Ethanol & The Law of Unintended Consequences

[Manedwolf]

I grew up in S. Florida. Metrorail and Metrobus were a combination of the denizens you might find in a wal-mart at 3am and gangstas that occasionally had full-out knife and gunfights. No security, or just not enough.

In the northeast, NH doesn't really have much, but Boston's MBTA trains have muggings and shootings on the platforms, as well as regular gang executions on the buses.

In D.C., the metro platforms were hot and smelly and unpleasant.

My opinion of how big government handles public transit is not very high. They tend to handle it like they do everything else...badly.

[Gewehr98]

I was at the local 24-hour WalMart this morning.  I got off work around midnight, and went shopping for some essentials (toilet paper, batteries, etc) just around 2 AM.  You don't suppose... 

[Bogie]

A few years back, they were going to extend St. Louis' fledgling light rail system to St. Charles county.
 
There was a serious hubbub over "those people" and "bringing crime from the city."

Yeah, right...
 
It didn't happen. So you've got an hour and a half commute to drive about 30 miles.

And you can't get decent low-level help, because the rich kid teenagers don't wanna work at Mickey D's...
 
And when I rode mass tran to work, if folks were weird, I was weirder... It's nice to have a seat to yourself...
 

[Manedwolf]

Ha! 

I'm sure you know the sort I mean, though. For some reason, any time I've had to run to one (24hrs, lightbulb/tool/food NOW), there's just a whole lot of people in them at that hour that...defy categorization. From mumus and curlers to guys mumbling to themselves, people who stare..at other people, shufflers, someone who had one ear significantly larger than the other one and was picking up and putting down the same bottle on a shelf over and over...

It's just...odd.

[roo_ster]

If ethanol were remotely viable, it wouldn't need gigabuck subsidies and gooberment mandates.

And, we wouldn't have to mow down nearly every last tree on America to grow corn for ethanol to meet current demand for automotive fuel.

Last, public transport is not viable for most of America outside the megalopolises.  Even were it is in use, most times the cost to ride does not cover the cost to operate.  Fine for euro-weenies.  Not so fine for Americans.

[Gewehr98]

Woohoo!  Jfruser got to use Euro-weenies in a posting again.  I'm proud of that boy, really I am. Weary of the repetition, but damned proud.
 
Now, how's about y'all stop telling us how evil we are with the ethanol start-up bit and offer a better, non-subsidized energy alternative, since last I heard the Mr. Fusion unit for my truck is currently on back-order from the manufacturer?

You know, the old, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" thing. 

We sure do a lot of bitchin', and not much fixin'.  I'd wager the bitchin' will ramp up even higher before the fixin' starts in earnest.  That's an American "right" these days, too. The right to cheap gasoline, the right to ass-wagons of 12mpg, and the right to bitch when they spend $120.00 or more to fill up that Suburban.   

I'm also trying to remember exactly how many trees my family and friends in Sauk County have cut down to plant ethanol corn in their fields.  Off the top of my head, I remember the number being 0, give or take 0. Maybe that's because the fields were already growing the same field corn to sell at government-subsidized prices before the most recent ethanol boom?  I dunno, you tell me.

[Sindawe]

I'm thinking algae or bacteria.. projections are like 1000's gallons of bio diesel per acre, unlike soybeans which is under 50 gallons an acre.

Well speak of the Devil.  I came across this on Slashdot.org today.

===============

World first: Flying high on pond scum

Air New Zealand and airliner manufacturer Boeing are secretly working with Blenheim-based biofuel developer Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation to create the world's first environmentally friendly aviation fuel, made of wild algae.
If the project pans out the small and relatively new New Zealand company could lead the world in environmentally sustainable aviation fuel.

It's understood Air NZ is undertaking risk analysis. If everything stacks up it will make an aircraft available on the Tasman to test the biofuel.

The fuel is essentially derived from bacterial pond scum created through the photosynthesis of sunlight and carbon dioxide on nutrient-rich water sources such as sewage ponds.

Air NZ would most likely test the fuel on one engine while normal aviation fuel would drive the other engine. Fuel is held in cells on the aircraft that can be directed to a specific engine.

Continues at: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4132048a13.html

[Bogie]

Last I heard, greyhound isn't subsidized...

Next time you need to go across the state for something, why not ride the dog?
 
Lots of bus stuff ain't bad. Only prob is dealing with car rental on the other end...

[Gewehr98]

LOL, Bogie.

I doubt I could get Manedwolf to ride a Greyhound.  Too many of those people onboard, don't ya know...

[Thor]

I'd really like to see the Gov focus on making hydrogen more efficient to produce. I'd also like to see nuke power plants proliferate. I'd also like to nuclear fusion become a reality.

[MillCreek]

I was thinking "What an excellent source of Extra Virgin Soylent Green biodiesel, right there, in one tidy little Cadillac package, ready for rendering and processing".

This should be carved on a stone tablet and carried down from the Mount, or something.

[Manedwolf]

I doubt I could get Manedwolf to ride a Greyhound.  Too many of those people onboard, don't ya know...

Update: Passenger Grabbed Wheel In Greyhound Bus Crash

Last Update: Jul 10, 2007 11:44 AM ABC   
A woman who police put aboard a Greyhound bus in Nashville is accused of grabbing the steering wheel, sending the bus into trees in Arkansas.

About a half-hour before the crash, Combs went to the front of the bus and complained to the driver that other passengers were spraying drugs in her face. State police say they got a call about an unruly person on the bus. Before a trooper could find it, the bus had run into the woods.

In October 2001, a man slashed the driver of a Greyhound bus near Manchester, Tennessee, with a box cutter, causing a crash that killed seven people, including attacker Damir Igric, a 29-year-old Croatian.

Nope! 

[Art Eatman]

There's a Brazilian corporation whose stock is a good buy because of their profits on sales of food to China.

From 1989 to now, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) has received some $10 billion in federal subsidies for gasahol.

From the number-crunchers:  If all corn were used for ethanol, it would meet somewhere in the neighborhood of 12% to 15% of the US motor fuel needs.  The CAFE is 28.5 mpg.  Add 15% to that and you have a CAFE of 32.8 mpg.  It seems to me that what would be more helpful than doing the ethanol thing is to use some Psychology 101 on the low-mpg people about the ego-trip vehicles they drive.

TV advertising is the free-market's way of persuading people to piddle their money away on useless crap.  Why not use it to persuade people to make halfway-rational economic decisions abut transportation?

Oh:  Environmental effects of increased farming:  The "Dead Zone" of no oxygen in the Gulf at the mouth of the Mississippi is some 8,500 square miles, this year; more than last year.  Hurts the incomes of fishermen.

Art

[charby]

From the number-crunchers:  If all corn were used for ethanol, it would meet somewhere in the neighborhood of 12% to 15% of the US motor fuel needs.  The CAFE is 28.5 mpg.  Add 15% to that and you have a CAFE of 32.8 mpg.  It seems to me that what would be more helpful than doing the ethanol thing is to use some Psychology 101 on the low-mpg people about the ego-trip vehicles they drive.

TV advertising is the free-market's way of persuading people to piddle their money away on useless crap.  Why not use it to persuade people to make halfway-rational economic decisions abut transportation?

Oh:  Environmental effects of increased farming:  The "Dead Zone" of no oxygen in the Gulf at the mouth of the Mississippi is some 8,500 square miles, this year; more than last year.  Hurts the incomes of fishermen.

Art

I read somewhere that car manufacturers don't like to push the economy cars because they don't return much profit. I also read somewhere that the SUV profits for GM is what made it possible for them to sell the compact cars and still be solvent. Probably why they are hurting now.

I totally agree with you on the environmental effects of farming, I've been trying to argue against corn because of the input costs in growing: Fuel for equipment, fertilizer, pesticides and water. Also the fertilizer inputs also find their way downstream to the Gulf and excessive runoffs of nitrates are so great for the ecosystems either.

Honestly I think people as a whole need to drive less, consume less, slow down and enjoy the simple things in life.

[Manedwolf]

I read somewhere that car manufacturers don't like to push the economy cars because they don't return much profit. I also read somewhere that the SUV profits for GM is what made it possible for them to sell the compact cars and still be solvent. Probably why they are hurting now.

American manufacturers, who want to crank out low-tech crap made overseas. The atrocious packaging-plastic-quality interiors they're doing should show where their priorities are.

Honda and Toyota are putting out cars made by American workers in plants in Ohio and Kentucky that average 30mph or more...even at least 25 for the biggest Acura TLs and Lexuses.

As a result, they're kicking GM's butt.

[Scott]

I read somewhere that car manufacturers don't like to push the economy cars because they don't return much profit. I also read somewhere that the SUV profits for GM is what made it possible for them to sell the compact cars and still be solvent.

Bingo!!.  When I worked for one of the Big Three, it was common knowledge that the small cars were money losers, only sold to meet CAFE.  What was not so well known was that the mid-size and large cars were barely break even propositions.  At one time, the best selling sedan had a profit margin of less than 1%.  ALL of the profits came from trucks and SUVs, especially the luxury models. 

[Gewehr98]

Honda and Toyota are putting out cars made by American workers in plants in Ohio and Kentucky that average 30mph or more...even at least 25 for the biggest Acura TLs and Lexuses.

Dayum!  No wonder they put Kanji stickers on 'em, to make them go faster.  30mph is pretty darned pokey. 

Art, again, I respectfully have to ask you, where is anybody saying that ethanol is The One True Sword to fill every gas tank in America? You keep throwing that out, and damned if I don't keep asking you where you get that from. I know you're a crotchety old dude, wise to the world and all, but c'mon...

I'm working with my dad right now in building a small diesel/electric vehicle, a hybrid if you will, using a small 18-hp twin cylinder diesel from a wrecked lawnmower. This one runs like a locomotive, with the diesel running a generator, and it drives traction motors at the wheels (or one motor at the differential, as ours is currently).  The diesel runs at a constant RPM, with changes in road speed handled by adjusting the voltage/current at the wheel motors. We've discovering that pulse-width modulators for DC motors generate a good bit of heat. 

We've also been playing with a diesel/hydrostat version, but the efficiencies aren't there (yet?).  A pressurized accumulator system might boost it, but that requires extra space, weight, oil, etc.

These guys are doing neat things:

http://www.torvec.com/messagefromceo053105.html

[Bogie]

I'm guessing the bulk of the cost is labor. And parts-count-wise, a luxury SUV is probably close to an econobox. Some of the parts are more expensive (i.e., leather seats), but there's no real reason why a 5.7 litre V8 should cost a whole heckuva lot more than a 2 litre 4 cylinder... Yeah, more pistons/rods/injectors, but sheesh - CNC, guys...
 

[bedlamite]

Geweher98, you need to look into 3 phase brushless DC motors. Efficiency is easily over 80% where PWM brushed DC motors are 30-40% with a relatively short lifespan.

[charby]

G-98

Just get a horse

fuel is unrefined biomass and water

makes one horse power 

exhaust is biomass and water mixed with organic chemicals out

[Gewehr98]

Exhaust?  Heck, that's spoken for, too. 

My dad's garden is doing absolutely wonderful on what he calls "Horse Tea".

He mixes the horse manure from the farm with water in a big plastic 55-gallon drum, lets it steep in the hot sun, then taps off the resulting tea into the sprinkler cans.  His tomatoes never looked better.   

[Gewehr98]

Roger on the brushless DC motors, when our budget allows, I'll look into it.  Dad and I just happened to have some big 36 volt DC motors from Delaney's Surplus, hence our goofing around with them and pulse-width modulation, vs, say, rheostats or relays kicking in 12-24-36v increments. 

[roo_ster]

G98:

I'll do both the math and the googling. 

Ethanol is no more a solution than McDonald's used fry-oil is for diesel.  Oh, it is a nice idea, but it will never amount to but a tiny proportion of the entire need.

Just one of the studies:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-basedethanol.hrs.html

o An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel's analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.

o The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline.

o Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. "Put another way," Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU."

o Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. "That helps explain why fossil fuels -- not ethanol -- are used to produce ethanol," Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn't afford it, either, if it weren't for government subsidies to artificially lower the price."

o Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. "Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol."

o The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: "In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace."

o The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix) would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans.

o If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.

An Another

According to the Renewable Fuels Association, 95 ethanol refineries produced more than 4.3 billion gal. of ethanol in 2005. An additional 40 new or expanded refineries slated to come on line in the next 18 months will increase that to 6.3 billion gal. That sounds like a lot--and it is--but it represents just over 3 percent of our annual consumption of more than 200 billion gal. of gasoline and diesel.

One acre of corn can produce 300 gal. of ethanol per growing season. So, in order to replace that 200 billion gal. of petroleum products, American farmers would need to dedicate 675 million acres, or 71 percent of the nation's 938 million acres of farmland, to growing feedstock. Clearly, ethanol alone won't kick our fossil fuel dependence--unless we want to replace our oil imports with food imports.

Note, that is total farmland in use in 2005, not just farmland currently used to grow corn.  This includes farmland not particularly suitable to grow corn.  Such less-optimal acreage would require higher inputs of water, fertilizers, fuels, etc. than prime corn-belt acres.

Some References:

Acres Devoted to Corn 2000
http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropmajor.html

Energy Conversion Factors:
http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/energy_conv.html

US Oil Consumption:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html

MATH

Corn Crop Land (Acres)   7.27E+07
Gal Eth/Acre   328
Total Eth Max (Gal)   2.38E+10
   
BTU/Gal Oil   1.38E+05
BTU/Gal Diesel   1.31E+05
BTU/Gal Gasoline   1.15E+05
BTU/Gal Eth   7.57E+04
Oil/Eth Factor   1.82
Diesel/Eth Factor   1.72
Gas/Eth Factor   1.52
Eth Equiv to Oil %   55%
Eth Equiv to Deisel %   58%
Eth Equiv to Gas %   66%
   
US Oil Consump (bbl/day)   2.08E+07
US Oil Consump (gal/day)   8.74E+08
US Oil Consump (gal/year)   3.19E+11

% Oil Used for Transport   69%
US Oil Consump Trans (gal/year)   2.20E+11

% US Trans Oil Met by Eth from All Corn Acres   11%
% US Total Oil Met by Eth from All Corn Acres   7%

Eth Produced 2005   4.30E+09
Eth Proj Pro 2006   6.30E+09
2005 Eth as Pct of Total Oil   0.74%
2006 Eth as Pct of Total Oil   1.08%
2005 Eth as Pct of Trans Oil   1.07%
2006 Eth as Pct of Trans Oil   1.57%

I can email the spreadsheet to whomever is interested.

[Gewehr98]

Ok, so I'll redirect the question I pointed at Art towards you - where did anybody say that ethanol was going to fuel every vehicle in these United States?

(I'm still waiting for the answer)

Now, do you suppose that the 4.3 billion gallons of ethanol fuel in that particular study you so nicely bold-faced (paid for by whom, I'm curious) just might have replaced 4.3 billion gallons of gasoline that came from Jihadistan?

Be it ethanol, used french fry oil, biodiesel, Soylent Green squeezin's, every little bit helps.  None so far is a solution unto itself, but it means we are looking, and working on ideas.

I dunno, I might be off-kilter here, but solar energy makes plants grow.  Those plants die, and over time become coal and petroleum.  We are currently reaping the sun's long-term investment in those ancient plants to fuel our lifestyle here in the 21st century.  As Art and others point out, there were only so many plants back then, and we're discovering that those petroleum reserves they became aren't as big as they used to be back in the days of carhops and '57 Chevys.  In the meantime, we continue to guzzle at the petroleum teat, and since the reserves here in the States aren't enough to nurse us and our God-given right to drive, we import from people who consider us infidels and worthy of massacre. But their reserves aren't so big, either, and they've been caught fudging the numbers.

So we look for renewable resources of energy, mainly because the Mr. Fusion units are still back-ordered due to lack of technology, and we grant subsidies to upstarts to give them a chance to improve the technology and become viable, vs. fizzling out or being quashed by the Big 3.  As Mike, myself, and others pointed out, corn ethanol is a lead-in to bigger and better things, a weathervane in the right direction vs. us sitting here and sucking our thumbs, crying when the price of gasoline takes yet another hike. It was never intended to become, nor is it, the be-all, end-all of renewable energy sources. Our alcoholic forefathers knew how to convert grains into booze, so it was an easy technology to run with. Farmers who were already fighting the repo man and getting their corn subsidized by Uncle Sam could care less who buys it.  In the meantime, Cellulosic ethanol, blue-green algae biodiesel, soybean biodiesel, they all warrant research, as long as we understand that there will always be ripple effects, hence my disclaimer about the soybean biodiesel pissing off the tofu-eating Mexicans.   

Or would you rather we do nothing?  Your beloved Euro-weenies are learning how it works already, and look at what they're driving and paying for in fuel costs.  There's no free lunch - we've been robbing Peter to pay Paul, and the final bill is coming due.  I believe that'll come due sooner rather than later, and all I'd have to say is "I told you so..."

[Sergeant Bob]

Don't worry G98. Nothing that anyone says here is going to deprive you of your cheap (relatively) E-85 government subsidized fuel for your S10 and we'll all still be paying part of your fuel bill for a good long time I expect.