Thread: What do you know about Ethanol?

Here in Sweden we make ethanol from trees!

I heard a story about food riots in parts of the world could be directly connected to the recent step up in the growing of corn for ethanol and that the recent skyrocketing of food prices are also linked to this! I'll see if I can't find the story.

here is the link:http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=412984
My father used to always tell me that when government solves one problem they create seven more!
I guess the proof is in the pudding huh?

Well -- I don't much about this stuff but I suppose beyond all the conspiracies that one can dream up about why oil production and use has been the key for the last hundred years, oil and fossil fuels are a pretty good source of energy ---with problems of course but few by comparison to alternatives.


Justin

Justin,

One thing you should be particularly concerned with is the fact that the ethanol being produced up in Iowa negatively affects our gulf waters. I saw this on a CNN special and maybe someone can fill in the gaps as I don't remember verbatim, but it goes something like: Their ethanol plants rely on coal for production which produces waste and they designate space for corn. Somehow the soil becomes toxic to some degree and is drained into the Mississippi which travels down and emties into the Gulf of Mexico creating a "dead zone" where no marine life can survive because of the lack of oxygen and abundance on toxins in the water. The dead zone, which already exists, begins at the shoreline and moves outward as things get progressively worse.

On another note,the April 7, 2008 issue of TIME dedicated it's cover story to "The Clean Energy Myth" that everyone should read because it proves more or less that ethanol is pure s***, based on it's short and long-term impact on carbon emissions increased by mass deforestation, inflation in food prices, and inability to significantly decrease our dependence on imported oil." "The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year." "Using land to grow fuel leads to the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands that store enormous amounts of carbon."
They do a good job of painting a picture of the enormity of the problems that ethanol creates. Check it out, vote no for ethanol. I'd like more info on hydrogen as it seems like a great idea with few drawbacks, but I may be wrong.

I think you guys have the ethanol/hydrogen issues covered.

But as Tim mentioned there are other factors to the alternative energy crisis.

Living in Kansas has shown me that there are many natural resources not being taken advantage of. Wind farms are being implemented but very minimally so, much open space could be made use of that is just laying in wait currently (cattle pastures and unfarmable areas are good candidates).

There are new studies involving algae that soak up sunlight and store the resulting chemical energy that can then be used as a fuel source, but they are not backed by anyone with the financial power to make them work on the scale we need.

Many people could be installing passive water heaters to minimize natural gas use. They are essentially plastic tubs of water that are heated by the sun so that you don't have to waste as much gas heating it from cold to hot, only from warm to hot.

There is some work going on in passive heating and cooling for houses as well. The principle is that water is circulated through pipes that are buried underground where the temperature is like 60 degrees year-round (hotter than the ambient air in the winter but colder than the ambient air in summer). Then you use the temp. of that water as a starting place for the heating/cooling system of the house thus saving the energy that would have been spent getting the air to that initial ground temp.

I have no idea whether these will turn out to be bogus or not, but they all sound good and solid. Anyone else have knowledge along these lines?