Thread: What do you know about Ethanol?

Originally Posted by jaegerhund

Hi-jack away --- just keep with the basic "alternative fuels -- bogus or what?" feel of the thread.

Justin

Thanks Justin

James.

From what I understand, hydrogen is on its way to being feasible, but it's still in those initial stages of being too expensive to implement. I just see the race for better fuels as being like computers. At first they were big, expensive, and almost useless, but in the course of 30 years we have computers that fit in the palm of your hand, do everything but clean your house, and are exponentially more powerful.

It also helps that there is more focus being put on higher efficiency. I don't know if I've said it here, but it's my belief that car manufacturers will put their money where the consumer's concern is. Their concern up until a few years ago has been in making "safer" vehicles. Now that people "know" their cars are safe, people are concerned about fuel.

Isn't one of the beautiful things about fossil fuels that the energy expenditures are based on extraction (drilling , processing, etc) only -- as apposed to bio-fuels where energy has to spent in the creation of the fuel itself as well . I think it would be smarter to steer towards other energy sources --- solar, wind, ? ,etc where a ready-made energy is there for the harvesting.

Justin

Originally Posted by wdhall

According to this news release:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/ethanol.html

the energy balance of corn-produced ethanol is quite close, meaning that whether it's a win (more energy out than went into its production) or a loss (the other way around, duh) depends on the details of its production. Here's an excerpt from the above page:


Dale

Well I would like for MIT to pay for my fuel if they think it is quite close. Last year I bought a new F150 and realized after the fact that it was a Flex Fuel vehicle, meaning it will use Gas or E85 ethanol. When I run a full tank of gas I get 17.5 -almost 18 mpg. When I use Ethanol it drops to 14-14.5 MPG. It doesn't really work out to any advantage. The E85 prices climb right along with gas. Gas is $3.12/Gal and E85 is $2.85/gal. Arizona gives no incentive to use it but it is starting to become more prevalent in the area. In the long run it probably ends up costing more than gas.

Bob

I have to agree with some of you guys of the inefficiency of ethanol being a viable fuel source, and of course it's a political issue. I believe that the government subsidies in the agriculture aspect of making ethanol is money well wasted, and should be put to use in other "future fuel" markets.

Some cellulostic ethanols are better than others. Biodiesel is also a viable alternative to either, as diesel engines are typically more efficient than gasoline engines, and biodiesel is cheaper to produce than ethanol or gas. In fact, one can build a "backyard" biodiesel fuel plant that uses its own byproducts to run, and all you have to do is add waste plant material and clean it out from time to time.

Electricity as a power source isn't yet viable because batteries and capacitors are too heavy/dangerous at the current levels of technology, but things are looking brighter on that front as nanotech really advances.

Hydrogen, IMO, is a waste of time, as there's no natural source of free hydrogen. It has to be created out of the electrolysis of water, and the laws of thermodynamics insist that the energy we get out of burning hydrogen (turning it back into water) will be less than it to to turn water into hydrogen in the first place. It's only role is as a high energy-density carrier, but that feature also makes it very dangerous. Puncture and ignite a high pressure hydrogen tank (that carries sufficient hydrogen to run a car) and they won't find any part of you and only small parts of your car. By the time we figure out how to make it safe and cheap enough, we'll have figured out battery technology.

I know they've been using bacteria to produce alcohol from plant matter. That would reduce the energy expenditures and factor into both using eth as a fuel and the production of biodiesel.
The problem is that here we have a bias against diesel-powered passenger cars. That's making us go through our fuel supply faster. If we could make diesel engines more popular in passenger cars (manufacturers should offer more and stop jacking up the prices) we would have vehicles that would run on a natural fuel and burn less of it. The only problem with biodiesel is gelling, but I'm sure they can cook up some sort of a stabilizer that will prevent that.

No kidding X I WANTED a diesel when I bought my last van but they wanted over five grand for it and only offered a huge diesel engine that could tow a house. I used to have a nice little diesel car back in the eighties. Real cheap to run, got over forty to the gallon and seated five adults comfortably with trunk room too. I keep my fingers crossed that wee will get some good offerings in this area before I need a car again.

Of course its real easy to use bacteria to make methane gas, I've alway thought we should get much better at harnesing that for fuel. Wouldn't it be nice if every house was heated or cooled at least in part by its own septic system.

OK Justin, I'm going into the uber-hijack mode here, but...


Ethynol, The only thing I know about it is that it sucks up water and caused a bunch of breakdowns in boat motors here.

I remember reading a story that I think might interest everyone about a contest to build a production ready car that gets 100mpg

I imagine the sting of $3.80 at the pump won't hurt as much while we find a better alternative.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

No kidding X I WANTED a diesel when I bought my last van but they wanted over five grand for it and only offered a huge diesel engine that could tow a house. I used to have a nice little diesel car back in the eighties. Real cheap to run, got over forty to the gallon and seated five adults comfortably with trunk room too. I keep my fingers crossed that wee will get some good offerings in this area before I need a car again.

Of course its real easy to use bacteria to make methane gas, I've alway thought we should get much better at harnesing that for fuel. Wouldn't it be nice if every house was heated or cooled at least in part by its own septic system.

I don't understand that either. I've been wanting a Jetta TDI for a long time because of the great mileage it gets, but VW charges an extra $8k for it! Every time I see one of those old Mercedes diesels I think to myself that I should buy one.