Ethanol for Fuel
Anyone have any thoughts you will share with me about this??
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Works with Brazil and sugar cane. 0 -
It's expensive, it gives you much poorer MPG than petroleum based fuels, it may not even be a net gain in BTU's when all expenditures of energy are considered. The subsidy is the only thing that makes it even close to competitive in price, and it's still not in energy yield per dollar. Very few believe that easily provable fact.
I raise corn and my price went up quite a bit this year. I really enjoy selling corn for $4 per bushel instead of $2, more profit for me.0 -
The problem with ethanol as fuel is that it is not sustainable. It takes more BTUs to make than you get out of it. For 100 percent replacement for petrolium fuels, enormous amounts of corn would have to be grown. It's a short term solution to a long term problem. 0 -
Acually it takes less energy to produce than what you get out of it. Those who say it takes more energy are citing 20 year old studies. The EPA comissioned a study a while back the engine was a 1.9 L. 4 banger run on methanol and ethanol. On alcohol it ran at 43% efficiency, (that's better than the base line diesel).
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/presentations/sae-2002-01-2743.pdf
I ran my 440 ci dodge truck on E-85 for 2 years with zero problems. My compression was 11.2-1 and I wish I'd had another point compression. It made MORE power than on gasoline, it's fuel economy was about 90% of my best gasoline mileage. It would have been better yet with more compression in the motor. I wrote an article for one of the Mopar magazines on the carb conversion.
http://www.moparts.org/moparts/picture/print/pages/Vraa.html
In conclusion, don't knock it if you've not tryed it. The current flex-fuel vehicles aren't really designed to take full advantage of E-85's unique properties. If the engines were designed and built to take advantage of E-85 you'd see BETTER mileage, and lower emmissions than a gasoline burning engine. One last item, the money spent growing the corn, manufacturing the E-85 stays here in the USA. It provides jobs, people pay taxes, and doesn't go to some unstable mid-eastern government that would just as soon see us dead.Dave0 -
I'm not familiar with the production numbers, but I can say that I've had motors that wouldn't start (from lawn mowers to motorcycles to motorhomes) on pump gasoline, but fired right-up when I poured Everclear into the carb.
There are a lot of side issues involved- If we produced various "sugars" and broke them down into fuel, a result would be decreased use of OPEC oil, thus decreasing their ability to fund wars on other religions, thus allowing a reduction in the funding necessary by the target countries for defense; so there are a lot of ways the dollars can be counted.0 -
quote:Originally posted by use enough gun
Acually it takes less energy to produce than what you get out of it. Those who say it takes more energy are citing 20 year old studies. The EPA comissioned a study a while back the engine was a 1.9 L. 4 banger run on methanol and ethanol. On alcohol it ran at 43% efficiency, (that's better than the base line diesel).
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/presentations/sae-2002-01-2743.pdf
You're talking about what you might get out of it in a vehicle, not the energy cost of producing the fuel in the first place. The votes aren't all in yet, but several very recent studies question whether when you look at all of the energy costs of growing grain, drying it, tranporting it to and from a still, and the actual distillation cost of extracting the fuel, just how much you actually gain.
It still looks like there is a slight gain, but not much overall.[:)]0 -
It cannot solve our fuel problems. You simply can't grow enough corn to make enough ethanol AND still have enough corn for human and animal consumption. We are now using 20% of our corn for fuel, that is about all the higher it can get without impacting food production. Corn prices have already tripled and more in most places. The mexican's tortilla prices have risen x4 due to the high price of corn being bought for fuel. You want to see more illegals streaming across the border because they can't afford to buy tortillas in Mexico? It just won't work. 0 -
Ethanol can also pose supply problems if the US were to change over to that as a primary fuel source. I would rather see the change to Hydrogen and a proliferation of fuel cells. The technology is there,I have driven several prototype automobiles without problem. I have also built several working models that run on the hydrogen derived from water. The byproduct after 'combustion' on these model is water which returns to the tank to be used again.
Sunlight seperates the hydrogen and oxygen from the water in the tank. The oxygen and hydrogen are stored in bladders in the water tank. Running the car causes the oxygen and hydrogen to recombine in the fuel cell producing water and the electricity that runs the car. The water is returned to the tank for reuse. The whole process is quite simple. Too simple actualy. Anyone can make hydrogen in their back yard using water or natural gas or propane etc. Sunlight and water=hydrogen fuel. I make it for my models using the same fuel cells that run the model car all the time.
Older cars can be retrofitted to run on hydrogen the same as propane. So this could completely end our dependance on oil. OOPS also on oil companies. Lets see readily available and low cost, could power cars and homes. What should Standard Oil do? Buy up all of the pattens?0 -
quote:Originally posted by PC800
It cannot solve our fuel problems. You simply can't grow enough corn to make enough ethanol AND still have enough corn for human and animal consumption. We are now using 20% of our corn for fuel, that is about all the higher it can get without impacting food production. Corn prices have already tripled and more in most places. The mexican's tortilla prices have risen x4 due to the high price of corn being bought for fuel. You want to see more illegals streaming across the border because they can't afford to buy tortillas in Mexico? It just won't work.
I believe that the current objective is to try to replace about 10%, maybe 12%, of oil based fuel with distilled types.[:)]
You can add corn stover type distillation, but the cost in extra fertilizer, much of which comes from natural gas, will be very high. You can't strip nutrients without replacing them, and the more tons of material you remove per acre, the more that has to be replaced.0 -
It is a workable fuel source but as dlrjj mentioned it's actual costs are hidden by various subsidies. Sugercane is probably the top source for ethanol since it's yields are higher than just about any source. The farmers in the US won't tell you this but we could import ethanol from Brazil for far less money that we would have to pay for corn based ethanol produced here in the USA. The rule of thumb on ethanol is that crude oil at over $50 per barrel makes ethanol a viable energy source but below that benchmark $50 there is really no advantage from a cost perspective. We would have to make a couple of choices: If we want low cost motor fuels (as in gasoline) then we would have to import the ethanol. If we want to keep our costs of motor fuels about the same as crude oil based products but cut or dependence on foreign energy sources then we can pay ADM for ethanol the same way we pay Exxon Mobil for crude oil. Of course we can also do nothing and just keep buying crude oil as we always have. The bottom line is that the era of cheap motor fuels is over and if you think that the day will return when you will find something which costs $1 per gallon that you can pump into your car you are just fooling yourself. The question now is what are we going to be paying $3 per gallon for five years from now: Gasoline/diesel, ethanol/methanol, hydrogen/fuel-cells, or propane/natural gas? Electric cars are a decade away from being anything more than grocery-getters unless there is some sort of a break through in battery technology. Our current consumption of petroleum is simply so massive that there are not enough sources of crude oil available on this planet to allow us to sustain these consumption levels for more than a few more decades. What few new fields that are being brought on line are just a drop in the bucket when compared to the way we suck down petroleum.
Forget all about the crap you've heard about the massive deposits of crude oil sitting under the Alaska wilderness areas which are currently off limits for drilling. There is oil there all right, maybe about five years worth if we start to conserve a bit (three if we don't), but due to the high costs involved in drilling in that area it is not worth while unless the market reaches into the sustained $80 per barrel range or higher. A better bet are the oil sand deposits in northern Alberta (where I worked as an engineer for a couple of years back in the late 1980's). There is enough energy in those deposits to meet ours (and Canada's) needs for many decades but you have to basically destroy the entire landscape in order to get to them. There are a LOT of Canadians who are not very excited about digging up half of Alberta and making it look like the lunar surface for no other reason than to keep providing cheap gasoline to the cry babies here in the USA who think that the world owes us $2 per gallon motor fuels and a big a$$ SUV to bomb around in! I spent my first decade as an engineer working in the petroleum industry, including drilling (on and off shore) and refining and I can tell you that there are a thousand reasons to expect the cost of crude oil to rise steadily over the next ten years and damned few reasons to expect prices to drop. Don't be fooled by BS, we had better start making some very tough energy choices over the next few years or we are going to be in very big trouble here by the year 2040. The often spouted Gun Broker line about just going in and taking someones oil means nothing at all when there is nothing left to take!0 -
Not good for older vehicles 0 -
There are some brilliant thinkers on GB.
Thank you all.
D.0 -
It's all Bush's fault. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by Captplaid
Works with Brazil and sugar cane.
Sugarcane is far more efficient as a fermentable precursor than the corn we produce in America. That's why it works so well in Brazil. Unfortunately for us, we don't have the climate to grow sugarcane.0 -
Sooo... annex Cuba when we make Mexico the 51st state.
You think Russia's going to care??
D.0 -
We still can't even come close to producing enough volume to replace oil. It's just not there at the quantities we consume.[:)] 0 -
Correct me if'n I'm wrong, but the best ethanol based fuel only provides about 85% of the BTU's produced by regular gasoline.
From messing with a methanol go-kart, I know you have to bump the compression up considerably to realize any gains from alcohol. Does this mean that if we go to an E-85 gasoline I should tear the engine out of the old Dodge, shave the haids .90", an put me some dome pistons in it?[;)] Maybe a 14-71 blower and a mechanical fuel injection system?0 -
There are currently other Bio-Fuels that are in test phases that will make corn look foolish. It will be sustainable vs Petro if our stupid Gov't helps for a change to get the refineries started. After that there wil be no need for the current depletion subsidies that our Oil guys knock down. 0 -
BTW. The most corn we have ever produced in this country in one year is around 12 billion bushels. The current average distillation output for ethanol fuel is about 2.6+ gallons per bushel, so a bit of quick math would show that something a little over 30 billion gallons of gas is available if we use every grain of corn of a record sized crop for fuel.
That leaves none for the corn sugar used in soda, feed for livestock (no steaks), cornflakes, and none for bourbon.[;)]
We burn around 140 billion gallons per year of fuel, so we may need some more corn, beets, soybeans, etc.[:)]0 -
I need to start stocking up on whiskey!!!!![:D] 0 -
long term chemistry & mechanics are outvoted by short term greed & politics 0 -
There is talk of putting a bio diesel plant here on the Illinois River in Seneca. They've bought the old LST Shipyards and are currently tearing down the own fertilizer buildings. When completed, the plant is expected to poduce 60 million gallons of fuel ayear from animal renderings and veggie oil.
http://mywebtimes.com/ottnews/archives/ottawa/display.php?id=290852
SENECA: Biodiesel refinery buys land for nearly $3 million
Comment on this story
JONATHAN BILYK, jonb@mywebtimes.com, 815-431-4063
A Houston-based energy company has closed on the sale of 33 acres last week for a proposed biodiesel plant in Seneca.
Last week, Nova Biofuels Seneca paid almost $3 million -- or $91,000 per acre -- for the land in Seneca's Shipyard Industrial Park.
The land was sold in two sections - the first, totaling 28 acres was sold for $1.19 million, the La Salle County Recorder's office reported.
And the second, a five-acre parcel, was sold for $1.76 million.
George Lamb of L&L Properties of Seneca, which owns the industrial park, sold the land.
A message left with a Nova Biofuel spokesman was not returned Wednesday.
And an attempt to contact Lamb was unsuccessful.
But in August, the company confirmed at a meeting with Seneca village officials that it was moving ahead with its plans to build the plant, which would produce about 60 million gallons of biodiesel fuel each year and employ about 40 workers.
The fuel would be made from a combination of animal renderings, vegetable oils, such as those obtained from corn and soybeans, and ethanol.
In September, Nova announced that it had reached an agreement with ConAgra Trade Group to provide sales and outbound logistics services for the Seneca plant.
That agreement complements an agreement Nova reached in August with Lipid Logistics, an affiliate of Joliet-based rendering company Kaluzny Brothers, to supply the feedstock for the biodiesel plant.
And in November, Nova announced that it had received an air construction permit from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the first permit required in the development process.
That permit allowed the company to then move forward with the purchase of the land, as it grants Nova permission to build and operate the biodiesel refinery for one year.
In its press release, Nova said it planned to apply for a permanent operating permit, once it had completed the required performance testing following startup at the Seneca refinery.
As recently as September, Nova representatives said the company intended to have the plant in operation by summer 2007.
The Seneca plant is scheduled to be one of seven biodiesel refineries Nova Biosource Fuels plans to construct and operate within the next three years.
Each of the plants will produce 20 to 60 million gallons of fuel each year.
The Times staff writer Dan Churney contributed to this report.0 -
As the science evolves, the overall cost of producing ethanol will be reduced, however it takes nitrogen to produce corn- a lot of it. And nitrogen for the most part is produced from natural gas. Currently we do not produce enough natural gas in the US for industry, home heating, fertilizer, etc. SO, we are forced to inport, sounds like a broken record, doesn't it[:(][:(][:(] 0 -
ADM isn't building any of these new ethanol plants. They are the largest producer. What does that tell you?
I suspect they are waiting for a bargain sale in 5-7 years?
If you had $100,000 to invest which would be the safest investment ADM or an ethanol start up?
As much as I despise ADM, I think they know what they are doing with ethanol.0 -
I ran a 10% ethanol blend in my car for 2 1/2 years (bought it new in 2003). Then I moved to NY and there's no ethanol here from what I've seen. There are also hidden benefits to ethanol that you don't see. People who live in extremely cold winter climates don't have to add gas line antifreeze because there's already alcohol in the fuel. Ethanol also keeps your entire fuel system cleaner. Hence, your car will run more efficiently. I didn't notice any added power when I switched to a non-ethanol blended fuel. Some say you lose a little power when you use ethanol. I didn't put my car on a dyno but I didn't notice any gain after switching.
use enough gun already pointed out what I have known for awhile. You don't lose out anymore with ethanol. There's a net energy gain.0 -
Are you talking about running ethanol or an ethanol blend (E-85)? Forget about pure ethanol. Other than being horribly corrosive, you won't start a Chevy at Indy's temperature today. It doesn't vaporize worth bababooey! Sure you could have two fuel tanks and start on gas, let the engine warm up, and switch to ethanol. We did that with farm tractors in the 40's with gas and diesel.
My '07 Silverado runs on E-85 but gets less mpg athough makes more h.p. I am told. I doubt if the computer knows what fuel is in the tank. That's too bad because it could bump the advance some. The big thing power-wise for ethanol is it can handle high compression ratios. 12.5:1 is normal probably nowdays with better fuel delivery and computer control even higher.
I wish I hadn't retired from GM research just when they were starting the fuel cell program..0 -
whats amazing to me when people talk about net energy loss is when i see a very large portion of our population very over weight and just sitting around getting heavier watching and their jobs going over seas...oh well.....feeding people is a net energy loss.....[:(]
dlrjj....lots of people around here feeding distillers grain.....the grain is not gone.0 -
quote:Originally posted by cowdoc
whats amazing to me when people talk about net energy loss is when i see a very large portion of our population very over weight and just sitting around getting heavier watching and their jobs going over seas...oh well.....feeding people is a net energy loss.....[:(]
dlrjj....lots of people around here feeding distillers grain.....the grain is not gone.
Yep, it is a usable byproduct, but it certainly has lost some of its nutrient value, and the sugar value is virtually gone since that is what produced the booze. We have used it also, but I like whole grain better.[:)]0 -
quote:Originally posted by dlrjj
quote:Originally posted by cowdoc
whats amazing to me when people talk about net energy loss is when i see a very large portion of our population very over weight and just sitting around getting heavier watching and their jobs going over seas...oh well.....feeding people is a net energy loss.....[:(]
dlrjj....lots of people around here feeding distillers grain.....the grain is not gone.
Yep, it is a usable byproduct, but it certainly has lost some of its nutrient value, and the sugar value is virtually gone since that is what produced the booze. We have used it also, but I like whole grain better.[:)]
A lot of it is exported to Europe. The have restrictions on corn but they pump the corn glutten in to the EU. It's also not illegal to add water for "dust control" to grain by-products. They're not covered by FGIS (USDA).0 -
Why is it they think it is refining to make gasoline from a black gunk in the ground, but to make alcohol from grain, it's just a boondoggle that uses more energy than it produces. It's still refining. 0
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