Ethanol: A second Bush catastrophe?

A link would be nice.

And rather than copying and pasteing the entire article (copyright violation) just a paragraph or two. Or a summary.

 

The best article I have read on ethanol production is in the January 2007 issue of Scientific American. Pages 42-49. Title: "Is Ethanol for the Long Haul?"

Keith

 

Thanks.

Couldn't find it and need to leave link on another forum.

 

The only alcohol that stands a chance as a fuel substitute for gasoline is butanol. If these guys can get a commercial cellulosic-based production system going, we can stop burning the seed-corn. Ethanol is for drinking...

 

I believe that ethanol can be part of a plan to replace fossil fuels. It is not the miracle solution that Bush has presented in his State of the Union speech. If we simply try to replace gasoline with ethanol and keep our transportation system the same than no, it’s not a solution.

We need sidewalks so that we can walk places
We need EV’s and public transportation for local travel
We need a national rail system for long distance travel
We need to live close to where we work and shop.
We need to transport goods via rail and river instead of truck and air.
We need modestly sized, energy efficient houses that are super insulated and orientated for solar gain.
In general we need to treat energy as a limited resource

I’m not concerned about displacing food crops for ethanol production. First, 80% of the corn grown in the United States is used to feed livestock. And meat is a very inefficient way to get protein. It takes 200 lbs of corn to get 1 pound of beef. The average American consumes twice the daily recommend amount of protein per day. If we simply ate better, not only would we be healthier but we would also have surplus of available land for biofuels. But of course we wouldn’t have $1 cheeseburgers at McDonalds.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Jan 30 2007, 05:46 AM) [snapback]382743[/snapback]</div>

Yep. Our transportation system is designed (maybe not on purpose, but at least for profit) to be wasteful.

I found it interesting that in Europe (at least in Germany), families put their car on rail to travel to a vacation location. But then, at least Germany has a rail system that is economical to the users, and virtually always arrives at the destination as scheduled. No transportation system of any kind in the U.S. can even get close.

Dave M.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Jan 30 2007, 08:46 AM) [snapback]382743[/snapback]</div>

Why?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jan 30 2007, 10:19 AM) [snapback]382775[/snapback]</div>

second law of thermodynamics (entropy) The energy available after a chemical reaction is less than that at the beginning of a reaction; energy conversions are not 100% efficient. In effect, energy is finite.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jan 30 2007, 10:19 AM) [snapback]382775[/snapback]</div>

Since he put it better than I can, I’ll use a quote from Paul Roberts, the author of “The End of Oilâ€.

“Worldwide, energy use is extremely uneven. Americans and Europeans, for example, use great amounts of energy, while most of the rest of the world uses very little. Some two billion people lack access to electricity, and hundreds of millions enjoy only modest energy services. If these people are to attain anything approaching a Western standard of living — and there is no reason to believe they won't try — world energy demand will soar far beyond the capacity of any current energy technology. Imagine China with two cars in every garage. Where will they get the fuel? And what will it mean for energy geopolitics, or for pollution, or climate?

To be sure, we can count on help from new fuels and new technologies. In fact, I expect that the next energy economy will actually be a hybrid of sorts — a broad portfolio of new energy technologies that will probably include wind power, solar, fuel cells, clean coal, and perhaps even nuclear energy, if safety and proliferation issues can be addressed, plus some energy technologies we can't even imagine right now. But despite such technological breakthroughs, we may well have to confront the fact that at some point innovation may not be enough. We may simply have to use less energy than we use now — and, perhaps, adjust our lifestyles accordingly. This would be a slap in the face for many Western countries, especially America, which for more than a century has been able to count on an ever-expanding supply of energy to meet its ever-expanding demand.â€

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bill Merchant @ Jan 30 2007, 01:00 AM) [snapback]382696[/snapback]</div>

I answered yes to the poll, but that comes with a caveat - cellulosic ethanol is needed as a fuel replacement. Ethanol from fermented corn (or sugar-cane or other sugar-based fermentation) will at best be able to supply us with E10 (10% ethanol), because of the limitation of corn production. But cellulosic ethanol can be made from wood chips & detritus, corn stalks, switch grass, etc.

Another problem with ethanol is that the current process is very thirsty - the slurry left over is sold to feed lots, but they don't recover the water. So all these new plants are pulling down the local water tables. I'm sure they're working on that however. They did recently come up with apparently a viable method to produce biodiesel with the feedstock after the ethanol was produced. Lots of research can still be done, and I see it as our only viable option going forward. Petroleum is very efficient, but comes with too many problems to expect to continue using it in the decades to come.

I glanced at the butanol page. I didn't see the advantage, but I didn't spend a lot of time on it. However, it's currently mostly made from petroleum, and has more carbon than ethanol. If it's made from plant material, then it's carbon neutral, same as ethanol. No engine conversions are needed, so that's a positive, but not a huge one in my mind (the conversions for E85 are pretty cheap).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jan 30 2007, 10:19 AM) [snapback]382775[/snapback]</div>

'Cause the way we're squandering and exploiting natural resources is pissing off lots of people, and we can't simply don't have the budget to kill off everyone who's not sympatico with our country and our culture.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dmckinstry @ Jan 30 2007, 09:57 AM) [snapback]382768[/snapback]</div>

Believe it or not, Amtrak still has a car train from DC to Orlando Florida. You ride in a sleeper car, you car rides on the train with you. I think that's the only one in America. I looked into it last year, and I seem to recall that it would have cost about twice as much as flying to Florida and renting a car. I may yet give it a try just to let my kids experience riding on a train, but it's pretty much a luxury-priced service here.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Jan 30 2007, 08:46 AM) [snapback]382743[/snapback]</div>

Item 5 in the URL below is something of an eye-opener. Converting the entire US corn crop to ethanol woudl displace at best 12 percent of gasoline consumption. This is a citation from an apparently serious study that said that if we converted the entire US corn crop to ethanol, and simply ignored the fossil fuels required to produce that corn, then we would displace 12 percent of total gasoline consumption. If we netted out the fossil fuels needed to produce the ethanol, the net impact of converting the entire corn harvest to ethanol would be to displace under 3 percent of total gasoline consumption.

I just did a quick back-of-the-envelope based on 11B bushels of corn and arrived at displacing 18% of US gasoline use. That's in the same ballpark.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jmccord @ Jan 30 2007, 12:28 PM) [snapback]382646[/snapback]</div>

Not all ethanols are equal, environmentally. Corn ethanol is only marginally better than gasoline given that petroleum or coal or both are used in its production. Corn ethanol is mostly a sap to farmers in the midwest and unfortunately, problems associated with its production and subsidies have painted all ethanol with a wide brush of misconception.

In a recent program on NPR, bio engineers and environmentalists discussed ethanol. There are ethanol technologies that are definitely eco-friendly and provide a serious reduction in green house gasses. I'm not an expert and am only rehashing what I remember from the radio interviews. I do remember hearing that there are closed systems of ethanol production using energy derived from animal and vegetable waste to process vegetable matter, i.e. plant stalks and other thick cell walled plant material (cellulistic ethanol).

Sadly, in the rush for ethanol production, we are building corn ethanol plants when there are other sources for ethanol that are way more efficient and cost productive.

Bob

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Jan 30 2007, 03:40 PM) [snapback]382961[/snapback]</div>

This is the real catch to using rail versus airplane/car for travel. I suspect that a lot of people would live with the increased travel time and use rail as a means of getting from one place to another but the cost is exceptionally prohibitive when compared to plane/car. As the example above points out, who in their right mind would spend twice as much to fly/rent as opposed to using rail?

Still, one wonders what economic forces are behind this kind of situation. Say, for example, that using a car-train actually became an economically viable alternative to flying/renting. What impact would this have on the domestic auto industry/airline industry? It's a well known fact that one of the main things (if not the only thing) that's keeping the domestic auto industry afloat is the huge rental car fleet market. Wiping that out would leave nothing but big trucks and SUVs for the domestic auto industry to sell, and that market takes a nose-dive whenever fuel prices spike. Without rental car sales, there's an exceptionally high probability that the domestic auto industry would fold quickly, not to mention what effect it would have on the shakey airline industry if a significant number of flyers switched to rail.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Jan 30 2007, 03:40 PM) [snapback]382961[/snapback]</div>

Amtrak is a joke compared to European or Asian train service. Actually, Amtrak is a joke compared to any train service. But the reason that the Amtrak car/train is so expensive is because you are taking your car. WHY would you take your 4000 to 6000 pound car from DC to Orlando!? Why not just take the train and rent a car in Orlando? The train cars used to transport the automobiles could be replaced by passenger cars with 100 paying customers. But instead you pay for the space your car takes up and for the sleeper cabin. I assume that this is an overnight train? In Japan, a trip of that distance would be at most 5 hours.

My job requires travel in Europe and Japan so I’ve had first hand experience with their excellent train service. I’ll use my latest trip from Frankfurt, Germany to Prague, Czech Republic as an example. It cost 85 Euro or about $105 for a 2nd class ticket purchased the same day. The Germany leg was on one of the ICE electric trains that travel at about 100 to 120 mph and have nice reclining seats. I had one transfer in Munich to change to the train to Czech Republic. This was diesel train and not nearly as fast but still comfortable. The total travel time was 7 hours. But the great thing is that you can read, watch a DVD, get up and walk around, use the toilet, go to the dining car for the sandwich and beer, etc. Why would you want to drive and be stuck staring at the interstate for hours at a time? I am convinced that if Americans could travel by train, they would love it.

BTW, a non-refundable ticket for flight from Frankfurt to Prague was $750 if purchased 2 months ahead of time. The flight takes about 4 hours by the time you check in, check bags, clear security, clear passport control, board the plane, actually fly to Prague, get off the plane, clear passport control, and pick up your bags. And most of that time is spent being herded like cattle.

 

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. It's not the corn ethanol that is important to fund/support/subsidize. It's the process and the infrastructure. As the need arrises...and it will, we will have a process to produce fuel from crops. The crop we use now is not important. We have LOTS of corn and lots of corn growers, so for now, we use corn. Yes we use oil to produce the corn and energy to process it. But guess what? We use energy NG, oil, and electricity to pump, move, and refine oil. And more energy to distribute it.

When the oil crunch really hits hard, we will finally reduce consumption (not by choice) and probably cut our energy needs half as much. We will then care about which crops are used to produce fuel. We will care about making farms more efficient, as they currently use old technologies based on plentiful oil supplies. The ethanol boom will provide farmers with the capital to make these changes they otherwise would not have the money for.

We have ethanol plants sprouting up like weeds all over the heartland and this is a good thing. It's decentralized and provides a closer location for the farmers crops to go to. Instead of shipping tons and tons of excess corn thousands of miles to other countries that don't like us (for pennies). We'll just haul it down the road to the local ethanol plant and make energy. The crops and process will inevitably get better in all aspects. We could use the fuel for heating if we end up in electric cars (NG will peak too).

My only problem is the utter lack of push for solar and wind farms. I don't care if we don't need them yet or if the cost/benefit doesn't make sense. If you build them we'll find a use for the electricity. (probably to produce hydrogen, fuel farms, and fuel ethanol plants).

So I completely disagree with the statement that ethanol is Bush's 2nd folly. Even if I disagree with the reasons they are pushing it (to keep the big 3 afloat) or with nearly everything else Bush has done.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Jan 30 2007, 11:08 AM) [snapback]382803[/snapback]</div>

How finite is finite? Wind, Solar, Geothermal sources - are they all finite? Is fussion finite? I believe given a free and open marketplace we will always be able to provide enough energy to power our society and economy and that of the rest of the world. That the source(s) of our energy requirements, although technically may be finite, will be more than sufficient to keep us going and growing.