Is ethanol as a fuel actually energy effective

Factual Questions
21

Okay, just so that we can be totally clear here, no one at all expects ethanol to return a net gain in energy. That just plain violates the laws of thermodynamics. What we want it to do is return a net increase in useable energy. Some random hypothetical about plug-in tractors isn’t important because we don’t run tractors on batteries, we run them on fossil fuels.

If we put 10 gallons of fossil fuel into a tractor, distilling, etc. and get 8 gallons of ethanol back, that is a waste because we’ve produced even less of what is something that has virtually identical useability.

If we put 10 gallons of fossil fuel into a process and get back 100 gallons of ethanol, then the process starts to make more sense. Of course we depend upon the sun to put in the actual work in this process and get us to a point where we have more usable energy than we started with. Right now, the scientific consensus frankly seems to be that ethanol quals a giant clusterfuckdoggle, but at least some Iowa corn farmer, or ADM at the least, is still putting in politicians that will support this type of idiocy.

22

You didn’t read my post did you?

We don’t just get alcohol back from the distilling process.

This is an old old notion you are trying to resurrect. Gasoline production is quite expensive if you take into account the exploration,drilling, processing etc.
If you take out the federal incentives for that you can surely tell me what a gallon of gasoline really costs can’t you?

23

It should be noted that the energy return for ethanol will vary tremendously depending on agricultural and distilling practices. 1.34 is ridiculously precise. Minor weather variations in Iowa would be enough to perturb such a figure.

24

Actually, I did read your post. I found the quip about alcohol plants in Iowa funny, but it doesn’t really deal with what I’m arguing. If for god-knows what reason we had a massive one-time surplus of corn that people couldn’t have predicted, then sure we should turn it into ethanol. However, right now, at this very moment, some corn farmer in Iowa is deciding to plant another round of corn rather than start an actual economically viable business with the knowledge that the government is essentially forcing the production of ethanol from that corn. If we didn’t have silly legal requirements here in Colorado for gas to contain 10% ethanol in the winter, that farmer would never bother to plant that corn and spend the associated fossil fuels.

No matter how hard you try, politics is no match for thermodynamics.

25

Wow you really don’t understand government programs do you?

Farmers are paid not to plant crops. It was determined way back in FDR’s time that a glut of farm products hurts the economy. BTW Henry Wallace had a hand in creating that bill. Wallace is known as the first publisher of Wallaces farmer magazine and is the founder of Pioneer hybrids one of the largest seed processing plants in the world.

The land sitting idle helps no one.

FYI Hitler began using alcohol as a fuel in WWII. Why didn’t it work for him? Maybe because what was to become the greatest world power on earth kept destroying his plants.
But I digress

In the last few years grain product uses have increased.
Did you notice the comment above where I mentioned that plastic bags were made with corn? Who’d have thunk it?

Farmer organizations have always looked for new ways to use farm products.
Who is to say that there isn’t a new method of of extracting alcohol from some obscure grain that given an incentive ( read high prices) someone won’t come up with?

Ever heard of Soy diesel?
I hadn’t until a few years ago.
That tractor doesn’t have to have petroleum products to run. Its probably cheaper to operate with them but again who is to say that won’t change?

Anyway as I said above it isn’t that simple.

26

BTW again

The alcohol is added to gasoline as a dryer.
Alcohol will blend with water and is used to prevent gas line freeze. The product called Heet ,the gas line antifreeze, is just alcohol.

Knowledge is power and you thought it was politics.

27

Electricity?

28

Sure it does. It means that we’ll save our valuable fossil-fuel resources for an actual resoursce.

I’m not trying to say that corn is evil. If people want to use it to make plastic bags, more power to them. But let’s let the market decide. The heavily subsidized or forced use of ethanol isn’t a good idea.

If people’s gas tanks become contaminated with water, their welcome to go out and buy some Heet or any other drying agent they wish. As it stands now, there’s absolutely no need for 10% of our gasoline to be made up of ethanol.

29

Sure it does. It means that we’ll save our valuable fossil-fuel resources for an actual resoursce.

Again you don’t understand.

The farmer has every right to plant anything he wants in his fields.
Right now many knowledgeable people think that biofuels are, or will soon be, a viable alternative to our increasing demand for fossil fuels. Evidentally they know more than you do because they have convinced the Colorado legislature that its a good idea to require it.
I’m sure Colorado doesn’t have the spare farmland to produce their own alcohol so they must be buying it from another state.
That probably means it is not just some lawmaker paying back election contributions.

Quote
If people’s gas tanks become contaminated with water, their welcome to go out and buy some Heet or any other drying agent they wish.
Again you don’t understand.
The gas station fuel tanks are what gets contaminated.
The alcohol absorbs that moisture and lets it be burned . Not only that it increases the octane rating.

Quote
As it stands now, there’s absolutely no need for 10% of our gasoline to be made up of ethanol.

I’ve pointed out several reasons that show it is a good idea to use alcohol in gasoline.
You have pointed out nothing that even resembles a reason why not.

30

Quote me

You should also know that there are alcohol plants springing up all over Iowa.
Someone , or should I say lots of people think its a good idea.

[QUOTE=threemae]
Actually, I did read your post. I found the quip about alcohol plants in Iowa funny

As I hear it here is how it works.

The plants are independently owned.
The farmers that are part of the deal ( part owners) pledge 10,000 bushels of corn per year for X number of years.

I doubt that member farmers would consider your quote humerous at all.

31

Yes, they’ve got every right to plant whatever they feel like, but they have no right to force me to buy it. If biofuels are the wave of the future, great, develop the technology and implement it in such a manner that it’s popular to the market. If gasoline goes up to $5.00 a gallon and suddenly ethanol costs $2.00 a gallon, then I’m positive that people will be happy to adopt. If that gallon of ethanol cost a gallon or even seven/eights of a gallon of gasoline to produce, then it obviously won’t be an y cheaper than the straight fossil fuels, especially after considering the man-hours involved in the process.

Also, you can’t argue that the current means of propping up ethanol production will speed the implementation of biofuels on a broader basis because you’re just doping a bit of biofuel with regular fossil fuels rather than producing a true biofuel system like biodiesel. If the government wants to lay out for basic research in biofuel or other fuel development, great. Forcing the economy to use ethanol when there is no real reason for it: not so great.

Don’t try to argue your point by merely pointing to the authority of the great sage Colorado legislature. First off, I’ve met a few state senators, and a few of them weren’t all that bright, and second Colorado actually does have quite a few corn farmers that seem to be an influential voting block. Learn all about it from the pro-ethanol puff-site of, I kid you not: ColoradoCorn

http://www.coloradocorn.com/legislative/index.htm

The reason not to put ethanol into gasoline, pure and simple, is because it costs more and results in a net increase in CO2 emission without really advancing biofuel adoption.

32

Actually, ethanol is typically blended with gasoline as an oxygenate – to bring more oxygen into the fuel, so it burns cleaner with less pollution.

It is true that Congress pretty much forced the use of ethanol (or MTBE, but that’s another story) for this role, but there is at least some reason for it.

33

I agree, and the ethanol people even state that ehtanol mixed with gasoline actually reduces your mileage. It is NOT more efficient in most engines.

34

Wrong again.

This is getting to be a habit.

Anytime actual full scale production begins on any project it advances the project.
Problems show up and are solved. Advances are made that couldn’t be seen in the laboratory.

As far as your CO2 comment goes it only replaces the CO emission. Personally I’d rather have the CO2.
Also also what is all that stuff emitted by gasoline engines when burning gasoline?

Quote Uncommon Sense

I agree, and the ethanol people even state that ehtanol mixed with gasoline actually reduces your mileage. It is NOT more efficient in most engines

I know this thread has kinda run away from the STMB practice of facts and I’ll prove it but I really need to see a cite for that statement.

35

'O course.

From here.
"Because ethanol contains slightly less energy per gallon than gasoline, some tests suggest mileage, or fuel economy, may decrease by about 2% in fuel-injected cars, so that a car that averages 30 miles per gallon on the highway would average 29.4 miles per gallon with ethanol-blended fuel, not enough to be detected by the average driver. "
Here’s a clip;

From this guy.

" Ethanol yields about 12,770 Btu’s/lb of thermal energy from combustion
based on its HHV. On a volumetric basis that becomes 83,910 Btu’s/gal.

  • Gasoline yields about 20,260 Btu’s/lb of thermal energy from combustion
    based on its HHV. On a volume basis that becomes 124,800 Btu’s/gal.

Considering the ~1.5 times difference in combustion energy, with some gross
simplification, it becomes obvious that dollar’s worth of gasoline will
propel you car about 1.5 times as far as a dollar’s worth of ethanol assuming
ethanol does not contain any water and both are priced the same at the pumps."*

This site (very pro-ethanol) also makes mention of a possible 2% MPG reduction.

36

I’m not sure how I follow how you think it’s meaningless. If it takes more energy to produce x number of briquettes, there’s no point in using it as a fuel (except perhaps you like the smokey flavor of real charcoal). You would be better off powering your stove with something else. Same holds true for ethanol. If it takes x barrels of petroleum products in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, tractor fuel and whatnot to produce <x equivalent barrels of ethanol, you might as well use petroleum instead.

Now if out primary source of energy came from renewable sources like wind or geothermal, than it would make sense to convert it to a more usable form because even though we are burning energy, its not going to run out.

The other issue with ethanol is that there is an opportunity cost associated with using it as a fuel. Every acre used for ethanol is an acre not used for food.

37

Perhaps not.

When you brew up ethanol from corn, you make the yeast convert the sugars and starches in the corn into the ethanol. The stuff left over is protien.

Now, that protien is probably not fit for human consumption, but it could be used as animal feed.

Fried chicken and Bar-B-Q spare ribs, anyone? :wink:

38

justwannano, all fuels have a production cost, in other words, we don’t get perfect effeciency from anything. You’re right, we do have to spend some gasoline to get gasoline. However, for gasoline, this difference in nominal. The energy it takes to get oil out of the ground, refine it, and tronsport it to the gas station is minimal, but for ethanol it’s quite a considerable expense. Even the most pro-ethanol sources put the “energy return” of ethanol at 1.35 at best. In essensce, for every gallon of of gasoline you put into the process, you get 1.35 gallons of ethanol out. (Note: I’m using gallons here losely, in reality we should be comparing BTU’s or some other direct measurment of enery, in fact we’ve seen that ethanol has a lower energy density than gasoline). So, assuming that you’ve put a gallon of ethanol in your car, you’ll produce a gallon worth of CO2 directly with you car. However, there’s also that .74 gallons of CO2 from the prodution of the ethanol.

So, it’s like you’re putting in 1.74 gallons of CO2 emissions and getting out 1 gallon worth of CO2 emissions in work. For gasoline, this number is much lower. Therefore, I think it’s a quite convincing argument that ethanol is an extremely bad idea for the environment in terms of global warming.

Further, for a modern, well turned, fuel injected car, the CO emission will be incredibly minimal, and it’s not clear that ethanol has any appreciable effect in lowering CO emissions for a fuel injected car.

Also, the newest in-depth study of this question puts ethanol’s energy return at .9. Basically, he claims that energy is indeed lost in ethanol production.

Ethanol: still bad for America. Corn: still sitting out in the field, evil, snickering and biding it’s time before it begins the, ‘Maizealution.’ Also apparently still controlling minds out there in Iowa.

39

Sorry, here’s a link I wanted to include in the previous post:
http://peaceworks.missouri.org/monitor/2005/spring-summer/13.html

40

Thanks 3mae for the cites

From one of 3mae’s cites

One bushel of corn produces about 2.7 gallons of ethanol AND 11.4 pounds of gluten feed (20% protein) AND 3 pounds of gluten meal (60% protein) AND 1.6 pounds of corn oil.

When I jumped into this discussion I commented on craftermans post that it takes lots of fossil fuels to make ethanol.
What I tried to interject was the other benefits of the process.
I don’t know what the price of gluten feed or meal or even the corn oil is right now but you can be sure it isn’t figured in on the costs of ethanol production used by those opposed to its use.

The price of foreign oil is becoming increasingly higher. For some, like the families over 1600 Americans killed in the Iraq war, the price is overwelming.
When the first Iraqi shot the first American soldier because he thought we were only there for the oil the price became overwelming.
If you believe that even a tiny portion of the reason we are over there is oil then the billions of dollars we have used so far pursueing this war is not something that can be ignored.It is one of the costs of oil production.

On the other hand if you think that a 2% reduction in fuel economy is a significant enough reason for not using ethanol which burns cleaner than plain gasoline then you need to examine the fact that a cost of an aftermarket catalytic converter , you know the things in the exhaust systems of cars used to take the pollutants caused by burning fossil fuels out of the air, can cost $135.00.
The pollutant caused by burning alcohol is CO2. Even mixed with gasoline it reduces the pollutants.