Ethanol Can Replace Gasoline With Big Energy Savings (cellulosic ethanol is best)

TerraDaily ^ | 1/27/2006 | Staff

[Blueflag]

Oh I agree.

In fact, if you wanted to get clever, use black-water sewage to grow aquatic biomas (from chlorophyta on up to water lillies) and stay even lower on the 'food chain' for a sourse of hydrocarbons.

At the same time, use waste heat from power plants to HEAT the black water fermenters to improve per-acre / per-ton yields. Yields being methane gas, methanol and ethanol -- depending on the process and stage.

[sheana]

Yeah already checked into that, problem is they are about twice the cost of a regular system. So there we go again. Takes many years to recoup the cost on this stuff.

[nuke rocketeer]

If it were truly that cost-effective there would be ethanol plants springing up like toadstools all over the country just like the combined cycle power plant craze in the mid to late 1990's.

[Falcon4.0]

This also begs the question, How many acres of corn does it take to get 2 billion gallons of ethanol each and every day?

[staytrue]

Honda thinks it will have practical fuel cell car in 10 years. They showed off a prototype at the detroit autoshow.

[sono]

We've known about ethanol for years ...

[LexBaird]

If you think of fuel as a battery, something to store potential energy in, then it becomes feasible. If a cheap energy source is used to produce the ethanol, like nuke or hydro, then the energy loss to inefficiency is less costly.

The sticking points I see are 1) if the fuel to harvest the biomass is greater than the fuel harvested, you run at a perpetual loss; and 2) that 1 gallon of ethanol only produces around 70% of the energy of 1 gallon of gas, so more actual fuel is needed for the same miles traveled. Unless it is 70% of the cost, then the consumer is losing money. What's a real ripoff is selling ethanol/gas mix for the same price as gas. It's like watering the whiskey.

[frgoff]

Correct. All ethanol is, is solar power run through a highly inefficient clorophyll conversion process.

RTGs using Plutonium 238 is the way to go, but of course nuclear hysteria will prevent anyone even thinking about it.

But imagine the possibilities: a battery pack in your car that powers it non-stop for 40 years.

[Wonder Warthog]

"And in order to improve the energy balance even more, nuclear power could be used to power the biomass-to-cellulosic ethanol conversion."

Sounds like what is really needed is a plant whose seeds are a good source of vegetable oil (biodiesel), and whose stem has a high cellulosic content to make ethanol. I wonder what the cellulose content of the rapeseed plant is??

[KarlInOhio]

Yeah, that's the good side. But take a look at the ugly side of driving with ethanol.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Our Water Furnace was expensive but the AC it produces is essentially free. In Missouri, the summer is usually hot and humid so this was a major consideration. We also punched the back of the house into a hillside so its partially earth-sheltered. Based on where utilities are now and where they're headed, I think we've paid for the difference in this system (versus traditional gas) in four years.

[George Smiley]

I wonder how the economics of producing ethanol for fuel would stack up against attaching heat exchangers to the output of politicians.

Another possible use for politicians with respect to the production of energy: In Egypt, for a time, mummies were burned in the fireboxes of locomotives in lieu of coal or wood.

Which brings up another question: In such a hypothetical scenario, how many miles would you get per Ted Kennedy?

: ^ )

[cpprfld]

In farming labor costs are a very small component of the overall cost of doing business. Most costs in farming is from land and equipment. The Wall Street Journal about two or three weeks ago, had an interesting article on ethanol as a substitute for gasoline in Brazil.

[GingisK]

The combustion products of gasoline are carbon dioxide and water. The cumbustion products of alcohol are carbon dioxide and water.

Of course, gasoline has numerous additives that produce undesirable emissions. I suspect that additives would also be necessary in alcohol.

On the other hand, refining crude oil into gasoline presents its own emissions. Yet, all of those crude oil products power trucks and trains, provide the base materials for plastics, and so on.

Alcohol doesn't produce near the energy as the same amount of gasoline. The advantages of alcohol are not that obvious.

[lentulusgracchus]

Good points.

[LexBaird]

Which brings up another question: In such a hypothetical scenario, how many miles would you get per Ted Kennedy?

I think you could probably do a straight Kennedy to Alcohol conversion rate at 1:1.

[nomorelurker]

I read an article last year that stated that if all the corn produced in the US was converted to alcohol it would equal to 40% of the gasoline used in the US. I know that's not feasible but it gives some ides of the potential.

[Pontiac]

Agricultural production also provides a lot of biomass waste that can be used to produce cellulosic ethanol as well.

The farms I grew up on plowed that biomass under for composting, And with the high amount of clay in the soil there it also made sense as an additive for moisture retention and to break up the soil particles.

[MJemison]

Hmmm, I wonder if velvetleaf would work; it's very fibrous and grows like, well, like a WEED. It's the bane of farms around here.

[woollyone]

Hadn't someone studied maryjane and determined that is was a very cost effective material for ethanol production and more cost effective thatn corn?

This was the ony quick URL that I could find...
http://www.cannabis.com/untoldstory/hemp_2.shtml

(FWIW, I think that drugs make ewe stoopid)