“Whyfore”? Please, all of you who misuse words, or use words you think exist but don’t, in a lame attempt to sound funny or clever, just stop.
Please just stop.
Hmmmm. Seems ethanol on the whole is a sink. One way or another, you still have to transport all that cane ethanol to the U.S. in order to make a dent in petroleum’s carbon footprint. And that means ships, which burn …
And what about those forests?
Believe me, I’m not picking a fight here. But ethanol has been a boon to my hometown. I’m not getting why I should feel bad about that.
That is thegenral consenus at the moment, but as I said it may be that in Brazil, with a large centrailsed popultion close to the cane producung region they are managing to make ethanol a net energy source.
Yeah, no one is suggetsing that you could transport ethanol across national borders and still come out ahead, it’s just not energy dense enough for that. That doesn’t mean that Brazil can’t use tethanol as a real energy source for internal supply.
They’re irrlevant really. Forests represent a carbon pool, not a carbon sink. If you clear a hetcare of forest today and release a 100t of carbon it doesn’t matter provided you can produce the equivalent of 10t/annum for the next 11 years off the cleared land. The whole enterprise becomes a net carbon sink provided that you can make ethanol a net energy soucre. Of course the lower the energy returns the longer you will need to keep the land in production to get a return, but ultimately clearing forests is an irrelevance.
I don’t think anyone is saying you should feel bad. What we are saying is that you should be aware that the localised economic boon is the only positive outcome. Enviornmentally and in terms of the national and international economic and social impacts the process is all negative. Your local good fortune has been obtained at the expense of everyone else in the world. That doesn’t mean you should feel bad about it, almost every good thing in the world is like that, but you should be aware that this si the case and that we aren’t talking about a situation where everyone wins and everyone should be happy for you. Everyone not living in your little geographic area has every right to be either annoyed or outraged at the source of your good fortune.
Effects of Ethanol (E85) versus Gasoline Vehicles on Cancer and Mortality in the United States:
[QUOTE=Mark Z. Jacobson
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University:]
Ethanol use in vehicle fuel is increasing worldwide, but the potential cancer risk and ozone-related health consequences of a large-scale conversion from gasoline to ethanol have not been examined. Here, a nested global-through-urban air pollution/weather forecast model is combined with high-resolution future emission inventories, population data, and health effects data to examine the effect of converting from gasoline to E85 on cancer, mortality, and hospitalization in the United States as a whole and Los Angeles in particular. Under the base-case emission scenario derived, which accounted for projected improvements in gasoline and E85 vehicle emission controls, it was found that E85 (85% ethanol fuel, 15% gasoline) may increase ozone-related mortality, hospitalization, and asthma by about 9% in Los Angeles and 4% in the United States as a whole relative to 100% gasoline.
Ozone increases in Los Angeles and the northeast were partially offset by decreases in the southeast. E85 also increased peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) in the U.S. but was estimated to cause little change in cancer risk. Due to its ozone effects, future E85 may be a greater overall public health risk than gasoline. However, because of the uncertainty in future emission regulations, it can be concluded with confidence only that E85 is unlikely to improve air quality over future gasoline vehicles. Unburned ethanol emissions from E85 may result in a global-scale source of acetaldehyde larger than that of direct emissions.
[/QUOTE]
I should stop? Whyfore?
Sunrazor, boon or boondoggle?
Ethanol is mostly a boondoggle. Using current technology, the ethanol we can make gives us less energy than the oil we used to produce it would have. It’s possible with a lot of engineering we might be able to achieve a break even point where we’re getting slightly more energy out than we’re putting in. But we may not - fermentation is a very old technology and it’s not likely we’re going to see any major new breakthroughs. And even if we do get lucky, the oil-to-ethanol conversion rate will be so close to 1:1 that it won’t have any substantial effect on our oil consumption.
The best impartial virtue you can say about ethanol is that it’s the easiest alternative we’ve got. It’ll theoretically be a direct substitute for gas and won’t require the major turnover in infrastructure that other alternatives would. But being as ethanol will never be a long-term solution any money spend building any infrastructure is being wasted.
The real motivation behind ethanol research is political. A few powerful corporations and voting districts are sucking down government money to conduct this research and build up an artificial market for their products. Nobody will ever make a dime on ethanol in a free market - the only profits to be made are collecting government subsidies.
I don’t get this.
Forest with carbon locked up in trees. Release that carbon (clear the forest). Plant sugar cane cut it down produce ethanol and recycle a percentage of that sugar cane carbon back into new sugar cane and repeat ad infinitum. How does that not equal starting out and staying behind once you’ve cut the trees?
Little Nemo while I agree that it is booondoggle that will do little for global warming or for energy independence (maybe a little bit more than a little if cellulosic production is mastered), please read upthread for some discussion that dispells the belief that it is less than break even. It is better than break even compared to gas production and usage. Just not by much.
Sheesh, what’s happened to these boards? 68 posts, and I’m the first one to point out that Cecil already settled this matter four years ago. You guys are slipping.
Let’s just agree that the issue is still in dispute with evidence being offered on both sides. But I don’t think any credible claims are being made that we can look forward to a major positive conversion rate, like say 2:1. If we only achieve a rate of 1.05:1 we’ll have only reduced our dependance on foreign oil by 5%. We’ll still have all of the problems we have now - a rise in the price of oil will cause a rise in the price of ethanol; an oil shortage will cause an ethanol shortage; foreign countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela will still control the oil we need to make ethanol (plus we’ll have to start kissing Iowa’s ass as well).
And I think it’s higly unlikely we’ll even maintain the oil-to-ethanol rate we can do now. We’re already using a lot of oil to sustain agriculture in marginal farmland. We’re not doing this because we’re letting better farmland sit around idle. If we start basing our fuel needs on ethanol, we’re going to need a lot more crops and where are they going to come from? The even less suitable farmland that we’re not using now. Which means that we’re probably going to have to put more oil into those crops than we do into the crops we’re raising now.
http://www.colusabiomass.com/ This company does not use food. It is not a huge oil company. The future of ethanol is not just in todays technology but in the future as it matures. To simply dismiss the technology is way too quick, Ethanol is not the answer. It is an answer. If people start using solar,wind and whatever else is available
Switchgrass yields 1150 gallons per acre. Triple what corn does. Using the rice parts left over does not even require removing food production.
gonzo,
Agreed that cellulosic ethanol production would be a positive as part of the solution. In that regard I offer up some snippets from a March '07 issue of Science (subscription required for full text and the free summary says nothing):
The possiblity is there but it is still speculation. And that speculation is that maybe just maybe cellulosic will be competitive with corn-based ethanol which is not even close to being competitive with gasoline without huge subsdies.
So cellulosic may be worth pursuing with research monies. I believe it is. Even good PHEVs need a liquid fuel and E85 from cellulosic sources supplanting grid derived electricity produced by burning biomass such as switchgrass and Miscanthus and waste products, as well as by other renewables and nuclear, would together make a huge dent in both our dependence on MidEast oil sources and on our collective carbon footprint. That statement hardly justifies the huge subsidies to corn-based ethanol as a commercial product today.
So, the real problem is separating the ethanol from the water economically? I should think all the smart people here should be able to brainstorm a solution.
[paraphrasing a kiddie show host from long ago] That’ll keep the little bastards busy. [/paraphrasing a kiddie show host from long ago]
Which makes a totally electric car out of the question for those who drive long distances. Maximum ranges of 250 miles won’t even cover the distance across Pennsylvania, and definitely wouldn’t get me from Pittsburgh to NYC (367 miles - currently, that’s 6 hours 30 minutes and 3/4 tank of gas in my car). Weekend trips would be out of the question if I had to stop overnight on the way there, and the way back, to charge the car.
It’ll be a long time before a completely electric car is feasible for someone like me.
Most people have two cars. You can have one for shopping and short trips . A gas car for longer trips. On average beneficial.
I don’t understand what has you confused. You’ve borrowed $100, 000 dollars interest free and invested it with a return of $1, 000/annum. How can you not make a profit over 101 years?
You’ve contributed 100, 000 tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere in order to implement a program that will annually reduce carbon emissions by 1000 tonnes. How can atmospheric carbon not be reduced over 101 years?
Not at all. You simply exchange batteries. You drive in to the gas station and park over the refill port. An automated system drops out your battery and replaces it with a fully charged unit. You pay for the charge and drive off. Takes all of 30 seconds. Your battery then goes on the charger and when it’s full it is swapped with the next customer. Far easier, cleaner and faster than pumping gas.
This technology already exists in working form and is used for electric forklifts. So long as the battery will allow at least 2 hours highway travelling time it will be perfectly suitable for 99% of people. It won’t work for people who do a large amount of remote are travel, but that is less than 1% of drivers.
We went through the impracticalities of swapable batteries in a thread a couple weeks back. Problems include:
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The electric car is a nascent technology that is constantly being improved. Such a system would lock the technology in 2007. Imagine such a system being set up to swap out automobile engines in 1920–we would still be using the Ford Model T engine because, with so many cars on the road, it would be too expensive to change.
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Building and stocking an automated charging station would require enormous amounts of money up front. Several million dollars each and a national network of stations would cost many billions.
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You underestimated the time to swap out a battery pack. It would take at least as long as pumping gasoline. Three to five minutes, not thirty seconds, and that is per pack. Let’s say one pack for a commuter module, two for a sedan, and three or four packs for a SUV or minivan. That’s nine to twenty minutes to top-off a vehicle that can carry a driver and six passengers.
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There would be no such thing as a partial fill-up. If I had put only ten miles on a set of batteries but needed to top-off for a long trip it would cost the same as if I had run the batteries “dry.”
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Batteries are touchy beasts and you could only hope that the previous renters had not abused them. Automated testing systems would be part of the startup costs.
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Batteries lose maximum capacity with time and use. Whether you got brand new batteries or older ones with capacities still within their limits would be a crap shoot and your range per charge would be unpredictable.
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Station owners would need to stock enough batteries for their customers in the winter, when the cold reduces their capacity, which would leave many batteries on the shelf in the summer. Sitting on a shelf is bad for a battery.
Totally replacing gas as a fuel is a very high bar. To alleviate our dependence on importing oil is a reasonable aim. Bio fuel.ethanol,electric cars,hybrids, sloar,wind, grease cars etal all working on the problem at their own speed. The technology ,I am sure,will improve. However they certainly will help. How can that be bad.?
Blake That $100,000 isn’t invested; it’s spent with a promise that for every additional thousand you spend you’ll get another thousand back.
You’d have contributed 100,000 tons to the atmosphere and then be recycling the same thousand over and over again by planting and harvesting over and over again. I’m still a 100,000 behind.
Gonzo The issue that I began with in my op is that governmental support went to ethanol at the expense of supporting research and implementation of using biomass to generate electricity. As the note on this DOE page makes quite clear.
Meanwhile the Union of Concerned Scientists quotes the DOE as estimating that biomass could provide 14% of our electricity needs. And the largest chunk of CO2 comes from elecricity generation, not cars.
So yes ethanol has its place in the reduction of CO2 emissions and in decreasing our dependence on foreign oil. But to occupy that place at the expense of other more efficient uses of that biomass is foolishness.
Not even remotely true. If I wanted to I could drop most modern motors into a Model T right now with only minor modifications to the transmission or drive train depending on where I connected the new system to the old. I might need to gear down the engine so I didn’t damage the vehicle, but that is a limitation of the old vehicle, not the improved engine.
Batteries would be even easier than this because there is no solid connection to the vehicle. The only connection is two spring contacts, that’s it. As battery technology becomes better it would only require that the terminals remain in the same location, that’s it. You might have noticed that vehicles from the 1940s and probably even earlier run perfectly using modern batteries precisely because electrical connections are so easy to make universal and upgradable.
Three points:
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It already costs many millions of dollars to build a gas station, between the building itself, the pits for the tanks and the cost of filling those tanks, so several million dollars is an expected outlay even with today’s technology.
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Why would it cost several million dollars to stock enough batteries for a dozen electric cars? And of course if you are servicing several thousand cars then the economy already exists to support this system. Its; not like anyone is going to need to build a 10, 00 car station tomorrow, any more than someone in 1910 had to build a gas station with 100megalitre storage tanks.
Can I ask what these figures are based on. IOW: Cite!
I know that an electric forklift in an automated exchange unit can swap a standard truck battery battery in less than a minute. Why would it take more time for a battery custom built for speed of exchange?
And why do you believe it is impossible to exchange two packs simultaneously?
Can you explain what your logic is here? When I exchange my LP gas cylinder I get credit on the weight of any remaining gas. That credit is taken off the price of the new cylinder. Why can you not apply this simple system to batteries?
Two words: sealed unit. It’s tamper proof. The unit is fitted to the vehicle and can’t be removed or opened without invalidating the exchange. I’m not sure what sort of abuse you are imagining here.
And yes, of course automated testing would be part of the process, just as it is part of the process of obtaining gasoline right now. Why do you think we would have less stringent QC for batteries than we have for gasoline?
I’m not au fair enough with electronics to comment on this, but my understanding is that an automated diagnostic run during charge will tell you the state of the battery.
Why would they sit on the shelf in summer? If a battery store has a turnover 12 hours in winter, then worst case scenario that might reduces down to a turnover of 72 hours in summer. Why would any battery need to sit on the shelf all summer? That makes no sense at all.
No, it is spent with a promise that for every additional thousand you spend you’ll get another one thousand, one hundred back. And that is what an investment is: a current expenditure on the anticipation of greater future gain
I don’t even understand this.
You have contributed 100,000 tonnes to the atmosphere and then you never recycle that thousand. It’s a debt of 100, 00 tonnes. You then use the land you have freed up to generate a credit of 1, 000 annually in perpetuity. How can you possibly believe you are 100,000 behind after 101 years. For an initial debt of 100, 000 you have generated assets of 101, 000. I really can’t see what you are missing here. How can -100, 000 + 101, 000 = 100, 000?