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Hybrid Vehicles Hybrid Vehicles - Archived Discussions Will ethanol E85 catch on in the US? Will we Live Green and Go Yellow? 
2104 messages, Last post on Oct 27, 2006 at 5:34 AM
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Replying to: seniorjose (Aug 21, 2006 11:33 am) Obviously, it takes a fair amount of energy to produce ethanol (though it's been reported numerous times that the amount of energy produced is greater than the amount of energy consumed). My question is: how much of the energy CONSUMED to produced ethanol can be (or is) SUPPLIED by ethanol? In other words, if a fair amount of the energy being consumed to produce ethanol is in the form of oil, then does the production of ethanol REALLY reduce our demand for oil? |
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| Ethanol is nothing more than politcal payoff to a few farmers and in return they pay off members of congress. Same ole dishonest game. Both parties and both houses. | |
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Replying to: alp8 (Aug 21, 2006 7:59 am) I have been to many countries in Europe (including eastern Europe) and only one of them had much smell of "fumes" -- and that was the first time I visited the country. In later visits, years later that is, I am certain the air quality was better than many American cities. When I first visited Poland, I went from Berlin to Poznan via train. This was in the early 1990's -- the wall had come down, of course, but the contrast between east and west so to speak was darn near stark. Almost like taking the drive from central Chicago to Gary (Indiana) -- or from Manhattan to Newark. As about 5 years passed, I made a second visit, this time to Warsaw. Hmmm, I thought, at first -- "kinda seems like Detroit, a bit smoggy, but a huge improvement and I actually saw western cars on this trip." Time Passes: Another 5 years, back to Warsaw and to Crackow, on to Prague and to cities including Amsterdam, the Hague, Brussles, Luxembourg City, London, Paris, Vienna, Triere, Munich, Ingolstadt, Frankfurt, Innsbruck, Verona, Milan, Rome, Venice (really smelly, but not diesel) and on and on and on from 1993 to 2005 (some years 6 trips in one year.) In 2005, I visited again, Munich, Innsbruck, Verona and Venice (these cities may not demonstrate the case for or against Europe Stinks, but they are in Europe.) In many respects, Europe (from the above perspective) has cleaned itself up -- America, by comparison has dirtied itself down. The number of smog alert days here in Cincinnati has gone up -- our busses stink and we are constantly told "not to mow our lawns or fill our gas tanks before 6PM." My impression is the Ultra Low Emissions diesels have been a huge success in the EU (and beyond since some of the countries I have been to weren't able to join the EU from the get go) as far as stinkyness is concerned. I say, bring on the UL diesels -- bring 'em here, bring 'em now, and bring plenty of 'em. At least if the criteria is smell -- for, from my perspective, Europe (as broad as that may seem) smells cleaner than America (and I will narrow those characterizations by saying I am generally speaking of the urban areas.)
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Replying to: markcincinnati (Aug 22, 2006 4:13 am) |
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Replying to: gagrice (Aug 21, 2006 5:40 am) It is, I drove by that station this morning regular unleaded was $3.199 and E-85 was $2.899.
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Replying to: markcincinnati (Aug 22, 2006 4:13 am) get out of the cities and you see what the middle class and poor drive. You don't see as many nice cars. And it stinks. But I am only talking France and Germany. When I was in Paris I saw all sorts of new Renaults and other EU brands. Then in Provence all the cars are very middle of the road. And they stink. Granted, the cars are older out there, so that has a lot to do with it. Far more newer cars in Paris than outside of Paris. All driven by demographics, really. It's not the cars, it's the cars people can afford. If everyone drove a NEW diesel, I'm sure it would smell better.
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Why, READ the true facts: The False Hope of Biofuels For Energy and Environmental Reasons, Ethanol Will Never Replace Gasoline Biofuels such as ethanol made from corn, sugar cane, switchgrass and other crops are being touted as a "green" solution for a large part of America's transportation problem. Auto manufacturers, Midwest corn farmers and politicians are excited about ethanol. Initially, we, too, were excited about biofuels: no net carbon dioxide emissions, reduction of oil imports. Who wouldn't be enthusiastic? But as we've looked at biofuels more closely, we've concluded that they're not a practical long-term solution to our need for transport fuels. Even if all of the 300 million acres (500,000 square miles) of currently harvested U.S. cropland produced ethanol, it wouldn't supply all of the gasoline and diesel fuel we now burn for transport, and it would supply only about half of the needs for the year 2025. And the effects on land and agriculture would be devastating. It's difficult to understand how advocates of biofuels can believe they are a real solution to kicking our oil addiction. Agriculture Department studies of ethanol production from corn -- the present U.S. process for ethanol fuel -- find that an acre of corn yields about 139 bushels. At an average of about 2.5 gallons per bushel, the acre then will yield about 350 gallons of ethanol. But the fuel value of ethanol is only about two-thirds that of gasoline -- 1.5 gallons of ethanol in the tank equals 1 gallon of gasoline in terms of energy output. Moreover, it takes a lot of input energy to produce ethanol: for fertilizer, harvesting, transport, corn processing, etc. After subtracting this input, the net positive energy available is less than half of the figure cited above. Some researchers even claim that the net energy of ethanol is actually negative when all inputs are included -- it takes more energy to make ethanol than one gets out of it. But allowing a net positive energy output of 30,000 British thermal units (Btu) per gallon, it would still take four gallons of ethanol from corn to equal one gallon of gasoline. The United States has 73 million acres of corn cropland. At 350 gallons per acre, the entire U.S. corn crop would make 25.5 billion gallons, equivalent to about 6.3 billion gallons of gasoline. The United States consumes 170 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel annually. Thus the entire U.S. corn crop would supply only 3.7 percent of our auto and truck transport demands. Using the entire 300 million acres of U.S. cropland for corn-based ethanol production would meet about 15 percent of the demand. It is argued that rather than using corn to make ethanol, we can use agricultural wastes. But the amounts are still a drop in the bucket. Using the crop residues (called corn stover) from corn production could provide about 10 billion gallons per year of ethanol, according to a recent study by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The net energy available would be greater than with ethanol from corn -- about 60,000 Btu per gallon, equivalent to a half-gallon of gasoline. Still, all of the U.S. corn wastes would produce only the equivalent of 5 billion gallons of gasoline. Another factor to be considered: Not plowing wastes back into the land hurts soil fertility. Similar limitations and problems apply to growing any crop for biofuels, whether switchgrass, hybrid willow, hybrid poplar or whatever. Optimistically, assuming that switchgrass or some other crop could produce 1,000 gallons of ethanol per acre, over twice as much as we can get from corn plus stover, and that its net energy was 60,000 Btu per gallon, ethanol from 300 million acres of switchgrass still could not supply our present gasoline and diesel consumption, which is projected to double by 2025. The ethanol would meet less than half of our needs by that date. Perhaps more important: The agricultural effects of such a large-scale program would be devastating. Recently, there has been lots of excitement and media coverage about how Brazil produces ethanol for its automobile fuel and talk that America should follow its lead. But Brazil consumes only 10 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel annually, compared with America's 170 billion. There are almost 4 million miles of paved roads in America -- Brazil has 60,000. And Brazil is the leading producer of sugar cane -- more than 300 million tons annually -- so it has lots of agricultural waste to make ethanol. Finally, considering projected population growth in the United States and the world, the humanitarian policy would be to maintain cropland for growing food -- not fuel. Every day more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes -- one child every five seconds. The situation will only get worse. It would be morally wrong to divert cropland needed for human food supply to powering automobiles. It would also deplete soil fertility and the long-term capability to maintain food production. We would destroy the farmland that our grandchildren and their grandchildren will need to live. And that is why it won't catch on.
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Replying to: alp8 (Aug 22, 2006 7:36 am) However, most of the time in Germany has been spent in Bavaria -- towns like Fussen, Garmisch, Frieburg (sp?) and even medium sized towns like Ingolstadt (which of course is the Holy Land for Audi lovers like me.) Germany second only to Switzerland, strikes me as the cleanest country in Europe -- there don't even seem to be any butts on the street, if you get my drift. Just as a contrarian, I respectfully disagree -- insofar as Germany is concerned. I would gladly breathe deep in Germany, at least where I have been (which is mostly the southern half of Germany, Frankfurt a few times and Berlin twice. Were we to be as clean as the Germany I know, we would not have been such a big part of Al's Inconvenient Truth. To me, you wanna talk smelly, talk Philadelphia -- only Venice, Italy can smell worse from my experience. Of course, as the song goes, no matter how bad it is, it could only be worse in Milwaukee.
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