The US need a strong China

[juiceddreadlocks]

There are more people in the know that post stuff on peakoil.com. Even if you dont agree with the message of the site, there's a lot of good science posted there.

 

[redguru]

Juiced, you seriously aren't quoting peakoil as a scientific reference? There's some serious moonbattery going on and fudging statistical analysis of studies done in the 50's over there. The guy that designed that site is batshit crazy.

 

[juiceddreadlocks]

Juiced, you seriously aren't quoting peakoil as a scientific reference? There's some serious moonbattery going on and fudging statistical analysis of studies done in the 50's over there. The guy that designed that site is batshit crazy.

Yeah, there's a study from the 70s where lower yields of corn are used for reference. That's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about more recent studies.

I put a disclaimer about believing that site. The science I was talking about is mostly (if not all) 3rd party studies

None of that can change that there is a more positive EROEI for making biodiesel than for making ethanol. Ethanol has a lower BTU than unleaded, as bio does compared to dino diesel, but bio has much less C emissions than regular diesel.

 

[juiceddreadlocks]

How much more expensive will ethanol be than it is now when we have to stop subsudizing corn production?

 

[redguru]

Yeah, there's a study from the 70s where lower yields of corn are used for reference. That's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about more recent studies.

I put a disclaimer about believing that site. The science I was talking about is mostly (if not all) 3rd party studies

None of that can change that there is a more positive EROEI for making biodiesel than for making ethanol. Ethanol has a lower BTU than unleaded, as bio does compared to dino diesel, but bio has much less C emissions than regular diesel.

I wasn't talking about ethanol, I was talking about thier reliance on 1950's empirical data in later studies to project oil reserves. Even though the studies themselves are more recent the data was gleaned in the 50's and is very unreliable by today's standards.

Brazil manufactures most of its ethanol from sugar cane, which is vastly more efficient than corn. We can do the same thing in our more humid states, like Florida, Alabama and Louisiana. It may also be a viable alternative to the tobacco crops of the South East.

 

[juiceddreadlocks]

I wasn't talking about ethanol, I was talking about thier reliance on 1950's empirical data in later studies to project oil reserves. Even though the studies themselves are more recent the data was gleaned in the 50's and is very unreliable by today's standards.

Brazil manufactures most of its ethanol from sugar cane, which is vastly more efficient than corn. We can do the same thing in our more humid states, like Florida, Alabama and Louisiana. It may also be a viable alternative to the tobacco crops of the South East.

Hey that Hubbert guy had some scary ideas.

Doesnt Brazil use manual human labor to pick its sugarcane crop? I was aware of the Brazil situation somewhat, but thought I read on a link posted here that there is some sort of lobby that keeps our sugar prices high????

I'm all for biofuels, in limited quantities and not as a scalable fuel.

 

[mrplunkey]

I just saw something today on my trip to Garnett Kansas that showed ethanol's ratio of energy produced to energy consumed to be 1.7:7 -- and that included fertilization. A modern, 100-million gallon dry mill ethanol plant is a pretty amazing engineering feat.

I asked him for a copy of it and I hope they send it. As both owners and potential competitors (our newer plants will eventually compete with this one) I don't know if he'll send it or not.

Bottom line is ethanol is a fantastic fuel subsitute because corn and sugar cane can supply our needs short-term and our long-term needs will be met via cellulose. Biodesel will also do well in industrial applications but it will never be a mainstream consumer fuel in the US.

 

[juiceddreadlocks]

I just saw something today on my trip to Garnett Kansas that showed ethanol's ratio of energy produced to energy consumed to be 1.7:7 -- and that included fertilization. A modern, 100-million gallon dry mill ethanol plant is a pretty amazing engineering feat.

I asked him for a copy of it and I hope they send it. As both owners and potential competitors (our newer plants will eventually compete with this one) I don't know if he'll send it or not.

Bottom line is ethanol is a fantastic fuel subsitute because corn and sugar cane can supply our needs short-term and our long-term needs will be met via cellulose. Biodesel will also do well in industrial applications but it will never be a mainstream consumer fuel in the US.

I've yet to read a single article, study, or well thought out opinion that says ethanol is scaleable. I guess the sugar and corn lobbies $$$ in washington are paying off.

 

[mrplunkey]

I've yet to read a single article, study, or well thought out opinion that says ethanol is scaleable. I guess the sugar and corn lobbies $$$ in washington are paying off.

Ethanol is quite scaleable. Corn alone can't replace all of our oil needs, but it can have a major impact. About 1/3 of our 140B gallons of fuel consumed per year is from the middle east. With corn-based ethanol, we can cut that 47B gallon number between 50% and 100%.

We currently produce 4.5B gallons of ethanol per year, and plants are currently under construction to double that number (16ish month construction time, but some of these projects are virtually done). If you look out to the 2009-2010 range, there are enough funded projects right now to more than double that again. So cornbased ethanol alone should take us to 25 billion gallons or so.

Wiping out 50% of our dependency on middle eastern oil would be huge. There isn't any other option we'll see for the next 20 years that could do that.

 

[juiceddreadlocks]

Ethanol is quite scaleable. Corn alone can't replace all of our oil needs, but it can have a major impact. About 1/3 of our 140B gallons of fuel consumed per year is from the middle east. With corn-based ethanol, we can cut that 47B gallon number between 50% and 100%.

We currently produce 4.5B gallons of ethanol per year, and plants are currently under construction to double that number (16ish month construction time, but some of these projects are virtually done). If you look out to the 2009-2010 range, there are enough funded projects right now to more than double that again. So cornbased ethanol alone should take us to 25 billion gallons or so.

Wiping out 50% of our dependency on middle eastern oil would be huge. There isn't any other option we'll see for the next 20 years that could do that.

right. So according to Jevon's Paradox, when we develop this huge ethanol infrastructure and the price of fuel drops we're going to use more, correct? Basically we're spinning our wheels here, not to mention the reduced MPG associated with ethanol fuels.