ethanol from corn is definitely temporary, a bridge fuel to more advanced biofuels that don't use corn. At least the government has a cap on the amount of corn ethanol that can be made. By 2022 there is a requirement for 36 billion gallons of biofuel to be made, 21 billion of which must be advanced biofuel, most likely cellulosic ethanol because it the closest to being commercial viable. If biobutanol can be made commercially viable it will be much closer characteristically to gasoline. There are already steps in this direction, with similar processes to making cellulosic ethanol. Here are some links, one an article, the other biobutanol wiki:
http://www.upi.com/International_Sec..._ethanol/7919/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biobutanol

 

If ethanol uses more energy in production than you get out of it, then it will not matter what the costs, you will run out of energy to produce it. Eventually you get caught by thermodynamics.

 

No, the added energy from ethanol comes from the sun. If you want to look at from a thermodynamics point of view. Honestly, I don't believe you know what you are really talking about and are just making obvious statements. If it was that simple then why would anyone make ethanol...

 

You should be careful with telling people they don't know what they are talking about, you haven't impressed me so far. If to produce one gallon of ethanol the farming, transportation, distillation, and storage takes more than one gallon of ethanol, you have a net loss of energy. It does not matter where the production of the starch/sugar for fermentation comes from, the sun is not (yet) providing energy to do all the other steps in the process, unless you get more energy out of production than you put in. National Geographic recently had an article on ethanol production, and aside from some exotic as yet untested ideas, it comes out close to a 1:1 ratio of energy input:output.

Why do people make ethanol? In the US it is mandated, since we can no longer use MTBE as an oxygenator. A company can also get tax breaks, direct subsidies, and make a lot of money at it. Just because a company will produce it and people will buy it doesn't make something efficient.

 

If my knowledge hasn't impressed you, wait til you see my driving

haha, just kidding, kinda....

I do realize there is energy put into harvesting the corn, grinding it up, and then the mix has to be heated and later distilled. This isn't thermodynamics though and you saying that made me think you were just some guy that wanted to say "thermodynamics" in an ethanol thread.

You have to define "close". I think a lot of people would say 1.26-1.4 are pretty close to 1. Do you have any literature on the production efficiency?

 

I have looked at several things, but I haven't seen anything I would consider serious research on a closed ethanol system. That would be using ethanol in the farm equipment, transportation, distillation, etc. At some point opponents and proponents do magic handwaving and say "it's great!" or "it's a crock!" There may be some great research I haven't heard about, and if there is I would like to see it. And anything involving energy production/use is related to thermodynamics. Each of the steps cited uses energy, energy that you will be using on one side of the equation to figure net energy gain. Sure, it's not an exact citing, but doing that you are using the first law about conservation of energy.

As far as close, you are correct, 1.26-1.4 is very close. Imagine it this way: at 1.26 for every 26 gallons of ethanol you make you consume 100 gallons in production. For gasoline/oil for every 20 gallons you consume you make around 80 gallons. The EPA or Energy Department has stated it is around 1.3:1 for ethanol, but there is some debate about methodology. Other sources have put it close to 1.1:1 or even parity, 1:1. The truth is no one can claim to be certain, and advances in agriculture and production will probably raise this.

 

The thing with gasoline though is you aren't really making it, you're taking it. You worded that kind of oddly. At 1.26, you don't use 100 gallons to make 26 gallons, you use 100 gallons to make 126 gallons, if you use 100 gallons you will have a net gain of 26.

There are ways to improve this though, i.e. using solar energy to power to the production plants or atleast assist in powering them.

 

Why is this thread still going on? Ethanol hasn't stopped sucking any less in the last few days.

 

There is the problem, you've changed it. No longer can it be a closed system, you have to use some outside power source to keep your production running. Most likely it wouldn't be solar power, but coal.

And I thought about it and yes I did word that somewhat incorrectly. You do get a net gain of 26 gallons, but think of how small a gain that is. A bad crop yield one year, maybe aging equipment gets less efficient, you name it and you're moving backwards instead of forwards. Sure, gasoline has its supply problems as well, but it is a proven system.

Ethanol is a great fuel, for drinking. Not bad for certain types of racing either.

 

I have changed it to use an outside power to improve production. How is that a problem? It could very well be solar power too. It isn't that small of a gain either. They can get up to 1.4 in effecieny so let's start using that term and not making ethanol look bad with the 1.26 stuff. Aging equipment? not much of an effect really. A bad crop? Most of the energy consumed in making ethanol is the actual processing of the corn into ethanol, not growing the corn.



You haven't become any less wrong in the last few days...

RotaryGod, where do you get your hatred for ethanol? The only bad thing about ethanol is that you use more of it because it's oxygenated. Otherwise, it makes more power, burns cleaner, and is renewable.

 

I certainly don't know as much as you guys seem to know about fuels and chemistry... but E85 certainly seems to have it's place... the standard Koenigsegg CCX produces 888hp on standard gasoline and gets 18mpg on the freeway... the CCXR (E85 version) is exactly the same car but is tuned for E85... it produces 1018hp but only gets 13mpg on the freeway...

Personally, I don't give a bears **** in the woods about the fuel efficiency of E85, what I care about is the cost of using it... I don't care if I have to fill up every 130miles (instead of the every 180 miles that my RX8 currently mandates), I don't care about miles per gallon, I CARE about dollars per mile! if E85 were cheap enough that it's use cost the SAME as gasoline, I'd happily enjoy the extra 33hp that I should theoretically get from E85 (properly tuned of course)

Having said that I think that E85 will NEVER become a widely used or available fuel in the US... I think that instead we will see cars capable of hundreds of miles per gallon... such as the Aptera... I also think we'll see a lot of development in hydrogen... and I think Diesel cars are going to become a lot more commonplace in the US...

 

really? NEVER?!

Most gas stations are using E10 have been for a while, E85 is becoming more available and the car manufacturers are making ethanol capable vehicles.

The reason ethanol is good is because we can easily make ethanol and it's renewable resource. Hydrogen makes a lot less power, and how are we going to effectively produce hydrogen? The fueling issues with hydrogen are of concern too. It is a gas at atmospheric pressure and liquid hydrogen is extremely dangerous. I've seen the metal hydride tanks which seem to be effective, but are expensive. Here is an interesting product http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/
You make your own hydrogen using solar electrolysis and store it in the metal hydride tanks.

 

actually the production costs of hydrogen are probably cheaper than ethanol, electrolysis is relatively easy making alcohol takes a few steps. Don't forget that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Water is quite abundant here, run a current through it and hydrogen and oxygen are released, Burn the hydrogen later and you make it water again...hooray.

 

I know all about electrolysis, but the amount of energy used to separate the hydrogen and oxygen is much greater than the amount of energy yielded by that hydrogen.

 

obviously otherwise there'd be no water on the surface of the earth. But i think thats gonna be true about most fuels, gasoline and ethanol included. If it took less energy to create than it made when it was spent then we'd have no energy crisis. Thermodynamics and entropy always win...reactions occur because on some level increase entropy of the universe. There is no free energy.

 

I actually don't have a hatred for Ethanol. I'm just smart enough to know it isn't as powerful or efficient as gasoline on a natrually aspirated engine. It's not and you can't prove otherwise. I'm not wrong. Saying it's oxygenated (repeatedly as you have nothing else to go on!) is just a cheap bs way of justifying it's lack of efficiency.

Yes it burns cleaner per equal volume. Somewhat. It depends what we are measuring. Too bad you need to burn ALOT more of it than gasoline which means these results are skewed a bit. I know, I know, but it's oxygenated! It's still cleaner than gasoline I'll give it that. It is renewable which is also a good thing. Oil is renewable too. It just takes a bit longer!!!

It does have it's place. It's not the be all end all fuel. It's a poor fuel as a straight substitute and always will be. If we make it from waste, all kind of waste, then it's a good thing. It's not something that we should be making from any amount of corn though. We haven't addressed it's production correctly. We also can't make enough of it to replace gasoline anyways. We can supplement though and that's what we should be doing with it. Supplemental fuel made from ONLY waste byproducts. As you have pointed out if we can obtain the power to produce it from solar or wind, that would be gravy. If it makes sense, chances are it won't happen.

BTW: I will never let a 17 year old kid call me wrong on anything car or rotary related. It's not going to happen. At least not without them making some phone calls to certain people first to confirm things!

 

now from what i understand about ethanol from corn production the chaff (the stalks) are used to make the ethanol, so it is what is normally a waste product. Correct me if im wrong, i just heard this somewhere.

 

Before anyone gets on my case for my last statement, please recognize the smiley face as it was intended to be taken with a sense of humor.

 

This is known as Cellulosic ethanol. The term really applies to any method to produce it that utilizes waste products. When I say waste, I mean things like rotting fruit, pumpkins, etc... It is in fact possible to ferment grass clippings but that's a special type of yeast that has a patent and is owned by a company that is owned by Chevron so good luck with ever getting that one. That would make way too much sense. Imagine going outside to mow your lawn for fuel albeit a very small amount. Anything that contains sugars or starches (which can be converted to sugars) that gets thrown away could be used. You'd be surprised at how much of this there is.

 

I get the impression that someday Fred and Nachos will be good friends

Seal.

 

Here's the way to do it. I've always been a diesel fan and especially biodiesel. Here's a new way to make it with virtually no waste! This is kick ***! I saw this talked about in a Biodiesel Magazine online article. It an convert almost any kind of feedstock. It's a continuous process rather than a batch. It works in seconds not hours. It doesn't have glycerine as a byproduct. It gets converted too! This would be the perfect method to use with all kinds of waste products.

http://www.evercatfuels.com/Default.asp

 

You realise that 'biodiesel' as we know it, from the pumps, is actually only 10% bio, and 90% ordinary dinosaur juice.......

S

 

obviously there is no free energy, the extra energy from ethanol comes from the sun! The highly endothermic reaction of 6CO2 + 2H20 -> C6H12O6 + 6O2 is performed by photosynthesis. I don't know how hydrogen is a solution unless it is generated using solar power or wind turbines. Running electricity through water and using the hydrogen for an internal combustion engine is like drinking a bottle of water so you can sell your ****. Profitable but pretty ineffecient, if you have the electricity to do electrolysis it is exponentially better to use it in an electric motor than to use it to make a very poor combustible out of water...



and RotaryGod, just wait until i make/have access to a dyno. Then a 17 year old kid won't tell you your wrong, the numbers will!!!

and your correct, the phone call was only to confirm what I had figured out.

 

making ethanol (especially pure) from the sugars in corn is an added step, can't run a car on glucose, and you left that part out. We all understand that photosynthesis makes the sugars and starches in corn, making ethanol from said sugars and starches isnt exactly an automatic reaction.

Umm btw hydrogen gas is probably one of the best combustibles there is period. no question or argument. Pound for pound it releases 4.5 times the energy of ethanol. Theres a reason liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen is used as rocket fuel

 

The processing, heating, and distilling are just converting the "free" sugar. The most efficient ratio (as I have stated previously in this thread) is 1:1.4 for in:out. So you are getting energy! Very much unlike electrolysis....

Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen, hell yeah! but in an ICE it sucks. The Hydrogen Renesis makes about 50% of the power of the gasoline powered Renesis, and would make about ~45% of the power of an ethanol powered Renesis .