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Hybrid Vehicles Ethanol - E85 FlexFuel Is Ethanol good for the environment?
165 messages, Last post on Sep 24, 2008 at 5:25 AM
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Replying to: gagrice (Mar 27, 2006 11:31 am) No I am thinking about all sources. That 1/3.2 cost figure is to produce biodiesel from soy beans or rape. Crops that are not as invasive as growing corn or sugar for ethanol. There is not enough farmland in the US to grow enough soybeans to create the biodiesel to replace the diesel we use. Thats why biodiesel is only workable on a small scale. Plus the production cost of producing biodiesel from soy is much lower than ethanol from corn. My main concern is land use. Since land can produce far more corn than soybeans and a bushel of corn can produce more ethanol that a bushel of soybeans can produce biodiesel producing the ethanol might be a better use of the land. It would be very difficult to produce enough biodiesel to power as many vehicles as we have today. Not difficult, it would be impossible to do it. There just isn't enough land to grow the crops. It is not IN with mainstream America because it is not as easy for big corporations to maintain control. One thing to consider, if we took the entire US production of soybeans and convert it to biodiesel we would have about 6.5% of our diesel needs. If we put every last square inch of farmland to producing soybeans for biodiesel we still wouldn't make enough. Its simple, biodiesel is not a solution, only a small stop gap until the true solution comes along.
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Replying to: gagrice (Mar 27, 2006 11:33 am) |
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Replying to: gagrice (Mar 27, 2006 10:00 am) I haven't been on the boards lately due to work so its good to see you and others are still around. Yes, three cheers to the governor. Now, the hard truth, the reason that biodiesel will be an additive is because it costs +/-$2.90 per gallon to create it. Now I'm all for. I've got it in my tank outside. I know that there are a few people that lurk on these boards creating BD through waste oil for MUCH less. However, to get the ASTM certifications and other quality seals to pump it through our vehicles AND to get the auto manufacturers to stand behind it is another thing altogether. Until the auto manufacturers approve it, the oil companies are not going to let you pump it out of their gas nozzles. I know that some have claimed to make it for less than $1/gallon...but you can't make 5 million gallons of it. If you could, you couldn't sell it to anyone. If you can, let me know, I can set you up with some people willing to invest. Boiler |
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USDA Energy Balance Study Greenhouse gas issue bebunked (from Berkely no less) UC Berkely News OOOOOOh, now (THE Journal) SCIENCE weighs in... Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals I'll let you guess how long it took to find some actual, factual, information thanks to Google. Cheers, Boiler |
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Replying to: gagrice (Mar 27, 2006 11:33 am) I just stumbled onto this thread....good to hear you have been boning up on alternative fuels.... so what is the low down now on ethanol ? I have seen many GM ads in magazines touting the yellow cars and this fuel. IS it something that can provide an alternative while a permanent fuel replacement is found ? OR is it like the Prius...costing more in money & fuel upfront , and thus not a real cost effective idea ? cheers !
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Replying to: highender (Mar 30, 2006 8:33 pm) |
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Replying to: highender (Mar 30, 2006 8:33 pm)
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I'm not sure of the future of E85 and acknowledge the decline in mileage. However, I think people should at least consider the possibility that the $2.50/gal we're currently paying for gas may seem cheap a few years from now. It's quite possible we could be paying $4 or $5 per gallon gas fairly soon. Alot of it has to do with the future level of economic growth in Asia, particularly China and India. If this happens, ethanol becomes more and more viable. What I have not heard discussed on this board is the potential switch from corn to switchgrass. A study out of Auburn University in Alabama which I heard on NPR right after the State of the Union Address indicated switchgrass produces 4 gallons of ethanol for every one gallon's worth of energy used to produce it, compared to a ratio of 2.5 to 1 for corn. Given that switchgrass is native, grows well in a larger area of the country, requires far less intensive management, holds the soil better and would generally be better for the environment than corn, it has potential to become a major crop.
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Replying to: rwh (Mar 31, 2006 7:10 am) The energy balance from corn, then, is slightly positive. However, ethanol can also be derived from another source, namely, cellulosic feedstocks such as corn stover or switchgrass. In this case, the energy balance is much improved, as shown in Table 1 of this paper by McLaughlin and Walsh. Their data show that while the energy gain from corn grain is 21%, the energy gain from converting switchgrass to ethanol is 343%! The downside, of course, is that conversion technologies are not ready for primetime yet, as shown in the the USDA-DOE study mentioned above--the cost per gallon of ethanol from cellulose fermentation is about $1.50. The main worry here is that corn stover will be promoted as the cellulose source, rather than perennial grasses, and that's a big concern. Growing corn is already an environmental problem, but removing all stover (analgous to harvesting corn silage--but that's another topic!) will really leave the land open to wind and water erosion. All this adds up to the fact that using perennail grass crops, such as switchgrass, makes environment sense. More work on conversion technologies is needed, but when it is available, it will mark a substantial advance over the current corn ethanol industry. http://www.public.iastate.edu/~brummer/ag/biomass2.htm
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Replying to: gagrice (Mar 31, 2006 8:39 am) What about the acreage needed? For corn I think it works out to be something like the entire land area of the US would need to be planted with corn to generate enough ethanol...is this figure better for switchgrass? |
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