Doesnt matter if the whole middle east is a sugar cane field. That still doesnt prevent other nations/companies/farmers/regions from growing it also and competing against them.

 

I've heard that sugar beets are a viable possibility in the US as well. It seems that other biomass waste is the most promising idea at the moment. I'm confident that the ingenuity of Americans is sufficient to make this work in a large enough way to have a major impact on our energy dependence. Additionally, and maybe more importantly, are advances in the use of wind farms,solar, and other such methods to generate electricity now generated by burning fossil fuels. Add Hydrogen and other gaseous fuels to the mix and the increasing efficiency in newer home building practices and I believe that the US can and should become energy independent once again. What we have always lacked in the past has been the will to sustain our efforts in this area long enough to reap the rewards. Perhaps the terrorists have done us a favor in that we seem to be taking this issue more seriously than ever before. Imagine being able to tell the OPEC nations that their services are no longer required. Now that's what I would call a national security victory.

 

I may not know much about fuel production, but I'm pretty well-versed on distillation methods. So one part has me confused.

At what point in the process of ethanol production is fossil fuel use required? And why? My best guess is that ya'll are assuming gasoline is the most cost effective way to heat the mash to start extracting the alcohol, but a combination of wind and solar power, especially on enough land to support a farm, could yield surprising amounts of power. Hell, throw some hydroelectric in the mix and we've got an even more potent combo.

I like ethanol. I like the things it brings to the table. But I also wonder if it'd be better to just skip right over it and funnel our resources in hydrogen infrastructure and production.

 

I think the fossil fuel would be consumed running the fertilizing, planting, and harvesting equipment. But converting those over to Biodiesel could eliminate a lot of that need.

 

I suspect that too many assumptions of fossil fuel use at varoius points in the process are slanting the results of those studies showing a net loss of energy by producing ethanol. I'm also certain that there are alternatives to substitute fossil fuel which could be used in this process, thus changing the game entirely.


"Skipping" ethanol would be a mistake in my view. We Americans have this tendency to look for the one magic bullet when we should be looking for an entire arsenal of alternative fuels. Diversification in our sources of energy would give us great flexibility and weaken any cartel which controls a single source. The time has come for all of our options to be made available.

Fuel cell technology should not be consuming all of the R&D budget in our quest for energy independence as it requires not only massive infrastructure change, but also a fundamental shift in automobile design which in turn will require massive change in the manufacturers facilities. A better answer (at least for the short-term) has already been implemented by BMW.

They have had a fleet of conventional 7 series cars running around various German cities for years now after being slightly modified to run on hydrogen while remaining conventional cars in other respects. Just recently BMW announced the sale of these cars to the public for the first time- I applaud them for finding a logical solution.

Yes, it will require infrastructure to deliver the hydrogen, but it requires little change on the assembly line and uses technology and procedures familiar to autoworkers, designers,engineers, and mechanics. I can think of no more logical way to bring hydrogen to the world than this fast(relative to fuel cells), simple, and viable approach. Following BMW's lead would bring the real-world benefits of hydrogen fuel to the masses decades faster than fuel cells can.

 

I'm completely neutral on ethanol. If it works as well as gasoline in an internal combustion engine, is widely available, and cost competitive with gasoline or in mixing it with gasoline cuts our dependance on importing from countries that don't care too much about us, and has a added benefit of being cleaner, I'm all for it. I just have a bit of an issue using a food source... especially one that can create all economic higgly-piggly if we have another 1930s type drought.

But realistically, with the massive amounts of oil we use (so much so that no country on the planet can supply our demand alone), and the fact that ethanol will never be made in the quanity to even hope to replace it, I see fuels like E85 as a more plausable alternative. I see a petrol-enthanol blend like that putting us back on track where we can at least choose who we get our oil from.

 

E85 is a useful, right now tool to get us rolling but we can't stop there.

 

Seems ethanol might not be the answer...



WASHINGTON -- Switching from gasoline to ethanol -- touted as a green alternative at the pump -- may create dirtier air, causing slightly more smog-related deaths, a new study says.


Nearly 200 more people would die yearly from respiratory problems if all vehicles in the United States ran on a mostly ethanol fuel blend by 2020, the research concludes. Of course, the study author acknowledges that such a quick and monumental shift to plant-based fuels is next to impossible.


Each year, about 4,700 people, according to the study's author, die from respiratory problems from ozone, the unseen component of smog along with small particles. Ethanol would raise ozone levels, particularly in certain regions of the country, including the Northeast and Los Angeles.


"It's not green in terms of air pollution," said study author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University civil and environmental engineering professor. "If you want to use ethanol, fine, but don't do it based on health grounds. It's no better than gasoline, apparently slightly worse."

more at link...

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...18?hub=SciTech

 

hydrocarbons are basically unburned fuel molecules.

I have a feeling that one of the reasons for this is that today's engines weren't designed to run on this type of fuel. My theory.. When E85 started getting popular, the powertrain engineers at GM, Ford, etc were asked if the current engines could use it along with regular gasoline. They were probably like, yeah, it'll work if we change a few things in the fuel system and reprogram the PCM for it. So the FlexFuel vehicles were born.

The problem is that if an engine is designed to run on gasoline, then it can be optimized for gas. If an engine is designed to run on Ethanol/E85, then it can be optimized for Ethanol. Today's FlexFuel engines are a compromise.

We need engines designed to work with one OR the other. Not both. Sure, that limits the range until E85 is widespread. I have a feeling that it won't take but a couple more years for E85 to be everywhere. An E85 optimized engine would need to have a much higher compression ratio. Current gasoline engines are 9.5-11.0:1 compression. An equivelant E85 engine would need 12.0-13.5:1 compression to take advantage of Ethanols properties. That simply wouldn't work because somebody, somewhere would put 87 octane in and blow it up.

However, I do think that there is a way to build engines that are optimized for BOTH gasoline AND E85. To find the answer we need to look back at the 1997 Ford SVE Mustang Super Stallion Concept. It used forced induction and sensors that could tell what kind of fuel was in the tank. When 93 octane gasoline was in the tank, it made 545hp. When E85 was in the tank, it made 45 more horsepower. The higher octane allowed higher boost pressure and a different ignition curve.

Think if this idea were applied toward a forced induction family sedan. Maybe the next gen Impala?? When regular 87 octane gas is used, a sensor reads the octane level and tells the PCM to cut the boost down and it drives just like a regular car making the same emissions as any other car. When E85 is in the tank, boost pressure is increased and the ignition curve is changed to fully ignite the fuel. There would be fewer unburned hydrocarbons left to go out the exhaust and less effort would be required to produce the same torque. That last part would also help with the issue of fuel conomy and E85. I'd like to go on about that, but I should have been in bed hours ago...

 

^ correct^

Flex fuel vehicles ARE a compromise. In order to get close to the same fuel economy with ethanol as a gasoline equivilent, you have to seriously crank up compression to a point where ordinary fuel won't cut it.

But most studies I've seen show ethanol as cleaner burning than gasoline, so I'm going to wait until more studies share this new finding before I take it at face value.

This is a kinda old thread, isn't it?

 

I did a search, and thought this to be the most relevant thread for the article to be posted in. No need in starting a new one...

 

It would take a while for corn demand to really exceed our supply. As things are right now, farmers need government subsidies simply to be able to make endsmeat. Remember in Grapes of Wrath, when the farmers burned their excess crops at government direction?

Ethanol developments should allow other, cheaper substances like garbage to be converted into fuel. but in the mean time, I think it's unrealistic to say that we'll be looking at a corn shortage.