NEWS: Hungry? Let Them Eat Ethanol!

Swap out tobacco for switchgrass. Also Biobutanol is way more energy dense than ethanol.

hey guy, the edit button is working again, FYI.

It's my understanding that the number of calories consumed in making one tank of corn-based ethanol for an SUV would be enough to feed a person for one year.

Converting food crops to fuel for inefficient vehicles is a stupid idea!

"Did I miss the part of this article where Uncognitive was saying that corn and switchgrass were the same? Did I miss where he said that corn was a better alternative?"

I didn't claim he said they were the same. I said he mentioned them in the same breath, which he does -- "we take a renewable supply of plant crops such as corn, sugar cane or switchgrass and turn it into a gasoline substitute such as ethanol." He then goes on to bash the weakest of the three, corn ethanol, and then proceeds to use that argument to make a more general case against biofuels, including their ability to combat global warming. The unsophisticated reader (I'll not name any names) might conclude that the same problems hold true for all biocrops. Even though cellulosic crops are light-years beyond food crops both in terms of CO-2 sequestering and in not threatening our food supply. Thus my rant at the mention of switchgrass along with corn, etc.

The fact is, while I'm sure well-intentioned, the "article," beginning with the flippant title, is emblematic of the way this complex issue is being boiled down into digestible soundbites, not unlike a spoonful of high fructose corn syrup. You have Monsanto and the Big Three automakers on one side, saying, "Go Green! Put Corn in your Gas Tank!" and on the other side you've got poorly researched arguments (slogans, really) that only serve to obfuscate the issue by conflating all biofuel options into one "Let them eat ethanol" horror story.

As mentioned above by several people and the OP, corn is much inferior to cellulose-based ethanol. Sugarcane based ethanol works for Brazil because their climate is great for growing vast quantities of cane. The climate of the US is not, and the Brazillian growers have historically moved to sell their sugar crop to whichever market paid more for it, causing either price rises in sugar or ethanol supply issues depending on which was worth more at the time.

About all corn-based ethanol has going for it is that it is domestic and renewable. It isn't efficient or cost-effective and likely wouldn't survive in the market were it not for heavy Federal subsidies and stiff tariffs on imported ethanol from more efficient producers such as Brazil. We don't have enough arable farmland in the US to grow enough corn to satisfy both the food market and a large slice of the energy market, so an alternative must be found. Cellulose-based ethanol is hopefully that solution, along with non-food crop based biodiesel.

Automakers like GM and Ford love corn based E85 because it's patriotic, sells well to average consumers (who more than likely will never use the car with E85 outside of the corn belt), and it's easy - requiring relatively little re-engineering of the fuel system to accommodate E85. IIRC they also get a juicy per-unit tax incentive to produce flex-fuel E85 cars and trucks, whether anyone actually uses E85 in them or not.

I'd love to see all the federal tax incentives and tariff dollars go towards fast-tracking cellulose-ethanol plants and non-food based biodiesel tech instead. It would make a lot more sense.

Thank you, Stiles; crunchy and pointed, as always.

Have you sources on the ecological/environmental effects? I've seen some about maize- and palm-oil-based biofuel, but I am not sure whether I've seen anything about alternative (presumably cellulose-based) fuels.

We all know what a petrolhead I am (don't we?) I dearly love to run gasoline through my ancient motorbike, but it's an anachronistic indulgence for me. Given my druthers, I'd have solar shingles on the roof and an electric car in the garage.

When I'm in charge, every single building will be outfitted with solar shingles, cars (especially SUVs) will be electric, and precious gasoline will be reserved strictly for elderly motorcycles.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Wait 'til you hear my plans for education, public arts funding and population control!

I could go on about this for a long fucking time, but making ethanol fuel from corn is fucking stupid. It's just going to make food and gas more expensive, and it's actually worse for the environment. Oh, and the new E20 standard will actually make your car less fuel efficient, costing you more money again. And it will actually end up burning more gasoline on top of it. Awesome.

i can only imagine what the road warrior would have been like with alternative fuels.

oh wait, that's beyond thunderdome.

Solution: The Air Car

Problem: Getting Americans... scratch that... getting anybody to drive it.

There was an interesting Rolling Stone article about Ethanol a few months ago.

Also we can't produce the more efficient sugar cane ethanol because of our heavy tariffs on sugar cane put in place to punish Cuba.

Energy use may rise by 50% by 2030 says Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). China and India will lead the demand.

Biofuels backfire in Indonesia. Plantations on peat wetlands will release unfathomable amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

I like the idea of recycling fryer oil into biodiesel. I like the idea of growing hemp for food and fuel (and... y'know). Sugar ethanol and cellulosic ethanol sound great. People have a habit of consistently making the stupidest possible choice of ways to do a smart thing. Like for example Communism. *ducks*

Interesting yet unrelated fact - The reason ethanol is released in E85 formula is that they need to make the fuel poisonous enough that drunks won't just walk up to a pump and suck out a dollar's worth.

come on castro. die already!

Ummmm no.

The reason E85 is formulated to that ratio is to alleviate cold start problems common to purer alcohol fuels:

http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/faqs/types.php

^^ I guess it would be possible to use a small tank of petrol/gasoline/methane/diesel to get the engine hot before switching to pure ethanol, then. It would need an add-on kit, I guess.

That's more for labrotory grade alcohols than E85, as Stiles pointed out.

Or, i don't know, we could just use WATER, you know H2O?!

In pilot program, Indonesia paid to save trees.

Yeah, that's bullshit for gullible people who know nothing of basic thermodynamics or engine operation. Note that that guy says the car is a "gasoline and water hybrid" - so would be a 1967 big-block camaro with a bad tank of gas. Laughable. Old-timers used to take a garden hose with a nozzle on it, and spray the water right down the open carb of a running engine to remove hard carbon deposits from the engine. Done right, it works fine - done wrong, you ruin the engine. Still doesn't mean the engine is running because of the water, it's running *in spite of it*.

Water is very stable, with molecular bonds that are very hard to break. This is why you put out fires with it, in spite of it being made up of hydrogen and oxygen!

Lots more power is required to break water into hydrogen and oxygen than is carried by the hydrogen so generated. Furthermore, piston engines are only ~30% efficient so in the end you yield about 15% efficiency. Using that electricity to direct drive an electric motor for propulsion is far more efficient - around 90%.

If dude had really figured it out, he'd have invented a perpetual motion machine and violated the First Law of Thermodynamics in the process.

In other words, don't hold your breath.

Wikipedia has a good page on the
fallacies of the water car. Read and learn.