Recent data show Ethanol production in Dry mill plants achieves a 90% net energy gain, wet mill: 54%

[JohnWxy]

given that about 60% of the plants are now dry mill the weighted average works out to be a neat 74% Net energy gain for the production of ethanol. Reported by the Argonne National Laboratory:

http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2005/NCGA_Ethanol_Meeting_050823.ppt#8

I am using the generally accepted number for the Low Heat Value of ethanol of 76,000 BTUs per gallon of ethanol.

[4dsc]

1. Recent data show's ethanol's EROEI

is still about 1/1!!! Its a fine waste of corn and water and energy to produce it..

[JohnWxy]

2. whereas gasoline is produced at a 19% loss of energy.

[GliderGuider]

4. Link?

Are you referring to refinery losses from the energy in the oil presented at the refinery gate?

Surely you don't mean that the EROEI of gasoline is 1:1.19. Do you? Because that's what it looks like you're implying, and that would be mendacious. Wouldn't it?

Oil with a 10:1 EROEI at the factory gate becomes a set of refined products with an EROEI of about 8.5:1 following refining. Only about half of those products will be gasoline, but the net energy of the gasoline will still be the same as the whole basket of products. For every barrel of oil you expend in production and transporting of oil, you get out 4 barrels or more of gasoline, and four or more barrels of other refined products with a similar energy content.

Where does the "19% loss of energy" come from?

[JohnWxy]

8. This is considering all the costs to drill, extract, ship and refine the oil:

I have posted this before, but here it is again. NOte the return for ethanol has improved as the 2005 Wang presentation linked to in orig comment shows post 2000 data.

http://www.ncga.com/public_policy/PDF/03_28_05ArgonneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf

[GliderGuider]

12. That link says nothing whatsoever about the net energy of gasoline

It contains a single, utterly unsupported assertion. It's a shit reference, Johnny. Try again.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. Possibly, however...

...there is not, AFAIK, 14 trillion bushels of ready-harvested corn sitting under a desert somewhere. You've got to grow the stuff, which means being a little more careful about how you use it.

"Well, at least it's a bit better than gasoline" is hardly a rallying cry for the masses. Or the salvation of the environment.

[4dsc]

13. Hey jonnie, you don't MAKE GASOLINE

you refine oil and that's where your arguement goes out the door..

[razzleberry]

3. electricity... 66% loss of energy

How many people here, think
that poor people in Asia, Africa, or South America,
should loose two-thirds of the energy?

[hunter]

10. People -- 100% loss of energy.

If there were no people there would be no energy problem!

Or how about this:

Solar Power -- 85% (or more) loss of energy.

I'm just trying to figure out how you think, razzleberry.

Would you abandon the use of electricity? Is this like an Amish sort of thing with you?

:hi:

[razzleberry]

11. everything looses energy

for reasons that escape me,
people have become fixated on the
loss from converting corn to ethanol.

[hunter]

14. For the labor and energy invested in ethanol, you don't get enough back.

Our current society was built on easy oil. For every arbitrary unit of economic measure invested in oil extraction (dollars, hours, resources, etc.) we got at least ten times that back from oil extraction when it was all so easy.

The returns neccessary to support our current society are probably less than ten, but at some point the economy fails. The economic return on etahanol as it is now, and for other proposed ethanol schemes, seems to be below that economic failure point. Mixing ethanol with our gasoline in our current transportation system doesn't accomplish anything, and may in fact be a net drag on the economy.

What we seem to be doing with corn ethanol is converting (in a very roundabout way) high quality fuels such as natural gas and oil into a lower quality fuel -- ethanol. Even if you state some positive return on ethanol such as two to one, one part of that two seems to be all the oil and natural gas that went into growing and transporting and processing the corn into ethanol.

You'd still have a gain if you replaced all the oil and natural gas used in the process with ethanol, but then you are approaching something comparable to the gains made in traditional, non-mechanized agriculture. It's a lot less trouble to use self-reproducing labor such as oxen or horses or people than ethanol-fueled tractors and other higher technology devices. The Amish guys down the road become more productive than the high-tech guys with their fancy ethanol fueled machines.

[hankthecrank]

15. You are not going to scale up what the Amish do to support current ag use

The old style farm on 360 acres are gone. The barns that housed the horses are gone. Now you have 1,000 to 2,000 acre farms on good land. Horse eat grain also. Can't shut them off when the work is done. You would have to a lot of ground devoted to feeding the horses. But horses can make more horses. Tractors can't do that.

You are not going to scale up what horses do either. So you would need 4 or 5 times the man labor to do the same thing as tractors. This would be for small tractors.

Last time I looked no PTO shaft out horses back end either. So no silage chopper. No bailer, no combine, no grain mill. Better hire alot more people if you going to put loose hay.

Farming with horses not going to happen on a large scale.

[GliderGuider]

16. Farming on a large scale with horses is going to happen, eventually.

What's not going to happen is food production on a large scale with horses.

What we will see over the next 30 years as the oil goes away is an agrarian revolution in the developed world. The era of 1000 hectare farms will come to a close as mechanization declines. The farms will break up into traditional quarter-section plots able to be farmed by one family and some hired help. A quarter to a third of all arable land will be set aside for fodder. At a guess, yields on the remaining 70% of arable land devoted to human food production will drop by 50%. This will be due to a combination of the inherent inefficiencies of non-motorized agriculture, the degraded fertility of the underlying soil, and the scarcity and cost of nitrogenous fertilizers. Under this scenario net food production would decline to 35% of its current level. Given that all the oil will not go away at once, and we know a bit more now than we did in the 1800's, food production might only decline to half ithe present level.

The problem is worse than that, though. Depending on how fast the oil decline happens, we may run into a knowledge/skills gap. Horse and ox-powered agriculture could take 50% or more of the population, where current mechanized agriculture requires just 2%, It could take us an entire generation to rebuild the agricultural and animal husbandry skills we had in the 19th century to accommodate that re-ruralization. During that time, agriculture will be in a bit of turmoil.

The only way to deal with this supply/demand imbalance will be through "demand destruction"...

[JohnWxy]

19. Fun to think in armageddon terms isn't it? Makes a dull life so much more exciting.

I confess to not being too intrigued by religious pronouncements. Prefer to concentrate on more limited concerns and merely practical projects.

[GliderGuider]

25. Do you have a better link for that claimed 19% energy loss in gasoline?

I'd be very interested to see it. The one you supplied above left me a little cold.

[hunter]

26. I had a professor who used to limit his concerns that way...

He was an engineer, an expert on radiation hardened electronics, mostly experience he got working on space systems. He had a good, high paying job, and they set him to work on the electronics for a piece of ground based military equipment I'm not going to name here.

One day he got too curious and wondered how the level of neutron radiation he was designing for would affect people. It turned out that anyone using the equipment at that level would be among the walking dead, with no hope of survival. These ghost soldiers began to populate his nightmares, which, to make a long story short, is how he ended up teaching.

Those are some "Armageddon terms," no?

I used to have some positive feelings for ethanol, enough that my wife and I bought an E85 capable vehicle, which we still own, and I thought of that as a good, useful feature.

But I would go out of my way now not to buy ethanol adulterated fuel if I could, because I think overall it's a bad thing -- and to some extent this is because there are ghost people starving in my nightmares.

In our inequitable world society I'm certain that if ethanol became a significant fuel source then people would be starving just so affluent people could keep playing with their big toy cars while pretending nothing will change, even as oil production declines.

[hankthecrank]

27. But it okay for them to buy Mac Mansions

So what's to keep them from getting land and stealing the food that way.

Another week and another farm becomes a mac mansion

Haul off the black dirt and subdivide.

Can't put it back to land if you wanted too!

affluent people will do just fine its just the rest of us that life going to suck for

While we are at lets bring back mtbe good stuff, and when it gets into the ground water
taste just fine yeah!

[hunter]

28. The farmers around here are fighting hard for their right to sell to developers.

Apparantly if we make it too difficult to subdivide land into mini-ranches and cookie cutter MacMansions, then we're hurting the farmers.

But I disagree that affluent people will do fine. Most people who now consider themselves affluent will be deeply shocked when the lines between the wealthy and powerful, and the poor and powerless are defined.

[hankthecrank]

29. Farmers are people too, They come in all sizes and types

What they would do and most people who farm that I know would not sell. They want to pass it on to their kids.

Some of the best farm land can go 3000 an acre

You can subdivide it build a home on and get 250,000 for one house maybe you sell two of them or 4 them.

Why farm then you can make more money by selling. Or like out in your area they can sell the water rights back to the city.

Or they can put their money into seed and fuel and make a crop. Maybe the weather helps maybe it doesn't. My father in law had all his money in beans only to watch the hail wipe him out. Do I need to add that its hard work also. Which would you do!

But homes are not going to grow crops. Most times they haul the black dirt off and now you can't even grow a garden. We want to keep taking about not enough food. Places to grow food are being turned into parking lots.

Or lets talk about farm policy. Dairy farmers are paid a extra price for milk from the distance from Wisconsin. Think that has any thing to do with milk from Cal.
So the very people this was supposed to help now in MN and Wi are making less than new dairy farms put into Utah. When bad times come you are going to want all those little dairy farms in the hills and poor ground that could keep cattle. Sorry gone.

Or that chemical put into cows to make them produce extra milk but causes mas-titus. Its okay the company that sells it gives the mas-titus med away free.
Want to buy milk without that chemical given to the cows, can't do it and can't put on your milk carton that its not used here MN.

[hankthecrank]

22. No not going to happen with horses.

Yes we know more now then we did back then. Don't need to use nitrogen fertilizer you can use crop rotation. With horses you are not going to able to low or no till farming. Low till farming is better for the soil as it keeps more of the crop residue to feed next year crops. We will also need to use open pollinated corn.

More animals is better for the natural fertilizer. But you not going to put up loose hay. Ever done that I have. You have not put enough man power into what this is going to take. Horse have no pto shaft which drives most of the machine that are in use today. Horse are not going to able to power combines. The scale of the old farms had a lot less sell-able grain for use off of the farm.

We will use what we have to produce the bio diesel and ethanol. We keep this working. Work that has to be done is not going to be done with horses. Farms are not going to break up or are you going to force them to.

[GliderGuider]

24. The breakup of large farms will probably happen in different ways in different places

Sometimes by government edict, sometimes through market forces. The likeliest mechanism is through banks breaking them up into more saleable tracts following reposession.

I foresee a lot of farm machinery being kept alive for a couple more decades on locally produced biodiesel and ethanol. I think the problems of soil fertility and the breakdown of the transportation network are going to lay the biggest hurts on the western food production system, though.

[hunter]

17. That's an unfortunate truth.

Sucks, doesn't it?

Society as we know it requires energy sources with a big punch.

Otherwise a lot of us simply starve.

[hankthecrank]

23. No doesn't suck for us on the farm

We have what we need, If we are lucky and do it right a lot less other people will starve.

Mean while we keep taking good farm land and put homes on it. How much crops are those now useless ground going to feed.

[razzleberry]

30. the accomplishment is turning coal into ethanol

and in the process, cutting the Middle East
out of the deal.

the enegry used to shovel up coal
or pump natural gas,
is negligible compared
to the resulting ethanol

[hunter]

31. Why would you make ethanol out of coal?

It's a crappy fuel you can't send through existing pipelines.

Bad enough to use coal for anything, but turning it into ethanol... why would you want to do that?

[razzleberry]

32. a huge net energy gain, plus...

a carbon footprint caomparable, if not better,
than petroleum, and,
$$$

[hunter]

33. Not that the carbon footprint of petroleum is small or anything...

... yikes.

Even the darling natural gas, which the public somehow seems to think is more acceptable than nuclear power (for reasons that escape me), has a huge carbon footprint.

Why not make a better fuel than ethanol out of biomass, without using any coal?

For example, the destructive distillation of wood, which could be done using electricity if you didn't want to dump carbon dioxide to heat the wood.


Woody Materials + Heat --> Charcoal, Carbon Monoxide, Hydrogen, wood tars, etc. --> Charcoal, gasoline, DME, industrial chemicals, etc.


There you go, no coal used, fuels better than ethanol, with charcoal left over to refine the silicon for your solar cells.

But there's that sticky problem again... growing stuff for fuel. Just how much land do we devote to fuel, and is this agriculture sustainable?

[razzleberry]

34. corn would be the biomass

consider, ethanol as a system.

coal, natural gas, hydro, solar, or something,
are needed as inputs.

coal --> just shovel it up, huge energy gain.
results in,
ethanol --> net energy gain.

I have not seen a study of the carbon
footprint of ethanol as a system,
but I would guess it would be comparable to petroleum.

note that with ethanol, there could be improvements,
such as solar.

with petroleum, you get what you get.

[NNadir]

18. It's called the second law of thermodynamics.

People think that Congress can repeal this law.

People believe ethanol is a viable strategy for energy on a significant scale.

People are idiots.

[Dogmudgeon]

6. Are you still arguing for EROEI > 1.0?

The main problem now with ethanol isn't the EROEI (which isn't fantastic, but which is usually over 1.0).

The problem with ethanol is how it's being implemented and exploited. It seems that it's being developed as non-sustainably as possible, for the purpose of quick profits, and without concern for anything other than fast cash. Gone are the plans for using switchgrass and other cellulosic plant sources, recycling nitrogen as fertilizer, and so on. It's turned into "Cash for Corn" and bugger all else.

We shouldn't consider this a problem with ethanol but with energy policy and corporate power.

--p!

[JohnWxy]

9. gone are plans for cellulosic ethanol???? Hardly. IOGEN is moving ahead in Canada

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id37.html

The main selling point for ethanol is it is a substitute for gasoline that is available RIGHT NOW. We cannot do nothing until cellulosic ethanol is developed and is commercially viable. We cannot wait until the fuel cell becomes practical (2 to 3 decades) to do something. Starch based ethanol can help the situation right now. Is it going to be the final answer? NO. but we can't wait until these hoped for (remember, these other technologies are not established practical facts yet) are realized.

Much can be done to improve the starch based ethanol technology such as closed loop production (which virtually eliminates fossil fuel input to ethanol production process). Also, corn stover is being studied as a substitute for fossil fuel for thermal energy input for production of ethanol.

Regarding farming techniques a study done in Iowa has shown that farmers can reduced nitrogen usage almost 50% with virtually no loss of productivity. Iowa farmers have reduced their nitrogen usage about 16% with no loss of crop yields.

NO till farming techniques would turn the great plains into a net carbon sink.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[razzleberry]

7. $3.60 / bu for corn, is unreasonable?

who here thinks,

$3.60 per bushel of corn, or
9.3 cents per pound of sugar,

is unreasonable?
.
.
.

sorry, no catastrophe here

[JohnWxy]

20. USDA forecasting average price for corn for 2006-07 will be $3.10. meanwhile gas is up 48% while

crude is up about 2.5%.