At this point, how do ethanol plants compare to cars in terms of pollution?

[Diceman]

@Alex_Dubinsky

Does this not indicate that when they produce ethanol they are also using much less input energy (which is now fossil fuels but could also be ethanol itself)?

I’m wondering about this myself. Oil refineries are fueled by oil. Should it not be possible to build an ethanol plant that uses a fraction of the ethanol produced to fuel the process?

[Fear_Itself]

@Dewey Finn

A Cornell-Berkeley study found that it takes 28% more fossil fuel to produce ethanol from corn than the corn produces.

Let’s be fair here. How much fossil fuel is required to produce fossil fuel? If you add up all the energy used in drilling, pumping, transporting (how much fuel do oil tankers use?), refining and transporting again, petroleum wouldn’t sound very efficient either.

[Mangetout]

It is, of course, possible to produce ethanol without using any fossil fuels whatever, it’s just not particularly convenient or economical to try right now, while fossil fuels remain a reasonably cheap and available source of energy.

[Do_Not_Taunt]

@Mangetout

Oh dear.

The ‘facts to the contrary’ that Blake was requesting would be those supporting the notion that he had asserted ethanol production could not be achieved without expending at least an equivalent quantity of fossil fuels; i.e. fact supporting the notion that Blake was suffering from the misconcieved application of the laws of thermodynamics.

Oh dear. Was this a response to me? Here’s what Blake actually said:

@Blake

If you believe there is a misconception in anything that I posted then by all means present facts to the contrary.

(emphasis mine)

and also this

@Blake

We then turn those plants into ethanol that exactly matches the amount of gas we used in the tractors and pumps.

My cite said this:

@Michael Wang

Now, Wang says, the delivery of 1 million British thermal units of ethanol uses 0.74 million BTUs of fossil fuels.

My cite directly contradicts a claim Blake made in this thread about the current state of ethanol production. So what are you talking about?

@MangeTout

[Blake] describes the state of the art at this point (a phrase explicitly appearing in the thread title) as being a roughly equivalent trade-off in terms of ethanol out per gasoline in.

It is crystal clear from even the most cursory reading that Blake is NOT asserting that it is impossible for ethanol production to be done in a way that does not consume an equivalent quantity of fossil fuels; he’s just saying that right now, we are not achieving that.

I was labouring under no such misconception. Please reread my cite: it’s about right now too. Hell, here it is again: MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos

@FearItself

Let’s be fair here. How much fossil fuel is required to produce fossil fuel? If you add up all the energy used in drilling, pumping, transporting (how much fuel do oil tankers use?), refining and transporting again, petroleum wouldn’t sound very efficient either.

1.23 BTUs to produce 1.00 BTUs for gasoline. What, am I invisible?

[Ludovic]

Well, actually 1000g of atmospheric carbon dioxide, if it were all ingested by the tree and used in carbohydrates(which I can’t say if it is or not, oxygen-wise,) would produce slightly more than 1000g of biomass due to the chemical potential energy stored in the tree

[The_Controvert]

Well, the oxygen is released as O2 gas, but the tree also takes up water and other stuff if you’re counting biomass. I see from the smiley that you’re probably going for an E=mc^2 joke.

Do Not Taunt, I found your post very enlightening and no, you are not invisible (at least to me).

[Mangetout]

What a mess; Yes, Blake said ‘anything’, however, the misconception that everyone was talking about at that point, was not simple error of fact or statistic, but was the misconception I mentioned in post #3 of this thread (which I now sorely regret even bringing up).

[Fear_Itself]

@Do Not Taunt

What, am I invisible?

Who said that?!?!?