E85: The other white gas

[Brian Ellis]

That is easy. They chop down massive areas of Amazonian primary rain forest and plant the wetlands thus created with sugar cane. This is harvested (using massive diesel machines) and transported (average 100 km) in large diesel trucks to processing plants where diesel-powered crushers extract the juice, which is diluted with water and allowed to ferment. The residues, after crushing, are spread out to dry in the sun and are burnt to provide the heat for the distillation, supplemented by wood chips from the logging waste, brought in by diesel truck, of course. Then, because the goodness in the soil is minimal, after each harvest, fertiliser, made from oil and brought in by diesel truck, is spread using diesel-powered spreaders.

I'll leave you to work out how much oil is required per litre of alcohol produced, but it is not insignificant and, to the best of my knowledge, Brazil does not produce biodiesel (at least, yet).

To do the same for the USA, you would need to have at least Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Louisiana, Mississippi and most of Texas devoted 100% to sugar cane culture and then you would need fuel for the distillation as you don't have massive logging in those states.

[DukeP]

As what Brian said: And then theres the CO2 quotas.

Removing soo much forest would completely havok our kyoto agreement.

~~DukeP~~

[borat]

I find this real hard to believe, do you actually think that they are using more diesel in making this stuff than they would end up using in the cars that currently run off ethanol? That is nonesense, just make the trucks biodiesel/ethonal anyway in the long run and problem solved.

The USA would not need to remove any forest - pleanty of current farmland is unused as it is, and pleanty of 'waste' crop which is either ploughed back or burnt could already be used. Like the doc said E10 is getting pretty mainstream - wheres this ethanol coming from? Where is the huge devastation of forests caused by its production? where is the surge in demand for diesel to process it?

[Dr Mordrid]

As noted previously but forgotten: E85 returns 126% of the energy put into making it. Can't say the same for other fuels, and that NATURE article coming in a few weeks will prob. show improvements can be made on that.

Have you guys even been to the midwest? And I mean not just registering in a Chicago hotel or listening to some dry lecture w/multimedia but driving through Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska etc.?

After harvest there's enough plant matter on the ground waiting to burn or be plowed under to fill Demnark, Cyprus and a couple other Euro countries up to their collective arses in ethanol

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

You don't really want to know where the ethanol is coming from; much of it is synthesised from petroleum. There is one plant in Oregon that claims to have a greater than unity EROEI (Energy Returned Over Energy Invested) in making bioethanol but I've been told that this may not include the energy used for the culture, harvesting and transporting the crops, but this is just hearsay. AFAIK, most other bioethanol plants have a less-than-unity EROEI, especially if viewed holistically.

[Dr Mordrid]

Summary of USDA (US dept. of agriculture) report in 1995 (Clinton admin, not Bush);

Estimating the Net Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol

An Economic Research Service Report

by Hosein Shapouri, James A. Duffield and Michael S. Graboski

United States Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Economic Report Number 721
July 1995

The U.S. ethanol industry grew from practically zero production in the late 1970's to over 1 billion gallons in 1994, spurred by national energy security concerns, new Federal gasoline standards, and government incentives. Each gallon of ethanol produced domestically displaces 7 gallons of imported oil. In addition, production of ethanol is energy efficient, in that it yields nearly 25 percent more energy than is used in growing the corn, harvesting it, and distilling it into ethanol.

Growth in ethanol production has provided an economic stimulus for U.S. agriculture, because most ethanol is made from corn. The increase in ethanol demand has created a new market for corn, and agricultural policymakers see expansion of the ethanol industry as a way of stabilizing farm income and reducing farm subsidies, while freeing the U.S. economy from its dependence on imported oil. Increasing ethanol production induces a higher demand for corn and raises the average corn price. Higher corn prices reduce farm commodity program payments and the participation rate in the Acreage Reduction Program.

Today's higher corn yields, lower energy use per unit of output in the fertilizer industry, and advances in fuel conversion technologies have greatly enhanced the economic and technical feasibility of producing ethanol compared with just a decade ago. Studies using older data may tend to overestimate energy use because the efficiency of growing corn and converting it to ethanol has improved significantly over the past 10 years. The net energy value (NEV) of corn ethanol was calculated as 16,193 Btu/gal when fertilizers are produced by modern processing plants, corn is converted in modern ethanol facilities, farmers achieve normal corn yields, and energy credits are allocated to coproducts.

Moreover, producing ethanol from domestic corn stocks achieves a net gain in a more desirable form of energy. Ethanol production uses abundant domestic supplies of coal and natural gas to convert corn into a premium liquid fuel that can displace petroleum imports.

And ethanol production from corn makes up an even larger percentage now than then. That and much of the remainder is made from natural gas and coal, not petroleum.

Even so this is by just processing the kernels, not the total biomass. Start production methods that convert biomass and....

Dr. Mordrid

[borat]

You don't really want to know where the ethanol is coming from; much of it is synthesised from petroleum. There is one plant in Oregon that claims to have a greater than unity EROEI (Energy Returned Over Energy Invested) in making bioethanol but I've been told that this may not include the energy used for the culture, harvesting and transporting the crops, but this is just hearsay. AFAIK, most other bioethanol plants have a less-than-unity EROEI, especially if viewed holistically.

Im happy to agree with you on that, but when petroleum also has a less than unity EROEI in making it it seems to be a no brainer that you should use something which can be grown domestically and is renewable as a bonus, we can say for arguments sake that petroleum and ethanol have the same manufacturing inputs per unit output (in energy terms) so its not a reason to argue against ethanol in favour of petroleum, but quite the opposite.