A Question about Automotive Fuels

Watching Face the Nation this morning I was struck by a commercial from ADM (you know the company-they grow some corn). The commercial was touting ethanol as a viable, renewable energy resource. I haven't done any research on the subject, but the question that comes to mind is, how efficient is this? Once all the energy expended to plant, grow, and harvest the corn, and all the energy used to ferment and distill the corn, and all the energy used to transport the ethanol and mix it into gasoline, as well as other probable sources of energy expenditure in this chain that I've not taken into account, are considered, how efficient is it in terms of available energy extracted versus the amount of energy invested?

Just off the top of my head it seems like more is expended than extracted. But that is an intuitive reaction not based on any hard facts. Does anyone else have any ideas on this?

-- John Willis (Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)

Reply to
John Willis
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..............I don't have the facts either but I think that your intuition is correct. As an aside, the fertilizer that's needed to replenish the soil while growing successive crops of corn is derived from petroleum. Most of the modern farm equipment these days is diesel which rules out ethanol as a fuel while harvesting a crop of corn. Lets have Travis put some ethanol in his new Yamaha and see how it works...........lol

Reply to
Tim Rogers

no direct knowledge or research done....i have read however(yeah i know, so take it as such) that the production of ethanol costs alot more than they can get for it...BUT since the federal goverment was throwing alot of money their way it was suddenly "worth" it....and apparently profitable....there have been debates on whether the ethanol is harmful to fuel system components, but i don't know...we had a phase around here were just about every station had 10 percent ethanol and i never had any problems, but it wasn't long term, so i don't know....this could be an interesting thread provided someone with real knowledge educates us...

Reply to
Joey Tribiani

Let's not. :-)

Reply to
Shag

The whole issue is so complex, John. For example, a study done here in Minnesota finds that the petrol BTUs invested to ethanol output BTUs makes a

34% gain. Other figures for biodiesel claim a 600% yield. That makes the Greens grin, but it does not take into account certain realities, for example the myriad and expensive engineering changes necessary to make efficient ethanol powered traction (tractors, trucks) that now run on diesel. Look to Brazil for some down-to-earth trials. Watch out for the 'bootstrap' myths, and magical thinking (think of Zeno's paradox in reverse), and never underestimate the potential for widespread, natural disasters such as weather-based crop failures, the next Dust Bowl, draught.

A truly hidden factor in pricing out petrol for the USA is how much we pay to protect oil in the middle-east. It ain't just a 9/11 thing. It's been forever. OTOH, we get more oil from Canada than the middle-east, which paradoxically makes it even more expensive.

So when we pay a mere $1.90US a gallon for gas, we carefully disregard the other $3 per gallon spent making that oil move from the middle-east to the USA.

Then there is the hugely expensive overhead of all the different formulations for various parts of the country, forced upon the oil refineries by state codes.

Reply to
johnboy

The main benefit is that corn is renewable, oil is not (at least not quickly). This reminds me of the gas lines in the 70s.

Reply to
Michael Cecil

...............The energy that's used to produce corn and then produce ethanol from corn isn't neccessarily renewable. Nutrients in the soil become depleted when growing corn, more so than with many other crops. Petrochemical based fertilizer is what keeps those corn fields fertile unless you want to do it the way Brazil does.........clear cutting the rainforest to get new fertile fields because the old ones are played out and are only good for cattle grazing because of it.

Reply to
Tim Rogers

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 11:13:33 -0500, "johnboy" scribbled this interesting note:

It is a complex set of variables. From the water to grow the corn (irrigation isn't cheap), to the resources expended to obtain the seed corn, to the pesticides, to the fertilizer (as Tim points out), to all the fuels for the tractors and trucks used to transport and care for and harvest the corn and water and fertilizers, etc, to the water and energy for the fermentation of the corn (got to use some kind of energy to maintain temperatures and pressures and distill), to all the other factors, explicit and hidden that go into the process. At every step there is a loss of efficiency.

If it is such a good deal and you get more out of it than what goes into it, then it begins to resemble a perpetual motion machine, except we know the engine that runs this one is actually the sun. Even so, I find it difficult to believe that this is so wonderful and is so efficient. I'm not against it at all, in fact I'm all for whatever works best, but ad campaigns don't make reality (just like McDonalds ain't haute cuisine, despite the millions they spend advertising their wares. Why don't they take their old fryer grease and make automotive grade fuels with that?)

I know corn is easier to transport as ethanol. Even the early settlers in Kentucky knew that. But is it such a high yield product that it really more than makes up for all the losses that must occur in this process?

And to make a proper conclusion, you can't just take into account the petrol BTU's expended to make the ethanol. Water, labor, various other agricultural expenses, and more I'm sure, must be taken into account as each one of these items costs and those costs have to be reflected in the price of the final product if an accurate assessment is to be made, just as you clearly suggest those same kinds of costs ought to be reflected in the oil-based products we use. Sure, we're paying those costs already, just not in the end price of all the items that oil goes to make. It skews the economic picture drastically.

I'd rather have the choice to use the products based on that oil at their actual costs since at the same time I'll certainly be paying less in other areas. Where do you think the money for overseas subsidies and military advisors and other expensive ideas comes from? Your taxes and mine. Have the true cost of that oil reflected at the pump and I can decide how much I want to pay for it and how much of it I want to use. As it is, I'm paying those costs regardless of if I buy or use any of it at all. The same must be said of ethanol additives in fuel. The true cost must be reflected in the final price or the market is skewed. One of the many reasons I loath subsidies.

Perhaps later I'll look up more on the subject. Search engines are great tools...

-- John Willis (Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)

Reply to
John Willis

Corn for ethanol will be more renewable when farmers don't use one-shot seed - you know, impotent hybrids, and also fertilized naturally. But they don't, and they don't.

Reply to
johnboy

..................Hey now you're pissing me off.......lol

timmy who loves a quarter pounder with fries and a big vanilla shake.

Reply to
Tim Rogers

i'd be pissed off too....especially if i got that excited over the horsemeat burgers that Micky D's sells....

Reply to
Joey Tribiani

I bought and read this book:

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since then I haven't eaten any meat at all and refuse to go toany fast-food place. I mean, unless you count steak, ground beef,bacon, pork-chops, chicken, beef ribs, pork ribs, country ham,Hardees, Taco Bell, Subway, Bojangles... You know, that sort ofstuff.

Reply to
Shag

mmm...cajun fillet biscuit with seasoned fries......

Reply to
Joey Tribiani

.................Any and all elitist snobs who write for the New Yorker can jump up and kiss my @$$.

Reply to
Tim Rogers

Wow, I feel special now because you've extended that offer to me before and I don't even write for the New Yorker. :-D

Reply to
Shag

They write, the NYer buys. WTF?

Reply to
johnboy

Eiiiuu, no way. Cajuns don't wash enough.

Reply to
Michael Cecil

So, how was the book? Seriously!

J.

Reply to
P.J. Berg

My impression is that you're right to be suspicious of this. I've heard numbers from 1.1 to less than 1, where 1.1 means that you get

1.1 unit of energy out for every unit of energy in (not counting sunlight.) Alternative energy sources like wind power generally come out MUCH better.

As another poster mentioned, any ethanol advantage may be strictly an artificial tax advantage created by government subsidies.

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----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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Reply to
Jim Adney

It was interesting, and made me more aware of how lucky I am to not have to work in any of the "meat processing" plants, but didn't really change my eating habits any. I'd say it's worth reading, but I'd sell my copy. ;-)

Reply to
Shag

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