Question? What is holding us up from using Ethanol as fuel?

Ford's Model-T was built to burn ethanol so it's not a new idea.

Racing cars use ethanol, so the technology is out there.


I personally would much prefer to get my subsidized corn in the form of Ethanol as opposed to High Fructose Corn Syrup. I wouldn't even mind buying it from ConAgra - so what's stopping us?

The Oil Comapanies? Seriously? Shouldn't they start scrambling now for other ways to stay in business?

We need to continue investments in wind and solar research and development, invest in the next generation nuclear reactors that are walk away safe, keep working at fusion to replace fissile reactors, and move to hydrogen distribution and generation for our portable energy needs. Oh and RAISE CAFE standards. Do that yesterday.

it's a renewable fuel source, much goes to waste as it is, -or gets turned into health-endangering sweetener to use it up, why not use it as fuel?

Is very resource intensive and there is a little thing called starvation. If we have excess food production we should plants something to stop soil erosion.

Growing food to burn in cars is just ridiculous, other posters have pointed out the resource intensive-issue better then I can state it.

Any Good Maize-worshiping native would tell you, that all parts of a plant can be used, and must be used.


why would ethanol take away from corn being produced for food now?

it doesn't. They don't have to be on the same land, they don't have to even be of the same strain, there's plenty of corn going to waste now - again - hence the ubiquitous High Fructose Corn Syrup - let's use that for ethanol making instead, and go back to cane sugar, as a sweetener.



let's take the corn and sorghum surpluses out of pet food, and let our animals be healthier.


it would actually solve quite a few problems from where i stand.

to me thinking that "food" shouldn't be "wasted" for fuel is simplisitc.

renewable fuel, not used to make enviro friendly plastics and not exported to feed the starving. It's fed to cows so that we can have cheap heart disease fuel for 99c in the drive thru.

It would be much better for both the environment & national security if even HALF of the tonage of corn currently being converted into fat marbly cholesterol and cow farts were used for renewable fuel instead but the slaughter industry is VERY POWERFUL in this country and just GUESS who they give the most money to? Ahhhhh yes, big corporate whore Republicans.

Corn isn't even a natural food for cows. It's only fed to them in the last few months before they are killed (along with ground up chickens, road kill and fecal matter)in order to fatten them up quickly. It often causes organ failures and intestinal distress that would kill the cow if it were not already headed for slaughter anyway.

We don't have a problem with overproduction of food in this country. We have a problem with overproduction of cattle feed. It would be a much better use of this resource to convert it into alternative fuel.

Energy requirements for producing hydrogen from electrolysis

It takes 2.37.13 KJ of energy to produce one kilogram of hydrogen

One kilogram of hydrogen has the energy content of 1.04 gallons of gasonline
237.13 kJ/mole ÷ 3.6 MJ/kWh = 0.06587 kWh/mole
since 1 mole of H2 weighs 2 grams, 1 gallon of gasoline is therefore equivalent to 500 moles of H2

United States annual oil consumption in 2003 was 20 million barrels a day.
One barrel of oil contains 5,800,000 Btu.
One gallon of gasoline = 115,000 Btu
Therefore 5,800,000 * 20,000,000/115,000 = 1,008,695,652 equivalent gasoline gallons a day

Therefore to completely replace gasoline with hydrogen for all products you would need
1,008,695,652 gallons * 500 moles * .06587 kWh = 33,221,391,298.62 kWh of electricity

33,221,391,298.62/(2,000,000 * 24) or almost 700 very large nuclear power plants

Energy facts for Ethanol

One metric ton of ethanol = 7.94 petroluem barrels
Ethanol has 65% the energy content per volume that of gasoline.
Therefore daily energy consumption of ethanol = 2,518,892 tons or 1,551,839,465 gallons
Hemp bio mass production = 10 tons per acre in the course of 120 days
Ethanol production 76 gallons of ethanol per ton of bio-mass feedstock using best modern methods.

Perhaps someone could look up the energy requirements in electricity equivalents for the actual plant operations of turning bio-mass into ethanol. Corn has a crappy net energy return, but I have seen figures ranging from 2:1- 4:1 for hemp and other promising plants. In any case assuming you can grow the actual volume of material needed for you liquid requirements I would like to know how running a bio-fuel plant compares if that energy was spent directly on the energy intensive process of water electrolysis.

does this link help you any?

http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/library/admin/uploadedfiles/How_Much_Energy_Does_it_Take_to_Make_a_Gallon_.html

I mean if you burn X amount of oil producing ethenal and the cost is higher than just using gasoline . . . well it's hard to see the advantage in using ethenol. But i'm not an expert on it.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

has ethanol cars, and dedicated ethanol pumps in gas stations. I'm not aware that they're running an energy deficit by doing so.

On the other hand, one of their main crops is sugar cane, which is an even better ethanol feedstock than corn.

My understanding is that the energy cost of making ethanol in the Corn Belt used to be greater than 100%, but we're more efficient now.

i can make some in my backyard right now, if necessary.


ferment, and filtrate.


granted the heat femrnetation method does take energy - but all you need is a heat source, it doesn't have to be gasoline based.

The corn processing plants already put out a number of very Hazardous Air Pollutants but when they produce ethanol, those emissions increase significantly. To try to control this, they need to have expensive emissions control equipment installed. Since that's expensive, they don't want to do that.

We live within 5 miles of one of those plants and now that we finally got the state to install EPA approved monitors, the results are frightening. And the recent Health Assessment is scary too. So we're not at all interested in them increasing their ethanol production. It may help somewhere else, but it'll injure and kill us near the plant.

Minnesota has some of the same kind of findings, even worse, about the ethanol plants there and had to work out regulations that significantly increased the emissions control at those plants.

more toxic pollutants than say..the jack Daneils distillery?


where are the pollutants coming from in the process?

transport, plant, etc as inputs, and energy out, is about a net of zero improvement in oil demand.

Now bio fuel is another matter - and seems logical and quite possible.

Getting oil out of the process of growing the crop and we do net a good chunk of a oil demand decrease.

Hybred to all electric via fuel cells is the path I see as most likely - but nothing seems in place by the US gov to get us moving faster along that path. Hydrogen via solar in the far future - but not for 50 years as earlier would use methods that just increase oil demand.

Nuke Electric may be making a major comeback!

It can be grown wherever corn is grown now, or wheat or sorghum or rye, or any other fermentable grain.

heck you could use potatoes if you had to. all you need are sugars that can be converted to alcohol.


and all those "oil-using" vehicles would be using ethanol themselves anyways - so what's the deal?

economic better deal. Plant waste is not in short supply.

Indeed the US oil refineries coming on line in 06 will save oil because of transport savings.

of gas is ethanol to help with pollution.

Their is no reason why we can't use ethanol. With the price of oil going up like it is, it is becoming more and more cost beneficial to use ethanol. Its just too bad the oil companies won't let it happen though.

which incidentally requires "Small Fuel Producer" permit from the ATF
and we can all make our own gas!

Might as well burn the oil.

The US Department of Agriculture says each BTU (British Thermal Unit, an energy measure) used to produce a BTU of gasoline could be used to produce 8 BTUs of ethanol.

here's a very interesting link - including ways to do it yourself.

turns out cars can already burn ehtanol for feul. i might have to get into the homebrew business.

http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol.html

1 to 1 - no gain using corn.

The study you cite does indeed say "The net energy value (NEV) of corn ethanol was calculated as 16,193 Btu/gal when fertilizers are produced by modern processing plants, corn is converted in modern ethanol facilities, farmers achieve normal corn yields, and energy credits are allocated to coproducts."

Now what the hell does a food subsity - energy credits - have to do with the economics is over my pay grade, as is the other interpretation that energy credits refer to the oil "wasted" in the corn processing - because the waste is a good because we get a lot of byproduct.

what we need to look at then?

what else, besides ethanol, and apparently toxic fumes are these plants producing? perhaps they get a break on their cost of fuel, because they are doing double duty?

So for people who live near them, it's a very big deal.

engines.

the best bet was the Perendev motor, and it demagnetized and shut down.

Plus, it takes a great deal of energy to create the magnets involved.

85% ethanol 15% unleaded gasoline. I have one and fill the tank with E85 where ever I can find it. E85 is not as available as I would like, but my neighborhood gas station does carry it. I lose about 2 mpg in fuel economy, but I feel better knowing that it is renewable, and that I am contributing less to the oil cartels.

yields little, if any, net energy.

I have read reports that significant corn production could be diverted to ethanol production, thus making ethanol a possible liquid fuel energy carrier to somewhat attenuate the reduction in petroleum based liquid fuels. Also, if process energy comes from wind/nuclear, it offers opportunities for greenhouse gas reduction.

Cellulosic ethanol, currently just beyond the R & D stage, appears to show much promise in producing ethanol that would be a net energy source (EROEI >2.5). Still not close to the net energy from cheap oil, but what is?

On Edit: If engines use 180 proof ethanol, the process energy used for drying to 200 proof (for mixing with gas) could be eliminated, thus improving EROEI somewhat. I can see a future of small, lightweight multi-fuel cars, pluggable hybrids, that can burn 180 proof to E10. From what I have read you can't mix 180 proof and gasoline mixtures due to the water settling out.

but according to this e-book:

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meCh1.html#1_2

even 167 proof is acceptable.

that documents how much the drying process costs in energy. It sounds like the problem is mainly high-tech filters, and keeping the dry product from absorbing water.

But as you point out, if you can burn straight ethanol, why bother with drying.

is that it doesn't contribute to global warming: no net carbon increase.

NT!

since they shitcanned that evil MBTA. All the gasoline sold in the winter up here has some ethanol in it.

Redstone

MBTA = Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority. A good thing.

MBTE = Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether. A bad thing.

:kick:

All the farmers selling off their land so developers can put up 8 overpriced houses per acre could keep their land and make money off it.

I forget some (okay, most) of my chemistry, but isn't one of the products of burning alcohol oxygen?

On edit: Biodiesel would also be a useful product.

It requires ENERGY to get the grain, and then make ethanol from it. Where does this energy come from? Mostly from petroleum and fossil fuels.

The grain comes from fields fertilised with natural gas byproducts that are sprayed with petroleum-based pesticides, and the fields are tilled, planted and harvested by machinery that runs on diesel or gasoline. And then there's the transportation of the grain to an extraction/conversion facility, so there's more oil burned right there...basically, in terms of the energy it takes to GET ethanol vs the energy received when ethanol is used as fuel, it's a net energy sink. We don't use it because it's inefficient and requires greater expenditure than return.

The ONLY reason that ethanol is used to any extent as a fuel in this country (10% ethanol/gasoline in some states, for instance) is because of federal farm subsidies and a need to find a use for grain surpluses.

http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/library/admin/uploadedfiles/How_Much_Energy_Does_it_Take_to_Make_a_Gallon_.html