Ethanol Exposed - Finally
The Great Biofuels Con: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.j ... xml&page=1
A snippet:
Rarely in political history can there have been such a rapid and dramatic reversal of a received wisdom as we have seen in the past 18 months over biofuels – the cropping of living plants, such as soya beans, wheat and sugar cane, to generate energy.Snip
Stage Four came in 2004-07 when – driven by everything from the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol (originating in that 1992 Rio summit) to Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth – hysteria over global warming reached its peak, pushing it to the top of the world's political agenda. The most obvious response came from the EU.
snip
A Cornell University study shows that biofuel production from farm crops such as corn takes 29 per cent more energy than is yielded by the fuel itself (although second-generation biofuel crops, such as hemp, are much more efficient).
If this was not so serious it would be funny.
A snippet:
Rarely in political history can there have been such a rapid and dramatic reversal of a received wisdom as we have seen in the past 18 months over biofuels – the cropping of living plants, such as soya beans, wheat and sugar cane, to generate energy.Snip
Stage Four came in 2004-07 when – driven by everything from the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol (originating in that 1992 Rio summit) to Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth – hysteria over global warming reached its peak, pushing it to the top of the world's political agenda. The most obvious response came from the EU.
snip
A Cornell University study shows that biofuel production from farm crops such as corn takes 29 per cent more energy than is yielded by the fuel itself (although second-generation biofuel crops, such as hemp, are much more efficient).
If this was not so serious it would be funny.
Comments
A lot of people have known ethanol (especially corn based) is a sham and uses considerably more energy to make than it yields, not to mention removing food from the food chain is always a bad idea.
That people still think E85 is the solution to our fuel issues is telling of the power of advertising.
But E85 is *cheaper* than gasoline so it must be better!
Ethanol (in the US made from corn with current technology) has *always* been a sham. It's entirely politically motivated, is horrendously inefficient to produce, and makes energy and food compete in the marketplace. Besides, what about all the pollution from the fertilizer we use to produce the corn, and the pollution from the production of that fertilizer? We're just replacing one problem with another if we go the ethanol route.
If only there was some *other* way to harness the power of the sun... Hmmm.
Joking aside, I've been very interested in Solar Thermal energy in recent months. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_ther ... collectors
It seems to me that this is pretty low-tech, which is good when you compare to PV solar which seems to never come down in price much. The technology seems to be mirrors, steel, water, and turbine generators. Basically, all stuff we can make in large quantities and assemble pretty quickly assuming we can train enough people quickly. Several plants are under construction, as far as I am aware. Anyone have any opinions on this?
Burning waste fry oil was a good idea, but very limited. Planting hemp in marginal farmlands for ethanol production has seemed like another limited but useful idea to me (provided there's no deforestation to do it -- and with the byproduct that commerical hemp tends to pollenate illicit cannabis farms and ruin them). Algae biofuel is the only real glimmer of hope that ethanol is going to be a significant energy solution.
I'm unclear on how this assists farmers. Please supply alternative energy solutions that can be translated into votes in early primary states.
Thank you.
The fact that a discussion like this needs to turn into mudslinging about "eco-religious crusades" is what is wrong with discourse in this country.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans ... _seen.html
The number of people who will starve because progress in feeding the world reversed direction will no doubt exceed the number of people killed in the original crusades.
Prior to recent advances in battery technology, there might have been a reason to think that producing liquid fuels was the major goal, but now it makes no sense. I would have attributed our failure to stop ethanol development now to early primary states, but the obstinance in Europe indicates it is a deeper problem.
There really is too much of that sort of stuff going on. I think some people on both sides tend to get frustrated.
I hate words like "Repugs" and "Democraps". It always makes the poster look bad, except to the choir he is preaching to.
The people who support biofuels aren't "eco-religious", they're just mistaken. I know I made that mistake briefly 10-20 years ago when I thought it might be a good idea. I came to the conclusion later than the deforestation that would be required would be completely counter-productive and I've viewed biofuels skeptically ever since. I missed the fact that market forces would also increase world food costs and cause famine, and that makes the whole idea an order of magnitude worse. But those were *mistakes*.
What you've got now is perpetuation of those mistakes by the corn lobby in washington after the issues have become obvious. That isn't an "eco-religious crusade", that is just greed.
On the other side of the fence you've got the "hydrogen economy" which is actually being led by the fossil fuels lobbies because its the alternative that keeps them in business, which again is greed -- although a lot of the proponents of that idea are just mistaken and haven't thought it through fully.
And generally all these mistakes are made because its a complicated problem. The hydrogen economy sounds good when you look at tailpipe emissions (as all the ads mention). They don't mention the emissions from the plants that would be required to make the hydrogen, or the lack of a hydrogen distribution network, or the inefficiencies of the entire process. If you've got hydrogen, however, fuel cells look like wonderful technology.
Similarly, biofuels *are* renewable, and they *aren't* foreign oil, so they appear to solve two major problems with fossil fuels. They simply cause more problems than they solve in practice, however.
However, giving the other person the benefit of the doubt for making a mistake doesn't let you feel anywhere near as rightous.
But it's actually insincere to blame the eco-lobby. This is not a very powerful group. If they were, don't you think all business would be shut down and people would be forced to grow their own vegetables for sustenance? Rather, the group of people motivated by an Inconvenient Truth were just the swing members. The real reason for the great ethanol push has been the corn lobby. They have a surprising pull in Washington, and are the reason that every processed food you eat contains copious amounts of high fructose corn syrup.
I tend to partially disagree with that statement. Like you, I used to be a huge proponent of ethanol until I educated myself.
You and I (and many others) were "mistaken". The "eco-religious" are a different breed, and they really do exist. They would be the ones that, even after a mountain of data proves the falacy of their position, they still cling with religious veracity to bio-fuels.
I'm sure you have had experience arguing with people who's position on a thing is religious.
Everyone has some metric they use to decide if something is worthwhile, and if a proposal looks good, things downstream from there get ignored. For some people that metric is the progress towards a vision of a self-sustaining zero fossil fuel world. That I believe is what is behind the current Congressional leadership saying "we can't drill our way out" of the current energy crisis. I read an article this morning by someone saying how great the current high energy prices are to change our thinking. But those prices mean that people less well off are suffering. A different religion places it focus on those people.
To avoid a repeat of the ethanol mess, we have to be extremely careful to look at all the consequences of any proposal. That was the problem for example with Kyoto. The economic dislocation proposed were huge, and the underlying science is "of course is it humans," with very shaky data, limited models, and a lot of personal attack.
Correct! Eco-weenies hold very little sway in Washington because they don't have multi-million dollar lobbies, and tend to vote for people like Ralph Nader. The corn industry has a strong (read: rich) lobby and represents a strong, reliable, and mature GOP voter base.
As for HFCS, the corn subsidies are only part of the story. The US sugar industry has a powerful lobbying force and has enough sway to limit the amount of foreign sugar brought into the US based on a dubious estimate of consumption (which assumes HFCS will be used in abundance). The result is that using sugar is cost ineffective, so we turn corn into sugar while Brazil turns sugar into fuel.
For what it's worth, refined sugar in the US is about triple the cost elsewhere in the world, and more than double the cost of HFCS.
Hydrogen will be useful in the future. That future is somewhat distant, however, as the only way hydrogen as a small scale fuel makes sense is if the energy to perform electrolysis is nearly free. And that will only happen when we can power it using fusion-based nuclear reactors, space-based solar panels, and other similarly far-off technologies. The electrolysis cycle is woefully inefficient, so the economic value is very low. However there is value for the US, and it lies in two places:
1. Moving the emissions from the tailpipe to the smokestack has significant NIMBY localization benefits. Smog-ridden cities like LA will benefit greatly by having those emissions sourced outside of the LA basin.
2. As long as the energy source is not petroleum based, the benefits of not buying more oil from countries we don't like are there. Coal may be dirty but we have a lot of it, and we wouldn't be helping to unintentionally prop up Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
When push comes to shove, there are no economic benefits to replacing gasoline/diesel as our fuel of choice right now. The 4 stroke internal combustion engine is well suited for cars and trucks, makes good power, with modern technology is reasonably clean, and even now is still fairly cheap. Food-crop based ethanol is not the answer, bio-diesel is only useful on very small scales, CNG/LNG has major cost hurtles (not to mention driving up the cost as a heating source), hydrogen is energy negative. The environmental benefits of any of those fuels vs gasoline/diesel are dubious at best.
The only real benefits are geopolitical.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you abiotic oil. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _oil.shtml
There is lots of info on this (from both sides) and it is very controversial. It is also quite plausible.
Everything you know is wrong....
If you really wanna get into it: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe ... tnG=Search
And for a bit of evidence "for" abiotic oil: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1969957/posts
I'm not convinced that hydrogen will ever be the fuel of choice. At least not for terrestrial transportation. Among the issues: you cannot pipe hydrogen (it corrodes pipes and leaks badly), it's dangerous (a bullet spark could actually blow up the vehicle which is good for movies I guess), it requires special storage units (which also often leak and corrode), etc. Liquid fuels really are superior in almost every way.
I would imagine that we will probably find a liquid fuel we can manufacture much more efficiently than hydrogen. But we might not. It's entirely possible that most people will just switch to using EV transportation. Production models are now capable of going around 200 miles on a charge. They are still expensive, but the technology is coming down. Batteries wear down after about 100k miles right now, and are expensive to replace, so that will be a limitation for the meantime, but it should also improve in time.
We already covered this, but it was a long time ago.
One pretty good resource if you are interested is "The Deep Hot Biosphere". In addition to arguing that oil is abiotic, it also makes an interesting and believable argument that abiogenesis may have occurred first in deep hydrocarbon wells, which eventually bubbled up to the surface.
Note, that this in no way changes any of the arguments regarding peak oil, global warming, or alternative energy sources. If true, it would however have a large impact on what resources we can expect to find on other planets if we ever spread out to other planets/stars.
Absolutely right. The only reason hydrogen gets any promotion at all is that it fits in with the refiner's business model, and those companies are big, powerful and can lobby the public via the TV, and the politicians in DC.
If we move to a hydrogen economy we'll need to somehow make it, or create it from some other product, and then we'll need to transport. Then we'll need to have these special locations where you'll go and plug in a big hose into your car to fill up with this wonderful hydrogen. Perhaps you'll buy a gross hot dog or Big Gulp(TM) 320oz Pepsi while you're there? Sounds like exactly what Chevron, Exxon, Shell do today!
Electricity on the other hand is a scary proposition for the oil companies. Assuming batteries continue to improve and/or come down in price, we can just charge up at home and get 200+ miles from a charge. We have these things called "wires" that transport the electricity to our home! Most houses are already wired up with this modern marvel called electricity, AFAIK...
Of course, we need to generate more electricity and we'd need to do it in a cleaner way otherwise we're moving most of the pollution to a different location. The businesses that will gain are the alternative energy and "clean" energy (from fossil fuels) industries. That's why there is so much excitement about solar/wind/tidal and so many other alternative energy sources.
The "hydrogen economy" is a way for the incumbent fuel refiner/distributors to delay the inevitable changes in order to protect their existing business models. They can point to a distant future and say, "in 20 years we'll all be running on Hydrogen, and that's the future". Sensible oil companies will move towards alternative energy, at least partially, in order to protect themselves from a future in which they are not *currently* part of.
Progress? That is not always a good thing. The Nazi's were "progressive".
Godwins law!!! Yeeha!
Paradigm shift = profit shift! Overall, we'll probably be better off, but there will be winners and losers. The record labels defended their business model (physical distribution of album CDs) to the end, but eventually they had to give in. Very quickly, we're moving towards online distribution of all music.
It's truly an exciting time right now for electric cars! Have you read about super capacitors? I'm sure there are many companies working on this, but I've been following one in particular - EEStor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEstor
I don't enough about the science at play here, but it seems to have attracted a lot of interest in the form of funds, and has a time frame for delivery that is fairly soon. Fingers crossed...
Nope. I focus my attention on ultracapacitors.
Seriously though, I think ultracapacitors (or super capacitors) are likely to be the most important technology during the next 10 years or so. Imagine a battery that charges in 30 seconds (if your wires don't melt), which you can accurately measure for remaining capacity, and that lasts as long as your car/laptop/solar panels/personal electronic device. It sounds like a perfect replacement for gasoline doesn't it? Now imagine that these batteries are improving in capacity at something akin to Moore's Law (slower but still exponential).
Yep, good stuff.
Can we revoke Robroy's Godwin's Law License? He's been abusing it lately.
The capacitors are one thing I think we agree on. I was really excited when I first heard about it. They could do, for electric cars, what electronic tuners did for remote control Television. And I don't think the nazi's had a bloody thing to do with it!
Ok, I'm done with the N word for a while. :P
You're right, it'll never be the fuel of choice, at least not for passenger cars and light trucks. We're too close to battery based EVs being viable, especially for urban areas, for electrolysis based hydrogen vehicles to make sense (other than for refiners, as noted).
I think it has some use in vehicles where battery operation isn't as viable, notably heavy trucks, buses, and small/medium ships (large ships will eventually all go nuclear, I imagine). All of these vehicles typically operate under situations with a regular base/port of call, tend to be better maintained, and have load cycles way beyond what a battery could deal with. Consider the GM Hybrid buses that Metro uses, and replace the Cummins diesel + generator with a fuel cell.
I always envisioned the future of pass-car would be EVs, with little to no batteries, that got power from a power grid built into the road surface - at least in cities. Of course, we're talking a very distant future, by which time terrestrial vehicles will probably be out of the picture anyway.
Bah. Ultra-mega-mega capacitors will come out soon and blow all this crap away!
That's one of the things I love about these things. High voltage, and can be charged in 5 minutes, assuming you have the capacity (pun intended). So we can have two ways of charging:
1) Plug it in at home on your 110/220V circuits and let it "trickle" charge at 20A in a few hours or overnight. Intelligent charging units will ensure that your charging is done at the cheapest time of the day (if your electricity provider handles that). In the more distant future, charging units will be controlled by the electricity company so that you can barter for better rates if you let them decide when you will pull the electricity. That will enable the electricity company to size the overall system in a more efficient and smaller way, as they won't have to handle 100 million cars getting plugged in to the grid at 6pm every day each pulling 20A.
2) Go to the charging station and get hooked up with a 5 minute charge at some disgustingly high amperage, with a charging cable that's as thick as your arm.
Either way, we'll hopefully get the 300 or so miles that we're used to getting from regular gasoline engines before needing to recharge.
I'm truly excited by this! Hybrid cars are OK, but we seem to have just doubled the amount of technology in the car. I want to reduce it and move to electricity exclusively.
If only there was an easily transportable liquid that could be pumped into your car in a couple of minutes, which when consumed produced almost nothing but water vapor and something that helped plants to grow.
You're right, that would be better than what we have now. But still less good than EVs.
Go flame elsewhere.
The less sarcastic way of stating my point would be to note that gasoline is an approximation of the ideal fuel. There are some additional pollutants, of course. EV is not an ideal solution either. You need to compare gasoline to the real pollution that will be created by the construction of the enormous number new electric generating plants that will be needed to meet the new demand and the fuel they use. There is also all the new power lines, as those are close to capacity now. That will require more copper, and copper mines. Plus the new house wiring that can handle the massive load of recharging EVs. The batteries of whatever technology need to be manufactured and eventually reprocessed. Neglecting these things runs the risk of repeating the ethanol debacle.
That is my flame.