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2003-08-12 Arabia

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Posted by Anon1 2003-08-12 2:40:37 AM|| || Front Page|| [11137 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 One major problem with ethanol is that it's production is not cost effective, it takes more energy to produce it than you will receive from it.
You must plant the crop, fertilize it, apply herbicides and harvest the crop, then grind the corn (or whatever) and convert it into a mash and then distill the mash into alcohol. Every step of the process requires energy. It is far more cost effective to plant corn (or whatever) sell it and buy oil from whoever. Government sponsored ethanol programs are a major boondoggle.

Posted by Steve 2003-8-12 3:57:32 AM|| 2003-8-12 3:57:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 As regards yesterdays article/posts on fuel-cell tech:The best way to get started is with baby steps,
(first)Provide tax credits incentives to major comercial buildings and hospitals that install FC power generators for back-up power.Eventually as the FC generators become more efficent,and accepted by the public they become the primary,stand alone power source.
(secound)As tech improves efficiency and per-unit-cost apply the tax incentives to government and commercial fleets.
(third)Agin after corrosponding improvments in effeciency and per-unit-cost,start marketing them to the general public.

As the popularity grows,effiency increases,and per-unit size/cost decreases the supply/support infrastructer will grow to fit the demand.
Today's supply/support infrastructer did not grow overnight but took nearly 100 years to develop.

Posted by raptor 2003-8-12 8:09:51 AM|| 2003-8-12 8:09:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 The statement that ethanol burns clean is quite deceptive. First, some CO2 is produced (however less than when gasoline is burned). Second, CO2 will be produced at many points in the process of producing ethanol.

Since ethanol doesn't have as high an energy content as gasoline, a user will have to fill up more.

The cost of setting up the infrastructure to convert to ethanol is staggering. The amount of land that would have to be reserved to produce the raw material for ethanol is also potentially a problem (there are people who believe that much of the brushlands of the western US can be converted to that use but this is not proved).

Posted by mhw 2003-8-12 8:16:46 AM|| 2003-8-12 8:16:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Steve
You left out the last step. You have to dispose of the spent mash. You can only feed so many hogs.

There are companies in the recycling business that will take anything that will ferment and make fuel alcohol (like out of date soft drinks, candy, etc). They still have major expense to prepare the feed stock, distill, and dispose of waste.

To All

Ethanol as a fuel source is similar to that of hydrogen in that the stuff is merely an energy TRANSFER medium which has losses (ie no net gain in energy) and other difficult to solve problems.

Dorf

Posted by Anonymous 2003-8-12 8:47:44 AM|| 2003-8-12 8:47:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 The question of which fuel to use is really a matter of economics. Currently, petroleum is cheap. Alternative technologies will be used when they become cost-effective, which will happen when petroleum becomes more expensive. The best solution is to let the free market decide!

Posted by Spot 2003-8-12 8:47:49 AM|| 2003-8-12 8:47:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 If we really were going to go cold turkey or
if there was a disruption in supply (which there
has not been) it would probably be more cost
effective to use modified coal (gasified coal?)
than ethanol. It may even make more sense
to build more electric plants burning coal
to run electrics or to crack hydrogen. I don't
see how an agricultural solution could replace
a fuel that has spent eons concentrating into
dense pure carbon.

Posted by J.H. 2003-8-12 9:29:32 AM|| 2003-8-12 9:29:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 it would probably be more cost effective to use modified coal (gasified coal?) than ethanol.

This was the German solution during WWII. Can't speak for its cost-effectiveness, though.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-12 10:00:20 AM|| 2003-8-12 10:00:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 I think the main point is that it (coal
gasification) probably
is not cost affective in relation to buying
foreign oil. However, it is not necessarily
less cost affective than the ethanol solution.
I say let the corn and coal lobbies fight it out
in the marketplace (without big subsidies).

Posted by J.H. 2003-8-12 10:29:19 AM|| 2003-8-12 10:29:19 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Another misleading part of this website is its insistence that electric cars are the cleanest mode of individual transportation. This is only true if the power plant creating the energy is, uh, clean. Which I guess means it has to be a solar or wind power plant (NOT very common; lots of maintenance problems), because everything else (gas, coal, nuclear) produces pollution. I guess hydroelectric and thermal powerplants don't, but since the ecologists generally complain about them as well....

Now, hydrogen shows some promise. Generators and engines require minimal retooling to use it and, according the review of Ford's hydrogen SUV which I remember reading, it's got a good bit of !UMPH! to it when you hit the peddle. Technically speaking, you can run an electrical charge generated by solar panels through a container of water to produce, um, H3 and O2 I think it is. Now, the problem with the hydrogen/oxygen mix used for fuel is that it's highly unstable.... which is why nobody is marketing a "make hydrogen at home!" kit. Flick the switch on a bad day and they'll be calling you lefty â or Darkman!

Posted by Secret Master 2003-8-12 11:31:16 AM|| [www.budgetwarrior.com] 2003-8-12 11:31:16 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 It's the economics that kills ethanol and other alternative sources of energy. I still think the eventual way to go will be using nuclear power (cheap) to produce hydrogen (clean).

Oil will still be needed for production of things like plastics.

Posted by Fred 2003-8-12 11:32:40 AM|| 2003-8-12 11:32:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 For the scoop on coal gasification from the DOE:

The money quote:

"Current gasification-based power plants are estimated to cost about $1200 per kilowatt, compared to conventional coal plants at around $900 per kilowatt."

Posted by jfd 2003-8-12 11:38:24 AM|| 2003-8-12 11:38:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 Crud, the link did not work. Copy paste the bugger.

http://www.fe.doe.gov/coal_power/gasification/index.shtml

Posted by jfd 2003-8-12 11:40:31 AM|| 2003-8-12 11:40:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 Hydro is a great source of energy, to be sure, but a flooded canyon/basin is a sort of polution. Nuclear power's reputation has been sullied (Saudied?) The technology is just waiting.

Posted by Lucky 2003-8-12 11:53:08 AM|| 2003-8-12 11:53:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 I don't know why, but after I read Steve's post, I envisioned stills in everyone's back yard. Too bad we can't find a way to mix our own and add it when we fill up.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-8-12 12:35:59 PM|| 2003-8-12 12:35:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 With fossil fuels, nature and time have already done the heavy lifting to change dead matter into concentrated energy. If we each lived 1,000,000 years we could bury our garbage and drill for it later. Since we can't do that, we have to add outside energy to make the conversion in a reasonable time. The energy we add is anything but efficient or free. Nature has no such qualms about burning huge amounts of power (our sun for instance) for an eternity (to our limited point of view.) Just remember what Homer said to Lisa "You'll not break the law of thermodynamics in this house." On the other hand, I am in favor of a still in every backyard.

Posted by whitecollar redneck 2003-8-12 1:08:22 PM|| 2003-8-12 1:08:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Solar Panel roofing tiles combined with a few laws that insist the power companies buy power instead of just crediting it would solve the clean power problem within a decade or less. It would create new industries, add value to homes, and decentralize our power plants so they are not juicy terrorist targets.

The only drawback is power companies are big political doners.

Posted by Yank 2003-8-12 4:01:14 PM|| 2003-8-12 4:01:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 What happened to the outfit in New Jersey that is/was working on a process to produce a synthetic oil out of waste from packing plants and other organic garbage? The solutions are out there to achieving energy independence if we really want to achieve it. Personally I really don't think I'd mind paying an extra 10 or 15 percent for fuels prduced here because at least the freaking money will stay here and not be going to asshatted SOBs in Sandy Arabia. The only thing that really stands in our way is the inertia of the current energy system. $.02 worth.

Posted by Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire 2003-8-12 4:25:17 PM|| 2003-8-12 4:25:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 What Fred said... I don't see hydrogen-fueled power plants. Nukes fit that bill far better, and provide the energy for mass extraction of hydrogen, which in turn can be combusted for "small" engines and mobile power.

Spot, they don't come much more free market than me. But the techno lag between not having enough access to cost-effective petro, and getting the scale of hydro production up to speed, is going to be a long cold wait for a lot of pedestrians. In a worst case scenario (a future US isolated from foreign supplies for whatever reason), even if we can refine enough domestic crude for national security purposes, there are gonna be some highly PO'd taxpaying voters.

This is one of the few places where gov't. really can help, in part by facilitating, rather than blocking, good nukes. They will undoubtedly get MORE financially involved than we want, and screw things up at our expense, but we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are long term geopolitical benefits that mightn't reward individual private companies to pursue, in the shorter term.

I'm not sure hydrogen is significantly more volatile than gasoline... you can't smoke around either one, and there aren't many "refine your own gasoline" kits out, either. The fuel cell developments seem to have a pretty good handle on it.

Posted by Mark IV 2003-8-12 4:25:37 PM|| 2003-8-12 4:25:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 After reading mountains of schtuff, I come to the following conclusions:

In the end, to fulfill the goals of eliminating pollution and achieving energy independence, our transportation will have to be powered by electricity.

There are 4 steps in the transportation power cycle:
1) production of the fuel
2) distribution of the fuel
3) storage of the fuel
4) consumption of the fuel

If electricity is the "fuel", we have approx 3.5 of these already solved:

#1 - Full credit. This is the crux for it is where we can gain in quantum leaps - and get economy of scale improvements. Convert a power plant from a dirty fuel to a clean fuel and you have, effectively, converted tens of thousands of vehicles in one shot. And we have the choice of fuels to run the plants - nuke, coal, whatever we choose. And why can't THIS be the point where hydrogen power is introduced - reducing safety issues of clueless users handling it?

#2 - Full credit. We have distribution already in place - 100% of the existing infrastructure is usable.

#3 - Half credit. We're not doing badly on battery technology, either, but it is the weakest link. Funny, but in the distant future this could go away via induction systems (i.e. a modern version of the cable car - only buried in the roadbed of other means) technology. Finding higher efficiencies here and solving dangerous waste (worn out batteries) or recycling issues should be a high priority in the mean time - NOW.

#4 - Full credit. We have electric motors pretty-well figured out, though efficiencies can always be improved via various techniques (low temp to achieve near-frictionless motors, etc.)

The Producers and the Users must switch to electrical without an ecomonic meltdown - so it has to be incremental. Probably a 20-year process.

Well, this approach is inherently incremental - and the least painful overall. Each of us will buy an electric car when the economics are there to motivate us. Obviously, the gasoline + electricity hybrids, are the intermediate step. Some mfg's are already on this path and all could be - it's not magic - we already know how it can be done.

Petroleum fuel (gas + diesel) production quotas (as a percentage of the distillery output) and distribution / storage can be gradually phased out as direct demand for them declines and thus will be far less of a shock economically to the petro industry as they shift output to the myriad other products produced from petro: heating oil, plastics, pharmaceuticals, building mat'ls, etc.

Just my observation for the least painful process to energy independence.

Posted by Â·com 2003-8-12 4:31:17 PM|| 2003-8-12 4:31:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 com,
If I understand you right you propose to make powerplants run off hydrogen instead of coal or oil. Where does the hydrogen come from? There are no significant sources of free (uncombined) hydrogen on earth. You have to use electricity to split it from water, or extreme heat to liberate it from natural gas. Both of these methods consume far more energy than is in the hydrogen they produce.

Hydrogen can be used as a store of energy but not as a source of energy.

Yank, solar powered roofs may be economic in 100 years, but are far from practical. Forcing utilities to buy inconsistant and diffuse power from hundreds of thousands of producers is a sure recipe for disasterous economic inefficiency, even in the few consistently sunny locales such as Arizona.

Hydrogen as a mobile vehicle fuel is far from a sure deal. Way too "non-compact" energy wise as a gas (vapor), way too difficult and expensive to store as a liquid. We are closer to practical application of liquified natural gas (LNG) as motor fuel. It is produced in huge quantities along with crude oil, burns very cleanly, and gasoline engines need only minor modification to burn it. It must be kept under pressure to stay liquid (and therfore eneregy dense), but nowhere near the pressure they hydrogen needs.

I live in the corn belt and get some work from alcohol producing plants like ADM, but it is not economic. Imagine if the coal or oil you burn was spread in a layer 1/2" deep over thousands of square miles, and is available only during a single month of the year! Very energy intensive to gather such a thin skein of power, and the expensive equipment will sit idle for 90% of the year, generating huge capital costs. Then add in all the energy costs to till, plant, weed, harvest, and process the grain.

Brazil already tried large scale ethanol power, and nearly bankrupted itself in the effort.

Spot- you are speaking sense- let the market decide!

Posted by Craig 2003-8-12 6:55:29 PM|| 2003-8-12 6:55:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 I once read a great article back in the late 70's in the Smithsonian about when Britain made the conversion from wood fuel to coal in the late 1700's. They didn't change over until they'd about run out of trees. Probably the same thing will happen with fossil fuels. It's partly human nature (procrastination) and partly economics (a dollar spent today is more expensive than one spent tomorrow, installed base, economies of scale). BTW, did you know our buddies the French generate 70-80% of their electricity from nukes?

Posted by 11A5S 2003-8-12 6:56:03 PM|| 2003-8-12 6:56:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 IIRC, the "most" nuclear country (as a % of total kilowatts) is our little pals in BELGIUM.

Petrol and LNG are both finite. Both are in kinda short supply domestically without a lot of recovery hassle and cost. I think the world's biggest deposits of natural gas are under Qatar.

It's not like we're going to run out of oil Friday, it's just not healthy in the long term to depend on finite resources under foreign control, when technology is making alternatives foreseeable.

Nukes (and, to a degree, hydrogen, which is probably gonna come from nuke power anyhow) are more or less infinite. Not in, like, Einsteinian terms, but we'll be done with this planet LONG before we run out of fissile stuff.

Posted by Mark IV 2003-8-12 9:27:20 PM|| 2003-8-12 9:27:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 I'm all in favor of nukes! Illinois generates around 30% of it's juice that way. And it sounds like we might get a new reactor- the first in decades. The nuke plant at Clinton, Illinois has a long-held permit for a second reactor and their owners are seriously persueing a fluid or bubble bed type of reactor for this application.

This design is supposed to be cheaper and safer than the exisiting standard. (BTW- I have no safety concerns about the existing design.)

Posted by Craig 2003-8-13 8:58:15 AM|| 2003-8-13 8:58:15 AM|| Front Page Top

14:07 David A. Garrett, Jr.
10:53 Fred
10:00 Daniel King
09:28 raptor
08:58 Craig
08:33 raptor
01:10 David A. Garrett, Jr.
00:32 Old Patriot
00:00 11A5S
23:13 David A. Garrett, Jr.
21:42 Anonymous
21:27 Mark IV
21:26 Anonymous
21:18 Dar
21:12 Secret Master
21:11 Frank G
21:08 Frank G
21:04 11A5S
20:51 Ptah
20:36 Frank G
20:29 Barbara Skolaut
20:27 Barbara Skolaut
20:03 A Jackson
19:55 Raphael