Ethanol could leave the world hungry

Cnn.com ^ | 8-16-06 | Lester Brown

[Hydroshock]

The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in alternative energy - promises a guilt-free way to keep our gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural resources could have consequences even more drastic than, say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the world hungry.

We are facing an epic competition between the 800 million motorists who want to protect their mobility and the two billion poorest people in the world who simply want to survive. In effect, supermarkets and service stations are now competing for the same resources.

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This year cars, not people, will claim most of the increase in world grain consumption. The problem is simple: It takes a whole lot of agricultural produce to create a modest amount of automotive fuel.

The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol, for instance, could feed one person for a year. If today's entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into fuel for cars, it would still satisfy less than one-sixth of U.S. demand.

[thackney]

Thank you, I expected something similar to gasoline. Gasoline was a waste product from the production of kerosene. Automobile engines started using gasoline and changed the world.

Do you have any information when diesel fuel was first produced? Or was it just not used for that at the time, and obviously not called that name?

[IamConservative]

The original prototype was designed to burn coal dust.

True. Anything that will combust in the heat generated by air that has been rapidly compressed to 24:1 ratio (or so) can be used to run a compression ignition engine.

My son has a hobby car with a compression ignition engine that runs on a Nitro Methane Oil mix. I don't know how many RPM's it turns, but it screams like a scared rabbit.

[HEY4QDEMS]

I would venture to guess that the water figures conveyed by the site are cradle to grave numbers, drilling, tranport, refining, etc., most of the water used in those processes are recovered so actual consumption is less.

[HEY4QDEMS]

I have a pellet stove that will also burn corn fuel.

It's a 36000 btu, so a 40lb bag of fuel will only last a day if I set the unit to the lowest setting, on the highest setting a bag of fuel will last about ten hours.

[Oberon]

Do you have any information when diesel fuel was first produced?

No, actually I don't; but I suspect that the first petroleum-fueled diesel engine probably burned either kerosene or No. 2 fuel oil, both of which were being produced as heating fuels, and both of which will run just great in a diesel engine even today.

I used to occasionally run a tankful of K-1 kerosene fortified by a quart of automatic transmission fluid through my Jetta turbodiesel just to keep the fuel injection pump and injectors clean. It ran quite well on that mixture.

[Oberon]

For years (and maybe even today) the world record altitude for a piston-engine plane was held by a Junkers fitted with turbodiesels.

[IamConservative]

An engine was built before there was any fuel to run or test it?

I have a friend with a 2001 Ford with a PowerStroke Diesel engine in it that burns striaght used cooking oil. Not biodiesel, straight, used, filtered cooking oil right out of the fryer. All you have to do is pre-heat it to lower the viscosity. Other things are done to preserver engine life, several systems available to make this conversion. But, it will run on straight fry oil.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Yes, I'm familiar with the 2007 regs. Along with EGR, they include DPF technology or Diesel Particulate Filter cannisters to catch soot. The truck makers are not alone in looking at urea to resolve NOx...BMW announced it will sell its diesel cars in the US in 2010 with a urea-based additive.
There's still an exemption for off road engines after 2010 so farmers and miners won't have to deal with this. At least, not as of this writing, anyway.

[P-40]

All you have to do is pre-heat it to lower the viscosity.

I've seen it done with a two tank design where you run the engine on diesel until the engine is warm, then you switch to vegetable oil or whatnot. That works well for some people but I can't see it as a widespread option for the general public...but for engines that run constantly, like some generators, running straight vegetable oil would be great because it is so much cheaper to produce compared to biodiesel.

[P-40]

Yes, I'm familiar with the 2007 regs.

I meant the actual engine redesign. I'm trying to post a link to a schematic of the thing...but their site is down.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/tempcatalog/

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Would 40 pounds be about a bushel ?

[IamConservative]

I've seen it done with a two tank design where you run the engine on diesel until the engine is warm, then you switch to vegetable oil or whatnot.

That's what I have seen as well. You also switch it back to petro diesel prior to turning the engine off to clean the injectors so they don't get coked up.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

With all the chicken fried steaks sold in Texas, the supply of oil is probably inexhaustible.

[Mr. Lucky]

56 lbs. of corn equals a bushel.

[HEY4QDEMS]

IDK. AIKI the bag says Net Weight = 40 lb.

[P-40]

With all the chicken fried steaks sold in Texas, the supply of oil is probably inexhaustible.

Just the oil from Gov. Perry's hair should take care of a large part of China if we decide to export. :)

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

One of the things we need to STOP doing is sprawling out into and building on top of the richest soil in the world here in the Midwest. The Chicago area comes to mind. Lake County has very few farms left!

[TKDietz]

Pimentel is full of crap on this issue. This reasoning in this 2001 article Occupied keeps posting is bogus. It's full of holes and Occupied knows it. For instance, Pimentel says, "The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix), would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production." He also says that each acre of corn will produce 328 gallons of ethanol. Do the math. 852 divided by 328 comes to about 2.6 acres, not eleven. And most of the rest of the crap he writes is wrong too. His bushel per acre corn yield numbers he uses are lower than the real yields. The gallons per bushel yield numbers he's using are lower than actual gallons per bushel yields. He talks about "three distillation" processes being needed to produce ethanol in many cases when in fact modern stills can produce high test ethanol on the first run. He talks about all these irrigation problems when in fact an awful lot of the corn grown as ethanol feedstock requires little or no irrigation. Dig deeper in his studies and you'll find all sorts or errors and false assumptions. His study is nothing but garbage in garbage out.

Pimentel has also done similar studies on other fuels like biosiesel and gasoline. Do you know what he finds for gasoline? He finds that it is a net energy loser too. According to him it takes about 10% more energy to make gasoline than it produces. In his studies this pinhead even adds in things like the energy used to produce a tractor that will work the farm, even though the farmer would need that tractor anyway, and he includes as energy used the calories farm workers burn while working. Huh? I'm wondering why he doesn't include as energy used the calories workers burned while manufacturing the tractor and the calories burned by those who produced the food that guys who made the tractor ate and the energy expended by the car they drove to work at the tractor factory and the food the people who made their cars ate and so on. This guy is a nut. He expends too much energy coming out with crap studies and not enough checking his facts.

[from occupied ga]

It may be popular for the Sierra Club mentality you represent,

You know, I've decided that not only are you an @$$hole for making that comment, but your reading comprehension is low even by public school standards. It is the Sierra club mentality that loves ethanol (that would be you)

[SunkenCiv]

I guess it would depend on where the 2 billion live... if they live, say, in the middle of an oil-rich country that is nearly all desert because it has no natural water supply, wouldn't that just be too bad?