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Hybrid Vehicles Ethanol - E85 FlexFuel The Inconvenient Truth About Ethanol
921 messages, Last post on Oct 07, 2009 at 10:53 AM
You are in the Ethanol - E85 FlexFuel Forum. Your Host is pf_flyer
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Replying to: tfb27 (Jun 14, 2008 7:50 pm) Thanks for pointing out another government screw-up - mandating oxygenate content because of the very slight, and debateable, pollution impact. A recent study by Stanford, I think, found that overall, emissions are higher with E10. So first we poison some groundwater with MTBE, then wast billions and drive up food prices with ethanol, all for naught. 
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Replying to: texases (Jun 14, 2008 1:43 pm)
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Replying to: texases (Jun 14, 2008 7:54 pm) |
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Replying to: avalon02wh (Jun 14, 2008 7:43 am) Here is the problem with diesel. The cost of the engine is still higher than a gas version and the emissions requirements make the after treatment of the exhaust even more expensive. This doesnt happen in FFV's
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Replying to: tfb27 (Jun 14, 2008 8:00 pm) |
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Replying to: texases (Jun 14, 2008 8:12 pm) Do you have #'s on how good sugar cane ethanol is compared to corn? The real solution is for consumption to reduce by 80%. Maybe a plague or nuclear war will make that happen. I cant think of another way. So we therefore need to produce more fuel in the world.
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Replying to: tfb27 (Jun 14, 2008 8:26 pm) Recent articles in Scientific American, National Geographic, and Consumer Reports all describe the much higher energy efficiency of ethanol production from sugar cane, compared to corn. Are you unaware of this?
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Replying to: texases (Jun 14, 2008 8:33 pm) |
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Replying to: tfb27 (Jun 14, 2008 8:26 pm) Field corn used in ethanol cant be eaten by people. I know you are smarter than that. If you are growing corn for ethanol you are NOT growing wheat, soy or any other food product. If all you read is the propaganda put out by the ethanol industry. You will have a very skewed perspective on the subject. Dumping more fertilizer, made with natural gas to produce more corn is a BAD thing. You really need to study two important things. One is the run-off into the rivers ending in the Gulf. And the aquifer that is being depleted to grow these huge corn crops. You don't seem much into facts so I will post a few for you to contemplate. Officials with Pilgrim's Pride, the largest chicken processor in the U.S., announced this week the company will close a chicken processing complex and six of its 13 distribution centers in the United States in response to the crisis facing the U.S. chicken industry from soaring feed-ingredient costs resulting from corn-based ethanol production. http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/12- - 05415188705.xml http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/speakout/science/jan-june08/ethanol_3-19.html Heavily subsidized and absurdly inefficient, corn-based ethanol has already driven up food prices. But the Senate's plan to increase production to 36 billion gallons by 2022, from less than seven billion today, will place even greater pressure on farm-belt aquifers. Ethanol plants consume roughly four gallons of water to produce each gallon of fuel, but that's only a fraction of ethanol's total water habit. Cornell ecology professor David Pimentel says that when you count the water needed to grow the corn, one gallon of ethanol requires a staggering 1,700 gallons of H2O. Backers of the Senate bill say that less-thirsty technologies are just around the corner, which is what we've been hearing for years. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119258870811261613.html |
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Replying to: tfb27 (Jun 14, 2008 7:55 pm) The ultimate fact remains that very little, if any, net energy is produced by making ethanol from corn. This is a dead end. Until and unless we can produce lots of ethanol from other sources like switchgrass it is a dumb idea and we are not going to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. The problem with growing lots of plants (either switchgrass or corn or something else) is that a) this takes land, which competes for food and cattle uses; and b) it takes water, which is also a scarce and getting scarcer commodity. Sorry, I just don't see ethanol making any sizable dent in this problem. I suggest we expend the same energy focusing on better efficiency, solar, and wind power to make more electricity. |
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Hybrid Vehicles Ethanol - E85 FlexFuel The Inconvenient Truth About Ethanol
