HOw much impact can ethanol have? How about 50% to 55% of total fuel demand.

[JohnWxy]

The Oak Ridge Laboratory concluded that biomass could produce 30% (corrected on edit) of our total fuel requirements
(once cellulosic ethanol becomes fully exploited). It will take a couple decades for plug-in hybrids to
make much of an impact on the demand for gasoline (probably 12 to 15 years to get to 3%-3.5% of total demand - where ethanol is right now). The rate at which gasoline is rising in price will put us into a depression unless we replace
gasoline with another fuel. This does not need to be 100% replacement.

A Merril Lynch commodities strategist has said that ethanol being available has kept the price of gasoline down about 15%. This means that when gasoline hit $4.10 a gallon, without ethanol it would have been $4.70 a gallon.

This is because of something called the Demand Elasticity for gasoline. (Actually, I don't know if it would
have hit $4.70 because I think the drop in demand would have been enough to stop it before it got that
high. But I think we would have been going into a depression as a result (probably around $4.40 - $4.50
would have been enough to do it.) Ethanol is needed to hold down the price of gasoline so we do not go
into a depression before the plug-ins and fuel cells can be widely adopted.

Getting back to how much ethanol is needed to have a given impact, ethanol is a high octane fuel
(113 vs high test gas at 92-93) and as such, can be used in highly pressurized engines (using turbo-
charging or super-charging). Ford has formed a company with three MIT scientists who designed an
ethanol enabled direct injection engine which achieves 25% to 30% better gas mileage while only using only 5% ethanol with 95% gasoline. This is possible because the engine produces so much power it can be downsized about 50%.
Plus this engine can be made for $600 to $1,000 more than a typical ICE engine currently being
used in cars now. Ford expects to introduce this engine in 2010.


Note: If all the cars and light trucks on the road were using this engine we could achieve 25% to 30% reduction in total gasoline demand WITH A QUANTITY OF ETHANOL EQUALLING ONLY 5% OF THE TOTAL FUEL SUPPLY.

We should be producing that much ethanol in 2 years or less - just in time for the ethanol direct injection engines introduction!

Note that GM has started talks with Ford about sharing engines. GM needs something to
sustain adequate sales until the Volt starts selling 'in numbers' and bringing in cash. I think GM would like to
get its hands on Ford's ecoBoost Engine (that's what they call the ethanol enabled direct injection engine).

from the article about the direct injection ethanol enabled engine:

"To actually affect oil consumption, we need to have people want to buy our engine, so our work also
emphasizes keeping down the added cost and minimizing any inconvenience to the driver."
- Daniel Cohn, MIT senior research scientist and CEO of EBS


Now if the Oak Ridge Laboratory is right and we can produce 30% (corrected on edit) of our fuel requirements from biomass
and 5% (as a percent of the total fuel requirement) went to use as E85 in the direct injection engine then
25% (as a % of the total fuel requirement) would be available for blending with the gasoline. That would
result in 25% - 30% gas savings by using the direct injection engine plus 25% savings by blending the rest
of the ethanol with gasoline for a total gasoline demand reduction of 50% to 55%.


NOTe I checked to article re Oak Ridge estimate - ORL said we could produce 1/3rd of our CURRENT requirements and 30% of future requirements. see http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?releasenumber=mr20050421-01

I shouldn't work on memory - not reliable. sorry. total savings then would be 50% -55%__JW

[Radical Activist]

1. Cellulosic ethanol isn't ready yet. Hybrids are.

I'm really tired of the coal, oil and agribusiness industries all promoting their polluting products as cleaner "transition" energy sources. Almost without fail their alternative isn't developed yet but a greener alternative (like hybrids or wind power) are ready right now.

Corn is in most of our food. Do you want to explain to the public that they're food bills are going to double so that we can pursue a false solution to high gas prices?

[JohnWxy]

3. NOte I said "PLUG-IN HYBRIDS" ethanol currently is saving much more gas than hybrids are but I

encourage anyone who wants to buy a hybrid to do so. It's just not everybody can afford them.

[JohnWxy]

6. Hybrids just passed 3% market share. current hybrids, depending on how they are driven

achieve approx (I admit this is a very rough est.) 25% to 33% gasoline savings. I don't know what the number of hybrids are as a % of total cars on the road but it's certainly less than 3%.

anyway that's going to be much less than the 3+% that ethanol saves us in gasoline each year.

[Radical Activist]

8. That's because consumer choice is limited.

Put more hybrids up for sale and they'll reach far more than 3% much more quickly (especially now with high gas prices) than we can develop cellulocic ethanol and spend billions on new pipelines to ship it in. I find it odd that you're so optimistic about the potential of ethanol use to grow rapidly but assume that hybrids will stay at 3%.

[mike_c]

2. offhand, I'm sceptical of that claim...

...but I should hasten to add that I haven't read the ORNL report so I can't comment on their estimate or their assumptions. My skepticism stems from Jeffrey Dukes 2003 paper estimating that the annual global fossil fuel energy budget is "more than 400 times the net primary productivity of the planet’s current biota.” Assuming that ratio holds for the U.S. (which is a conservative assumption, IMO) suggests off the cuff that if the ORNL estimate is true, that means that 1/3 of our "fuel requirement" is still greater than 100 percent of the energy captured by ALL of the biomass in the U.S.

Dukes, J. S. 2003. Burning Buried Sunshine: Human Consumption Of Ancient Solar Energy. Climatic Change 61: 31-44

[JohnWxy]

4. Off-hand I would be very disinclined to think the boys at ORL would be that far off.

I wonder if DUkes is considering all the cellulose produced by the biota or if he was just considring the edible (to humans) content.

[mike_c]

5. no, Duke's paper compared fossil fuel use...

...to TOTAL annual global NPP estimates. As for the folks at ORNL, the national labs do have multiple agendas, one of which is to make politicians happy. Lots of sanitized products come out of national labs-- not saying that's the case here, of course, since I haven't read the report, just that all such claims should be approached with healthy skepticism.

[JohnWxy]

9. thanks for the tip but I reserve even healthier skepticism for sweeping and unsupported

generalizations of entire organizations and not based on examination of the document in question. In the three years since the report was published I haven't heard of any substantive criticism (from recognized and knowledgeable sources) of the study.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=167155&mesg_id=167180


Just for grins lets rule out whatever amount of ethanol can be made from cellulosic sources - just considering that ethanol in the amount of 5% of the total fuel supply can achieve 25% to 30% savings of the total fuel demand - if the ethanol direct injection engine were used in every car is quite significant. Ford has built a prototype to test the MIT researchers claims (based on computer madels) and the prototype bore out the models predictions. Ford is committed to building this engine (i.e. hundreds of millions of dollars ). They wouldn't do that unless they planned o selling enough of tthem to recover their investment and then some. It's also significant that this engine will only cost a few hundreds of dollars more than a regular conventional ICE rather than the thousnds of dollars for a plug-in hybrid. This is important because it means the technology can be adapted faster. and gentlemen, time is of the essence here.

This is NOT a competition. We need to adopt any and all technologies that will help save the economy as well as help save the earth. If we drop into a depression it will take much longer to adopt the plug-in hybrids and that would not be good. Using ethanol now will preclude going into depression and help the quicker adoption of plug-in and fuel cell technologies.



THe full ORL report can be read (if anyone is willing to take the time) here: http://feedstockreview.ornl.gov/pdf/billion_ton_vision....


ON edit: I will take a look at dukes paper, thanks for the reference.__JW

[JohnWxy]

10. after a quick look at the abstract it's clear duke is talking about the entire fuel usage for all

purposes. I am talking in OP about only fuel needs for transportation. BIG difference. would you not agree?

[mike_c]

11. absolutely-- and I think one of the key ORNL assumptions might have to do...

...with the proportion of that total energy budget that transportation accounts for, both globally and in the U.S. No matter how you slice it, however, Duke's numbers are pretty discouraging.

[JohnWxy]

12. In other words there is nothing that can be pointed to that is wrong with the ORNL study or that

could allow you to say their conclusion is wrong that 30% of fuel requirements for transportation in the U.S. could be met by biomass sources.

[JohnWxy]

7. I reserve even healthier skepticism of criticism based on a sweeping & unsupported generalizations

of an entire organization and not based on examination of the document in question. THe report can be read (if anyone is willing to take the time) here: http://feedstockreview.ornl.gov/pdf/billion_ton_vision.pdf

I appreciate the advice but in the three years since the report was published I haven't heard of any substantive criticism (from recognized and knowledgeable sources) of the study.


Just for grins lets rule out whatever amount of ethanol can be made from cellulosic sources - just considering that ethanol in the amount of 5% of the total fuel supply can achieve 25% to 30% savings of the total fuel demand - if the ethanol direct injection engine were used in every car is quite significant. Ford has built a prototype to test the MIT researchers claims (based on computer madels) and the prototype bore out the models predictions. Ford is committed to building this engine (i.e. hundreds of millions of dollars ). They wouldn't do that unless they planned o selling enough of tthem to recover their investment and then some. It's also significant that this engine will only cost a few hundreds of dollars more than a regular conventional ICE rather than the thousnds of dollars for a plug-in hybrid. This is important because it means the technology can be adapted faster. and gentlemen, time is of the essence here.

This is NOT a competition. We need to adopt any and all technologies that will help save the economy as well as help save the earth. If we drop into a depression it will take much longer to adopt the plug-in hybrids and that would not be good. Using ethanol now will preclude going into depression and help the quicker adoption of plug-in and fuel cell technologies.