How to Beat the High Cost of Gasoline. Forever! - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Psycho Dad · 01-30-2006, 04:44 AM

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How to Beat the High Cost of Gasoline. Forever!
Stop dreaming about hydrogen. Ethanol is the answer to the energy dilemma. It's clean and green and runs in today's cars. And in a generation, it could replace gas.

By Adam Lashinsky and Nelson D. Schwartz
January 24, 2006: 4:09 PM EST

(FORTUNE Magazine) - You probably don't know it, but the answer to America's gasoline addiction could be under the hood of your car. More than five million Tauruses, Explorers, Stratuses, Suburbans, and other vehicles are already equipped with engines that can run on an energy source that costs less than gasoline, produces almost none of the emissions that cause global warming, and comes from the Midwest, not the Middle East.

These lucky drivers need never pay for gasoline again--if only they could find this elusive fuel, called ethanol. Chemically, ethanol is identical to the grain alcohol you may have spiked the punch with in college. It also went into gasohol, that 1970s concoction that brings back memories of Jimmy Carter in a cardigan and outrageous subsidies from Washington. But while the chemistry is the same, the economics, technology, and politics of ethanol are profoundly different.

Instead of coming exclusively from corn or sugar cane as it has up to now, thanks to biotech breakthroughs, the fuel can be made out of everything from prairie switchgrass and wood chips to corn husks and other agricultural waste. This biomass-derived fuel is known as cellulosic ethanol. Whatever the source, burning ethanol instead of gasoline reduces carbon emissions by more than 80% while eliminating entirely the release of acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide. Even the cautious Department of Energy predicts that ethanol could put a 30% dent in America's gasoline consumption by 2030.

We may not have to wait that long. After decades of being merely an additive to gasoline, ethanol suddenly looks to be the stuff of a fuel revolution--and a pipe dream for futurists. An unlikely alliance of venture capitalists, Wall Streeters, automakers, environmentalists, farmers, and, yes, politicians is doing more than just talk about ethanol's potential. They're putting real money into biorefineries, car engines that switch effortlessly between gasoline and biofuels, and R&D to churn out ethanol more cheaply. (By the way, the reason motorists don't know about the five-million-plus ethanol-ready cars and trucks on the road is that until now Detroit never felt the need to tell them. Automakers quietly added the flex-fuel feature to get a break from fuel-economy standards.)

What's more, powerful political lobbies in Washington that never used to concern themselves with botanical affairs are suddenly focusing on ethanol. "Energy dependence is America's economic, environmental, and security Achilles' heel," says Nathanael Greene of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a mainstream environmental group. National- security hawks agree. Says former CIA chief James Woolsey: "We've got a coalition of tree huggers, do-gooders, sodbusters, hawks, and evangelicals." (Yes, he did say "evangelicals"--some have found common ground with greens in the notion of environmental stewardship.)

The next five years could see ethanol go from a mere sliver of the fuel pie to a major energy solution in a world where the cost of relying on a finite supply of oil is way too high. As that happens, says Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who has become one of the nation's most influential ethanol advocates, "I'm absolutely convinced that without putting any more land under agriculture and without changing our food production, we can introduce enough ethanol in the U.S. to replace the majority of our petroleum use in cars and light trucks."

Filling up on ethanol isn't new. Henry Ford's Model Ts ran on it. What's changing is the cost of distilling ethanol and the advantages it brings over rival fuels. Energy visionaries like to dream about hydrogen as the ultimate replacement for fossil fuels, but switching to it would mean a trillion-dollar upheaval--for new production and distribution systems, new fuel stations, and new cars. Not so with ethanol--today's gas stations can handle the most common mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, called E85, with minimal retrofitting. It takes about 30% more ethanol than gasoline to drive a mile, and the stuff is more corrosive, but building a car that's E85-ready adds only about $200 to the cost. Ethanol has already transformed one major economy: In Brazil nearly three-quarters of new cars can burn either ethanol or gasoline, whichever happens to be cheaper at the pump, and the nation has weaned itself off imported oil.

And have you heard about GM's yellow gas caps? In the next few weeks the auto giant is set to unveil an unlikely marketing campaign drawing attention to E85 and its E85-ready cars and trucks like the Chevy Avalanche. They will sport special yellow gas caps, and if you already own such a vehicle, GM will send you a gas cap free. California governor and Hummer owner Arnold Schwarzenegger is backing a ballot initiative that would encourage service stations to offer ethanol at the pump. Even big oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil are funding ethanol research. Says Beth Lowry, GM's vice president for energy and environment: "People's perception used to be 'The agricultural lobby is very interested in it.' Now people are waking up and saying, 'This isn't just about the Midwest. This is about the U.S. as a whole.' " Adds Daniel Yergin, one of the country's top energy experts: "I don't think I've seen so many kinds of renewable energy fermenting and bubbling as right now. The very definition of oil is broadening."

Not that ethanol will replace gasoline overnight. There are 170,000 service stations in the U.S.; only 587 (count 'em!) sell E85. To refine enough ethanol to replace the gas we burn (140 billion gallons a year) would require thousands of biorefineries and hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet one of capitalism's favorite visionaries is convinced that very soon filling up on weeds and cornhusks will be no more remarkable than tanking up on regular. Says Richard Branson, whose Virgin Group is starting an ethanol-inspired subsidiary called Virgin Fuels: "This is the win-win fuel of the future."

BARRELS FROM BUSHELS

In Decatur, Ill., nobody is waiting around for the future; demand for ethanol from corn is booming right now. This grain-elevator-dotted town is home to agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, which makes it the capital of the old-school heavily subsidized U.S. ethanol industry. On a blustery January day, the air is thick with fog, sleet, and condensation from the corn mills on the 600-acre complex next to ADM's corporate office. Outside the ethanol plant, the air smells like grape juice gone bad. Inside, with its giant vats and fermentation towers, the biorefinery resembles a winery, but it's much noisier.

ADM used to call itself "Supermarket to the World." Today, reflecting its emergence as an alternative-energy supplier, it boasts of being "Resourceful by Nature." The company created the corn-ethanol industry when Jimmy Carter asked it to in 1978--the oil-shocked President wanted a homegrown alternative to gasoline. ADM now pumps out more than a billion gallons of ethanol per year. While the fuel accounts for just 5% of the company's $36 billion in annual sales, analysts estimate that it generates 23% of ADM's operating profit. Says Allen Andreas, the courtly 62-year-old CEO: "We've always been feeding people and looking for better alternatives; now we're doing the same thing in energy."

ADM aims to be a big player in what Andreas calls the shift "from hydrocarbons to carbohydrates." But for now it's ignoring E85 and cellulosic ethanol in favor of keeping pace with demand that is already booming. Corn ethanol's main use is as an additive that helps gasoline burn more efficiently. ADM sells nearly its entire output to oil companies, which use ethanol as a substitute for MTBE, a petroleum-based additive that is toxic and is now banned in California and 24 other states. With two billion gallons of MTBE still in use annually and 25 states that have yet to ban it, the ethanol industry could grow 50% simply by replacing MTBE.

In September, ADM announced a nearly 50% expansion project, or 500 million new gallons of annual production capacity. Archrival Cargill is belatedly ramping up ethanol production, and new entrants are using private capital to build ethanol plants. The only publicly traded pure-play ethanol maker, Pacific Ethanol of Fresno, plans to build five plants in California and has raised a total of $111 million, including $84 million from Bill Gates. (For a guide to playing the ethanol boom, see Investing.) All told, the planned projects represent a nearly $2.6 billion investment and will increase U.S. ethanol capacity by 40%.

Other major players are making long-term ethanol bets. Ford is working with VeraSun, a startup in South Dakota, to promote E85 fueling stations. Shell is the primary backer of Canada's Iogen, which is attempting the first large-scale production of cellulosic ethanol--the kind made from cornstalks and grasses--at a pilot plant in Ottawa (see following story, "Biorefinery Breakthrough"). Exxon Mobil has pledged $100 million to Stanford University for research into alternative fuels. The oil giant's new CEO, Rex Tillerson, visited the campus last year to hear what researchers are cooking up. Biology professor Chris Sommerville says the change in the industry is palpable: "I went to six scientific conferences on biofuels last year; the previous 29 years I didn't go to any."

The biggest alternative-fuels player of all, of course, is Uncle Sam. Oil refiners receive a 51-cent tax credit for every gallon of ethanol they blend into their gasoline. That alone will cost taxpayers more than $7 billion over five years, estimates the Congressional Budget Office. The U.S. has also funded research into biodiesel, which uses deep-fryer grease and other nontoxic ingredients to replace regular diesel fuel. (See box at left.) But ethanol will never really take off unless consumers demand it, and while the U.S. industry still relies on taxpayer largesse, Brazil has leaped to the next step: a profitable free-market system in which the government has gotten out of the way.

HOW BRAZIL BEATS THE U.S.

Near the prosperous farm town of Sertãozinho, some 200 miles north of São Paulo, the fuel that will fill the tanks of nearly three million Brazilian cars in a few months is still waist-high. Lush sugar-cane fields stretch as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by the towering white mills where the stalks of the plants will be turned into ethanol when the harvest begins in March.

Brazil boasts the biggest economy south of Mexico, and with annual GDP growth of 2.6%, it is a powerhouse you might expect to consume growing amounts of oil, coal, and nuclear energy. But Brazil also happens to have the perfect geography for growing sugar cane, the most energy-rich ethanol feedstock known to science. And so, for Brazil's 16.5 million drivers, there is ready access to what's known in Portuguese as álcool at nearly all of the country's 34,000 gas stations. "Everyone talks about alternative fuels, but we're doing it," says Barry Engle, president of Ford Brazil. Ethanol accounts for more than 40% of the fuel Brazilians use in their cars.

While oil frequently has to be shipped halfway around the world before it's refined into gasoline, here the sugar cane grows right up to the gates of Sertãozinho's Santa Elisa mill, where it will be made into ethanol. There's very little waste--leftovers are burned to produce electricity for Santa Elisa and the local electrical grid. "The maximum distance from farm to mill is about 25 miles," says Fernando Ribeiro, secretary general of Unica, the trade association that represents Brazilian sugar-cane growers. "It's very, very efficient in terms of energy use."

Although Brazilians have driven some cars that run exclusively on ethanol since 1979, the introduction three years ago of new engines that let drivers switch between ethanol and gasoline has transformed what was once an economic niche into the planet's leading example of renewable fuels. Ford exhibited the first prototype of what came to be known as a flex-fuel engine in 2002; soon VW marketed a flex-fuel car. Ford's Engle says flex-fuel technology helps avoid problems that had plagued ethanol cars, such as balky starts on cold mornings, weak pickup, and corrosion.

Consumers loved flex-fuel because it meant not having to choose between ethanol and gas models--memories were still fresh of the 1990 sugar-cane shortage, when ethanol-car owners found themselves, well, out of gas. Today "nobody would buy an alcohol-only car, even with tax incentives," says sales manager Rogerio Beraldo of Green Automoveis, a sprawling dealership in São Paulo. "Brazilians are traumatized by our earlier experience, when supplies ran out. But with flex-fuel, there's no risk of that."

With Brazilian ethanol selling for 45% less per liter than gasoline in 2003 and 2004, flex-fuel cars caught on like iPods. In 2003, flex-fuel had 6% of the market for Brazilian-made cars, and automakers were expecting the technology's share to zoom to 30% in 2005. That proved wildly conservative: As of last December, 73% of cars sold in Brazil came with flex-fuel engines. There are now 1.3 million flex-fuel cars on the road. "I have never seen an automotive technology with that fast an adoption rate," says Engle.

Ethanol's rise has had far-reaching effects on the economy. Not only does Brazil no longer have to import oil but an estimated $69 billion that would have gone to the Middle East or elsewhere has stayed in the country and is revitalizing once-depressed rural areas. More than 250 mills have sprouted in southeastern Brazil, and another 50 are under construction, at a cost of about $100 million each. Driving to lunch at his local churrasco barbecue spot in Sertãozinho, the head of the local sugar-cane growers' association points to one new business after another, from farm-equipment sellers to builders of boilers and other gear for the nearby mills. "My family has been in this business for 30 years, and this is the best it's been," says Manoel Carlos Ortolan. "There's even nouveaux riches."

The key to Brazil's success is that consumers are choosing ethanol rather than being forced to buy it. Brazil's military dictators tried the latter approach in the 1970s and early 1980s, by offering tax breaks to build mills, ordering state-owned oil company Petrobras to sell ethanol at gas stations, and regulating prices at the pump. This bullying--and cheap oil in the 1990s--nearly killed the market for ethanol until flex-fuel came along. The regime wasn't good for much, says consultant Plinio Nastari, but it did create the distribution system that enables drivers to fill up on ethanol just about anywhere.

Even though the U.S. will never be a sugar-cane powerhouse like Brazil, investors now view Rio as the future of fuel. "I hate to see the U.S. ten years behind Brazil, but that's probably about where we are," says one shrewd American freethinker, Ted Turner.

ETHANOL FINDS A GODFATHER

There are venture capitalists, and then there's Vinod Khosla. A co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a partner at Kleiner Perkins, he was an early backer of Juniper Networks, whose technology helped end decades of dominance by traditional telecom manufacturers. A lean, 50-year-old native of India, Khosla says, without a hint of modesty, "I love the challenge of breaking monopolies."

Frustrated that Kleiner Perkins wasn't taking enough risks after the dot-com crash, Khosla opted out of Kleiner's most recent fund and started his own group, Khosla Ventures. He'd been dabbling in environmentalism but never expected to become an investor. Brazil's success, however, made him wonder about ethanol's U.S. potential. "I spent two years trying to convince myself that this was never going to be more than another minor alternative fuel," he says. "What I discovered was that ethanol might completely replace petroleum in this country. And a lot of countries. This was a great shock to me."

Pretty soon Khosla was surprising plenty of others. He put together a PowerPoint presentation, "Biofuels: Think Outside the Barrel," which he fires up on a moment's notice. He has made the pitch on ethanol to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and elsewhere in the White House. He is also behind California's upcoming ballot initiative to fund a subsidy for gasoline retailers that add E85 fuel pumps. "Getting distribution going is the real problem," says Khosla. "We need to increase blending and then introduce E85 pumps, and the possible will become the probable."

His conversion to energy investing is part of a Silicon Valley trend, as VCs seek the rapid growth and giant markets that computers once offered. VantagePoint Venture Partners in San Bruno, for instance, established a fund called New Energy Capital that invests in ethanol, wind power, and other energy projects. Nth Power, a San Francisco energy-investment firm, estimates that $700 million of the $21 billion flowing into venture funds last year were earmarked for "clean technology" startups.

CELLULOSE NIRVANA

No one, not even a professionally optimistic VC, thinks we're anywhere near getting rid of gasoline. The oil superstructure is simply too efficient and too entrenched to just go away. Nor could corn ethanol generate enough fuel to run America's cars, pickups, and SUVs. Already ethanol gobbles up 14% of the country's corn production. Converting a bigger share into fuel would pinch the world's food supply--a favorite objection of skeptics. Critics also contend that producing fuel from crops consumes more energy than it yields. On this topic of endless Internet bickering, the Energy Department recently reported, "In terms of key energy and environmental benefits, cornstarch ethanol comes out clearly ahead of petroleum-based fuels, and tomorrow's cellulosic-based ethanol would do even better."

Because cellulosic ethanol comes from cornstalks, grasses, tree bark--fibrous stuff that humans can't digest--it doesn't threaten the food supply at all. Cellulose is the carbohydrate that makes up the walls of plant cells. Researchers have figured out how to unlock the energy in such biomass by devising enzymes that convert cellulose into simpler sugars. Cellulose is abundant; ethanol from it is clean and can power an engine as effectively as gasoline. Plus, you don't have to reinvent cars. Ratcheting up production of cellulosic ethanol, however, is a gnarly engineering problem.

The onus now is on companies like Genencor, a Palo Alto biotech. Its biological enzymes are used to break down stains in Tide detergent and achieve just the right distressed look in blue jeans. But making underpants whiter and denim bluer is nothing compared with breaking America's longstanding addiction to gasoline. The best way to do this would be to bring down the cost of ethanol to the point where consumers clamor for it. Before flex-fuel engines came along, Brazilians would mix their own rabo de galo (cocktail) of ethanol and gasoline when filling up, simply because it was cheaper than straight gas. Genencor says its enzymes have cut the cost of making a gallon of cellulosic ethanol from $5 five years ago to 20 cents today. Now refiners have to learn how to scale up production. Canada's Iogen is the furthest along in commercialization; another hopeful is BC International, a Dedham, Mass., company that's building a cellulosic ethanol plant in Louisiana.

There's still a role for government--and we don't mean more handouts for corn growers or distillers. The recently enacted energy bill takes steps in the right direction, like mandating the use of 250 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol a year by 2013, but much more can be done. Easing the tariff of 54 cents per gallon on imports of ethanol from Brazil and other countries would certainly help. Because sugar cane generates far more ethanol per acre than corn, Brazil can produce ethanol more cheaply than the U.S. Not only would importing more of it broaden access to ethanol for U.S. buyers, but it would also make it cheaper for the ultimate consumers--us. That in turn would spur demand at the pump and encourage service station owners to offer ethanol more widely. What's also needed is for someone big--like Shell or BP, which tout themselves as green companies--to commit to cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale. Shell's bet on Iogen is minuscule compared with the $20 billion it plans to spend on producing oil and gas off Russia's Sakhalin Island.

Of course, the timing of when ethanol goes from dream to reality isn't just a matter of an investment here or a subsidy there. It took decades of ferment in Brazil before serendipity in the form of high gas prices and flex-fuel engines made ethanol an everyday choice for consumers. But the sooner we start, the greater our ability to shape a future that's not centered on increasingly expensive oil and gas. It's not as if gasoline demand is going to go down: As long as the Chinese and the Indians want our lifestyle--and they do--you can forget about oil at $10 or even $20 a barrel. Whatever the technological challenges, a world of abundant, clean ethanol is suddenly looking a lot more realistic than a return to the days of cheap, inexhaustible oil.

The sooner people get over thinking that this is something new and that we wasted over thirty years by not moving on this the better. I remember as a kid these stories being in the Weekly Reader (do they still have those?) at school and how this was an option for the future. Well as they say, the future is now.

I believe there are no reasons, other than political reasons why we have not moved on this. I can remember every president since Jimmy Carter talking about the importance of peace in the Middle East but I don't recall any of them seriously discussing alternative fuel sources. Alternative fuel sources that would reduce or eliminate the dependance on foreign oil. Alternative fuel sources that would put American butts in tractor seats

Toaster126 · 01-30-2006, 10:04 AM

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Originally Posted by Psycho Dad

I believe there are no reasons, other than political reasons why we have not moved on this.

It's hard to produce change when those in power don't wish change to occur.

While the article is certainly biased, I think it's a noble goal. I would expect this to gain popularity only when the Middle East becomes more unstable than it is now and the US consumers can't afford to buy gas along with the other things that drive the economy.

bigTex · 01-30-2006, 10:16 AM

I love the idea of ethanol. And we can use our own resources to grow it here in the states.

The only problem is that the media and society like hydrogen. Most think that BURNING fuel is bad; no matter what the biproducts are. Therefore everyone hears about that being the only way to solve earth's problems, and the goverment is stroking out bills that make people happy.

But, here is a grain of salt to my own post: I think that whatever chemical reaction that is carried out inside our cars it will effect the enviroment. H2 cars spit out water which could make dry places more humid (like Arizona and their pools), burning makes gas, and electric cars just push the problem to a power plant. I think that we just can't stop it.

raeanna74 · 01-30-2006, 12:26 PM

Ethanol burns cleaner but does it give the power that some people want in their vehicles?? Will it provide the same kind of hauling power needed for semi's? Or for large utility trucks?

I have heard - only by word of mouth - that it does not provide this necessary power or speed. If it doesn't that would explain some of it's lack of popularity.

shakran · 01-30-2006, 12:57 PM

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Originally Posted by Psycho Dad

I believe there are no reasons, other than political reasons why we have not moved on this.

I'll give you a few:

1) Ethanol takes more energy to make than you get out of it. This means you are using coal, oil, gas, or nuclear power to produce an energy source that does not give you as much energy as you'd have gotten by just using the original energy source in the first place.

2) Ethanol has lower energy output than gasoline. This means your car will be less powerful, and will use more fuel to go a given distance than a gasoline powered car. This is partly due to the fact that ethanol has a higher octane rating. A politician from south dakota attempted to use the fact that ethanol is high-octane to say that ethanol gives you more power. Unfortunately, this politican did not understand how octane works, and that a LOWER octane number translates to a more volatile fuel.

See the trick with ethanol, and with hydrogen, and all the other "alternative" energy cars is that when people tout their low pollution and environmental friendliness and renewability, they fail to take into account the entire fuel cycle.

In order to make ethanol, we have to grow something. Corn is pretty popular (even though corn is not by any stretch the highest yield source for ethanol - but that would be the midwest corn farmer lobby's influence there). So we use all that fuel for the tractor, the combine, sometimes an airplane depending on the size of the farm, the trucks to transport the corn, etc etc etc.

Then we have to convert the raw corn into ethanol. Basically you do this by running a giant distillery - ethanol is also known as moonshine until they add chemicals to it that makes it undrinkable. So it takes a whole lot of energy to make the ethanol.

Then you have to transport that ethanol, but there's a trick. You can't transport it via regular gas pipelines because ethanol absorbs water - you'd end up adding water to the gas if you ever ran gas through the pipe again, and that can't be allowed to happen. So we have to build a whole new pipeline just for the ethanol.

Once you've transported it, you now have to blend it with regular gasoline. This right here is proof that ethanol is crap. A viable fuel does not have to be blended with another fuel in order to be useable as a fuel. You do not fuel your car with peanut butter because you'd have to mix it with gasoline in order to get any combustion out of it. It's the same with ethanol. All ethanol is doing is reducing the volatility of the gasoline.

So after you get done with ALL those steps, you finally have your finished ethanol/gas blend that you then rely on government subsidies to bring its costs down so people will actually buy it. In some states, such as Iowa, a major corn producer, you also rely on government mandates saying that certain gas MUST be a certain percentage of ethanol.

Interestingly Iowa is now using that requirement (midgrade gas must be 10% ethanol) and its subsidies, which makes the midgrade gas cheaper than the low octane stuff, to essentially force consumers into buying the ethanol. After all, if you have a choice between $1.90 a gallon and $2.15 a gallon, you're gonna go with the $1.90. BUT Iowa's governor also recently said that Iowans are choosing ethanol over regular gas, conveniently leaving out the fact that it's a price per gallon choice that was forced by the government in the first place, and NOT an alternative energy choice.

Now let's examine the effect of boutique fuels.

Each state has different gas blend requirements. Iowa requires 10% ethanol in their 89/90 octane gas. Minnesota does not. That means that Iowa is getting different midgrade gas than Minnesota is. Some other states have differing requirements. In other words we have oil companies making all these little batches of boutique fuels for various markets instead of making big batches of gas for the whole country. As we learned in economics 101, the more you make of something the cheaper it is to make it. Therefore, all this ethanol blending crap is actually INCREASING gas prices.

Meanwhile while we're happilly making ethanol (using vehicles fueld by middle east oil-derived gasoline) we're still having to buy scads of oil in order to blend it with the ethanol. And since the ethanol gas has less energy than normal gas, we're getting worse mileage out of it. So we're really not reducing our dependence on foreign oil all that much, but what we ARE doing is enriching corn farmers at the expense of government dollars which are coming out of our pocketbooks every April in the form of taxes.

The ethanol industry is a scam industry that has been fleecing the American people for decades. It's high time that it be exposed for the disaster it is rather than the savior of all energy it is portrayed to be.

filtherton · 01-30-2006, 01:19 PM

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Originally Posted by shakran

The ethanol industry is a scam industry that has been fleecing the American people for decades. It's high time that it be exposed for the disaster it is rather than the savior of all energy it is portrayed to be.

Good luck with that. I know in minnesota, agricultural interests own politics.

shakran · 01-30-2006, 01:27 PM

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Originally Posted by filtherton

Good luck with that. I know in minnesota, agricultural interests own politics.

Not just minnesota. It's nationwide. From ethanol subsidies to the midwest to tobacco subsidies to east coast farmers (where the government actually gives money to people BECAUSE they grow a drug that kills people and that the government says it wants people to stop using. Brilliant eh?), agricultural interests own politics everywhere.

Willravel · 01-30-2006, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

1) Ethanol takes more energy to make than you get out of it. This means you are using coal, oil, gas, or nuclear power to produce an energy source that does not give you as much energy as you'd have gotten by just using the original energy source in the first place.

Production of ethanol requires six units of energy to produce just one.. This will make the energy crisis even worse, unfortunately. This is why I reccomend biodiesel as the best alternative fuel, not ethanol.

alpha phi · 01-30-2006, 02:34 PM

Ethanol has several drawbacks
as in the amount of energy required to produce.(disputed)
It is still polluting when burned.(not as much as gasoline)
Too much farm land dedicated to fuel instead of food.

Power is not an issue
This car is fueled with straight ethanol (no mix)
It goes 280 mph in the quarter mile
Standing ten feet away from this car in a launch is pure joy

more info

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Thomas' campaign for value-added agriculture and widespread ethanol use pledges to reduce the price for consumers to operate cars and racers to pursue their passion. Furthermore, it promises to reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil, reduce the effects of global warming, create jobs, reverse the economic spiral for America's farmers, expand local tax bases, dramatically improve air quality, and decrease the odds of burn injuries in traffic and motorsports accidents. Among its benefits is a positive energy balance, meaning ethanol yields more energy than it takes to produce it. It takes less than 35,000 BTUs of energy to turn corn into ethanol, while the ethanol offers at least 77,000 BTUs of energy.

alpha phi · 01-30-2006, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Production of ethanol requires six units of energy to produce just one.. This will make the energy crisis even worse, unfortunately. This is why I reccomend biodiesel as the best alternative fuel, not ethanol.

I agree biodiesel is a much better alternative.

Here is a rebutial to Tad W. Patzek's article
http://www.ilcorn.org/Ethanol/Tribune_/tribune_.html
this quote is my favorite part.

Quote:

Mr. Patzek is a geoengineer and his resume indicates he is an expert in drilling holes in the ground to find oil. He is a card-carrying member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers who worked for Shell Oil Company from 1981 to 1990

shakran · 01-30-2006, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alpha phi

Ethanol has several drawbacks
as in the amount of energy required to produce.(disputed)

But the majority of the disputers are IN the ethanol industry. They're somewhat biased

Quote:

It is still polluting when burned.(not as much as gasoline)

But when you take the whole chain into account, the pollution is much more than you think at first. Ethanol plants also pollute. Even when they're legal (scores of ethanol plants have been busted for EPA reg violations) they still pollute. You have to take that, plus the pollution of the power source of the plant (coal/oil/gas/nuclear) PLUS the pollution of the ethanol transportation network into account.

Quote:

Too much farm land dedicated to fuel instead of food.

That's actually the least of the concerns - the government pays farmers NOT to grow food. Food supply is not an issue. Although if we went to a pure ethanol system, studies have shown we'd have to plant every acre of land in the US, and then find an area of land half the size of the united states, and plant THAT with corn too to supply everything we'd need.

Quote:

Power is not an issue
This car is fueled with straight ethanol (no mix)
It goes 280 mph in the quarter mile
Standing ten feet away from this car in a launch is pure joy

And so do alcohol powered dragsters, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to pour everclear into your honda. That car was specifically designed to go fast using ethanol. That car's engine has a high enough compression that it REQUIRES the high octane of ethanol. But street cars don't have anywhere near that kind of compression ratio, which means higher octane gas actually reduces their performance. A lotta guys think putting 100 octane racing gas into their tank will make their Explorer go faster. In fact, it's just the opposite. The reason fast cars call for higher octane is actually to reduce the detonation potential so that the gasoline doesn't explode before the piston gets to the top of the cylinder - called predetonation, or pinging - which would wreck hell on the motor.

You can make a vehicle fast on any fuel if you design it from the ground up to use that fuel. Put another way, the 4-6-2 Mallard steam locomotive went 125 mph, but that doesn't translate into the concept that we should give up gasoline engines and go back to driving Stanley Steamers.

And biodiesel has the same issues that ethanol does. Low energy yield, especially from its primary crop (soybeans), high input for the amount of output you get, boutique fuel price hikes, and it adds one more: Biodiesel will clog fuel filters in vehicles that don't use it regularly. This was just demonstrated in Minnesota, which suspended its biodiesel mandate after truckers complained that they were destroying their fuel filters.

Gasoline might suck, but right now it's the best thing we've got. Rather than pushing for bandaid fuels that don't really work very well at all (hydrogen fits into that category btw - more on that if requested, but long story short, hydrogen as a fuel is a big load of bunk), we should be working to find a fuel that's got a higher output than gas, and that's more readilly available, if not renewable.

Willravel · 01-30-2006, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Gasoline might suck, but right now it's the best thing we've got. Rather than pushing for bandaid fuels that don't really work very well at all (hydrogen fits into that category btw - more on that if requested, but long story short, hydrogen as a fuel is a big load of bunk), we should be working to find a fuel that's got a higher output than gas, and that's more readilly available, if not renewable.

Such a fuel does not exist, at least yet. The best solution to the upcoming fuel crisis is stop having kids. The oil we have could last hundreds of years if the earths population were to suddenly go to negative population growth. 100 million people could live on our oil for something like 800 years. That's a decent buffer for innovation, as opposed to out current buffer, which is closer to 25 years.

alpha phi · 01-30-2006, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

And so do alcohol powered dragsters, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to pour everclear into your honda. That car was specifically designed to go fast using ethanol. That car's engine has a high enough compression that it REQUIRES the high octane of ethanol. But street cars don't have anywhere near that kind of compression ratio, which means higher octane gas actually reduces their performance. A lotta guys think putting 100 octane racing gas into their tank will make their Explorer go faster. In fact, it's just the opposite. The reason fast cars call for higher octane is actually to reduce the detonation potential so that the gasoline doesn't explode before the piston gets to the top of the cylinder - called predetonation, or pinging - which would wreck hell on the motor.

You can make a vehicle fast on any fuel if you design it from the ground up to use that fuel. Put another way, the 4-6-2 Mallard steam locomotive went 125 mph, but that doesn't translate into the concept that we should give up gasoline engines and go back to driving Stanley Steamers.

Yes those engines are designed different.
Todays road cars are designed for gasoline
the only reason we can't run alcohol in a road car
is that it would burn out the gaskets.
Most of the street cars at the track
have been rebuilt with new seals, and gaskets
that will stand up to the different fuel.
ethanol is not much different
A different design is all it takes
The argument that is lowers the octane is false.
The arguement that it can't burn without additives is false.
(ethanol increases the octane rating by three percent)
http://www.termpapergenie.com/Sustainable.html

Ethanol in fact is used as an addative to increase octane
and reduce pollution by acting as an oxygenator
http://www.usask.ca/communications/o...feature5.shtml

I don't think we should just throw our hands up in the air,
and give up; because biofuel is not yet as "good" as gasoline.
with more research biofuel can be far better.
Biofuels don't have to be made from just corn either
I seen some facinating studys on cellulose fuels
we could have have fuel from byprouducts
that are otherwise burned, burried, or wasted.

xepherys · 01-30-2006, 05:44 PM

This is the problem with energy debate... it's hard to predict what future tech/science breakthroughs might do to current fuels. Realistically, if some billionaire pumped tons of money (X-Prize style) into solar powered vehicles that are usable year round in all places... it could be a reality. The other problem is the idea that any one fuel is perfect for all uses. If you could make wind-powered buses for mass-trasnit, and left it at that... that segment would drastically improve air quality over time. Look at hybrid electric cars such as the Prius. It still uses that "terrible" petro, but in reality, it's a good car. I don't expect to see electro-hybrid semis anytime soon, but if everyone drove an electro-hybrid, our energy problems would be FAR far less...

ASU2003 · 01-30-2006, 07:14 PM

Electric batteries aren't the best thing either.

Does anybody know how good hydrogen cars perform? I would like to think it would be just as good as gas. Can it be used in semi's or big trucks? Why can't they make a sports car like the Corvette with Hydrogen or any other alt fuel?

shakran · 01-30-2006, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alpha phi

Yes those engines are designed different.
Todays road cars are designed for gasoline
the only reason we can't run alcohol in a road car
is that it would burn out the gaskets.

They tear down the engine of a pro dragster after it runs for less than a mile. One mile and you're in for a total engine rebuild. Comparing race car engines to street engines is like comparing apples to spaceships. There's just no comparison.

Quote:

Most of the street cars at the track
have been rebuilt with new seals, and gaskets
that will stand up to the different fuel.

Well. . . actually if you're talking REAL street cars at the race track, they run on high octane gasoline. I'm talking real racing, with turns here, not drag racing. They've been rebuilt to take the massively increased power their engines are putting out. The specialized gasoline they run is only a higher octane to prevent predetonation, and the subsequent grenading of their engines.

Quote:

ethanol is not much different
A different design is all it takes

Sure, I suppose you're right there. So we're going to totally redesign the entire automotive infrastructure for a fuel that costs more, both monetarilly and in natural resources, to make than the fuel we have now? Where are the advantages here?

Quote:

The argument that is lowers the octane is false.

You're right. But I never made that argument. I said it raises the octane, which, as you mention below, it does.

Quote:

The arguement that it can't burn without additives is false.

I never said it CAN'T burn without additives. I said you have to add crap to it to make it work in a car engine. If anything that burned made a car go, I'd be filling my tank with paper.

Quote:

Ethanol in fact is used as an addative to increase octane
and reduce pollution by acting as an oxygenator
http://www.usask.ca/communications/o...feature5.shtml

That's right. And increasing octane lowers performance while hurting gas mileage as well. It can also damage your engine, as it becomes dependent on the higher octane due to carbon deposits from the incompletely burned fuel causing lower octane to predetonate due to the heat output of the carbon. This is why, as was discussed in a thread a year or so ago on here, it is a bad idea to run premium gas (ethanol-enhanced or not) in a car that does not require it.

Quote:

I don't think we should just throw our hands up in the air,
and give up; because biofuel is not yet as "good" as gasoline.
with more research biofuel can be far better.

That's a very good argument. But let's stop shoving biofuels down everyone's throats until they're ready for prime time. If any other industry tried to force the public to pay, and suffer, for its experimentations they'd be burned at the stake. It's as if a doctor decided "well in the future this artifical lung will save lots of lives so, even though it doesn't work now and it will kill 50% of the patients we install it in, and make the other half so short of breath that they're confined to their bed for the rest of their lives, we're gonna run with it because of it's future potential."

Go do the research. Go make biofuels work. THEN bring them to market.

Quote:

Biofuels don't have to be made from just corn either

I know that, and I mentioned that above. The reason they're made from corn and, in the case of biodiesel, soybeans in large quantities is because corn and soybean farmers reap enormous profits from selling their corn to biofuel plants. The ag lobby has mandated that not only do we use a fuel that, at least at the present and in the foreseeable future, is crap, but they've also mandated that we use some of the most inefficient source materials out there to make it with.

Quote:

I seen some facinating studys on cellulose fuels
we could have have fuel from byprouducts
that are otherwise burned, burried, or wasted.

And again we'd have to look at the total energy equation. Turning garbage into gasoline will require an input of energy for the conversion process. If we can't get that input energy below the energy we get from the resulting fuel, it is a wasteful fuel that we should not bring to market.

alpha phi · 01-30-2006, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

They tear down the engine of a pro dragster after it runs for less than a mile. One mile and you're in for a total engine rebuild. Comparing race car engines to street engines is like comparing apples to spaceships. There's just no comparison.

Just the top fuel cars get torn down after every race
The rest: funny car, pro mod, ect don't get torn down
unless something breaks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Well. . . actually if you're talking REAL street cars at the race track, they run on high octane gasoline. I'm talking real racing, with turns here, not drag racing. They've been rebuilt to take the massively increased power their engines are putting out. The specialized gasoline they run is only a higher octane to prevent predetonation, and the subsequent grenading of their engines.

"REAL RACING"????......

I spend every chance I get at the drag strip
those curvy tracks

boring

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Sure, I suppose you're right there. So we're going to totally redesign the entire automotive infrastructure for a fuel that costs more, both monetarilly and in natural resources, to make than the fuel we have now? Where are the advantages here?

Unfortunately, I don't think we are going to have a choice.
The price of oil is going to continue to rise.
We have oil for now, but for how long?

Hardknock · 02-01-2006, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psycho Dad

Linkin'

I believe there are no reasons, other than political reasons why we have not moved on this.

Bush and his cronies are the rason why this hasn't moved. The oil man doing anything that puts his campaign contribuitors out of business???

Right.

Psycho Dad · 02-01-2006, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toaster126

While the article is certainly biased,

Man... The timing of CNN in putting that out makes you wonder.

Nevertheless, while it would not work to go out and expect this to work as it is, we have waited far too long to look for solutions. Or at least we have only talked about it. One has to wonder where we would be with this were we to have developed alternative fuels at the rate that we developed computers.

wombatman · 02-01-2006, 10:14 PM

The major problem of Hydrogen fuel lies in the production of the hydrogen gas. At present, it has the same problem of taking more units of energy to produce than you get back out of it.

For what it's worth, I'm doing undergraduate research at the University of South Carolina (chemical engineering) in fuel cells, my current project (groundbreaking, actually, in that it hasn't been done before) focusing on how pollutants in the air (Chloride in my case) affect the membrane that allows the fuel cell to produce electricity and how well it recovers from the (usually) detrimental effects. It's interesting stuff, and some of the graduate students are now looking at stacks of fuel cells. To give some idea of the power of the fuel cells, a 25cm^2 membrane will produce anywhere from 20-30A at 0.6V.

Anyway, my two cents as a researching chemical engineering student. Oh, and if you're a graduating chem engr. looking for a good graduate school to do research, definitely look at U of SC. The chemical engineering professors here are topnotch in their research and interactions with students.

shakran · 02-01-2006, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alpha phi

Just the top fuel cars get torn down after every race
The rest: funny car, pro mod, ect don't get torn down
unless something breaks.

Funny car engines are nearly always rebuilt between each run, just like the top fuels are. No dragster engine goes anywhere near as long as a passenger car engine before needing a total rebuild.

Quote:

"REAL RACING"????......

I spend every chance I get at the drag strip
those curvy tracks

boring

We'll just disagree on that one

I've just always felt steering wheels should be more than decoration

Quote:

Unfortunately, I don't think we are going to have a choice.
The price of oil is going to continue to rise.
We have oil for now, but for how long?

For quite awhile actually - those rumors in 2003 that we were running out of oil "fast" have been widely derided as being bunk.

But you're right. The price of oil will continue to rise. You'll get no argument from me that we need to find a good alternative energy source. But the key word there is GOOD. Ethanol, at least at the current time, is not a GOOD energy source. In fact, it's not even an energy source. It's an energy storage medium. That means we expend a lot of energy making it, and then get less energy out of it when we use it. Any time you get less energy out of something than you put into making/getting it, it is not an energy source.

I am not arguing against alternative energy. I am not even arguing against ethanol as a potential future energy source. But until we can figure out how to make ethanol, and get more energy out of the ethanol than we expend in its manufacture, we should not be forcing ethanol on the public.

Further, once we do (if we ever do) figure out how to make ethanol without losing net energy, we must also figure out how to make a regular passenger car (that must be reliable for more than one mile) run reliably on ethanol, and ONLY ethanol, not a BS ethanol/gasoline blend, without major sacrifices in driveability.

Once we've figured that out, I'll be the first one out of the gates singing the praises of ethanol. Until that happens, however, I will be opposed to forcing the public to use an inferior fuel that wastes energy and costs the public countless millions each year in government subsidies and mandates.

alpha phi · 02-01-2006, 11:15 PM

One thing I have noticed with useing the 10% ethanol mix.
My 87 nissan pickup runs better, gets better mileage too.
My 01 buick runs hotter (not really worse) and gets lower mileage.
I don't really know why.
I do agree we have a long way to go
Our future fuel could just turn out to be
something we take for granted, and never gave it any thought.

Psycho Dad · 02-02-2006, 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

For quite awhile actually - those rumors in 2003 that we were running out of oil "fast" have been widely derided as being bunk.

Those rumors turned out to be not true in the seventies as well.

Rawb · 02-02-2006, 05:27 PM

I'm a big biodiesel fan, and bought my diesel car with the intention of running biodiesel in it as soon as the warranty runs out. (And hopefully by then, there will be enough evidence that biodiesel in a common rail diesel engine isn't a big problem)

Biodiesel is a very good option, but don't generate it out of soybeans. There is a better way, biodiesel from algae. (Or if you prefer, here is the government report (PDF) in all it's glory)

While it would still take a lot of land to produce and equivalent amount of energy to all gas+diesel combined (15,000 square miles), it is nothing compared to the amount of land used to feed livestock.

shakran · 02-02-2006, 06:55 PM

when you say you're going to run it on biodiesel do you mean commercially produced, or are you gonna run a grease car?

jeenyus_ones · 02-04-2006, 10:48 PM

I wonder how much a litre of ethanol would be.

mr_burns · 02-06-2006, 01:35 PM

The big problem is that people are going to need to invest in it - and most people arn't ready, even if they like the idea, or spending upwards of $20k on a new car that might not be supported, or only have supplies in a few areas...Biodiesel is the best "transition" fuel, because it will work in pre-existing cars, even if it's not perfect yet.

MSD · 02-06-2006, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hardknock

Bush and his cronies are the rason why this hasn't moved. The oil man doing anything that puts his campaign contribuitors out of business???

Right.

Did you read the thread at all, or just skip down after the first post?

shakran · 02-06-2006, 07:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeenyus_ones

I wonder how much a litre of ethanol would be.

Around $2.06 a gallon last time I checked. That's for the pure stuff. Raise that price if you want to compare it to gas since it takes more ethanol to get the same energy as you get out of a given quantity of gasoline. Raise it even more when you have an ethanol/gasoline blend since the blending process and the special infrastructure needed to blend and then ship/dispense it drives the price up.

Remember folks, the only reason your ethanol-enhanced gasoline is cheaper (if it is) than regular gas is because of a government subsidy.

Seaver · 02-06-2006, 09:14 PM

Thanks Shak for dispelling many of the myths for Ethanol.

Craven Morehead · 02-07-2006, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Around $2.06 a gallon last time I checked. That's for the pure stuff. Raise that price if you want to compare it to gas since it takes more ethanol to get the same energy as you get out of a given quantity of gasoline. Raise it even more when you have an ethanol/gasoline blend since the blending process and the special infrastructure needed to blend and then ship/dispense it drives the price up.

Remember folks, the only reason your ethanol-enhanced gasoline is cheaper (if it is) than regular gas is because of a government subsidy.

One of the reasons its subsidized is because its made from corn, a rather inefficient raw product which results in a higher cost to produce. Hence the subsidy (also its a bone to the ag community). Brazil produces ethanol from sugar cane at $.60/gallon!
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/7/12145/81957

World's King · 02-08-2006, 11:55 AM

Buy one of these.

vermin · 02-14-2006, 10:07 AM

So how do horses compare to cars as far as dollars/year to run (feed, maintenance, etc)?

Of course you would have to factor in the fact that cars can't make their own "next year's model".

oberon · 02-14-2006, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by World's King

Buy one of these.

I'd love to see you drive that on a major highway like I-25.

merkerguitars · 02-14-2006, 10:41 PM

My stance on the whole alternative fuel issue.

Ethanol is mostly a pipe dream as most of you have said. Its amazing what subsidies can do to make something look good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Biodiesel will clog fuel filters in vehicles that don't use it regularly. This was just demonstrated in Minnesota, which suspended its biodiesel mandate after truckers complained that they were destroying their fuel filters.

Minnesota pushed the biodiesel mandation way too fast. Biodiesel will naturally clean the crud out of the lines and plug up a fuel filter, but the biggest problem is Minnesota mandated using only 100% biodiesel and not a blend of biodiesel and pump diesel. Biodiesel is some nasty stuff in the winter time, it gels way to easy. But I guess they learned the hard way about doing research. Once they figure out that straight biodiesel won't work in the winter and we figure what foodstocks have the greatest output/what can be grown the cheapest and easily it will work. But we aren't close enough to have a "cure all" for our fuel problems. We need more research than subsidies.

Thank you Shakran for putting the truth on the table, I just HATE it when people think ethanol is a perfect happy solution to all our fuel problems, when it actually is not.

shakran · 02-15-2006, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craven Morehead

One of the reasons its subsidized is because its made from corn, a rather inefficient raw product which results in a higher cost to produce. Hence the subsidy (also its a bone to the ag community). Brazil produces ethanol from sugar cane at $.60/gallon!
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/7/12145/81957

This actually helps to make my point about the ethanol industry. You're right in that sugar cane has a FAR greater energy yield than corn when used to make ethanol. This is obvious to anyone who understands that ethanol is made from the sugars of whatever you use as a raw material. Not hard to comprehend that pure sugar is going to yield more sugar than corn, which just has sugars in it.

The fact that the ethanol industry in the US is using corn indicates that it's not at all interested in cheap or efficient energy. It's all about kickbacks to the farmers. By the way, do some research into who owns the ethanol plants, especially in the midwest. Nearly every plant has a group of farmers who, if they don't own it outright, are major shareholders in the plant.

That's not to say that sugarcane (or sugarbeet, that works too) ethanol is good for the environment. It's not. Increased sugarcane production means you need more fields and since sugarcane grows in the tropics, you make those fields by removing big chunks of the rainforest. That opens up a whole other environmental can of worms in an ecosystem that's been threatened for decades - it does NOT need another cash-cow crop to encourage farmers to cut down the rainforest.

And then there's the potential economic impact of converting food crops to fuel use. That's going to raise the market prices of the food crops, which means some time in the future we could end up with a cheaper fuel, but far more expensive food.

01-30-2006, 12:26 PM	#4 (permalink)
raeanna74 I'm not a blonde! I'm knot! I'm knot! I'm knot! Location: Upper Michigan	Ethanol burns cleaner but does it give the power that some people want in their vehicles?? Will it provide the same kind of hauling power needed for semi's? Or for large utility trucks? I have heard - only by word of mouth - that it does not provide this necessary power or speed. If it doesn't that would explain some of it's lack of popularity. __________________ "Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

02-01-2006, 11:15 PM	#22 (permalink)
alpha phi seeker Location: home	One thing I have noticed with useing the 10% ethanol mix. My 87 nissan pickup runs better, gets better mileage too. My 01 buick runs hotter (not really worse) and gets lower mileage. I don't really know why. I do agree we have a long way to go Our future fuel could just turn out to be something we take for granted, and never gave it any thought. __________________ All ideas in this communication are sole property of the voices in my head. (C) 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 "The Voices" (TM). All rights reserved.

02-02-2006, 05:27 PM	#24 (permalink)
Rawb Crazy Location: Salt Town, UT	Biodiesel from algae I'm a big biodiesel fan, and bought my diesel car with the intention of running biodiesel in it as soon as the warranty runs out. (And hopefully by then, there will be enough evidence that biodiesel in a common rail diesel engine isn't a big problem) Biodiesel is a very good option, but don't generate it out of soybeans. There is a better way, biodiesel from algae. (Or if you prefer, here is the government report (PDF) in all it's glory) While it would still take a lot of land to produce and equivalent amount of energy to all gas+diesel combined (15,000 square miles), it is nothing compared to the amount of land used to feed livestock.

02-08-2006, 11:55 AM	#32 (permalink)
World's King Here Location: Denver City Denver	Buy one of these. __________________ heavy is the head that wears the crown

02-14-2006, 10:07 AM	#33 (permalink)
vermin Indifferent to anti-matter Location: Tucson, AZ	So how do horses compare to cars as far as dollars/year to run (feed, maintenance, etc)? Of course you would have to factor in the fact that cars can't make their own "next year's model". __________________ If puns were sausages, this would be the wurst.

01-30-2006, 10:16 AM	#3 (permalink)
bigTex Upright	I love the idea of ethanol. And we can use our own resources to grow it here in the states. The only problem is that the media and society like hydrogen. Most think that BURNING fuel is bad; no matter what the biproducts are. Therefore everyone hears about that being the only way to solve earth's problems, and the goverment is stroking out bills that make people happy. But, here is a grain of salt to my own post: I think that whatever chemical reaction that is carried out inside our cars it will effect the enviroment. H2 cars spit out water which could make dry places more humid (like Arizona and their pools), burning makes gas, and electric cars just push the problem to a power plant. I think that we just can't stop it.

01-30-2006, 05:44 PM	#14 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	This is the problem with energy debate... it's hard to predict what future tech/science breakthroughs might do to current fuels. Realistically, if some billionaire pumped tons of money (X-Prize style) into solar powered vehicles that are usable year round in all places... it could be a reality. The other problem is the idea that any one fuel is perfect for all uses. If you could make wind-powered buses for mass-trasnit, and left it at that... that segment would drastically improve air quality over time. Look at hybrid electric cars such as the Prius. It still uses that "terrible" petro, but in reality, it's a good car. I don't expect to see electro-hybrid semis anytime soon, but if everyone drove an electro-hybrid, our energy problems would be FAR far less...

01-30-2006, 07:14 PM	#15 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	Electric batteries aren't the best thing either. Does anybody know how good hydrogen cars perform? I would like to think it would be just as good as gas. Can it be used in semi's or big trucks? Why can't they make a sports car like the Corvette with Hydrogen or any other alt fuel?

02-01-2006, 10:14 PM	#20 (permalink)
wombatman Insane	The major problem of Hydrogen fuel lies in the production of the hydrogen gas. At present, it has the same problem of taking more units of energy to produce than you get back out of it. For what it's worth, I'm doing undergraduate research at the University of South Carolina (chemical engineering) in fuel cells, my current project (groundbreaking, actually, in that it hasn't been done before) focusing on how pollutants in the air (Chloride in my case) affect the membrane that allows the fuel cell to produce electricity and how well it recovers from the (usually) detrimental effects. It's interesting stuff, and some of the graduate students are now looking at stacks of fuel cells. To give some idea of the power of the fuel cells, a 25cm^2 membrane will produce anywhere from 20-30A at 0.6V. Anyway, my two cents as a researching chemical engineering student. Oh, and if you're a graduating chem engr. looking for a good graduate school to do research, definitely look at U of SC. The chemical engineering professors here are topnotch in their research and interactions with students.

02-02-2006, 06:55 PM	#25 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	when you say you're going to run it on biodiesel do you mean commercially produced, or are you gonna run a grease car?

02-04-2006, 10:48 PM	#26 (permalink)
jeenyus_ones Upright	I wonder how much a litre of ethanol would be.

02-06-2006, 01:35 PM	#27 (permalink)
mr_burns Upright	The big problem is that people are going to need to invest in it - and most people arn't ready, even if they like the idea, or spending upwards of $20k on a new car that might not be supported, or only have supplies in a few areas...Biodiesel is the best "transition" fuel, because it will work in pre-existing cars, even if it's not perfect yet.

02-06-2006, 09:14 PM	#30 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	Thanks Shak for dispelling many of the myths for Ethanol.