fuel ethanol, factor of ten gain, in liquid energy content

[rfkrfk]

consider this brief report fron Argonne Nation lab
http://www.ncga.com/public_policy/PDF/03_28_05ArgonneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf#search='ethanol%20btu'

look at the right side of the top graph on page 2.
the amount of petroleum energy needed to produce one BTU of ethanol energy,
is 0.1 BTU, or less.

Very impresive.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. a savings of almost 500,000 - that is awesome.

[rfkrfk]

5. ???

[ChairmanAgnostic]

16. the BTUs to make gas 1.27; to make ethanol .7 - the diff is 500,000

depending on your scale.

[rfkrfk]

18. post is about the gain in liquid fuel, about a factor of ten

other lower cost non-liquid fuels are involved

for example coal, natural gas are readily available
in the US, or maybe 'were' available pre-hurricanes

math check,
where does 500 thousand, come from?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

19. my looking at the data and being foolish about what I wrote.

[Laelth]

2. tomorrow's "cellulosic" ethanol?

DOE is speculating about something that it hopes will be invented? Is there any evidence that this mythic "cellulosic" ethanol will ever be produced?

I thought I read, somewhere, that if every, single acre of arable land in the U.S. were converted to production of fuel-producing plants we still couldn't produce the 20 million barrels/day of fossil-based fuel that we consume in the U.S. Forget about increasing global demand. Forget about food production. Even if we used all our land for fuel production, it wouldn't be enough.

Our whole, national lifestyle has to change (and it will, whether we like it or not). We will have to learn to consume a lot less energy.

-Laelth

[BlueEyedSon]

3. ethanol is about 1 to a little over 1 ERoEI

[rfkrfk]

4. who cares?, ethanol --> ten to one gain, in liquid fuel

might be a good use for 'standed' natural gas

[rfkrfk]

6. dupe

[BlueEyedSon]

7. You clearly don't understand what I wrote.

[rfkrfk]

8. most things are less than unity

at least ethanol is better than unity

[BlueEyedSon]

10. Oil is 10 to 30 ERoEI. Ethanol is about unity in terms of fossil fuel/

petrochemical input. If your car goes 10 miles on the ethanol and 9 miles on the gasoline, maybe it's smarter to work on hybrids, engine efficiency and/or public transport.

[rfkrfk]

12. only if you ignore, the most important issue, the input

is 'one' equal to 'seven'?

I guess it is if you ignore most of the seven

[BlueEyedSon]

9. Here is a citation for ya

Even a small positive EROEI, if obtainable, is not a solution because fossil fuels on the whole return many times the energy invested, not just a fraction. That's why we use them.

Ethanol is another case in point. Some research has shown a negative EROEI for ethanol. Newer research from Oregon shows a slightly positive return. Ethanol is, at best, a slightly beneficial temporary alternative - not a substitute.

Claims that cars can run on vegetable oil never take into account the amount of energy necessary to generate the vegetable oil (farming, vegetable transport, extraction, etc.).

Devices that recycle plastic into oil don't mention the fact that plastic is oil, and that a great deal of energy was used to make it into plastic in the first place.

Similarly, the new technology of thermal depolymerization is not a legitimate alternative energy source. This process transforms carbon-based wastes back into hydrocarbon fuel. This technology is useful, and may help us on the downside of the Hubbert curve, but it will never replace fossil fuels. Why? Because the wastes were produced by the use of fossil fuels.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html

or google it: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ethanol+eroei&btnG=Google+Search (~10k results)

[rfkrfk]

11. you have to start somewhere

what do suggest.

that gasoline, less than unity,
is better than ethanol, which is more than unity?


for each gallon of petroleum products used,
about 13 gallons of ethanol is produced,
when correcting for energy content bu volume,
that is ten gallons of equivailent petroleum.

[BlueEyedSon]

13. Gasoline is not less than unity, WTF are you talking about?

No one in the world would waste their time pulling it up out of the ground if it took more that a barrel to pull up one barrel.

If fossil fuel ERoEI was <1, the Sheiks of Arabia would be dumping money into their wells instead of sucking money (and a lot of it) out!

[rfkrfk]

14. where do you think gasoline comes from?

It coms from 'crude oil - petroleum'

petroleum has --> energy

if you ignore the input, you end up with any
meaningless number you want.

[BlueEyedSon]

15. You have to look at the whole cycle of extraction/production,

not just one (i.e. the last) phase.

[BlueEyedSon]

17. If I start with an empty tank and fill up at Exxon, my return is infinite.

After, all I started from zero energy.....

[4dsc]

20. BTU is a bad measurement tool

I forgot where I read but comparing BTU difference or measuring ethanol in BTU terms is not a very way of comparing ethanol to oil.. The method is a bad one and I wish I could find that information..

Corn based ethanol is a waste of resources and food!!