Talk:Ethanol fuel/Archive 1

message: I see a split forming between the U.S. and Brazil. Do you think an article about ethanol in America should be added? For example, ethanol has been at the heart of some sociological problems in brazil, yet in the U.S. it is seen as an almost entirely benevolent development. The common theme is the sociological impact of fuel on a Nation, therefore I would also mention the adverse effect of the petroleum industry in Venezuela.
:At the present day, there is little to no concern with Ethanol fuel in Brazil. In fact, everyone is looking forward to get cars with flexi-fuel engines (that is, engines that run with both kind of fuels mixed together). Taxi cars for example, even have the option for 3 kinds of fuels: Natural Gas, Ethanol and regular Petrol. There ar eloads of incentives for taxi drivers to adapt their cars with environment-aware fuels.
:I think the major problem with Ethanol in Brazil was the burn of sugarcane crops, but these are now in crontrol since the adoption of a law that forbid the burns (machines ar enow being used to harvest the sugarcane). --Pinnecco 18:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The US experience should be fleshed out too. (I was surprised to learn that California banned MTBE and will use ethanol instead. And that was only two days after I first heard of MTBE... 8-)  Then there is also the Russian methanol-from-eucaliptus program (which was news to me, too).  So yes, eventually those sections should be split off as separate articles.However methinks that some of the Brazilian numbers should be retained in the general article since they are sort of an upper limit to what can be achieved today.  For instance, my rough estimate is that it takes some 300,000 m^2 of sugarcane plantation (30 city blocks) to feed one passenger car. Obviously this is not viable unless there is plenty of cheap land with good soil.The effect of venezuelan oil does not seem much relevant (and it is hardly "adverse" for the venezuelans!)Jorge Stolfi 07:46, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two Nations 

message: This is a minor point but, it seems that the introduction implies only ethanol can be derived from biomass. As I understand it, all sorts of fuels can be derived from biomass. Though ethanol and biodiesel are apparently the most promising of these fuels regardless the ultimate source - petroleum or biomass. My understanding is that methanol is less desirable than ethanol primarily because ethanol is almost non-toxic whereas methanol is poisonous more dangerous due to invisible fires. It may also be less economical.
:Besides this article (alcohol as a fuel), alcohol, ethanol, and methanol, there are articles bioalcohol, biofuel, biodiesel, how to make biodiesel.  These should be merged and/or reorganized and/or fleshed out.Another problem with methanol is that it is cheap only if amnufactured from natural gas, but then one would be pumping carbon into the athmosphere just as with gasoline.Jorge Stolfi 07:46, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biofuels 

message: So, this section is in bad shape.  First off, there are at least 4 studies that show that the EROI (energy return on energy invested, also known as the net energy ratio) is negative for corn ethanol (see p2 of this for a review of findings, and here for a recent Pimentel article).  The statement "the energy used to produce and convert the ethanol was from abundant domestic sources" is either false or very misleading.  Much (most?) of the energy used in creating fertilizer comes from natural gas, of which domestic production has peaked in the 70s and imports are on the rise .  Aside from that, practically ALL of the energy to make fertilizer comes from fossil fuels, so I am not sure why the article is talking about a gain of '6.34' units of energy.  This is very misleading. The EROI given for gasoline is just plain wrong (apparently whoever came up with that figure doesn't know how to do EROI analysis.  It appears they are talking about the energy it takes to make gasoline from oil, and not the whole process of getting oil from the bottom of the well to your car, which I believe is up near 15:1, much better than ethanol).  After I review the research in the next couple days I will try to fix the errors and misleading data (and slander of David Pimentel) contained in this section. I gladly welcome any help, or comments. bobbypowers 1/31/2006
:i agree this section needs work, but not necessarily all in the direction implied above.  one needs to state in a balanced way the results of various authors and the suitability of the assumptions of the analyses.  in general, there is a lack of analysis of energy quality and a total denial of the reality of US and EU agricultural subsidy policies in this section...see also my remarks on pimentel above one section in talk. Anlace 18:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: the 80% number is this: with every unit of oil energy that is in the ground you have 0.8 left by the time you get it to the pump.  Losses go to transportation and distilling.  Edps 02:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I think it is worth mentioning that the process yielding ethanol from corn also yields other useful products.  This makes, up to a certain quantity, the production of corn-based ethanol more economical than it would otherwise be, and helps offset the poor EROI, because much of the process, once again up to a limited quantity of ethanol, would have been done even if ethanol were not produced. MikeNM 22:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Energy Balance in the US 

message: Please delete this line:
"With condensed agriculture, like hydroponics and greenhouses, less land is used to grow more crops"
It is flat wrong to think that these methods would ever be used for growing fuel crops. Also, while you’re at it why not mention the deforestation problem in Brazil. -jcp-
:Well, that is not very true. Those who hold the record for highest yields often do so with conditions similar to hydroponics and such. And, an increase in global CO2 would help grow fuel crops, as well ("greenhouse" gases). Robotbeat 17:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Environmental effect 

message: What does "Real Price" mean?  The "fundamental principal of accounting" that says that everything has a dollar value and that accounting is to be done with dollar amounts is fatally flawed.  Inherent within it is a great deal of Information loss.  It's like how you cannot translate from English to Chinese and then back again to get the identical thing back; one person writes the english, another who is not near the first translates, and then a third separate party translates back.  Or, it's like JPEG compression... the translation from real commodity to dollars does not produce a bijective morphism.
The section regarding the price of Ethanol and Gasoline:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_fuel#Economics_of_Corn_Ethanol_in_the_U.S.
One citation hardly supports the argument that the real cost of gas at the pump should be $5-15 although it claims to have that conclusion. It refers to another article on the same website (progress.org) that actually is refering to the cost driving, not gasoline itself (such as roads and health). Furthermore, this article never mentions $15/gal for gasoline. It was only by googling International Centre for Technology Assessment that I found their website and searched their website for "gasoline" and found a PDF
http://www.icta.org/doc/Real%20Price%20of%20Gasoline.pdf
which is the study cited. Again they argue that projects such as government spending on highway building and military operations such as guarding oil, buying for the US petroleum reserver, and the budget of the US Coast Guard (since they fall under the Dept of Transportation and not DoD nor DoN). The Army Corps of Engineers is also considered a subsidy that lowers the cost of gasoline.
The valid points they do make are regarding tax breaks and R&D. However, they do not consider that consumers are likely paying for this from the taxes on gasoline. While gas taxes would not likely cover all of this, saying the price for gas at the pump should be $15 is quite an exageration, as is their lower range of $5. 
The other link I was unable to reach from my Interne Service.
Most importantly, these articles state the consumer's possible cost, not the cost of production. The wiki entry for ethanol was only claiming the cost of ethanol production, not the cost to consumer. However, given price of oil now, ethanol is probably cheaper than gasoline (at least in California).
As refinery capacity grows and shrinks, which appears to be a huge factor, ethanol's price against gasoline will also change. However, with the increasing demand from China ethanol is likely to become cheaper than gas. There is much of the developing world that will one day want to drive cars. If this day happens when we are not ready, ethanol will extremely likely to be cheaper than petroleum fuels.
Someone should just throw ethanol out in the market and see how it does. We've probably wasted more fuel arguing about this than if we just tried using ethanol in the beginning.
:In MN, all gasoline sold must be mixed with 10% ethanol. Also, many gas stations in MN have an 85% ethanol (15% gasoline) pump for FFV (Flexible Fuel Vehicles), which are common among newer vehicles. It turns out for us that the 85% ethanol mix costs the same (miles per dollar) as the 90% gasoline mix, since although E85 (as the ethanol mix is called) costs less per gallon, it has less energy density than gasoline. In fact, the price per mile when I last calculated it was virtually identical for the two (E85 has less taxes, which is partly why it is able to be competitive.). Robotbeat 03:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Real Price Ethanol vs Gasoline (and Diesel) 

message: "Today the US Gas usage is approximately 360,000,000 Gallon /Day. 5.5 % of the US surface area (~ 131,400,000 Acre) would be enough to grow the biomass required to produce enough ethanol to cover the current domestic US gas demand. There are currently about 80 million acres of corn planted in the US (~40% of the world's supply of corn)."
Does this paragraph's numbers (131 Megacres) come from the standard way of producing grain alcohol from starch, or does it take into account the possibility of cheaply making ethanol from celulose?  --Hal Canary 18:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cellulosic v. non-cellulosic ethanol