NationStates Jolt Archive

For all you "ethanol will save us" folks. A little food for thought.

By Dylan Ratigan
Anchor, 'On The Money'
CNBC
Updated: 28 minutes ago
As the price of oil and gas has continued to spike, consumers have been left wondering — who’s coming to the rescue?

The PR campaign du jour would have Americans believe that ethanol is the Great Green Hope.

“We've got to go from a hydrocarbon economy to an economy that’s no longer dependent upon oil, and that’s where we're headed,” President Bush told NBC’s Brian Williams in a recent interview. “The ultimate solution is to promote ethanol"

As the president pushes ethanol as a solution to the energy shortage, corporate America is embracing ethanol to pitch its products.

But at the University of California at Berkeley, geoengineering professor Tad Patzek isn’t buying any of it. He thinks ethanol is a pretend solution that is, in fact, making our energy situation much worse.

“I think we've entered a period of collective madness,” he said. “And some way we need to get out of it.”

Patzek says the American public has been force-fed the ethanol myth.

“The first thing that is untrue about it is that people think it’s going to solve our energy problems,” he said. “It will not. The second thing that is untrue about it is that people say it’s sustainable — it absolutely is not.”

What do the numbers show?

Last year the U.S. produced just under 4 billion gallons of ethanol, serving just 1 percent of U.S. fuel needs. Academics say production can’t go much higher.

“If we used all the corn produced in the United States to produce ethanol, it would provide only 7 percent of our total vehicle fuel use,” said Cornell agriculture professor David Pimental.

Here’s another sober way of looking at it: if every car in America was fully powered by ethanol, it would take 97 percent of U.S. soil to grow enough corn to support it.

And that's not all. It turns out that it takes more energy to make ethanol than it could ever generate.

“About 30 percent more fossil energy is required to produce a gallon of ethanol than you actually get out in ethanol,” said Pimental.

“All in all, it’s in fact a very inefficient system of converting one kind of fossil energy into another kind of fossil energy,” said Patzek.

That hasn't curbed the National Corngrowers Association's ambitions. It plans to increase ethanol output from 3.9 billion gallons last year to 16 billion gallons by 2016 — serving 10 percent of fuel demands.

Cornell professor Pimental has uncovered other dirty little secrets behind ethanol production.

“Corn causes more soil erosion in the United States than any other crop,” he said. “Corn uses more nitrogen fertilizer than any other single crop, and it’s the prime cause of the dead zone down in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Corn also uses more insecticides and herbicides than any other crop. And each acre drains 500,000 gallons of water over three months.

So why does ethanol grab all the headlines? Patzek and Pimental believe it's all about big-time lobbying.

“The companies that stand to make the vast majority of money are the big agribiz companies,” Patzek said. “Archer Daniels Midland is the first one, Cargill is the second one.”

Cargill acknowledges that ethanol isn’t the answer to our energy needs. Yet with corn prices soaring, they're doubling production.

“We are becoming more and more detached from ecology and biology and more and more focused on our end game which is fossil fuel,” said Patzek. “And what we forget is that the environment won’t be able to deliver.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12934470/

And it still doesn't address the long term issue of putting shit in the air. We've got to get away from using combustibles that produce pollutants sooner rather than later.

Valid concerns, but if the claims are true, how do half of the cars in Brazil, also a huge country, get by on ethanol?

I can think of much better uses for ethanol ;)

Though in all seriousness, this is rather worrying. Less choices for alternate fuel sources is bad.

Why use Corn, Brazil uses sugar cane does it not?

Valid concerns, but if the claims are true, how do half of the cars in Brazil, also a huge country, get by on ethanol?
1. They don't make it out of corn.
2. They don't have anywhere near the number of cars and trucks we do and nowhere near the level of industrialization we do.
3. They have a domestic oil supply that is large enough for them to be a net exporter.

They are free of imported oil now. As they continue down the depletion curve wit respect to their oil production I doubt that will continue.

Oh. Right. Ethanol for cars.

Nuclear?

Last year the U.S. produced just under 4 billion gallons of ethanol, serving just 1 percent of U.S. fuel needs.
It plans to increase ethanol output from 3.9 billion gallons last year to 16 billion gallons by 2016 — serving 10 percent of fuel demands.

I dont get this...

How does producing 4 times as much ethanol give you 10 times the result?

*shrug* So...Are you recommending algae to us? Or what?

I recommend that people get off their fat arses and walk.

use it then jesitson the waste into space

use it then jesitson the waste into space
Question: If the shuttle we're using to jetison it pulls a Columbia or a Challenger, won't that release huge amount amounts of radiation into the atmosphere to be spread around the globe by the prevailing winds?

Question: If the shuttle we're using to jetison it pulls a Columbia or a Challenger, won't that release huge amount amounts of radiation into the atmosphere to be spread around the globe by the prevailing winds?

Maybe the explosion or re-entry can burn it up. *shrug* We don't need to do that anyways. Breeder reactor it.

I don't think radiation burns up, but I still support nuclear anyway.

Valid concerns, but if the claims are true, how do half of the cars in Brazil, also a huge country, get by on ethanol?

They grow sugarcane not corn for one thing. Sugarbeets might be a better crop than corn for the mainland US.

One thing is certain though, there is a lot of money being currently invested in new ethanol production facilities. I listen to the Ag Report most mornings and the number of new plants going online this year (and the increase in production capacity) is surprising.

The simple answer is hydrogen. Hydrogen is the cleanest, and most abundant, fuel source available, and will eventually replace gasoline and other oil based products. The main issue is cost in production, and that will continue to go down as research is done, and more people start using it.

As for ethanol, those numbers look fudged. You can use almost any oil byproduct to run your car (so long as your willing to pay for extra maintenance) even french fry oil works, so I doubt ethanol is that inefficient. If it is, the likely answer is that:
A) Engines aren't based on ethanol fuel sources, thereby they don't use it efficiently
B) Ethanol will be manufactured cheaper as you manufacture it in greater quantities (this is true almost universally).

*shrug* So...Are you recommending algae to us? Or what?
I'm not reccomending anything. I'm saying that we are going to be compelled to change the way we live because there is no answer to our coming energy problems that will allow us to go in living this way.

The simple answer is hydrogen. Hydrogen is the cleanest, and most abundant, fuel source available, and will eventually replace gasoline and other oil based products. The main issue is cost in production, and that will continue to go down as research is done, and more people start using it.

I'm sure. How about keeping enough of it in a tank of a car?

I'm not reccomending anything. I'm saying that we are going to be compelled to change the way we live because there is no answer to our coming energy problems that will allow us to go in living this way.

*shrug* Kay.

I'm sure. How about keeping enough of it in a tank of a car?


http://www.unitednuclear.com/h2new.htm

The simple answer is hydrogen.
No it isn't. Forget the hype, here's the straight dope from on of the top engineering, science schools in the world. MIT's magazine article.

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16777&ch=biztech

Friday, May 05, 2006

Hydrogen Reality Check
Fuel cells won't significantly dent fuel consumption for 50 years -- we need to look elsewhere.

By Kevin Bullis

High oil prices and concerns about the long-term availability of oil have U.S. government officials singing the praises of hydrogen fuel cells as a solution to our nation's transportation energy problem. But fuel cells, while a promising technology, could take more than 50 years to have a significant impact on gasoline consumption, according to estimates by MIT researchers. On the other hand, improved internal combustion engines and lighter vehicles could offset energy consumption much sooner, especially if consumers have incentives to buy them and manufacturers to make them.


"The potential for hydrogen fuel cells having an impact that you'd notice is a long way away," says John Heywood, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. The estimates assume that competitive fuel cell vehicles will be available within 15 years, an achievement that will require improvements, for example, in hydrogen storage and production and fuel-cell costs. But even if and when fuel-cell vehicles come with the price and performance that consumers want, it will still take decades more before such new vehicles work their way into widespread use.


One factor slowing the impact of any new vehicle technology -- whether advanced internal combustion engine, hybrid, or fuel cell -- is the average lifespan of a car, which is about 15 years, according to Heywood. Even as people buy cars with new technologies, old ones stay on the roads, continuing to burn fuel and emit carbon dioxide.


Also, as the example of hybrids shows, the market share of vehicles with radical new technologies increases only slowly, and it can take years before the new technology starts to appear in more than one vehicle in a manufacturer's fleet. Hybrids were first introduced, in the United States, in 1999, and still only account for about one percent of vehicle sales. The MIT researchers estimate that, even after a competitive hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle is available, it will take roughly 25 years for these vehicles to make up 35 percent of new car and light-truck sales. And it will be an additional 20 years or so before these cars replace 35 percent of traditional vehicles on the road.


On the other hand, advanced internal combustion engines, which will likely be ready for the marketplace much sooner, and will require less retooling and so can spread through the fleet faster, could have a significant impact in about 20 years. Meanwhile, advanced, clean diesel engines and hybrids could both reach significant levels in about 30 years. In spite of the greater near-term promise of these technologies, however, there is no effort to develop them that's as far along as the federal hydrogen research programs. "We're not investing enough in developing a broad technology base we can draw on to deal with these problems," Heywood says.




These rate of adoption numbers, which Heywood says are borne out by the rate with which efficient diesel engines have spread over the last 25 years in Europe, suggest that short-term changes in fuel consumption must come not from the development of new technologies, but from the wiser use of existing ones. "We don't have any options other than to reduce the energy requirement in a major way," he says. Consumers should buy smaller vehicles that use less gas, drive slower and for shorter distances, and optimize fuel economy by staying on top of routine maintenance, such as keeping their tires inflated properly.


Heywood admits these ideas might not be rapidly adopted: "It's not American to conserve. We seem to have drifted into that attitude. Our culture doesn't bring us up to think about conserving. It brings us up to think about consuming."


Heywood says changes in behavior, however, could be encouraged in several ways. Crackdowns on speeding would save gas. High prices at the pump help some, but prices at the time of vehicle purchases are also important. Heywood suggests that, in addition to toughening government fuel economy standards, which would give manufacturers more incentive to make vehicles that use less gas, consumers should be awarded rebates when buying smaller, more economical cars, as well as be assessed extra fees when buying gas-guzzlers.


He also thinks a higher gas tax could be palatable, if presented correctly. The money could go into the highway trust fund, which he says is now suffering, providing a justification for the tax beyond just penalizing drivers. Since such a tax would be highly regressive, disproportionately affecting the poor, who might get stuck driving used SUVs, for example, Heywood also proposes a selective reduction in their income taxes to compensate.


Meanwhile, petroleum-based fuel consumption continues to increase, in the United States and other major countries such as India and China. "We can do something about this -- but can we on a global level get down to below what we're consuming now? That's an unbelievable challenge," Heywood says.

1. They don't make it out of corn.
How do they make it, and why can't the USA use their way?

I'm sure. How about keeping enough of it in a tank of a car?
More efficient engines? If the crisis ever mounts that high, people will have to sacrifice the size and speed of their cars for more effective engines. British scientists already made a car that could go 300 miles a gallon, the problem was it was very small and couldn't go that fast. If you're willing to lose your SUV and revert to 50s era speeds, your fuel costs would drop immensely. Modern engines, especially American ones, are pure shit. They are stunningly inefficient. This isn't a problem that has to remain as such.

No it isn't. Forget the hype, here's the straight dope from on of the top engineering, science schools in the world. MIT's magazine article.

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16777&ch=biztech

See the link above your post

Question: If the shuttle we're using to jetison it pulls a Columbia or a Challenger, won't that release huge amount amounts of radiation into the atmosphere to be spread around the globe by the prevailing winds?

That's why you send it into space using a space elevator.

Rockets are deangerous and expensive. A space elevator is cheap and safe.

No it isn't. Forget the hype, here's the straight dope from on of the top engineering, science schools in the world. MIT's magazine article.
Who ever said anything about implementing hydrogen within the next 30, or even 40 years? Everything takes time, the key is to move in the right direction. Make more efficient engines (even if that simply means making them slower, with lighter cars, the combination of the two equates to roughly the same degree of safety btw), research hydrogen fuel mass production, and get on the right track.

Hell, if you really wanted to speed the process you could make a "emission/efficiency tax" that makes new cars with inefficient engines cost more.

See the link above your post

Yeah, maybe they just didn't realize it, but I can't exactly see the pertinent information. Does that huge thing sit in the back of your car? How long can you go on those tanks? How long will the H2 stay in the tanks if let alone? How much energy does it take to make a fill-up of H2?

I recommend that people get off their fat arses and walk.

I don't think my boss would be very happy if I got to work at 2PM because I tried to walk the 15 miles to work. :p

Who ever said anything about implementing hydrogen within the next 30, or even 40 years? Everything takes time, the key is to move in the right direction. Make more efficient engines (even if that simply means making them slower, with lighter cars, the combination of the two equates to roughly the same degree of safety btw), research hydrogen fuel mass production, and get on the right track.

Hell, if you really wanted to speed the process you could make a "emission/efficiency tax" that makes new cars with inefficient engines cost more.

Dude, you have like, 10 to 15 years. Speed it up.

I don't think my boss would be very happy if I got to work at 2PM because I tried to walk the 15 miles to work. :p

Rent out a box next to the building. Also, bike.

As for ethanol, those numbers look fudged. You can use almost any oil byproduct to run your car (so long as your willing to pay for extra maintenance) even french fry oil works, so I doubt ethanol is that inefficient. If it is, the likely answer is that:
A) Engines aren't based on ethanol fuel sources, thereby they don't use it efficiently
B) Ethanol will be manufactured cheaper as you manufacture it in greater quantities (this is true almost universally).

Ethanol has a significantly lower heating value than octane. You need to burn more ethanol to travel the same distance compared to burning octane.

How do they make it, and why can't the USA use their way?
They make it from sugar cane, but that is the least important of teh three factors I mentioned. Sugar cane offors a more efficient conversion process, but it will still not be able to match the energy surplus we get from fossil fuels. I've seen people claim that sugercane ethanol gets an energy surplus of as high as 4 to 1, meaning for every calorie of energy you put into the process of growing the sugar cane, transportuing it, crushing it, fermenting it, distilling it and transporting it to market you get 4 calories out. Another way of looking at it is for every barrel of oil you put into teh process you get four barrels of oil equivalent out. The energy returun on oil, howvere, is about 30 to one and historically has been as high as 100 to one. Our easy motoring culture where we can just hop into our cars at anytime without having to consider the cost of the energy we burn when we do that was built on cheap, abundant oil. Those days are coming to a close. Soon everyone will have to decide whether to use the car or not. Transporting food the 1,500 miles it currently travels will not be sustainable and we'll have to live on more locally produced food. It will be more expnsive and we will have less money for luxuries. This will have a catastrophic effect on the world economy.

Valid concerns, but if the claims are true, how do half of the cars in Brazil, also a huge country, get by on ethanol?

Brazil makes its ethanol from sugarcane, not corn.

For an alternative to fossil fuels I suggest that we invest in deep drilling technology to reach the heat from the planet's core. Use it as a heat source to generate steam and use steam turbines to generate electricity as we do now. Forced Geothermal. Available globally. And unlimited. All we need do is dig deep enough for it.

More efficient engines? If the crisis ever mounts that high, people will have to sacrifice the size and speed of their cars for more effective engines. British scientists already made a car that could go 300 miles a gallon, the problem was it was very small and couldn't go that fast. If you're willing to lose your SUV and revert to 50s era speeds, your fuel costs would drop immensely. Modern engines, especially American ones, are pure shit. They are stunningly inefficient. This isn't a problem that has to remain as such.
You act like everyone can just decide one day to go buy a new car.

"Oooppp. Looks like gas is now $5.00/gallon. Let's go buy a prius."

Doesn't work that way.

You act like everyone can just decide one day to go buy a new car.

"Oooppp. Looks like gas is now $5.00/gallon. Let's go buy a prius."

Doesn't work that way.

If gas were to become so expensive that the majority of people could not afford to drive their cars, the government would subsidize buying more efficient cars or else it would be replaced by a government which would.

People will adjust to driving small, slow cars because they wont have a choice.

God help you if you mention the fallacy of ethanol up here (note my location). I know it's a fake solution, but I haven't yet had the cojones to mention it in a conversation as a newbie to the Upper Midwest. Sugar beet ethanol would be slightly better, and they grow those up here along with ethanol corn and processing plants.

It is the attitude of the user of energy that needs to change. Jimmy Carter may have been slightly off his nut and certainly not a great president, but think of where we'd be now had we heeded his calls for conservation in the late 70s. I was ages 6 through 9 during his presidency, and I grew up with the promotion of nuclear energy along with conservation tips delivered in kid-oriented things like comic books and films/filmstrips in school. So turning off a light or walking to the store are no-brainers to me now. This is not true of those who grew up during the energy-is-cheap-don't-sweat-conservation 80s and 90s.

I'd like to see legislation passed that mandates things like advertising signs and neon to be turned off when the business itself is not open. We have streetlights for safety, we don't need to pay for the electricity to advertise your closed store. Besides, finding a place of business is increasingly becoming an online/cell phone thing anyway. Vegas would be granted an exception, seeing as how it's open all night, as would any other open place of business. But the light pollution and waste of energy from the big freeway signs that stay lit after hours is stultifying to me.

All porch lights should be on motion sensors. Low interest loans made available to better insulate houses not built in the last decade or so. The goddamned PRESIDENT should REMIND us that like it or not, we're in a WAR and WARS DEMAND SACRIFICE. Where's rationing? Not only that, but think of all the fuel used by all the ships, planes, tanks, Humvees, you name it that are deployed!

Sorry for the rant, but I get frustrated about my nation's energy obesity and steadfast denial about it.

Rent out a box next to the building. Also, bike.

I'm happy with the "box" I'm at now. And even at today's gas prices, moving closer to my job would cost me more than the drive to work does. And biking down the highway probably isn't the best idea. :p

That's why you send it into space using a space elevator.

Rockets are deangerous and expensive. A space elevator is cheap and safe.

Or how about a giant teleporter that can send the nuclear waste into the sun?

Anyway, the problem with using hydrogen is that you don't just find hydrogen lying around in nature. You'll have to extract it from other chemicals, like water. This takes energy, so you'll still need some other energy source.

Of course, if the plan is to create a whole lot of solar/tidal/nuclear/etc power plants and use that energy to power cars, hydrogen fuel cells become useful, as they are a (reasonably) efficient and clean way to store and later utilize energy.

Corn-based ethanol is a waste.

Sugar-based ethanol works for Brazil especially because they were heavy sugar growers before tariffs and subsidies wrecked their economy, and the ethanol industry proved to be a win-win situation for them.

However, they are currently researching a way to mass produce cellulose-based ethanol (using a very tenacious fungus discovered in Guam during WW2 to break down plant matter and release the trapped sugar) which does not rely on petrocorn at all and similar to Brazil has the potential to revive sagging agriculture.

I'd like to see legislation passed that mandates things like advertising signs and neon to be turned off when the business itself is not open. We have streetlights for safety, we don't need to pay for the electricity to advertise your closed store. Besides, finding a place of business is increasingly becoming an online/cell phone thing anyway. Vegas would be granted an exception, seeing as how it's open all night, as would any other open place of business. But the light pollution and waste of energy from the big freeway signs that stay lit after hours is stultifying to me.

You're scaring me. If civilization ends up collapsing as it runs out of fuel, I don't want excessive use of neon signs to be a part of the cause...

If gas were to become so expensive that the majority of people could not afford to drive their cars, the government would subsidize buying more efficient cars or else it would be replaced by a government which would.

People will adjust to driving small, slow cars because they wont have a choice.
Subsidize with what? How many trillions of dollars do you think it would take to turn over a significant protion of the US auto fleet of more than 200 million cars and trucks? When we subsidize things we need to borrow the money to do that with. Who are we gonna borrow it from? The Chinese? They're already getting tired of buying our paper IOU's. Anyone else with enough money to purchase new cars for, say, 50 million Americans that is willing to buy our debt? Also, who's gonna build all those cars? Somewhere around 90 barrels of oil go into the production of one car. In a world short of oil how much do you think it's going to cost to build all those cars?

Subsidize with what? How many trillions of dollars do you think it would take to turn over a significant protion of the US auto fleet of more than 200 million cars and trucks? When we subsidize things we need to borrow the money to do that with. Who are we gonna borrow it from? The Chinese? They're already getting tired of buying our paper IOU's. Anyone else with enough money to purchase new cars for, say, 50 million Americans that is willing to buy our debt? Also, who's gonna build all those cars? Somewhere around 90 barrels of oil go into the production of one car. In a world short of oil how much do you think it's going to cost to build all those cars?


Doesnt really matter what it costs, its very inexpensive in the long-term because it is necessary, and the alternative is unacceptable and "infinitely expensive."

If china values its prosperity, it will certainly continue to buy our debt. The yuan isnt pegged to the dollar with magic.

Questions you're obligated to answer:

What is the cost of producing a Smartcar?

Are there economies of scale in smartcar production?

Could a dedicated and extremely well-funded program reduce these costs?

What value does the world place on a functioning economy?

How flexible are markets?

Brazil uses sugar corn to produce ethanol but the reason it works is that
a) sugar cane is much easier & more efficient to convert
b) the development of ethanol has been going on for a long time in Brazil
C) they have the distribution infrastruture to make it effective.

Brazil could export ethanol to the US but the US levies draconian import tarrifs to support its corn-based domestic ethanol industry.

on Hydrogen Honda have produced and extensively tested a hydogen fuel cell vehicle called the FCX [URL="http://corporate.honda.com/environment/fuel_cells.aspx?id=fuel_cells_fcx[/URL]. It is still very expenive to manufacture and obtaining hydrogen is still a problme but we are getting closer to solving this one.

on Hydrogen Honda have produced and extensively tested a hydogen fuel cell vehicle called the FCX [URL="http://corporate.honda.com/environment/fuel_cells.aspx?id=fuel_cells_fcx[/URL]. It is still very expenive to manufacture and obtaining hydrogen is still a problme but we are getting closer to solving this one.

Hydrogen isn't a credible source of fuel. Hydrogen is a battery. You can produce energy, use that energy to store hydrogen, and then burn that hydrogen elsewhere. All the hydrogen did was transport the energy to where it was needed.

Unless you harvest it from gas clouds in space, you can't get hydrogen without expending more energy than you get back from burning it. Second law of thermodynamics.

Doesnt really matter what it costs, its very inexpensive in the long-term because it is necessary, and the alternative is unacceptable and "infinitely expensive."

If china values its prosperity, it will certainly continue to buy our debt. The yuan isnt pegged to the dollar with magic.

Questions you're obligated to answer:

What is the cost of producing a Smartcar?

Are there economies of scale in smartcar production?

Could a dedicated and extremely well-funded program reduce these costs?

What value does the world place on a functioning economy?

How flexible are markets?
Don;t knwo the answers to all those questions, but the macro of it is that we may be leaving behind an era where we had this tremendous wealth of resorces and entering an era where we will continually have less and less. How much oil can we dedicate to building new cars when we need to get food to people? How much energy should we dedicate to research on ethanol or hydrogen when we get way more oil savings from building trains? What happens when all those deserts that we turned into farmland using water transported from hundreds of miles away with oil become barren because oil is too expensive? China has already decided to start buy more Euros and less dollars. It can peg its currency that way, too, but that doesn't matter because this is a world problem. China is a voraciosu oil eater, too, and its going to need a lot more than it is currently using. What if that oil is not available?

on Hydrogen Honda have produced and extensively tested a hydogen fuel cell vehicle called the FCX [URL="http://corporate.honda.com/environment/fuel_cells.aspx?id=fuel_cells_fcx[/URL]. It is still very expenive to manufacture and obtaining hydrogen is still a problme but we are getting closer to solving this one.
And if you call in the next five minutes you can purchase one for the low, low price of only $1,500,000.00! Just metion this add! :p

I'm not reccomending anything. I'm saying that we are going to be compelled to change the way we live because there is no answer to our coming energy problems that will allow us to go in living this way.
You are a very reasonable person.

You are a very reasonable person.
That's not me.

What? :confused:

Hey, you, there! :mad:

No! :mad:

I said that's not me! :confused:

hi? :eek:

The bottom line on all this: we want to go where we want, when we want, as fast as we want.

If petroleum runs low, we will then find a new way to do it.

Not until then.

All current speculation/suggestions about ethanol/hydrogen/efficient diesel/nuclear powered cars will remain in the pages of academic papers and four color articles in Popular Science until we are forced to make a change.

And before we change to other forms of fuel for our vehicles, we will look for more ways to get at the petroleum we already have inside our planet.

Mad Max, anyone?

Put a sail on your car.