Posted on 03/04/2007 8:01:09 AM PST by Uncle Miltie
E85 is a loser for reduced miles per gallon, as reported in published articles in recent magazines. Stories published in various magazines, e.g., Consumer Reports, CARandDRIVER, Bioscience, Scientific American, American Scientist and Science in 2005 and 2006 question the scientific and economic validity of ethanol (a mixture of gasoline and alcohol) made from corn grain or other fermentable carbohydrates (CHO).
Alcohol made from fermented cellosic material (wood from certain trees, plant materials from plants such as switchgrass or other grasses, etc. may be more feasible. However, cellosic materials are composed of complex CHOs which must be modified to more simple, fermentable CHOs to produce alcohol, and the needed economic procedures are not yet developed.
A significant fact is that gasoline from petroleum has 115,400 British Thermal Units per gallon whereas alcohol (ethanol) has only 75,670 BTUs per gallon, or, alcohol has only .66 the energy of gasoline.
Further, the energy input to produce corn, such as machinery, fertilizer, seed, etc., and the total process of conversion of corn grain to alcohol and by-products requires more energy than is produced in the ethanol, according to researchers at Cornell University (2007 publication) and others. However, others reported a 1.34 gain in energy from the ethanol from the corn when he included the energy of byproducts.
Two publications, Consumer Reports and CARandDRIVER in recent road tests or on an oval track, in 2006 trials found that E85 (gasoline mixed with 85 percent alcohol) has approximately 30 percent less mileage as compared to 87 octane gasoline. At prices of gasoline and E85 in August, 2006, the fuel costs to travel 400 miles (road) with E85 ($3.99) would have exceeded gasoline ($2.49), or a Tahoe Chevrolet went 400 miles on a tankful of gasoline versus the Tahoe going only 290 miles on a tankful of E85.
The author of the story in CARandDRIVER quoted that the Environmental Protection Agency has reported 28 percent reduction in mileage for E85 as compared to gasoline. E85 provided only 0.67 the mileage of gasoline.
Ethanol from corn has required large federal and state subsidies, a 51c/gallon federal subsidy of alcohol blended with gasoline, plus state subsidies and tax incentives to grow to its present 107 ethanol plants producing 5.1 billion gallons of alcohol in 2006, and growing.
The price of corn has increased
50 percent or more in six to nine months benefiting corn growers. The higher price of corn is hurting livestock producers (beef cattle, swine, poultry, etc.) because the price of feeder cattle has decreased significantly and the price of corn for feed has increased 50 percent in six months.
A potentially more efficient producer of liquid fuel energy is thought to be the “cellulosic” system, or production of alcohol from complex CHOs such as wood chips, plant material from corn stalks, and perennial grasses such as switchgrass. However, a basic problem is the development of enzyme(s) to convert complex CHOs to fermentable CHOs.
Economic transportation of such bulky materials also is a problem. Another problem is that the cellulosic plants will use about 500 to 1,000 gallons of water per minute or 1,440,000 gallons per 24 hours with plants closely spaced due to bulk of cellulosic material. (Says Dr. Thomas Robb, in Farm & Ranch Guide, Jan. 5)
The production and use of biodiesel (diesel from petroleum to which are added modified vegetable oils or waste fats) also have economic problems. Canola oil highly publicized for use now has a higher cost per pound or gallon than diesel fuel from petroleum, $3/gallon wholesale versus $2.47/gallon retail. Canola oil is popular for use in cooking or in foods.
Soybean oil has a lower price than canola oil but now has increased to 28.5c/lb. about 10 percent higher than the maximum, 25c/lb. at which using soybean oil in biodiesel will be economic.
The potential users of biofuels are urged to become better informed about their practical and economic feasibility. Stories in the popular press are mostly very favorable to “replaceable, sustainable biofuels” as are corn growers, speculators and most politicians. Other publications are skeptical to negative about the practical and economic feasibility of biofuels now produced from corn grain and other plant sources.
Carter and Nalewaja are professors emeritus in plant science at North Dakota State University.
Both had distinguished careers in teaching and research – Carter in flaxseed for food and fuel, Nalewaja in development of weed control practices. E-mail ImySm@aol.com
Stop the profanity and name calling. It only points out how weak your arguments are.
Your report, which I've read times you posted before and re-read again, has no support for the numbers it claims. Just some numbers posted on the Internet without the supporting documentation supporting the claim. It has no validity.
I've worked in refineries and I understand how much energy it takes. Nothing near this claim. Do you know that gasoline was originally a waste product? Producing Kerosene resulting in gasoline there originally was no market for. It doesn't take a huge additional amount of energy.
Your link? Maybe you'd learn how to make your links active?
More happy horse manure from big oil. They would rather continue sending dollars to the Arabs, Persians and Chavez.
Even though I think they're wrong, let's just take your calculations at face value.
Would you rather buy 91,000 BTUs from people who will use the money to buy materals to build bombs and entice others to carry them to our shores and kill us, or would you rather spend that money to buy 75,000 BTUs from American farmers and factory workers who support our country and are willing to send their young men to die defending our country from the bombers?
Excellent point. Also, unless ethanol plants use crude oil to make and transport their product, they should also include the extra energy needed to create the diesel to move the ethanol to the end user. If they wanted to be honest. LOL!
If we no longer bought it, would they no longer have money to do these things? Why don't we use the money we save by using the cheaper energy to build bombs and kill them?
You just don't get it do you. That 75,000 BTU requires that you buy 91,000 BTU of foreign energy (worst case). Best case it requires that you buy 71,000 of foreign BTUs. Those tractors to do all the corn planting, the fertilizer plants all run on fossl fuel that has to come from someplace. The ONLY way that the 75,000 is all American is if you get it ALL from domestic coal, and if you're getting it from coal, then you're a lot better off using Fischer Tropsch. Ethanol fuel is nothing but a fat corporate welfare program to make ADM and similar companies grow fatter from the rest of us. Oh and you can skip the jingoist bullsh.t I'm trying to have a rational discussion here.
What some people don't understand is that we aren't facing an energy shortage. Our energy problem is that the ME countries can produce energy cheaper than we can, it is almost free for them. Until their cost of production rises substantially we won't be able to be energy independent, because they can put any alternative source of energy out of business at will.
I do get it.
You don't want to answer my direct, and simple question because it doesn't serve your interest.
So much for your rationality.
What was the direct question stripped of its jingoistic bs? Was it do I want to buy ethanol from fat cat ethanol producers who use more foreign oil to produce ethanol than I would just buying gas because (wave the flag here) they're A-mucan and it's better that I spend more and they pocket the differenc before they pass the rest of my money on the the Arabs? Because near as I can tell that's what you're asking.
It must be tough to be educated beyond your wisdom.
I'm asking;
Would your rather give money to those who would use it to kill you?
OR
To those who are willing to die defending you AGAINST those who would kill you?
You at least are learning a little. You now recognize that up to the initial simple distillation does not take even a small part of the number you are claiming. Let me help you on the rest.
The US refines over 6 million barrels of gasoline every day.
1 Gallon Gasoline = 124,000 BTU
Calculators for Energy Used in the United States, EIA
A little math and we have the US refining
11,590 Trillion BTU's of gasoline per year.
The entire industrial sector of the US used 1,019,156,065 Megawatthours (MWH) of electrical energy. That includes everything: refineries, automotive manufacturing, everything industrial.
US Direct Use and Retail Sales of Electricity
Converted to BTU's
3,480 Trillion BTU
1 megawatthour = 3,412,141 BTU
So you claim we consume 14,260 Trillion BTU's in fossil fuel to produce the gasoline we refine. And you attribute most of this consumption in the final stage of refinery process after the simple distillation. That is Quadrupole the entire electrical energy the entire industrial market in the US consumes. Where do you claim this power is coming from?
Just do a little math, it is obvious how ridiculous this claim is. We use petroleum products because they contain a large ratio of energy available for the cost. Also, gasoline is less than 40% of the petroleum products we refine, where does the power for the rest come from?
The entire world uses more petroleum products as an energy source than any other source. If it took more energy to produce those products than they contained, where would the power come from?
A little math shows how ridiculous this claim is.
But think about the "feel goods" per gallon.
You should have moved 25 feet to the right; that left image fence line keeps getting caught on my ear.
Nice moment, great symbolism.
Costs twice as much to make.
I have to disagree; most people hate to pump gas so it would be necessary to double the tank size to make people think they are only using half a tank of fuel as before while not realizing they used 11/2 times as much.
"Form: colourless liquid
Stability: Stable
Melting point: -89 C
Boiling point: 118 C
Water solubility: high
Specific gravity: 0.81"
MSDS info
I like that depth and structure on the left, it keeps it from being too flat. My main failure, I think, was to use too much dark ground; I should have moved the frame up to show more sky and less black foreground.
I have a whole series from that evening, and several are just as spectacular. One is facing north, with a main cross (the father) and a dozen small crosses in two rows of 6 (the children) with telephone poles replicating the cross theme and a thunderstorm in the background.
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