Re: Study Says Ethanol Not Worth the Energy
- From: "obiwan" <obiw231@xxxxxx>
- Date: 26 Jul 2005 12:08:42 -0700
While I would also take exception to the rediculous claims of these
uninformed liberals I must clarify some comments they made which, while
touched on, has not been totally addressed, IMO.
First there was the comment that it takes 29% more fuel to produce
Ethanol than what you get from Ethanol. I live in Arizona where we grow
some species of corn. I know one such farmer, I'll call him Mike, who
regularly plants 660 acres of corn. When I asked him about this issue
back in 2002 he kind of laughed and stated that if all of the corn he
grew were to be converted into Ethanol he'd have 3 times the amount of
fuel than what he could use.
He explained that as far as crops go he is able to sell about 2/3's of
the actual harvest. The other third goes out as waiste because the
buyers can't use it due to the actual size of the ear, or worm damage
or if the color isn't right. Of the 2/3's that are sold 1/4 is lost to
spoilage before it makes it to market. Once it gets to market 1/3 of
that will spoil on store shelves from time and not getting sold. Market
studies never address this issue. Out of 640 acres of corn only 220
acres actually get bought by the consumer for consumption. That's 1/3
of what he grew. The other 2/3 spoiled and was waisted.
Hang with me, there is method to this madness because it addresses 2
issues.
Mike told me that an ASU Engineering class asked to take his waiste to
produce ethanol, worms and all, to discover the volume of ethanol it
could make from the volume of corn they got. They produced enough
Ethanol from what they recieved that if his equipment ran on Ethanol he
would have had a surplus of fuel. His waiste, when converted to
ethanol, produced more gallons of alcohol than what he used in gallons
of diesel fuel to disc, plant, grow, fertilize and harvest the entire
crop of 660 acres.
Second, the subsidies. I have a friend who works in the enhanced oil
recovery industry. He speaks of huge subsidies given to oil exploration
corporations that extend intothe tens of billions of dollars. An
interesting side note is that when oil prices are tallied they do not
include the cost of exploration, drilling and cracking/fracturing. This
is work done by independant corporations FOR the major Oil
Producers/Refiners. The paper trail in the petroleum industry is so
tangled you don't even realize that there are subsidies paid to foreign
governments by the U.S. government to allow these companies to work in
their countries. Then there are the wars to hold onto those wells and
infra-structure. Am I saying that the Iraq war is over oil? God, I hope
so. Our economy is so entrenched in oil that even a small slowdown in
it's flow severely affects how we do our business here. Oil industry
subsidies are never discussed because very few people know that they
exist.
Very few people believe in "peak oil", and thats fine. Gasoline will be
arounf for a while because there is so much oil out there. The problem
is is that it's getting more expensive to get to it and it cost more to
pull it out out of the ground. Ethanol is not the cure for gasoline,
but E85 might be. Bio-diesel is not the cure for petrodiesel but B50
might be.
I'd like to see a technology where Hydrogen is injected into the fuel
stream with gasoline/alcohol and diesel as a secondary fuel. It can be
stored in tanks of Metal Hydrides and produced from either solar or
wind.
Also, about the nuclear plants. The last report I've seen is that
construction costs in gallons of diesel fuel exceeds any energy output
realized and the poisonous by-product sticks around for 10,000 years.
Having said that, I think we are really missing the boat with the spent
fuel. The little nuclear generators used by Nasa to power spaceships
destined for the outer reaches of the solar system could be converted
to use incased or encapsulated spent fuel. Imagine a generator that can
produce wattage for 10,000 years. The radiation barrier would be a
little heavy but stack enough of these babies in series and then in
parallel out in the middle of the desert somewhere and you have
yourself a way to use up the spent fuel and mayb even some of the
radioactive stuff associated with it.
OBI
.
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