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.

 

[patdaly]

Perhaps instead of regulating or taxing, we could let the free market regulate the situation?

As oil becomes more expensive, without artificial manipulation via. regulation or taxation, we will find the next technology.

Sorry to say, this is one of those threads that cannot be solved, much as any political or religious issue.

Thanks for listening, I'm out of this hand boys.

 

[btrueblood]

Kenat, butanol is more expensive to make (right now) than ethanol, methanol is still corrosive to car parts I thought, and biodiesel works in something like <10% of existing engines. But okay, the real question is, why discard biofuels, they have the possibility of replacing imported oil and the benefit of being a lower carbon footprint.

Molten, ok, ok. Tax oil and coal? Are you ready to pay triple for your domestically produced steel, do you tax steel imports to make sure foreign producers don't get away with not paying the carbon tax on their coke pile? How far down the processing stream do we go with that, tax all raw plastic imports, tax toys, do we tax chewing gum with its petrol-derived flavor enhancers. A globally-agreed-to carbon tax might work, thought we would see that as an outcome from Kyoto, but we got instead "US must stop driving cars so that the 3rd world can catch up".