July issue Car & Driver, Ethanol

Gee, you're not talking out of your hat again, are you?

There is no shortage of oil, just a shortage of very cheap oil. The US alone has many, many times the oil in the Middle East trapped in shale deposits out west. With the demand from China and the far east, the price of oil is rising to a level that will make extraction profitable.

Excellent web site.

While we're on the subject, I just thought I'd post this again, an article about how we reached peak oil production in the early '70s and have been on the last half of the world supply ever since, we're obviously running out of oil but, as the author says, "Humans can't take too much reality." Agree or disagree, it's pretty interesting reading, although it was written over a year ago, at least. Hope you don't flame me for it, some of you sound quite knowledgeable on the subject, would like to know your thoughts.

I live in the midwest and ethanol plants are literally going up all around me, good for creating jobs I guess, but the bottom line has always been somewhat dubious from the beginning...at least to me.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot...Ethanol plants going up all around me--what happens the first time we have a drought?

Actually the methodology and test plants are years old and proven - what keeps it from happening is the price and that may be fast disappearing as a hold up. I would not be surprised that at the current prices - oil from shale would be cheaper to produce that Ethanol - problem is it would all have to start from scratch as there is no operating industry.

Try -

Ed

The cheapest recovery system I saw involved using nuclear installations to provide the steam for injection into the shale deposits for the oil recovery. Unfortunately, while the world actively pursues new reactor technology (from GE and Westinhouse no less) the twit brigade hog ties us.

I'm not an engineer, (my degree is in management) so this is why I ask. Why not use all the disapated heat from power plants (Nuke and Steam) to ferment and distill alcohol and squeeze bio-mass into corn, soy and peanut oil? My 1965 USAF M35a1 6X6 would run on diesel, Jp-4 or peanut oil.

You should read that article in C & D. Ethanol plants "are springing up everywhere" is because they are mandated by the Federal gov. By 2012 production is supposed to double. Even at that, ethanol will be a TINY portion of our energy supply. Don't forget, all things being equal, you need 30% MORE ethanol than gasoline just to break even. Ethanol even now is increasing in price. And the stories about "he runs his car on french fry oil" are always about somebody who hasd the local McDonalds give him their expended oil. Attempting to create an infrastructure to produce it for mass consumption is another story.