http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/21/news...anol/index.htm

 

Very interesting stuff - though I've come to start ignoring news articles on alternative fuels as I tend to read about 10 times as much hype as I *ever* see actually show up at a gas station near me. In other words, I'll believe it when I see it.

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. But this seems more promising than corn based ethanol.

 

Sewage sludge or coal?

Makes alot more sense than taking food (corn) and using it to power our vehicles.

 

Especially since corn uses about a gallon of fossil fuel to get a gallon of ethanol.

 

 

There is a company that already does stuff like this, they take old food waste and make Ethanol. I can't remember the co. name.

The US imports 58% of its oil, so we don't need to shift to 100% Ethanol, Canada and Mexico are safe friends so we really only need about 30-40% of our fuel to come from Ethanol.

 

Got a source for that statement?

Unless you're using nothing but fossil fuels to power all equipment used in the process of growing, harvesting, and converting... that just doesn't make sense.

 

There are all kinds of sources which say all kinds of things.

This comes directly from the story:

But I remember reading another story where they calculated that for every 1 unit of fossil fuel energy used, corn based ethanol yielded .9 unit of energy.

 

Yeah the problem with this stuff is the lack of ethanol refineries. Sure it could be done but there is no capacity for it.

 

You do realize that units of energy does not necessarily mean fossil fuels, right? Quite a bit of it is just using electricity which yes, some comes from fossil fuels (though mostly coal, which is not what we're in short supply of), some comes from other sources - natural energy, nuclear power, etc...

You cannot create energy - you can only assist it in moving from one form of energy to another and assist in its transportation and utilization, so the only way we'll ever be able to come close to cheating that rule of thumb short of nuclear power, is by, for example, 'capturing' energy from the sun via corn crops.

 

This is good.

And they mean it when Ethanol can be made from anything.

How about grass clippings? Can do! No shortage there!

 

There was a company that took food waste such as turkey offal (basically, the guts and whatever remains after the edible parts are taken) and made crude oil out of it. I think Paul Allen or someone like that was a big investor. It was another process that wasn't economical when oil was $30/bbl, but at $70/bbl is starting to look attractive.

 

http://www.livescience.com/environme...ol_better.html

"Producing a gallon of ethanol gas from corn requires 95 percent less petroleum than producing a gallon from fossil fuels, a new study finds."

 

Of course. But the vast majority of this energy comes from oil. And the fuel that you're left with (ethanol), requires 1/4 to 1/3 more of, to make your car travel one mile, than gasoline does. Ethanol from corn looks like a big loser to me. If I were an oil shiek, I'd be laughing all the way to the Madrasa and sending ADM a Harry and David basket, over all of this corn based, E85 marketing hoopla.

This new process however, at first look, seems much more promising.



I know bud. I took physics too, several years of it.