What is Digg?141 Comments
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -5/+65Good Ethanol is a huge waste it destroys the soil and Ethanol from corn uses more energy to make than you get back.
- underthewether, on 10/10/2007, -0/+22National Geographic had an excellent article about biofuel. The joke is on everyone, corn is the least efficient product to convert into ethanol. The cellulose based methods like switch grass aren't much better either. Sugar cane is the best, but you can't grow that everywhere.
- doctechnical, on 10/10/2007, -0/+19Yeah, we're kinda stuck on that whole "laws of thermodynamics" thing.
- Kahnza, on 10/10/2007, -0/+15Not to mention ethanol isn't as green as people try to make it out to be. Mainly the corn growers and ethanol industry. They try to make ethanol seem like a godsend and a solution to our problems to get people to buy into it to make more money. Its always about money. People would try to sell you a radioactive eskimo turd and tell you its the greatest facial scrub on the planet if they thought they could make a buck.
- Kahnza, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15Ribbed for your pleasure.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14Ethanol is not the answer. It is very inefficient to produce and even if we covered all the arable land in the US with corn, it would barely dent the US fuel consumption as much as changing the MPG standard.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -4/+14Ethanol was a Republican-Big Oil Companies-Detroit automaker's - easy way out. It really does nothing for the environment but sound good.
Let's start fueling up with salty water, yea? - Troika37, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11"According to a Cornell study, to create one gallon of ethanol, it takes 21.6 pounds of corn, and one acre of land can yield a total of 7,100 pounds of corn. Corn is also grown on a yearly basis, so that equals out to about 328 gallons of corn for every acre grown per year. According to the Department of Energy, the United States currently demands around 9.2 million barrels of oil per day (just for gasoline), and a barrel holds about 42 gallons each, which means that the U.S. demands close to 378 million gallons of gasoline per day. If all cars ran on ethanol, which is not as efficient as gasoline, the U.S. would need around 567 million gallons of ethanol per day. Doing the math, the U.S. would have to grow close to 1.7 million acres of corn per day, or over 630 million acres of corn per year, just to produce enough ethanol to feed the yearly U.S consumption rate. For further comparison, one acre of land is equal to 4.04 km², so the U.S. would need to grow around 2.5 billion km² of corn per year to fuel its thirst. To put this in perspective, the Earth's surface area (including oceans) is only 510 million km², so it would take the land surface of five Earths to feed the U.S. demand for ethanol for one year."
http://www.radford.edu/~whim/tech/articles/ethanol ... - Gtitian, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12But we're not trying to get away from oil, we're trying to get away from combustion! Ethanol sucks.
- tao52nyc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9It's about power as much as emissions. A gallon of ETOH only provides about 72,000 BTU/gal. Gasoline gives 128,000. Take the subsidies away, and the cost per gallon of ETOH is $3.99. Plus a third less power means you'll use more. Yup. Folks will love that.
- wtfpwned98, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Ethanol has been subsidized for decades, and it just isn't that great of a bio-fuel. Politics is about who gets what, and we see pledges to maintain ethanol subsidies every 4 years at the Iowa caucuses, and it's beyond stupid...it was stupid in the 80s. Everyone knows it's a welfare program.
- 0Chaos0, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8More bandwagon jumping. Just another example of the market jumping on the first train, rather then investigating the best route and planning for it.
Who remembers beta tapes or laser discs - chesscat, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Jesus, will this ethanol boondoggle ever go away? Why are we subsidizing rich farmers with tax money AND encouraging food inflation because we are growing too much corn and not enough wheat for example?
- veriix, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Where was I when the ethanol boom happened?
- rndpegsqhl, on 12/03/2007, -0/+7Maybe the price of beef will go down now.
- norman619, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Don't you dare state the facts!
- diggless, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Hydrogen is BS as well. you expend energy to get hydrogen as well. why not just cut to the chase and go electric? I mean thats what the hydrogen fuel cells make. You use electricity to make hydrogen, then use hydrogen to make electricity? Its so stupid that its laughable. Why not make the electricity and then convert it directly into motive power?
what do you gain with hydrogen as an intermediary. - Troika37, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7The most optimistic estimate I've seen is that there may be sufficient usable land worldwide to produce 100 billion gallons of ethanol a
year. This would not replace the current gasoline consumption of the United States, much less the world. If all the arable land on Earth
were to be devoted to the growth of crops for the production of ethanol, there would be no room for the growth of food crops, and mankind would starve.
"Almost all of the arable land on Earth would need to be covered with the fastest-growing known energy crops, such as switchgrass, to produce the amount of energy currently consumed in the United States from fossil fuels annually."
U.S. Department of Energy: Basic Research Needs
http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/reports/files/SEU_rpt.pd ... - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Biodiesel is a stop gap. There is only so much waste oil around to be converted to biodiesel. It is great recycling but won't do much to our massice fuel consumption.
- br0ck, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Actually, Al Gore may be on the right track on this one. This is what he said about corn-based ethanol a year and a half ago: "Gore: Cellulosic ethanol. Different from corn-based ethanol. I think it is going to be a huge new source of energy, particularly for the transportation sector. You're going to see it all over the place. You're going to see a lot more flex-fuel vehicles. You're going to see new processes that utilize waste as the source of energy, so there's no petroleum consumed in the process -- that makes the energy balance uniformly positive, so you can regrow it and it does become, in a real sense, renewable. You may also begin to see a new generation of fuel cells that run on cellulosic ethanol, where you can grow your own electricity. I think it's going to play a huge role." From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12743273/
- DreKor, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I was unaware that there was a boom. When did this happen?
- norman619, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4If they could only figure out how to convert bull feces to fuel then we'd have a real use for the folks in Washington.
- bigjimslade, on 10/10/2007, -5/+9It's a ***** fuel.
- korashime2001, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Ethanol from corn yields around 20% more energy than you use to get it. Not nearly enough. And Ethanol is just a stop-gap between oil and hydrogen.
- Troika37, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4To my knowledge, the study assumes the following: E85, American harvesting technology and corn conversions.
The point, I think, to all of this is that ethanol will never be more than a welcomed and much needed supplement to oil. Until we find a way to effeciently store energy in batteries, negating the need for a liquid fuel, society will run into issues with energy conversion. The primary difficulty in making solar, water, wind and electrical energy more abundant is the fact that it is almost impossible to store the energy generated, and impossible to store it in a manner that is conducive to transportation. Until this technology advances, we are stuck with oil. - quickdickdean, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Ethanol is complete and utter *****. Move the first presidential primary out of Iowa so we don't have to hear about it ever again. We need to follow France's lead and go nuclear.
- divrekku, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5So does oil. Yet we still use it.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4A paper by Economist David Pimentel and Patzek. There are also one other paper with similar findings.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/july05/ethanol ...
Heard him in an interview. - jpmayberry, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3What many don't realize is how much "oil" goes into corn to begin with in the form of fertilizers, forming equipment and transportation. If oil goes up in price, so does the cost of producing and distilling ethanol.
- joeadk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/business/30ethan ...
- TheBedBaron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3die spamtroll http://digg.com/users/qjgayv
- CaptMonkey, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I now present, how to make a comment on an article pertaining to ethanol: "I totally read on this completely biased (pro/anti)-ethanol web site that ethanol production (will/won't) solve our fuel problems. They had a quote from a scientist, it must be true! It's the (best/worst) idea ever!"
Carry on! - murlox, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Corn Ethanol is not the solution. Algae is.
- bassgoonist, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Here in Iowa its no problem :-p Almost everyone buys E10-15 midgrade gas, because its always $.10 cheaper than standard.
- Kahnza, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Nice spam dinglenuts. GTFO
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3What the hell are you talking about? Everyone else still uses fossil fuels.
- spikygoose, on 10/10/2007, -10/+12***** corn.
- cygnus2112, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I wouldn't trust Cornell. They're off on the ethanol efficiency 378 million gallons of gasoline = 567 million gallons of ethanol? ... ummm no. Also, these numbers are based on 1.4:1 corn ethanol. Recompute for 10:1 cellulosic ethanol ...
18% is the difference in efficiency..
So 378 million gallons of gasoline = 446 million gallons of ethanol
Cellulosic ethanol is 114 gallons per tonne of biomass. 100 tonnes per hectare per annum. i.e. 11,400 gallons per hectare per annum.
446 million gallons/year divided by 11,400 gallons per hectare = 39122 hectares per annum needed.
39,122 hectares = 151 square miles
A very very conservative low ball figure would be Auburn University's plant research where they had an average of 11.5 tons per acre over a 5 year period. They made 1,150 gallons of ethanol per acre per year (1,750 liters per hectare per year).
So..
446 million gallons/yr divided by 1,150 gallons of ethanol/acre = 387826 acres
387,826 acres = 605 square miles
Cornell can stick a big corn cob up their cornholes. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Where does biodiesel come from?
- tehpwnrate, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Also, the corn lobby has a firm grip on Congress, so pointless and counter-productive subsidies and tariffs will not go away.
- norman619, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Yeah I guess Europe knows how best to defy them annoying physical laws.
- domc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Pure ethanol gas station here in Colorado has it priced at $2.02 a gallon. What a deal since regular 85 octane fuel is running $2.69 right now.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2How is that more efficient than corn?
Once everyone starts using waste oil, your "free" fuel is no longer free and organic oils are some of the most expensive fuel sources around. How much is a gallon of Canola, Peanut, olive etc. oil?
I don't have an issue with biodiesel but it is not some miracle future fuel. - nonymous666, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2> "given the US demands 9.2 million gallons of gasoline a day for gasoline"
cdurham, The article says "9.2 million BARRELS of OIL" a day used to make gasoline. Put away the Hello Kitty calculator and learn to read. - nihilite, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3wtf are you talking about
- XStatic, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Summer vacation at the beach house.
- baalzebub, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3yeah........right, that why the fastest dragsters and funny cars all use alcohol...
Ethanol is also occasionally used as a substitute for methanol as it is less corrosive and toxic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Alcohol_Dragster - Troika37, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Those are Cornell's numbers, not mine. I would trust their math.
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2But you have to bump other crops off the land to grow it.
- doctechnical, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Or Windows?
Oh, wait, that one stuck. -
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