Ethannol Fuel and the Environment

[Kitdy]

This is something I think that's been in the air for a while and something that one of my buddies tipped me off to a few months ago.

Ethanol Fuel and the Environment

If this is true, then the whole green ethanol thing is just a load of bullshit. The ethanol community is pumping up ethanol as a fuel for the future, but in reality, it is more damaging that regular old gasoline - this fad is a complete sham.

Fantastic.

[hightower99]

No unfortunately it is the fact that america is planning on using perfectly good food crops like corn, to make there ethanol.

Unfortunately that means that they are trying to make fuel out of crops that could be better used as food and that are not efficient crops to grow.

Ethanol should be made from algae, much greater yield for much less resources and much less enviromental impact (don't need to cut down rainforest).

[NSXType-R]

Yup, ethanol is only the fuel of the future because of the corn lobbyists. They know that they'll be rich like crazy if America adopts corn oil. It isn't possible, since even if you turned every bit of land that could be grown for corn, you still wouldn't have enough corn to turn into alcohol for fuels.

It's unfortunate that people are so misinformed and willing to "follow the leader" when it comes to something as important as our future fuel source.

Besides, as hightower has said, there are better alternatives- algae, sugar cane, and switchgrass are higher yield crops.

[NicFromLA]

I do firmly believe that biofuels are an excellent source of fuel and they are a big part of the future of the automobile. However, I believe ethanol isn't the answer, biodiesel is. Biodiesel is much less expensive to produce and ecologically safer to produce. Plus most of today's diesels can already run on biodiesel and do so quite easily. Plus BMW and Audi have gone a long way to prove that cars power by diesel can be fun.

[Kitdy]

Originally Posted by NSXType-R

Besides, as hightower has said, there are better alternatives- algae, sugar cane, and switchgrass are higher yield crops.

I think in the article they stated that switchgrass was even worse for the environment.

[Ferrer]

Originally Posted by NicFromLA

I do firmly believe that biofuels are an excellent source of fuel and they are a big part of the future of the automobile. However, I believe ethanol isn't the answer, biodiesel is. Biodiesel is much less expensive to produce and ecologically safer to produce. Plus most of today's diesels can already run on biodiesel and do so quite easily. Plus BMW and Audi have gone a long way to prove that cars power by diesel can be fun.

Except that they aren't as fun a petrol powered equivalents.

[NSXType-R]

Originally Posted by Kitdy

I think in the article they stated that switchgrass was even worse for the environment.

Strange. I thought switchgrass would be more efficient. The article isn't that long. I've heard that it was better. I wish it would elaborate a bit more.

[revetec]

Very simply put....

What the real issues are the carbon bank and greenhouse emissions. We take oil out of the ground, burn it, carbon is dispersed into the atmosphere, plants soak it up and there you have it, a big battery of carbon within plants. If there happens to be a huge fire erupt in the world, the amount of carbon that would hit the atmosphere would not be good. The goal is to recycle the carbon.

By growing sugar cane etc we are absorbing carbon (CO2), we refine it to ethanol and then burn it releasing carbon (CO2), and the cane takes the carbon (CO2) again to grow.

It doesn't matter if ethanol is sightly more or less efficient or has more or less emissions. The whole ethanol push is a global environmental goal to slow down the carbon bank and greenhouse emissions, remember it is like recycling carbon. There are alternatives such as ethanol.

[CapnBoost]

Keeping my political and environmental opinions out of this discussion-

there's nothing wrong with ethanol, it's octane rating is good for sporting cars despite the fact that burning it produces less energy.

the problem is devoting food production and government subsidies to make it look like a useful option.

Because of speculative buying of corn futures and the fact that farmers get more money selling for ethanol the price of corn is up. Because corn is up meat & milk are up (in this country cattle are corn-fed) so now anything that contains corn (or corn products), milk, or meat is up.

If we converted all of our corn production to ethanol we still wouldn't produce enough to run our cars. It's not cheaper to make unless you're working on a government subsidy, and thus, it won't be cheaper to buy unless you're floating it on the backs of tax payers.

that said- corn ethanol is not the answer.

[revetec]

Not every country uses corn to produce ethanol. All sugar in Australia is produced from sugar cane. We have an over supply of sugarcane and sugar (well until the last floods) which makes it somewhat viable. Is there any sugarcane in the US?

[Dino Scuderia]

Currently the new fuel mandate is simply ridiculous.

As we all know ethanol is counterproductive anyway.

Supply chain wise it has to be trucked to pipelined fuel terminals and pumped into tanks specially installed for ethanol because there are only so many tanks traditionally located at terminals. Trucking the ethanol to terminals and other remote tank sites for splash blending causes even more fossil fuel use and the effects therein. Then splash blending to make 'gasahol' requires the carriers to have to load two different products and often at two different locations.

To convert a terminal for safe and normal daily throughput operations it costs oil companies around three million dollars. On the refinery end more pressure is piled on to an already strained facility because it's one more 'formula' of fuel that has to be concocted. Terminals which have been converted to ethanol(E10 - 10 % ethanol splash blending) are sent 84 octane(regular grade) gasoline instead of 87...the 10% ethanol blend brings it to the required 87 octane.

There won't/can't be enough ethanol produced/distributed to meet the mandates anyway.

And on biodiesel the price is 80-90 cents higher than regular diesel so many commercial consumers have switched back to regular diesel.

Nothing about any of it is smart or practical. Mandate or no mandate all these negative reports about the impact of ethanol will sooner than later spell it's demise. In the meantime the industry is jumping through insane hoops to what end?

At the retail end retailers have to have their tanks cleaned($300-1000) per tank and install special filters on the dispenser($30 per dispenser) because ethanol phases with water and cleans various deposits which are attached to tank/pipe walls.

[revetec]

I don't know whether you are aware of this, but ethanol is cheaper to the bowser than petroleum. In this country, ethanol was first supplied by the small independent service stations to allow them to compete by reducing their costs. The biggest reason some suppliers don't have ethanol is that the actual pump you use to fill your tank requires different seals to be fitted. This an expense that some are not willing to outlay. (Information given to me direct from the Government Authority.)

[Dino Scuderia]

Originally Posted by revetec

I don't know whether you are aware of this, but ethanol is cheaper to the bowser than petroleum.

What's bowser?

[revetec]

The one you fill your vehicle fuel tank with... I kind of explained it in my last post.

[Dino Scuderia]

Originally Posted by revetec

The one you fill your vehicle fuel tank with... I kind of explained it in my last post.

Doesn't really explain what a bowser is supposed to be.