Corn

My understanding is that corn makes a poor biofuel due to the fact that it requires lots of nitrogen fertilizer to grow and that, in turn, is derived from petroleum.

Am I close?

IIRC, nitrogen fertilizer is synthesized from natural gas, so therefore ethanol has a bad "energy return". The idea of overfertilizing fields and having the fertilizers wash into the streams and ponds is pretty distasteful, too. Other reasons to be skeptical are that we don't have enough farmland. Good morning

good morning to you too.

:donut:

It also takes the equivalent of 1.29 gallons of gas to produce one gallon of ethanol. Besides that, per gallon mileage is only 62% that of regular gas.

I live in Iowa, and I don't understand how they're getting away with the deceptive labeling at the pump. I remember to the day when they switched the octane labels on pumps to make it appear that ethanol was a better value. I used to point it out to other people at the gas station, and nobody else seemed to notice. Maybe its because I'd just returned from South Carolina, where they sell 91 octane. I was able to drive back home on approx. $40 of 91%.

In my opinion, paying for high octane regular, and driving a smaller vehicle makes a lot more sense.

http://feinstein.senate.gov/05speeches/ethanol-oped.htm

...wouldn't the use of hemp be far superior to corn?

I was at casey's and I noticed they switched the ethanol label from the 89% octane to the 92% octane.. I wonder when they made the switch??

it raises the octane rating. At a 10%-20% blend the difference in mileage is not noticable. ONe test with a Chevy Impala (?not sure if it was na impala) the car got slightly better mileage on 20% ethanol than on regular gas.

With super-charging or turbo-charging you can boost the compression and get better performance from the higher octane blends of ethanol. You cant' boost the pressure as much with lower ocatane gasoline.

Argonne lab seeems to write that one-tenth gallon of petroleum
produces one gallon. I'll post link if anyone is interested.

mutant algae presents.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70273-0.html

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have engineered a strain of pond scum that could, with further refinements, produce vast amounts of hydrogen through photosynthesis.

The work, led by plant physiologist Tasios Melis, is so far unpublished. But if it proves correct, it would mean a major breakthrough in using algae as an industrial factory, not only for hydrogen, but for a wide range of products, from biodiesel to cosmetics.

The new strain of algae, known as C. reinhardtii, has truncated chlorophyll antennae within the chloroplasts of the cells, which serves to increase the organism's energy efficiency. In addition, it makes the algae a lighter shade of green, which in turn allows more sunlight deeper into an algal culture and therefore allows more cells to photosynthesize.

"An increase in solar conversion efficiency to 10 percent ... is thought to be enough to make the mass culture of algae viable," says Juergen Polle, a former student of Melis’ who now does research on algae at the City University of New York, Brooklyn.

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Environmental Destruction.....

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Each year the oil the world burns is the equivalent of 400 years of present worldwide agricultural output. So, if we turn 400 times the amount of present agricultural land into corn, palm oil or other biofuel, we might make enough fuel to eliminate burning petroleum. And we starve to death.

And, of course, we're still burning stuff, so the global warming thing isn't solved.

I haven't figured out the whole story, but whatsis I heard about Mexico screaming that the price of masa and tortillas is doubling because we're putting so much corn into alcohol production and raising the prices?

Nope, ethanol has its attractions, but only as a niche fuel-- the corn lobby is blowing smoke and money all over Congress.

Studies done over the last several years have shown that if farmers would use soil testing (for Nitrogen content) they can significantly REDUCE their Nitrogen usage.

One study done in Iowa (where farmers had already reduced their nitrogen usage 16% with no change in crop yields) showed that farmers in the study using soil testing reduced their nitrogen fertilizer usage by 46%. If all the farmers would use soil testing (only a small fraction do now) this would result in dramatic reductions of N2O emissions from the fertilizer.

http://www.ewg.org/reports/Nitrate/nitratealts.html

"In the largest test, conducted by 70 farmers participating in an Iowa Natural Heritage Resourceful Farming demonstration project, fertilizer use was reduced by 46 percent, with less than a one percent decrease in yields."
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Farmers could dramatically reduce NItrogen use by using soil testing and without lowering crop yields.

Email the USDA and congressmen to 'suggest' this become a priority - not just for corn farmers but for farmers of all crops.

IIRC, ammonia/nitrogen fertilizers are synthesized from methane/natural gas.