying the Midwest U.S. farm vote, and may also be related to the fact that the company which makes 60% of U.S. ethanol is also one of the largest contributors of campaign money to the Congress - a distressing example of politics overriding logic. Some enterprising individuals have converted their vehicles to run on vegetable oil discarded by fast food restaurants. I encourage everybody to consider doing this. However, it is not a "magic bullet" to our problem as there is simply not enough vegetable oil in the world to power more than a relatively small number of vehicles.

[wuushew]

6. No ethanol is energy positive

barely it comes positive over the entire manufacturing process. Even if it wasn't positive I am more than happy to make up the energy shortfall with domestic energy sources. Petro dollars that are currently flowing into the middle east would stay here plus we would be developing a renewable fuel resource alternative to rapidly vanishing oil. If we go to hemp the energy return could be as high as 2-3:1.



"Estimating the Net Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol", by Hosein Shapouri et al., US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Office of Energy and New Uses, Agricultural Economic Report No. 721, July 1995 -- "Studies conducted since the late 1970s have estimated the net energy value of corn ethanol. However, variations in data and assumptions used among the studies have resulted in a wide range of estimates. This study identifies the factors causing this wide variation and develops a more consistent estimate... We show that corn ethanol is energy efficient as indicated by an energy ratio of 1.24."
http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm





http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html

[Deja Q]

12. See #11. We're swapping a bullet for a noose. And, about hemp,

it's illegal and do you really think anybody will make it legal as a means to resolve the energy problem? (let alone space to grow it in?) Not to mention that hemp is not controlled and not as likely to make as big of a profit as oil?

Everything, as usual, goes right back to MONEY (though we need to get off oil.)

[slutticus]

7. Ummmmm...

...if ethanol is produced from biomass, the energy to produce it comes from the sun. How is this wasteful to fossil energy resources?

And by the way, the statement "it takes more energy to produce it than is obtained from ethanol." is absolutely laughable. Any product that would contain more energy than it took to produce it would be a violation of the laws of thermodynamics.

Good grief

[Deja Q]

11. Petrochemical fertilizers? And the means to mass-plant the seeds? And

Fertilizers often include petroleum products. Lots of gas-guzzling tractors plant seeds, not a city's population worth of slaves.

As oil gets more expensive, you can bet it'll cost more to grow what we need for energy, never mind the problem of food, land to grow food on, and an increasing population.

Ethanol hardly is a solution.

Good grief is too right. But I'm not in the wrong. (and WCCO Channel 4 news just did a big pro-Pawlenty article that's going to make him look good WHILE at the same time feeding the viewers disinformation.)

[wuushew]

16. Excessive fertillizers are not needed

The Sierra Club in the US has a different objection to ethanol. They see the whole issue as clouded by the high levels of nitrogen fertilisers used to grow the maize, and the terrific eco-damage the N-runoff causes. But that's an objection to US factory farming, not to ethanol. In a more rational system there's no need for nitrogen fertilisers, and no loss of yield through not using them.


One 15-year study found that organic farming is not only kinder to the environment than "conventional", intensive agriculture but has comparable yields of both products and profits. The study showed that yields of organic maize are identical to yields of maize grown with fertilisers and pesticides, while soil quality in the organic fields dramatically improves. (Drinkwater, L.E., Wagoner, P. & Sarrantonio, M. Legume-based cropping systems have reduced carbon and nitrogen losses. Nature 396, 262–265.)

http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. The plants don't just leak ethanol into waiting containers

the land has to be cultivated, including applying fertilizers, and the fermentation and distillation process gone through. This all needs fuel.

Yes, that statement isn't good; it outght to say something like 'it takes more useful chemical energy to produce it than is obtained from ethanol'. It still might be economically viable, because being a room temperature liquid, it is a very good transport fuel. At times, it might be worth exchanging 2 joules of energy from wood for one in ethanol.

[htuttle]

8. You're thinking about this all wrong. NOTHING can replace petroleum

Petroleum represents the solar energy collected by a few million years of plant life. We will never find a resource that shares petroleum's characteristics on Earth ever again.

What's so cool about petroleum? It's concentrated, therefore compact and easily transportable. When you first find a well, it gives off a LOT more energy than it takes to extract it. That's that million years of vegetable 'work' you're drawing on.

There is nothing, NOTHING that can replace oil right now, so we have to think differently about all this.

We have various 'point' sources of energy, like hydro and thermal that can serve some purposes. We have other dispersed sources of energy, like wind and solar, that can serve other purposes. All produce electrical energy, but also take a fair amount of time to pay off their energy cost of production.

What cool about Ethanol? You can transport it just like gasoline. It can hold almost as much energy by weight as petroleum. Ethanol can also burn in most modern engines with minor modifications (and bio-diesel can with no modifications to a diesel engine). Those are the characteristics that make biomass fuels valuable.

As far as the energy return on investment of ethanol, it has a lot to do with how you produce it, don't you think? If you produce ethanol using fairly low-tech methods like with an ox and plow and a still out back (as we will find ourselves after our friggin petro-civilization collapses), you can't tell me it isn't worthwhile to make bio-mass fuel.

Modern farming practices are driven by economics, not energy return on investment. If it costs a lot more energy but only a little more money (like for petro fertilizer) to make only a little more ethanol, farmers nowdays will probably do it, since they worry about dollars, not calories. If the economics of farming change, as they will as petro-fertilizers become more expensive, then farming practices will change (and the EROI of ethanol will change).

Bio-mass fuel is about the only low-tech 'solar' energy we have available (unless you're handy enough to build a windmill). I think low tech is good because it means a smaller initial energy investment, not because I'm a luddite. :)

Finally, it is very likely that in the future there will have to be a much smaller number of vehicles driving around.

Just saying...

[htuttle]

3. Farmers will benefit

But it will probably be mostly agri-corporate farmers, like ADM. Smaller farmers *could* benefit too, however.

I think ethanol blends burn cleaner (less sulfer and impurities, cause the ethanol doesn't have any), produce less smog, less acid rain, etc...

And of course, the more ethanol produced and consumed commercially, the bigger the market for it becomes. The bigger the market, the more who'll produce it, and the cheaper it gets.

For a post-petroleum world, ethanol can't be the only answer, but it can easily be ONE of many answers to the problem of energy production.

[Deja Q]

5. See my other post. Ethanol works only because of gov't subsidies

And ADM, "supermarket of the world" as they like to call themselves, and billionaires as they are, get HUGE subsidies.

Ethanol is a joke. The repukes know this.

[OneTwentyoNine]

10. Because so few vehicles can use it.....

They sell E-85 at a station a few miles from here,they have a brochure with a list of vehicles that will take that type of fuel. Its a joke,there aren't more than 15-20,my wife's company mini-van isn't on the list and there's millions of those on the road today.

If pure gasoline would only work in 20 types of vehicles there would be tremendous subsidies paid for that fuel also. Hell,there probably is anyway...

David

[Deja Q]

14. Let's suppose 30 or 50% ethanol in gas becomes a cheap reality... (LOL)

which is Pawloopy's goal.

How will the masses be able to AFFORD the new cars when the mandate is made? Or hybrid? As our current cars can't use that much ethanol, the cars become worthless. Just like leaded cars did in the 1980s.

Costs have got to come down BIG-TIME. And they can't. Not until research costs are made up (though at the rate researchers halfway across the world get paid, this shouldn't take too long, yeah right) will costs ever become remotely effective.

[JVS]

9. Helps get money to farmers

Who then vote Republican to stop Big Government from taxing them on it. Ain't it grand?

[OxQQme]

13. un-efficient

If memory serves correctly, it take 30-40% more alcohol to do the same work as gasoline in an un-modified engine. This can be improved by raising the engine's internal compression ratio and advancing the point of ignition (maybe getting it down to 25-30%) but then gasoline is un-useable as it would ping and rattle and destroy the engine. Another factor un-stated is the corrosive qualities of alcohol. Indy race cars burn 100% alcohol during the race, but it must be drained and flushed from the entire fueling system to prevent it from 'eating' the aluminum and rubber components. Another is it's invisibility while on fire, that seems likely to have detrimental effects in a crash scenario that happens on streets and highways.

[Deja Q]

15. Welcome to DU, and that's a great post too!

:yourock:

Thanks much for the edification.

[jmowreader]

18. Ignition advance can be dealt with in a modern engine

All current engine management systems contain knock sensors.

It seems that advancing the timing a LOT is an important smog-control system, but if you advance it too much for the fuel you're running, you wind up putting holes in the piston tops and bending connecting rods. Enter the knock sensor, which is a microphone (or microphones--the Porsche Boxster has one per cylinder) attached to the engine. If it hears detonation it retards the timing until the detonation ceases.

Also, racers burn methanol, not ethanol. Methanol is far more corrosive than ethanol. Oh, and you'll love the "flush" procedure: plug your laptop into the chassis data connector, put five gallons of gas in the car, change the ignition system's timing curve from "methanol" to "gasoline" with the laptop, and start the engine.

Alcohol is also hygroscopic--it absorbs water from the air. The more water you have in your alcohol, the fewer BTUs per gallon of fuel and the worse your car runs. As a blend component, alcohol's hygroscopic nature is a benefit; all gas has water in it, and the alcohol keeps it from being a problem. (Everyone who lives in the north has seen "gas line antifreeze" at auto parts stores. It's just alcohol.)

Ethanol is most useful as a blend component--it is a great additive, makes the engine nice and sparkly clean inside, helps absorb water which can foul gasoline, cuts down on some kinds of pollution, and it keeps Archer Daniels Midland out of the oil business. As a pure fuel it's terrible.

[Massacure]

19. NASCAR uses Methanol not Ethanol.

Ethnaol is the same alcohol humans drink. Methanol would make you go blind and make you stupid if it didn't kill you all together.