Seeking Newer Ways of Ethanol Preparation

NYT News Service ^ | February 21, 2006 | Matthew L Wald

[kellynla]

The endless fields of corn in the Midwest can be distilled into endless gallons of ethanol, a clean-burning, high-octane fuel that could end any worldwide oil shortage and reduce emissions that cause global warming.

There is only one catch: Turning corn into ethanol takes energy. For every gallon that an ethanol manufacturing plant produces, it uses the equivalent of almost two-fifths of a gallon of fuel (usually natural gas), and that does not count the fuel needed to make fertilizer for the corn, run the farm machinery, or truck the ethanol to market.

The use of all that fossil fuel to make ethanol substantially reduces its value as an alternative source of energy. Ethanol production is expected to hit 5 billion gallons this year, equal to more than three percent of gasoline supplies, and more ethanol distilleries are being built. But if ethanol is to realize its potential, its proponents recognize that they will have to develop new ways to make it. "In this industry, you can't take a parochial view of your business," said William A Lee, general manager of Chippewa Valley Ethanol, in Benson, Minn., United States and former chairman of the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group.

[Final Authority]

You know, I'm glad there are folks like you to rewrite what I wrote to make it more understandable, as if you actually can.

Thanks for the support, (Firt timn I have ever used this acronym) LOL.

[Final Authority]

The real contribution you have made on this thread is that you wrote that in order for the ethanol scenario to actually work we need to derive about 80% of our electrical needs from nuclear generated power.

Now, try to get that idea past the stupid wishful ethanol dreamers and the "greens".

You are absolutely correct, as making ethanol uses a lot of energy, and one needs to disabuse those, (the poster of this thread especially) that all we need to do is to collocate production plants near huge piles of cow manure and we can get all of the "free" energy we need. So, he or she (based on the dialog and simplicity of thought sounds like a she) would rather we use natural gas and electricity to make nitrate fertilizer instead of using cow manure to fertilize the hay crop that the cows eat?

With respect to entropy and the conversion of energy, there is no free lunch, all we can do is to convert it or use it as efficiently as we can.

[Mr. Lucky]

Manure isn't used as a hay fertilizer. Sorry.

[Final Authority]

Maybe it isn't where you live but in NH, Massachusetts, and in VT it is. Is it just wasted where you come from? Is it just dumped into a river? If it isn't used for some economic purpose then the farmer is losing money, isn't he?

[Mr. Lucky]

Explain to me;

1) why you require high nitrogen fertilizer on hay,

2) why it doesn't burn, and

3) how you keep it out of the baler.

[edsheppa]

How 'long term' is 'long term'?

I think a rational "long term" is 100 to maybe 150 years, which is the limit of planning based on current fundamental trends and technology. 300 years is going to be two and maybe more technical revolutions down the road.

I am certainly not opposed to improving things NOW, but I think ethanol, biodiesel, etc. for the medium term and electricity for the longer term are better than oil exploration and cracking oil shales and sands (not that I oppose them, just I think the others are more attractive).

[Final Authority]

We spread manure in the winter, by June 12 for the first cut, the manure is gone. Second cut of hay is less because unless liquid manure is spread, which large farmers do, the fields are less fertile. Some farmers can get more money for naturally composted manure than the cost of buying hay from Quebec, so they sell the manure (it goes to nurseries) and buy hay.

[thackney]

I think a rational "long term" is 100 to maybe 150 years, which is the limit of planning based on current fundamental trends and technology.

In my opinion, believing you can plan technology accomplishments and energy needs 100~150 years into the future is not realistic.

[Mr. Lucky]

You must raise dairy cattle and grass hay. The course material mixed in with manure on my farm would contaminate the subsequent year's hay crop which, in the midwest, is largely alfalfa and on which the nitrogen would be wasted. Because of the high potassium and phospahte requirements of alfalfa, I'll spread manure prior to seeding that crop, but I wouldn't spread it on an established field unless it was well composted.

I apply the manure on frozen ground as late in the winter as possible prior to a corn rotation. The manure together with the residual nitrogen from a soybean or alfalfa crop will displace over half the anhydrous which would otherwise be required.

[edsheppa]

You're certainly entitled to your opinion but mine is that the main outline of the this century can be seen now.

[reagan_fanatic]

whatever it costs; it's a lot cheaper than one dead Marine

I echo your sentiment. Ethanol production isn't perfect by a long shot, but the technology is still young and there will be improvements along the way in production that will lower the costs of making it.

It's a very load road to independence from foreign oil, but it has to start somewhere.

[FreePaul]

You and others here used figures from 340 million acres to 400+ million acres when talking about ethanol producing crops. Since our current crop producing land is in the low three hundred million acres there wouldn't be much left for growing vegetables. Maybe with enough ethyl alcohol around we wouldn't be too worried about eating.

[bert]

The solution is going to be nuclear stills. The by product steam will turn generators. That will be an energy twofur.

Ethanol and juice. If you charge for the ethanol, the juice is free. If you charge for the electriucity, the ethanol energy is free.

[Smittie]

Until it is cheeper than oil to produce....

If you figure in the military costs to get our oil, it may not be that much more expensive. If it meant the Arabs would drown in their oil and we wouldn't be giving them a dime, I wouldn't complain about $3 a gallon ethanol. It would be cheaper in the long run.

[edsheppa]

The idea is to bring additional land under cultivation. It also doesn't have to be all in the US. It's not even clear it needs to be on land. I recall an experiment that testd the hypothesis that a paucity of iron was inhibiting algal growth in certain areas. The scientists added iron and algal growth increased dramatically. Their angle was sequestering carbon but I wonder if couldn't develop a crop that grows in the ocean for biomass.

[Mr. Lucky]

In 1997 there were 36,000,000 acres of otherwise tillable US land enrolled in the (misnamed) Conservation Reserve Program.

Assume that, of these, 80% could be returned to crop production and that 20% should be permanently planted to, say, timber. If the 30,000,000 acres would yield an average of 120 bushels of corn per acre and each bushel would yield 2.8 gallons of ethanol, we would have an additional 10 Billion gallons of ethanol per year. Would that help?

[fix]

Also factor in the ongoing research in Georgia. Scientists are working on a way to efficiently use wood byproducts to produce ethanol. Ethanol production is not limited to corn and sugar. If it will ferment, it will produce fuel.

[Mr. Lucky]

...and eventually the marketplace would sort out the winners from the losers.

[thackney]

If you figure in the military costs to get our oil

If we produced all our petroleum needs in North America, how many aircraft carriers, bombers and military personnel do you think we could do away with?

[fallujah-nuker]

If we produced all our petroleum needs in North America, how many aircraft carriers, bombers and military personnel do you think we could do away with?

I think there are three main military issues:
(1) The forces tied down in the Mideast, (2)the Achilles Heel that a foe may exploit and (3) the petrodollars that flow to Islamofascism.

beginning in 1990 we went on a procurement holiday, and example is the B-2 bomber. It was cut from 132 aircraft under Reagan to 75 and then 21 under Bush41 and Clinton. The R&D was very expensive, it is a two billion dollar aircraft only because the nonrecurring costs were amortized over 21 airframes. The money saved by canceling the other 111 aircraft worked out to $262 million per aircraft, as a measure of national effort (fraction of GDP to purchase each bomber) each addition airframe would have involved less national effort than the B-58 bomber (used for only a decade) purchased in the early sixties.

The money we've given to Egypt in the interval would have paid for full production of the B-2 and even more importantly allow a production line to remain open for surge capacity. If we can save money on O&M we can spend more on hardware, including keeping the production lines open. A lower operating tempo would help improve retention of trained personnel.

The trend since 1990 was to cut the force but expand the mission, with GOP control of both houses of Congress and the White House we have not reversed that trend. We need to plan for the ability to surge military spending from four to five percent of GDP to several times higher, even twenty percent or higher. If we do not have the infrastructure to support a surge we will end up wasting a lot of money, time and blood when a major war does break out, which is far more likely when we are unprepared.

I am against fighting "guns and butter" wars, if the troops go into battle the entire nation should be committed to the effort as in WW2, not like Vietnam. Since we are at war with Islamofascism (not terror) the entire nation can help "back the attack" by cutting the enemies financing, rent income from oil which they did not even develop. As in WW2 we did not do one thing to win the war, we did many, so now it will take several things to win. Nuclear power, rail electrification, coal liquefaction, shale oil and ethanol are a few examples.

Sorry to have gotten a little off topic.