Posted on 03/06/2006 11:00:00 AM PST by kellynla
Washington, DC [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) announced that the U.S. ethanol industry set annual production records in 2005, producing just less than 4 billion gallons (3.904 billion gallons) and averaging nearly 255,000 barrels of ethanol production daily, according to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
"These figures represent not only the tremendous growth our industry is experiencing, but also the future growth that will occur," said RFA President Bob Dinneen.
"Demand for ethanol will only continue to grow as refiners remove MTBE from the marketplace and more Americans switch to this clean burning, renewable fuel," said Dinneen. "The U.S. ethanol industry, with 2.1 billion gallons of capacity currently under construction, will continue to expand to meet this soaring demand."
Currently, 95 ethanol plants have a combined production capacity of more than 4.3 billion gallons a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at renewableenergyaccess.com ...
Which also heavily cites CTA "facts".
And if those facts are so wrong, why can't you proove it?
>>>Cornell/Berkley independent study
That study is crap. It uses old data, and does not take into account changes in the technology in ethanol production and farming.
Current information can be found at:
http://www.ethanol.org/documents/ScienceJournalJanuary2006_000.pdf
http://www.ethanol.org/documents/NetEnergyBalanceofEthanol.pdf - this one specifically debunks your pals from Cornell/Berkley.
>>>What do you have from truly independent sources concerning the viability of ethanol without subsidies?<<<
Again, the issue of subsidies is irrelevant until you factor in the subsidies into the cost of petrol. I've provided documentation that shows petrol is far more subsidized than ethanol. Can you disprove that or not?
Those studies include Michael Wang's formulas that are also under contention from the academic community.
Also, the study was updated last year and still had the same results. Read the new study that was accepted into the National Resources Research Volume 14 if you want the facts.
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/Biofuels/NRRethanol.2005.pdf
I swear I did.
The only people left claiming that ethanol production TODAY is inefficient are complete environazi loons, and oil industry hacks. Tad W. Patzek is a Berkeley nutjob; population control...you know the drill. He's their last remaining kook still promoting the idea that ethanol production is a net loss.
Let's have a little sample of some of Tad's other ideas, shall we:
As we can see in figure 1-3 a short food chain is more efficient than a long one. Hence eating vegetables is more efficient that eating meat....Land is cleared of tropical rain forest to provide beef for us, through McDonald's, Burger King, etc"
Source:http://patzek.berkeley.edu/E11/Food.pdf#search='tad%20w.%20patzek'
I heard this nutcase interviewed on the radio a couple of weeks ago. He couldn't get two sentences into his "anti-ethanol" rant without his little population and food control edicts. The guys who were interviewing him were laughing their A##es off. Yet, we still have freepers quoting the fool...
Oh, and so much for your some of our sugar cane lovers...according to your resident envirowhacko:
Patzek is also concerned about the sustainability of industrial farming in developing nations where surgarcane and trees are grown as feedstock for ethanol and other biofuels. Using United Nations data, he examined the production cycles of plantations hundreds of billions of tons of raw material.
Source: http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes/0305/patzek.html
But then, why wouldn't we base our entire U.S. energy supply on a man with this stellar educational background:
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, Silesian Technical University, Poland 1980
M.S. Chemical Engineering, Silesian Technical University, Poland
Oh, and did I mention, he's a geologist who seems to have extensitively studied OIL?
Here's more:
"Maybe the problem is Pimentel is an entomologist instead of an engineer," Corzine said, adding that Patzek was a longtime employee of Shell Oil Company and founder of the UC Oil Consortium, which has counted BP, Chevron USA, Mobil USA, Shell and Unocal among its members. Patzek also is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, making his ethanol energy balance analysis hardly impartial, Corzine said.
Poor Mr. Patzek...he cannot decide whether to be an oil baron or a communist community planner.
Source: http://www.hpj.com/dtnnewstable.cfm?type=story&sid=14776
From the same source:
In June 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture updated its 2002 analysis of the issue and determined that the net energy balance of ethanol production is 1.67 to 1. For every 100 BTUs of energy used to make ethanol, 167 BTUs of ethanol is produced. In 2002, USDA had concluded that the ratio was 1.35 to 1. The USDA findings have been confirmed by additional studies conducted by the University of Nebraska and Argonne National Laboratory.
Some people really need to take a closer look at their "friends" before spouting off.
Regarding subsidies: many of them are in the form of tax credits...are we now going to reach a new FR low and call for tax increases?
My family made a ton of money when my GG Uncles struck oil in Texas; we still have ownership in the oil claim. Can we move on already?
They're still wrong.
Read any one of the links I provided above to see why.
Some BERKELEY colleagues of their favorite oil-loving communist weigh in:
Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals
Alexander E. Farrell,1* Richard J. Plevin,1 Brian T. Turner,1,2 Andrew D. Jones,1 Michael O'Hare,2 Daniel M. Kammen1,2,3
To study the potential effects of increased biofuel use, we evaluated six representative analyses of fuel ethanol. Studies that reported negative net energy incorrectly ignored coproducts and used some obsolete data. All studies indicated that current corn ethanol technologies are much less petroleum-intensive than gasoline but have greenhouse gas emissions similar to those of gasoline. However, many important environmental effects of biofuel production are poorly understood. New metrics that measure specific resource inputs are developed, but further research into environmental metrics is needed. Nonetheless, it is already clear that large-scale use of ethanol for fuel will almost certainly require cellulosic technology.
Link: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5760/506
Bring on the cellulose technology...we've plenty of cornstalks to get rid of!
>>>Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals<<<
I linked another source for this in #204 :)
I also thought it important to point out that this study was done by UC Berkeley researchers; in direct opposition to their latest "god."
They are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
well i have just one comment and it harks back to the first post...which i totally agree
importing oil from people who use our cash to kill us is plain crazy...are we honestly suggesting here that the brain power of the US cannot (if it has not done so already) match or beat the huge effort brazil has tried and successfully implemented??...
this solution using this renewable home grown solution could drastically cut foreign oil imports..we can use our purchase of oil as a weapon, buying only from states that support democracy and therby supporting democracy. rather then oil being used as a weapon against us (like OPEC), we can turn it into a weapon for us...selective purchase based on our requirements.... will it ever replace oil, maybe or maybe not...will it reduce drastically , i believe it could...and surely that is a good thing....
if you believe it doesnt work, are u truly telling me we cant MAKE it work?
hell i would even go so far as to give this technology to democracies the world over, the less use of oil worldwide, the more of a weapon with huge financial weight it becomes....and one we can deploy as we see fit...
i would like nothing better then to give the middle finger to every oil rich islamic states that we have to show 'understanding' and say...one simple word...no..when u become a democracy with religious freedom for all...then and only then do we buy...
we need a presidential decree like kennedy's speech about a man on the moon to drive this...we can do it...we just need to realise the gains..this is not just about oil being more efficient, far greater things are at stake here IMHO..
We have been yelling about this for twenty years; Brazil just went ahead and did it; less politicians invested in oil, I guess.
Somehow, the same people who are "free trade at all costs" always seem to show up on the pro-oil side of the argument.
So, just for them, a new saying : LET'S SEND OIL THE WAY OF THE BUGGY WHIP!
Kind of funny, and ironic.
Someone asked about the engine I used. It was a 327 Chevy with double hump heads, Edlebrock manifold with a 750 Holley. I had 11:5 to 1 aluminum pistons and a CD ignition. I could burn ethanol or white gas in it either one without changing much. The spark could be advanced further with ethanol and the plugs ran cooler on ethanol. Cam was solid lifter 30/30. I wasn't rich. Pretty much off the shelf stuff in the old days.
Back to your question. Just a few weeks ago, before the State of the Union Address, Sugar was almost half the price it is today. Corn is not the cheapest, most efficient way to make ethanol. Sugar feedstock is( right now). Sweet taters, sugar beets, and sugar cane, would give good cheap yields, with refined sugar being ok, but it has been refined so it already has built in costs you don't really need. The point I try to make on these threads is we could get the crops from South America, Haiti, Dom Republic, Africa, etc, at LOW cost. These people are getting aid from us now to live, why not give them a market for their products. If we could switch to ethanol fuel, then we could have VARIOUS sources for the feedstock. Left over corn, rice( we can't sell to Japan or China), potato's, sorghum, Sunchokes, etc, would all work. The cellulose ethanol is coming but we haven't perfected large sources for the enzymes needed to make it from grass and such. We have the ability, just not commercial quantity of the enzyme. Yeast replicates itself, but the enzyme is a patented franken thingy from a testube. Sort of like the bacteria we have now that eats oil spills in the oceans. If we get an organism that will make the enzyme so we can farm it, we are home free. I hear we are within 5 years of that.
Sunchokes are sort of like Sunflowers with a tuber root. They can be grown 3 crops a year, and are hard to kill. If you harvest them and just leave the land, they will grow again from the left over pieces in the soil. They are very starchy like a potato and taste sort of like chestnuts. As far as I know they grow like weeds so no fertilizer is required. You make the ethanol just like you would from corn or potato's, by making a beer first. We could do that right now if there was a market for them. You might find them in a health food store called "Jerusalem artichoke".
When I was a kid, we used to walk the highways picking up pop bottles for the deposit. What if the divided highways were planted with a crop of sunchokes and the state mowed those down instead of weeds? The unemployed getting checks, prisoners, illegal aliens, teens wanting to make money, etc, all could go down the highways digging these tubers for profit for the state. There are hundreds of ideas out there, but we have to be determined to do it and not just discuss it endlessly.
Nicaragua is just about to go Sandinista again because we have done squat for them since Reagan gave them democracy. They are still poor, they have no export and no hope for the future. Sugar cane from them would give them a future without Communism and death squads.
One more topic. About the efficiency of ethanol vs gas. If you raise the compression ratio and use turbochargers, and advance the spark, use a smaller, lighter engine, the millage would be GREATER than a gas engine. The guru's start whipping out their slide rules and talking BTU's and forget the efficiency of the ethanol engine is greater. If you want Flexfuel, then yes, the millage will suffer with ethanol. If you build a 4 banger with 12:1 pistons and a turbo, you could get 600hp from a half V8 weight engine. You have more than enough power( you dial in the turbo pressure till the bottom end falls out or the pistons burn),(Think Indy and Offenhouser) and the weight is half that of a cast iron V8. You use the hp when needed, but have a 4 banger when not as much power is needed. They are using a similar principle today with the V8's that cut off 4 cyl when coasting and light loads, but all 8 when accelerating. Just putting ethanol in a gas engine isn't the best way to do it, but building an ethanol only engine increases the efficency and makes the BTU argument moot. Engines today have been greatly improved considering the 87 octane we have to work with, but an ethanol engine would make you a true believer if you ever drove one. It would be like the "good old days" of Hemi's and muscle cars.
The reason, as I have mentioned before on several threads, we don't do this isn't so much from the oil companies( even though they won't be happy), but the gubmint is afraid we will take a swig without paying the tax. They get literally billions from alcohol taxes. You might also make your own without paying the road tax( more billions). That is why we will probably have to settle for E85 as the best we can do. The gas is only needed to poison the ethanol. But the ethanol must be anhydrous ( all water removed), because it will separate in the tank and accumulate to get water in the tank. Otherwise, you can burn 180 proof as easy as 195 proof. The real costs expand just getting the last few percent of H2o from the ethanol. Most stills can get 190 proof with one run if the temp is carefully controlled. Another option would be to poison it with methanol. The greenies would complain about that though( so would I) It's so poisonous, you can't get it on your skin and it doesn't burn as clean as ethanol. You would still have wino's taking a swig though. They drink sterno now. Dukakis wife, Is she still around?
You propose to turn a valuable high energy substance into a lower energy substance, and to consume untold amounts of other energy in the process, and then you've got the nerve to call those who point out your error of economics and logic, "retards"? ROTFLMAO!!!
We turned away ethanol, not sugar. I don't get what you are saying. The ethanol was already made at 55 cents per gallon. The price is higher today, but so is everything else. They still run their cars on ethanol that is 1/2 the price of gas, right now,... today. I would imagine the price is somewhere around $1- $1.50, which is still cheaper than the $2.20 at my pump in town. Sugar in the world market is double since the State of the Union message. It's still cheaper than corn however for ethanol purposes.
I can't burn coal in my car, but I can get ethanol from multiple sources. The morons I'm talking about here think in simple one dimensional thought patterns. Read all my posts before getting too smug.
If we could save up enough energy to avoid all imports for a year, it would foment government insurrection and coups in the middle east solving the problem of terrorism once and for all.
BUMP
My current truck is a 2006 Silverado. While I fill it almost exclusively with e85, it gets better mileage on gasoline. GM could retune the engine for alcohol, but it would then require a very high octane gasoline where ethanol wasn't available (and it still wouldn't run as well on it). There just isn't that sort of demand yet.
I used to have a 1972 Nova which we modified to run denatured alcohol (in the days before electronic ignition and fuel injection). That sucker wouldn't run at all on unleaded gasoline, but it was a rocket on ethanol.
maybe you should take a vacation to Brazil and see what is going on...
if the world were left up to naysayers like you;
we'd all be riding horseback. LMAO
kinda busy here;
so have a good one.
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