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| Ethanol: A Tragedy in Three Acts |
| 2006-05-01 |
| EFL It started with Congress, which mandated that even more ethanol be used to extend the nation's fuel supply. From General Motors, an ad campaign called "Live Green, Go Yellow" gave America the impression that by purchasing GM vehicles capable of using E85 ethanol, we could help reduce our dependence on foreign oil. What GM left out of its ads was that the use of this fuel would likely increase the amount of smog during the summer months (as the EPA's own attorneys had admitted in 1995) -- and that using E85 in GM products would lower their fuel efficiency by as much as 25%. (USA Today recently reported that the Energy Dept. estimated the drop in mileage at 40%.) But one final setup for the public has gone unnoticed. At the Web site, www.fueleconomy.gov, which confirms the 25% to 30% drop in mileage resulting from the use of this blended fuel, another feature lets users calculate and compare annual fuel costs using regular gasoline to costs using E85. But the government site's automatic calculations are based on E85 selling for 37 cents per gallon less than regular gasoline, when the USA Today article reports that at many stations in the Midwest E85 is actually selling for 13 cents per gallon more than ordinary gas. Using the corrected prices for both gasoline and E85, the annual cost of fueling GM's Suburban goes from $2,709 to $3,763. Hence the suggestion that truth in advertising should come back into play. Possibly GM could rename this ad campaign "Shell Out Green, Turn Yellow." |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #11 That is, in future, the typical US family could consume a 5-gallon jug of ethanol a week, delivered to them like bottled water. Jez one big happy family ... HIC! |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-05-01 20:29 |
| #10 The other negative aspect of this inefficient fuel is that numerous studies have found that ethanol creates less energy than is required to make it. Other studies have found that ethanol creates "slightly" more energy than is used in its production. Yet not one of these studies takes into account that when E85 is used, the vehicle's fuel efficiency drops by at least 25% -- and possibly by as much as 40%. Using any of the accredited studies as a baseline in an energy-efficiency equation, ethanol when used as a fuel is a net energy waste. Note the bolded portion of the above statement. It is simple scientific truth that energy cannot be created nor destroyed and that there are 3 basic laws of thermodynamics - 1) You can't win, 2) You can't break even, and 3) You can't get out of the game. If ethanol created more energy than it required to produce it would break the basic law that you cannot create energy, merely transform it from one form to another, plus it would break all three laws of simple thermodynamics. Ethanol requires energy to produce thus the energy ethanol produces must be lower than the energy required to produce it. It's called entropy and the Carnot Cycle. What idiots... |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2006-05-01 19:33 |
| #9 I'd pay a premium for fuel if I knew that not one cent of the cost went to the ####ing Saudis, the Mad Mullahs, or Hugo Chavez. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2006-05-01 18:35 |
| #8 Fuel cells are a better battery. Thtat's it. Start and end of story. I don't know what percentage of total energy consumption goes into batteries, but I'd be surprised if it was as high as 1%. Otherwise, you are coupling more energy efficient devices to a particular means of distributing energy (and a particularly inefficient means of distributing energy), namely ethanol fuel cells. I see no need for such a coupling. You are falling into the same trap that has bedeviled the whole energy alternatives debate for years. Make it complex enough, ignore the ineffiencies that result from converting one form of energy to another and you can make any claim you like. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-05-01 17:23 |
| #7 The big advantage of fuel cell ethanol is for small, stable power devices. Literally, you use a small syringe to fill their tank. Cellphones, laptops, etc., that are out of the optimal profile for batteries, or can be used instead of batteries. Before I said 5 gallons, but that is way too much. A typical family might use between a pint and a quart a week, maybe as much as a gallon if things like "house robots" become technically feasible. The bottom line is not to replace your electricity consumption, but to augument it during peak times, for portability, and in lieu of batteries. I'm sure that dumbasses would think about drinking pretty pure fuel ethanol, so they would probably include some foul-tasting additive, like they do with natural gas. The bottom line for this is that it is far more economical to use several different energy sources than to rely on just two: gasoline and the power grid. The trick is to cherry pick the best power source for the best application--of which there are many to choose. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-05-01 14:24 |
| #6 http://world.honda.com/news/2006/4060108FCX/ |
| Posted by: jim#6 2006-05-01 13:50 |
| #5 That is, in future, the typical US family could consume a 5-gallon jug of ethanol a week, delivered to them like bottled water. How about a Hydrogen generator making hydrogen from natural gas ( already available from a pipe) to power your whole house and car too. (Honda) |
| Posted by: jim#6 2006-05-01 13:49 |
| #4 "... consume a 5-gallon jug of ethanol a week ..." Not even Uncle Earl could drink that much 'shine. Still, it might make one not care so much about the DDoS hacker attacks. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-05-01 13:39 |
| #3 Today nukes and hydrogen are the way to go, ultimately. But between now and then, who knows where the market takes us. And who knows what biogenetic miracles occur ultimately. In any case, attaching ourselves to the volatility of supply and price associated with petroleum is a mistake. We need the oil import fee to stimulate these alternative sources of supply. Let the market determine the winner. It's obvious that won't be ethanol. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-05-01 10:48 |
| #2 That is, in future, the typical US family could consume a 5-gallon jug of ethanol a week, delivered to them like bottled water. They would use this ethanol to power fuel cells running their computers, house LED lighting (now far superior to incandescent or flourescent lighting, with many more lumens per watt), televisions and other entertainment equipment, etc., using house current and/or natural gas for major appliances, AC and heat. And in the process waste a hell of a lot more energy than the current distribution grid. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-05-01 10:40 |
| #1 The problem isn't the ethanol, it's the ethanol for those uses. There should be large-scale ethanol production in the US, but for all sorts of small, fuel-cell, low power and constant current devices. That is, in future, the typical US family could consume a 5-gallon jug of ethanol a week, delivered to them like bottled water. They would use this ethanol to power fuel cells running their computers, house LED lighting (now far superior to incandescent or flourescent lighting, with many more lumens per watt), televisions and other entertainment equipment, etc., using house current and/or natural gas for major appliances, AC and heat. For vehicles, industrial CO2 bubbled through algae to produce both biodiesel and some ethanol, at a far cheaper cost than plant-produced biodiesel, would provide the high power and variable currents needed for vehicles and industrial uses, again augumented with commercial electricity and natural gas. The bottom line is that ethanol only has 50% of the energy of gasoline, and there is no way around that problem. So the solution is several different energy sources available for many different applications. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-05-01 10:31 |