OT? Interesting presentation on Ethanol

[rv8ch]

Originally Posted by hevansrv7a

Most of the people babbling about carbon have no real contribution to energy production and consumption as our society is organized and functions. Stanford University did a long, hard study of Ethanol in the economy and determined that, in whole, it consumes more energy than it provides ? a net loser.

This is true, and was addressed by Vinod in the presentation. Using corn would require about the entire continental US to be planted to provide our current needs. However, the technologies that they are developing would allow different types of grasses to be used that generate much more organic matter that can be converted to ethanol. Corn is not a very efficient producer of ethanol. Check out this grass, called miscanthus:

http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/mis...iscanthus.html

[hevansrv7a]

Guys, please note that the part of my post that you are responding to was from a friend. I provided it because it's interesting. I don't know if it's "right". He's very bright and very thorough, but had not yet seen the video when he wrote that. I'm trying to get him to provide the link to the Stanford study and I'll provide it if/when.

I make no evaluation of Vinod's motives and I generally think that "ad hominem" arguments are less useful than a direct examination of the data and logic. They can be useful in pointing the way when investigating an idea's merits, but they don't change the merits.

I was more concerned with the issues of:
1. issue of lowering food grain production as it would affect the world economy and the health of third world people in general.
2. Issue of transportation - does it really eat pipelines?
3. Issue of last-minute blending requirement.
4. Confusing statements about "big oil", some positive, some very negative. Of course, in the real world, all could be true at one time.
5. Making carbon dioxide an issue when it does not have a direct relationship to the primary issue only weakens, IMHO, the overall presentation.

For more experimental information/data, you may also want to look at: http://www.age85.org/ActiveProjects.htm

[RScott]

Brazil doesn't make ethanol from corn as we do. Brazil mkes ethanol from sugarcane, which is much more efficient. With their climate & soils, they can grow a lot of sugarcane.

[Tandem46]

Wow, that's cool, I didn't realize aircraft were flying off this stuff. Great link above, http://www.age85.org/ActiveProjects.htm,
Thanks he

[Rotary10-RV]

Originally Posted by RScott

Brazil doesn't make ethanol from corn as we do. Brazil mkes ethanol from sugarcane, which is much more efficient. With their climate & soils, they can grow a lot of sugarcane.

If I understand the comments I've read about using ethanol in Brazil, they are petroleum poor and their ecomomy would suffer paying the price to import oil. One problem is ethanol is an alternative fuel that it is difficult to extract more energy from than you must put in to refine the product. Using a sugar starter, (like sugarcane) would certainly help. Corn and other starches need to ferment more to produce alcohol. When using ethanol as a motor fuel the biggest problem is range. To extract the most energy from ethanol the engine needs to be set up for the fuel. Typically higher compression, different injectors, timing and cams are needed. It is problematic to then run the engine on gasoline. Most of the dual-fuel cars are gas best and alcohol "OK". The range difference can be as much as 30%.
Bill Jepson

[szutowiczrv10]

I have done much research on this topic, as I am going to produce my own Ethanol. I have studied in-depth modern still designs and can produce ethanol for 99 cents per gallon with parts from Home Depot, in fact, I have the plans somewhere. I will find them and if anyone is interested, please pm me.

Here is the deal. Corn is not a good source to produce pure ethanol. So, if one bases his or her opinion or research on corn productivity as the source to produce it, the study determines corn is the fault not the concept. Corn cannot and will not produce enough ethanol ever for Americas need!

Enter the world of the sweet potato; it?s the sugar content that determines the amount of ethanol that can be produced per bushel of any crop. Sweet potatoes have 20 times the amount of sugar and this is why I will be using them, which in return will reduce my cost to produce it to a level that is worth my time and effort. The only issue with the sweet potato is that the sugar starts breaking down into starch after three days, so one had better get it to the masher as quick as possible.

If Midwest farmers would change their crops to the sweet potato, perhaps we would have a chance to produce a plethora of ethanol, but that is a whole other story, and like many in the USA, change is hard unless there is a catastrophic event that forces one to change his or her beliefs.

Here is a link some of you may be interested in
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id2.html

Jim