Alcohol fuel - The obvious answer, Yes or No?

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Thanks for the graph. I will explain why the recent dip back below $4. It is simple: the expansion of corn planting is more rapid that the expansion of plants that can take in corn and put out alcohol - that takes about two years to make a new large alcohol production facility. Thus this summer there will be a surplus of corn grown until the many new alcohol refineries get finished. Next summer that will reverse. Corn may go above $8 and your food cost will also soar.

 

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Again a good link.

Here is the last paragraph on page one and the first on page two:

"As Jerry Taylor reminded us in his interview on ABC's "20/20," when ethanol is produced "it takes a lot of fossil fuels to make the fertilizer, to run the tractor, to build the silo, to get that corn to a processing plant, to run the processing plant." Then there's the energy it takes to move the ethanol around. Because ethanol degrades, it's not possible to transport it in pipelines like we do oil, so using ethanol means putting many more polluting trucks on the road to deliver it.

Because of that, a number of recent studies show that it takes just about as much energy to produce ethanol as you get when you burn ethanol. "Its net energy balance is zero, more or less,"

Note GWB never suggests that corn based alcohol will reduce the importation of oil, only that it can displace 20% of the gasoline used. He knows (and probably hopes so Saudis will continue to send him and his father many millions annually) that US oil dependancy will INCREASE.

Here are the last two paragraphs of the 3 page article (speaking about alcohol from corn program in US):

"When a fuel source is expensive and bad for the environment and won't help our foreign policy, then there's no reason to force taxpayers to foot the bill for producing it.

"This is a naked transfer program designed to take money from people who buy corn and to give it to people who grow corn and people who make ethanol for a living. That's all it is,"

I might add, it is also heartless to push a program that will significantly increase the cost of food for everyone, especially when some are already forced to chose between eating or buying their esentail medicine.

 

"...Critics say that the principal problem with the use of ethanol as an automotive fuel is that the energy-returned-on-energy-invested (EROEI) for ethanol made from corn is approximately 1: 1. In other words, it takes roughly as much energy (for planting and harvesting, natural gas based fertilizers, transportation, and processing) to create a gallon of ethanol as a gallon of ethanol produces when used as a motor fuel.

Ethanol advocates reject that notion outright, suggesting that the EROEI models fail to include the energy reducing byproducts of ethanol production, such as utilizing corn stalks as fuel in the distillation process.* In addition, they suggest that waste mash from the distillation process can be used as a supplement in cattle feed and that the waste material subsequently produced by the cattle can then be used as a replacement for natural gas-based fertilizers.*

According to the Renewable Fuels Association, 107 grain biorefineries in the U.S. have a production capacity of 5.1 billion gallons of ethanol per year, while an additional 56 plants, now under construction, can add 3.8 billion gallons of new capacity in the next 18 months. This is compared to U.S. gasoline demand currently at 150 billion gallons per year. ..."

From:
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/24713.html
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*Not very easy as the corn stocks are in Iowa and the distillation is in Indiania. (As alcohol can not travel far it is made near the markets and corn shiped there for conversion.) Very few if any alcohol from corn production actually does this possible but not economically attract approach. In Brazil the crushed cane is used to produce electricity or for animal food, but even here the maneur is not collected and used in a bio-digester to make low quality (too much CO2 mixed with the methane) combustible gas. Thus, as actually done, the energy in the alcohol is at best equal to the energy in the oil it required.

I.e. GWB is Hoodwinking the public into thinking that the US will use less oil if it converts some to corn and then the corn to alcohol. He is carefull to never say that it will reduce oil consumption - only says that alcohol can displace 20% of the gasoline used. - I even doubt that as 13% of the corn is only displacing <3% of the gasoline now. To get to 20% you need 7x13 = 91% of US corn going into alcohol production - can you afford $25/ pound for chicken?

I guess GWB is going after the soon to be huge vegitarian population's vote.

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:bawl: :bugeye:

 

Why alcohol for cane (especially Brazilian cane) is best for environment, and cheaper compared to gasoline. See:

http://www.infrasite.nl/news/news_article.php?ID_nieuwsberichten=7436&language=en

First paragraph tells of the "40 experts" and the international meeting just concluded in Paris on this subject.

Second paragraph is:
"There is a high degree of uncertainty over the net greenhouse gas emissions from producing and consuming biofuels in place of gasoline or diesel.Some may even produce higher emissions than petroleum. Of currently produced fuels ethanol from sugar cane produced in Brazil is by far the best, partly because sugar is easier to turn into alcohol than starch (from wheat or corn) and partly because waste cane pulp* is used to fuel Brazil’s distilleries. Distillation takes a lot of energy and in many other countries ethanol is produced using natural gas or coal to heat the stills – emitting large quantities of CO2."

Fourth Paragraph:
"In 2007, four billion dollars in the US, fully one quarter of the total farm subsidy budget, and expected to grow to 16 billion dollars under current biofuels targets. Support for biofuels already totals around 15 billion dollars a year in the OECD as a whole. Much cheaper ways of saving fuel and CO2 emissions are available in the transport sector and elsewhere in the economy."

From your tax dollars and going to very few people. (Part of why the rich are getting richer and middle class, poorer in USA under GWB.)

Final pargaraph:
"The papers and conclusions of the Round Table will be published under the title Biofuels – Linking Support to Performance and feed into the debate on Transport and energy: the challenge of climate change at the upcoming International Transport Forum in Leipzig."

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* I also add that the crushed cane available is greater than requirements for distillation heat, so much is used to generate electricity at the larger processing centers or as cattle food at the smaller ones. Increasingly "no till" planting is being used and mechanical harvesting, which does not first burn the fields (done as leaves cut the workers - seem fair as they cut the cane.

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) Thus, with mechanical harvesting, the leaves both sequester more carbon and improve the soil. ALL fossil fuels "de-sequester" 100% of their carbon content, but cane sequesters (in the soil and in the storage tanks (even your car's) a significant percent of the carbon it annually REMOVES from the air!

THE MORE MAN SWITCHES TO BIO-ALCOHOL THE LESS MAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING BECOMES. One of the few ways to do this WITH NEGATIVE COST! Again I ask: How stupid can American voters be? (See old thread with that name for more.)

PS - Nothing here I have not been posting for several years. :bugeye:

 

Except don't they burn down rainforest in order to get room to plant sugar cane?

We have to look beyond alternative fuels and address the total energy usage of our society.

 

I agree with second point strongly - Amory Lovins*, one of the few intelligent "greens," for many years has been making the point that the largest, most economical and most environmentally friendly source of energy is conservation and greater efficiency. Read his article in Scientific American of about 6 months ago. (Just as I think the CIA has done more harm to US than any other agency of ANY government, I think Green Peace has done more harm to the environment than any business group! - For example, the radioactivity released into the air by burning coal for a KiloWatt electric produced is greater than if 10 KiloWatts came from a nuclear plant! Not to mention the CO2 problem with coal. The US's main electric energy source, still, thanks to the stupid Green Peace activists, is coal. etc.)

Cane is much more concentrated energy than the sunlight it came from, but has very low energy density compared to fossil fuels. Thus you can not ship it far. Hence it is not going to be grown in the rain forest land, 1000 miles for the point of use. This is why much more than half of the cane field of all of Brazil are in close proximity to the markets for alcohol - i.e. in the state of Sao Paulo. This is also why unlike the energy dense oil sent to a few big refineries, there are a couple of hundred plants converting cane from near-by fields (40 miles at most away) into Alcohol.

Even the big paper companies, like Aracruz (which I have ADRs of) do not cut down the amazon. The soil there is weak. They have plantations (mainly of Euclplsis - spelled wrong.) they grow like a crop. It is ready for cutting in about 5 years - has been genetic improved - faster growing only a few short branches.

Some of the world's dumbest "greens" destroyed their main research facility about a year ago ("The land should be growing food for the poor" was their claim/ POV. - There is lots of food for the population in the stores and tons are exported every hour to China. What the poor need is a job and now Aracruz will be hiring less until the 5 years of genetic development they destroyed can be restored.) In about 15 years, Aracruz has doubled the yield of fiber from each acre and the number of jobs to process it has also increased but not by factor or two, unless you count the construction jobs associated with new plants, new road, new ports** etc. - then must have quadrupled in those 15 years. (America has no monoply on really dumb people.)

The main reason the amazon is being cut (IMHO) is to supply the demand for wood from US and EU that is cheaper than from Canada and Scandinavia. The burning is often natural. (That tropical region has more lightning than any other part of the world by far. Some of the burning is caused by men who have been cutting where it is illegal. Brazil does try hard to keep this regulated, but the profits are so high, it is hard.

Stop buying rain forest wood, if you are concerned and willing to pay more for new house or furniture to put in it.
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* His house has tripple glass pane windows, and the two spaces between are filled with very heavy gas (Kripton?) as that moves more slowing for same average kinetic energy (temperature) and consequently the R value of even his windows is some huge number like 60, but I forget it exactly. House in the mountains of Colorado and it does get cold there in winter. I am not sure it has a furnace - the lights and human body heat probably keep it warm at 20 below zero. Fancy counter flow heat exchangers keep the air "mountain fresh" etc.

**Much of Aracruz's wood is made into short fiber pulp for export - Aracruz is world's most profitable and largest supplier of pulp for making paper. Their stock just hit new high today. My ADRs in them are up about 600% in 5 years, but that is because they are priced in dollars - the real gain is only about 300%.

 

There were some pics of his house in a magazine a while back. The central part of the flat roofed structure is a green house with a glass roof.

With the super insulation this generates enough heat from the sun to keep the house warm, even in a Colorado winter!

It also houses many varities of tropical plants including banana trees.

Oh, heres a pic and excellent interview:
http://www.sqwalk.com/blog2006/000764.html

 

Hey, Billy, you're the one who plays head games when I talk about hempseed oil, so I think I've as usual wandered into a circle jerk.

 

Not sure want you mean by "head games" but admit that I do not take your "Hempseed is great new energy source." very seriously.

Hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps billions, and thousands of very skilled, well trained, researchers (many with Ph.D.s) are investigating hundred of plants and even making artificial life forms designed to produce liquid fuels, yet I have never seen a single one of them suggesting hemp! You make many claims, provide data sometimes, etc. but if there is a basis in the scientific literature for your statement, I do not know of it.

If you want to be taken seriously, give some evidence from reputable sources, WITH LINKs TO IT, not just some "facts" I suspect you just make up. Look at my posts. - Most are quoting others now as many have now come to hold the POV I began this thread with long ago and some others years before it.

I GIVE LINKS to the sources. Do the same.

 

If I do that, do you promise not to get amnesia again?

 

no, can't promises not to forget, but if you have given reputable references, cite the post and I will read.

 

I gave you reputable references before.

 

If you did , please supply link to the post.

 

for review of Brazil's alcohol sysytem / status /potential see:

http://www.earthtoys.com/news.php?section=view&id=2677

"... the industry here {Brazil} is a thriving free market business, complete with ethanol pumps at every filling station in Latin America's largest country. Millions of cars run on either ethanol, gas or any combination of the two. And there's plenty more land available for sugar cane cultivation as the planet's biggest sugar producer gears up to become its undisputed long-term ethanol supplier. "

 

And:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11628-warning-biofuel-may-harm-your-health.html

 

Already drinking alcohol for fuel almost everyday.