What about Ethanol? 5

[JimCasey]

I try not to be cynical >BUT< I am not seeing a technical benefit to Ethanol.
1. It takes as much energy to make as it returns. There are precious few eco-hybrid tractors and combines out there plowing and harvesting the cornfields, but plenty John Deere Diesels.
2. Cars get poorer mileage so the cost per mile increases when burning E85 or even 10% ethanol.
3. Displaces farmland used to grow food: THe price of corn has already risen noticebly
4. CO2 and Water vapor are both produced by ethanol combustion. Even the H2 Fuel-cell lobby has dodged the observation that WATER VAPOR is a more potent greenhouse gas than almost any other component.
5. Vast quantities of CO2 produced in the fermentation process.
6. Ethanol plants are being built with the cheapest (and no, I don't mean least expensive) components. This suggests that the ethanol manufacturers expect it to be a short-lived demand and want to grab the quick bucks up front. Also implied is a sacrifice in safety.
7. Residual corn products after ethanol production are converted to Cattle Feed, (also at a high cost of energy in drying, packaging, and transportation, and methane production in bovine flatulent discharge.)

SO as I see it the Birkenstock crowd gets to feel good when they narrowly define their system and they just measure the specific exhaust components of their prius after filling the tank with E85, but in reality a tank of E85 does more harm to the ecosystem/planetary entropy balance than a tank of Sunoco 260.

I'm open to reeducation, but there is more to ecology than wearing tie-dyes and singing coom-bye-ya.
Next I will rant about the ecological footprint of compact fluorescents vs traditional incandescent bulbs.

 

[moltenmetal]

YoungTurk: don't misunderstand me: I have no interest in maintaining the "gasoline status quo"- any review of my posts to threads on this forum will show you what I think of fossil fuels. I just consider going after gasoline and other transportation fuels to be the technological equivalent of tilting at windmills- it's technological idiocy and a dangerous distraction from the real work that needs to be done. It permits false hope to be maintained which prevents action we could take NOW.

It doesn't take an engineer: any monkey can tell you that you go after the low-hanging fruit FIRST, and when it comes to fossil fuels replacement with renewables, transport ISN'T the low hanging fruit: stationary users of fossil fuel energy are far easier to tackle. That we aren't making real and rapid progress tackling these stationary users, while gasoline alternatives continue to be over-hyped, speaks volumes about how bad our public policy is in relation to energy production and global warming. It's as if the only engineers involved in the setting of this policy were the ones selling the snake oil.

Like hydrogen and PEM fuelcells, there's more fundamentally wrong with ethanol as a transport fuel than can be overcome by mere wishful thinking or investment money. As fossil fuel costs (inevitably) increase, we WILL see more of it especially if the agricultural subsidies are maintained- even corn ethanol- because it IS modestly fossil fuel replacement positive. It's not truly renewable because of the intensive agriculture, but that's a problem for another generation. But the basic energetics still prove that it will never replace the amount of gasoline we're using currently, nor should it. And the limitations are thermodynamic ones: you can't invent your way out of them I'm afraid.

A carbon tax or a carbon dioxide cap and trade system, properly implemented, will help to ensure that the solutions we choose for ALL energetic and climate change problems are at least no dumber than the ones we're trying to replace. That is, if the subsidies on the alternatives like ethanol similarly dissapear: until they do, the market is distorted and the results may not be in our best interest. We should NEVER subsidize consumption as what we really want to do is to to reward conservation. If the tax ensures that it costs too much in fuel to transport the corn stover or switchgrass to the cellulose ethanol plant, or the corn ethanol brewer's mash plus ethanol fuel product doesn't pay for the energy to dehydrate the ethanol, there will be no economic incentive to do it.

By the way, it would appear that my statement that there is, as of yet, still NO commercial cellulosic ethanol plant operating in the world, remains accurate. There have been PLENTY of demo plants. The SunOpta site talks about the wheat straw to ethanol plant in Spain as being, "when completed", the first commercial plant- and that depends on your definition of commercial of course.

http://www.sunopta.com/sunopta/uploadedFiles/bioprocess/700 - Cellulosic Ethanol for Road Fuel.pdf

 

[patdaly]

Why must every solution to a problem be best implemented with a Tax?

Perhaps we should instead limit the KWH each home may receive.

If you wish to have a larger home, then it is on you to provide a 100 percent renewable source of power.

Perhaps we could stop subsidizing the flight costs of the Airlines, who delight in burning fossil fuels to fly people to Las Vegas for 49 dollars.

I do not have all the answers, but as an Engineer, it seems equally foolhardy to think that taxation is any more a real, long term solution than the use of Corn Ethanol is.

It would sure give the Government more money to waste though.

 

[jorton]

Popular Mechanics has an interesting article on the topic in February's edition that I recommend to everyone.

The real problem is not with ethanol, hydrogen or any other option. It is that politicians (and their friends with deep pockets)are dictating our direction of growth. As fuel prices increase I believe the market, supported by diverse research, will find better alternatives. I don't think dictating mandatory levels of ethanol production really helps anything. The future of our economy and way of life depends on finding a sustainable and affordable source of energy. Politicians can only see through the next election. Do we really want them controlling the welfare of future generations?

 

[KENAT]

Ah, rationing.

I've brought up the idea before in previous threads, never got much response.

I think I saw an article about CO2 rationing being considered by Blair sometime last year.

Every citizen gets a carbon allowance.

Not sure what happened if you went over it, if you didn't get any more, had to pay some kind of surcharge/tax or if you just relied on carbon trading to buy someone elses allowance.

All of these have issues, and as we're not all even convinced on the whole climate change issue it's causes effects etc then I doubt if many here would support it.

(oops, just noticed Don P brought up Brazil using beets, sure he meant cane, so I did miss something :-()

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[YoungTurk]

Well, I believe the OP was about whether there were benefits to ethanol over gasoline. And on that topic alone, I answer in the affirmative.

I'm not about to disagree that there are other places we need to focus our efforts. I don't believe taxes or cap and trade legislation are the answers. Conservation is not a viable solution, out society needs energy to continue to evolve. Efficiency is key, the energy is out there, solar, biological, nuclear, etc.

"Inventing" our way to sustainable energy is the only way to fuel our vehicles, our homes, our economy, and our society into the future.

 

[moltenmetal]

Why must the best answer to every problem involve a tax, patdaly? Because the current economy assigns a zero cost to dumping sh*t into the atmosphere that we all must breathe, or die. So guess what- technologies that dump bad things into the atmosphere are economically favoured.

The only way to fix that is with a tax. Or with another system which assigns a cost to dumping bad things into the atmosphere such as a cap & trade system. Since the latter only really works for major emitters and is hidden from CONSUMERS, the people who really need their habits changed, the tax is far more likely to work.

Try to fix problems like global warming, or the US dependence on foreign oil, by voluntary measures alone or by regulation alone, and you're fighting the market- and the result is entirely predictable.

We won't invent our way out of this problem unless there's an economic driving force to do it. Create the driving force and the invention is likely to follow. Subsidizing consumption by blessing ethanol as a "virtuous" fuel is wrong-headed, as no energy source is free of environmental consequence.

 

[GregLocock]

The other reason that a tax is necessary is that the cost to an oil seller, of that sale, is small, relative to the inherent value of the oil (I assume you would agree that oil is worth more than bottled water as a resource for future generations?). Therefore it is in the oil suppliers best short term interests to sell as much oil as he can. In a free market there is no way to compensate for this, so you either restrict production via a cartel, and/or tax it.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[YoungTurk]

I'm not voting for either of you tax and burn environmental liberals!

An interesting story from the NYT on a GM investment in an ethanol company:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/business/14gm.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Mary Beth Stanek, G.M.’s director for energy and environment, said the process showed “near-term readiness” and that no scientific work was involved to commercialize it.

So, given the pessimistic tone of most posts here, have at it; what is the catch/problem with this technology?

 

[SomptingGuy]

The catch/problem is scale. Pumping crude from a well is quite a bit faster than fermenting sugar beet.

- Steve

 

[civilperson]

Dried distillers grains and dried distillers grains solubles are only dried before entering the food process for animals. The protein percentage is tripled because the starch is almost totally used in fermentation. Over 3 million tons of DDG & DDGS are produced and fed to animals.

 

[dcasto]

I hate taxes like everyone else. But we are trained on a reward system from birth. I do my homework, I get a a new game. I work hard, I get a giant SUV, I deserve it. They only thing we know is rewards for acting certain ways. Our past generations had the same thing, EXCEPT, satisfaction was a reward.

To break this reward must be a physical thing we have to strat re-training, but that take generations and we do not have generations. The only recourse is via physical limits or taxes on bad things. Look, we have sin taxes, it works.

As for ethanol from the OP, when surplus corn is sent to the fuel market, its OK, but even with coproducts and other social-eco impacts it is not correct. The E85 car is a sham to the public as it takes absolutely no upgrade from ethanol in its use. The E85 cars go against all engineering principles of fitness for use.

 

[btrueblood]

Soo...the answer is to raise taxes on oil imports...then spend that extra money on what? Hydrogen wells? Solar powered cars? Bicycles?

At least ethanol is a (potentially) renewable, energy-dense liquid fuel that we can use with current-technology motors to continue to transport people/things. Name your substitute for this?

 

[KENAT]

btrue, alternatives to ethanol which more or less meet your definition:

butanol

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18443/

Biodiesel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

(heard an article on radio the other day that the EU is re-considering it's possition on this)

Methanol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_fuel

So there's a few for you.

Not quite a direct replacement but I did see this the other day which is perhaps a move to more practical electric vehicles

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22240865/

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[cranky108]

My understanding is that some ethanol plants now delever wet processed grain to cattle feed yards, thus saving the cost of drying the mash.

I have no problems with biodiesel, but it can become in direct conflect for farm land with ethanol. Also, if I recall, in some biodiesel processes they use ethanol.

Have you heard that they can use lard, and beef fat to make biodiesel. Will sort of lower the cost of meat.

Looking at the cost of E85 cars, it will probally be several years before I purchase one.

 

[moltenmetal]

If you want to gasify biomass to make syngas like GM's Coskata is doing, there's a heck of a lot better uses to put that syngas to than into making ethanol by fermentation!

Doesn't matter if you're fermenting starch or fermenting syngas: you still get a water solution of ethanol that you have to dehydrate!

Conventional ethanol plants aren't burning corn stover to make the steam to run the stills- they're using natural gas. Doesn't that tell you something? COULD they burn corn stover, with or without bothering to gasify it first? Certainly they could, but they choose not to for good reasons!

Are the fertilizer plants gasifying biomass to make the hydrogen to make fertilizer from? Nope- they're using natural gas too...

TAX THE FOSSIL CARBON and the market will sort it out. Until that happens, the technological/economic/governmental wierdness is guaranteed to continue.

Why is GM investing in Coskata? Because people are starting to see the writing on the wall: gasoline consumption has to decrease. Given the business they're in, they'd rather you held out a (false) hope of having gasoline replaced with agricultural-sourced ethanol than by reducing the number and size of cars on the roads!

 

[YoungTurk]

Costaka is touting a membrane seperation technology. Membrane seperation technology is much more efficient than simple thermo dehydration. Sure, they could burn the syngas in generator turbines, but there are many sources of fuel for stationary energy production. The options for transportation fuel are much more limited.

gasoline consumption has to decrease.

How do you get to work? How do you visit your family? In my neck of the woods things tend to get spread out, we've got to get from point A to point B. Ethanol is the only tech I'm aware of with a shot in hell of doing the two most important things while still getting us around: giving us a carbon friendly fuel and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

On another topic,

Have you heard that they can use lard, and beef fat to make biodiesel. Will sort of lower the cost of meat.

I believe Switzerland is running two train lines on methane produced from meat byproducts from slaughterhouses. I've also heard of an ethanol plant/pig farm in Iowa using methane from the pig waste for ethanol dehydration and the distillers grains for feed. When co-located efficiencies gained are considerable.

 

[patdaly]

So I guess our only salvation is to trust the same Government that is reducing the fuel mileage of our vehicles by mandating things such as zero emissions and Tire Pressure Monitoring and is subsidizing Airlines who promote flying to Vegas for the weekend to tax us into submission?

Sorry, the cynic in me sees the folly of taxation.

 

[cranky108]

What happened to the ethanol plant in Nebraska that was to run on coal?

 

[moltenmetal]

patdaly: I greatly prefer taxation to regulation. Regulations get subverted by lobbying too easily.

Attempting to regulate fuel economy in vehicles is foolhardy because it doesn't deal with the market pressures which underly the choice of vehicle in the first place. People care insufficiently about fuel economy even now because, fundamentally, fuel is FAR too cheap. Subsidizing ANY fuel, or any fuel user, is bad public policy.

I prefer either (regulation or taxation) to doing NOTHING about a known problem with the market: the fact that dumping bad things into the atmosphere is not assigned a cost to those doing the dumping, but does represent a whole series of costs to all of us. All fuels have environmental consequences.

YoungTurk: membranes, absorption or distillation, the fundamental thermodynamic limitations are the same. Ethanol likes water a lot- and engines don't. Hydrogen bonds are pretty strong. Yes, membrane or mol sieve dehydration can be less energy intensive than extractive distillation to break the azeotrope, but the molecules don't just jump across the membranes or jump back off the mol sieves of their own accord- you're still climbing the same entropic gradient at the end of the day.

If you've got syngas as your starting point, you can make methanol without worrying about the bugs or the water. Existing technology, used since the '60s. You can also make FT wax which you can crack to make diesel (that one has been done since the '30s). You can also simply burn it, or burn the fuel directly without bothering with the lossy, expensive syngas generation step if what you're after at the end of the day is heat. And while 60+% of our energy needs are stationary and largely still supplied from fossil sources, going after transportation fuels remains foolhardy.

Tax the carbon appropriately and the market will sort it out. Government can put the tax revenue in a pile and burn it and it will still work.

Kicking our gasoline addiction won't be easy, but it will be impossible while people continue to feed the false hope that there's a magical technological fix out there.

 

[cranky108]

There are solutions to most of our stationary energy needs, except the there are these people in the way. (Maybe we should burn people?)
The issue is the polution generated by the least effecient energy usage, transportation. And I don't see a clear solution to the oil problem.
Drill more, yes that works, except there are these people in the way.
Ethonol, yes it helps, and it helps the oil burn better.
Electric, maybe for short distances.
Propane, Where do you fill it up?
Hydrogen, it's not a complete fuel, it needs a source.

If taxes is to help, try taxing tires, they seem to measure distance traveled better than oil taxes. And besides tires are a desposel problem also.