[Article] Better Fuel Economy with Ethanol?

[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by shovel

fair enough, what about cellulose based ethano that doesn't use any food sourcel? or that made from municipal waste which reduces landfill inflow and is net energy positive?

and of course matters of environmental harm aside, it seems the general consensus that petroleum is a finite substance, we've gotta bridge off it eventually right?

Here's a pretty interesting article from the money side of cellulose based.

We are never going to run out of oil. At least not in a physical sense. There will still be oil in the ground 10 years from now, and 50 years from now and 500 years from now. Suppose that the supply really is quite limited. What will happen as the supply starts to diminish? First we would see some wells run dry and either be replaced with new wells at a higher costs or not be replaced at all. Either of these would cause the price of gasoline to rise. When the price of gasoline rises, people will buy less of it (like when gas was $4.00/g). The amount of reduction is determined by the amount of the price increase and the consumer's excess funds for gasoline. It may mean that consumers will trade in their SUVs for smaller cars, hybrid vehicles, or cars that run on alternative fuels. This does not necessarily mean that people will drive less. Every body will react to the price change differently from people bicycling to work to used car lots full of Lincoln Navigators.

As the prices increase there will be a reductions in the total amount of gasoline consumed. Eventually the price will reach a point where gasoline will become a niche good purchased by very few consumers, while other consumers will have found alternatives to gas. When this happens there will still be plenty of oil in the ground, but consumers will have found alternatives that make more economic sense to them, so there will be little, if any, demand for gasoline.

Happy and prosperous New Year to all.

[shovel]

hm.. didn't know everyone was so opposed to making progress.

well i guess the most environmentally sound prospect is to take the millions of cars on the road and throw them out along with all the liquid fuel delivery infrastructure, re-educate the entire population on how to charge electric cars, and build millions of those.

then when we go on road trips we can stop every 80 miles for six hours while the electric cars charge.

[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by shovel

hm.. didn't know everyone was so opposed to making progress.

well i guess the most environmentally sound prospect is to take the millions of cars on the road and throw them out along with all the liquid fuel delivery infrastructure, re-educate the entire population on how to charge electric cars, and build millions of those.

then when we go on road trips we can stop every 80 miles for six hours while the electric cars charge.

I agree we do need to re-educate the entire population. No one is opposed to making progress but there is no free lunch. Energy is not free you have to get it from somewhere. The biggest issue is that it's not going to be one thing like corn based ethanol that does the trick. It will have to be all things rolled together to work just like hypermiling. There is no silver bullet. We'll need solar, wind, electric, hybrids, bikes, trains, biofuels etc. We need to find the sources that work that will deliver the biggest bank for the buck and not just fill lobbyist pockets.

It's probably not happening fast enough for most but I think technology has made incredible progress in the last 10 years. It just takes a while to turn a big ship. YMMV (your mileage may very)

[jonathan150cc]

Just to add my personal experience, I get a 2 mpg increase with non-ethanol fuel.
That number is consistent everytime I fill up with non-ethanol. I average 22 MPG with regular ~10% blend and 24 without it. That's over 13.4 gallons more or less.

[solarguy]

"hm.. didn't know everyone was so opposed to making progress. "

Yeah, I'm pretty sure nobody here said anything like that.

Ethanol from sugar cane has a far better EROEI than ethanol from corn. Ethanol from cellulose and other "waste" feedstocks may or may not have a more attractive energy balance depending on what the total process looks like. I hope they keep doing work with more efficient ways to turn cellulose into alcohol.

What I am suggesting is that ethanol from corn is about the least effective way to achieve goals of reduced dependence of petroleum that I can imagine. You have yet to show me any data that suggests that my comments about the EROEI for corn based ethanol are incorrect.

I would prefer that you stop insulting me by implying that I am against progress, or that I want to preserve the status quo on how we use energy. I already make my own biodiesel from waste cooking oil, which has an EROEI of 6:1 or better. That is TWENTY times better than corn based ethanol. I already use the waste product from the biodiesel process to heat my house. I have already purchased a VW diesel to minimize my petro fuel consumption. I have nearly completed a super insulated shop that is 30' x 70', r-50 in the walls, r-70 in the ceilings, r-20 high density foam under the slab. This building uses about 15% of the energy of a conventional pole barn. I spent 10's of thousands of dollars to conserve energy resources. My house is getting remodeled to attain the same level of energy efficiency, also at a cost of many thousands of dollars.

So,

1. What does your energy resume look like?
2. Why do you keep making these broad, sweeping generalizations about me that are just not supported in real life?

Finest regards,

troy

[shovel]

From my vantage point, I see people who appear generally open to the idea of using ethanol and people who appear flatly opposed to ethanol and speak negatively about it at every turn.

As of today, I know of no other substance that meets the criteria of:

• Will function in any of the millions of existing and serviceable gasoline-powered vehicles and equipment already in place, with only a modest and quite affortable set of adjustments
• Can be delivered by the existing liquid fuel delivery network of tanker trucks, pipelines, storage facilities, and retail pumps
• Is familiar to the habits and logistics of the millions of people currently driving, they do not need to re-learn how to fuel (let's face it, there are people who hold cell phones like an ice cream cone) - and we don't need to re-assess our ability to drive between cities with quick 5 minute liquid refueling available at convenient intervals
• Is economically reasonable to consider production (not some exotic lab-grown magic sauce costing hundreds per ounce)
• Does not increase pollution vs. gasoline (yeah, I know somebody's going to dispute this fact, but it's going to take some good references before i stop thinking that's stupid)

It is my strong belief that since ethanol appears the only viable bridge away from gasoline while we get other technologies up to speed, we can either criticize it endlessly and make NO PROGRESS WHATSOEVER, or we can embrace it for what it is, help make it happen, and then optimize it once it has a chance to actually work.

Being very real here: until electric cars can be used realistically on a weekend camping trip, a road trip to the coast, or any of the other countless things that electric cars just plain aren't good for yet - and are as cheap as or cheaper than gasoline cars - they just ain't happening. I know I won't buy any of today's electric cars at any price because they would handicap me. I'm not the only person who feels this way. I'm not opposed to electric cars, they just don't address any of the criteria above and they would put a serious cramp in the lifestyle I choose to live and since I and everyone else vote with our dollars, a technology has to not hinder us or it will simply starve to death because nobody's buying it.

Because I do like progress, and because I don't like wasting things, I see ethanol as a viable way to make progress without wasting all the working machines, pipes, and stations already in service. Anyone opposed to this is going to have to come up with a pretty good argument for me to respect their point of view, even if I respect the person in ever other regard.

[shovel]

Originally Posted by solarguy

So,

1. What does your energy resume look like?
2. Why do you keep making these broad, sweeping generalizations about me that are just not supported in real life?

Finest regards,

troy

My energy resume?

didn't know we were measuring that particular body part but if we are to go there, I don't have children or pets by choice, I live walking distance from my employer, I keep my cars in service rather than dispose of them and they both are modified to run on cleaner fuels. I'm pretty sure that makes my big green thing as long as anyone else's, short of perhaps homeless folks who shoot blanks and don't burn rubbish to keep warm.

Back to the topic at hand, I have yet to see worthwhile data against the viability of ethanol that didn't have counter-data. For the reasons in my post above, I think it's the only choice we really have if we're trying to wean ourselves off petroleum within the next 50 years, so if that is our objective we better push with the stick we've got or we may as well just sit around doing nothing. We sure as heck won't get anywhere if we sit around coming up with reasons not to take any action.

Cheers

[solarguy]

Well Shovel, glad to hear you are actually doing something.

You imply that now, I'm bragging, and what does that have to do with anything? I'm glad you asked. I posted a modest sampling of what I have done to counter your contention that the rest of us here just don't seem interested in making any progress on the old energy front, and why don't we get with the program like you? That contention is just flat wrong. So, could you stop saying we're all opposed to progress???

So, what do you think the best possible EROEI is, for corn based ethanol? If you say 1.3, then biodiesel will produce six times as much energy per unit of energy invested, than ethanol. If you say 1.2:1, then biodiesel will produce 8.5 times as much energy per unit, than ethanol. If you say 1.1:1, then biodiesel will produce 17 times as much energy. If, in fact it's 1:1, then we're not making any progress at all. That could be true in many situations today where the farmers, the ethanol plants, and the distribution system, and the cars that burn it, are not all optimized for energy use. Studies that tout "best practices" are nice, except, we're not using these magic best practices right now.

"The other negative aspect of this inefficient fuel is that numerous studies have found that ethanol creates less energy than is required to make it. Other studies have found that ethanol creates "slightly" more energy than is used in its production. Yet not one of these studies takes into account that when E85 is used, the vehicle's fuel efficiency drops by at least 25% -- and possibly by as much as 40%. Using any of the accredited studies as a baseline in an energy-efficiency equation, ethanol when used as a fuel is a net energy waste. " That's from business week.

Scientific American says, if you count the energy value of the leftovers that is used as animal feed, the eroei could be as high as 1.2:1.

Between gas and diesel, we need roughly 200 billion gallons per year in the US alone.

We currently burn 400,000,000 gallons of gasoline PER DAY.

Current ethanol production is, 6-7 billion gallons per year from all feedstocks, corn + everything else, and we are importing some of that. So let's say 7 just to be generous, that's 7/200 = 0.035, or 3.5% of our current fuel needs, for transportation alone. Well, I guess 3.5% is not a trivial percentage, until you realize that 7 billion gallons of ethanol production required that we burn 5.83 billion gallons of petroleum, assuming an eroei of 1.2:1. So, in reality, we only displaced (7-5.83 =) 1.17 billion gallons, which makes 1.17/200 = 0.00585, or 0.6% of our current fuel use. So, if we grew 55 times the amount of corn, we could supply one third of our fuel use for transportation. Oh yeah, that's assuming the fuel economy is on par, which it isn't. So, adjust all the numbers to make ethanol look 10-35% worse.

Not gonna happen. We don't have that much land. Period. Not even close. Ethanol from corn will never make a noticeable dent in our petroleum use. Cellulose is still an open question. There are no viable profitable plants in the US making ethanol from any cellulose feedstock today.

Now, just for something completely different, how many members here have reduced their fuel consumption by a third, just by changing their driving habits?

Now that...that could happen. That could happen in a few years.

What if everybody just traded down one size on their car?

What if we replaced fifteen percent of the fleet with diesels? Just converting that many cars to diesel would make a substantial improvement. They can run on a fuel made from soybeans, which are nitrogen fixers, i.e., they don't need fertilizer.

The solution will be like death by a thousand paper cuts. No single solution. Not even ten separate solutions. Save a little here, save a little there. Move a little closer to where you work. Take a job that's a little closer to your house. Switch to working 4 ten hour days, and driving that much less.

Ethanol from corn is not THE way, it barely helps at all, if any.

Finest regards,

troy

[shovel]

You make decent points, I just cannot put any faith that joe public will voluntarily change their driving habits for any reason other than plain old money, and I don't see converting existing vehicles to operate on biodiesel as economically possible.

So if, from my point of view, the majority of the public just simply won't change their habits and won't spend the four digits necessary to put a whole new engine into their car so it can run diesel... that leaves making available a direct gasoline replacement the only realistic option that doesn't involve scrapping all the equipment presently in service. Current fuel conversion kits such as those from Full Flex are under $500 and that's at niche pricing, a grander scale system akin to the digital TV conversion box program could bring them way way closer to affordable for everyone. Am I wrong here? Is there some property of human nature of which I am not aware that will cause a meaningful % of the general public to voluntarily start hypermiling - other than making gasoline cost $17/gallon? I see a lot more poorly maintained cars running around with half-deflated tires, and flawlessly shiny (as in never actually used in accordance with their mechanical capabilities) monster v8 4x4's than I see ecomodded cars...

The debate of whether or not ethanol can be produced in a manner that is profitable and affordable and net energy positive seems to be very polarized and I am on the "yes" pole, as are all of the companies and individuals putting good money into ethanol production and vehicle compatibility. I don't suppose THAT will be resolved any time soon - particularly if we (people in general) continue to fight about it instead of giving it a shot.

As for the idea of everyone getting a smaller car... again I don't see this voluntarily happening but worse still, what do we do with all the working cars that people abandon? What is the environmental impact of making a whole new car when the old one still works or is within a few cheap parts of working? Solutions that involve wasting existing, functional, and already in their theatre of operation equipment don't strike me as smart at all. Throwing away a working car, building a new one, and shipping it to wherever you're going to be using it is probably worse for the environment than all the fuel the older car was ever going to use in its lifetime.

[Frank Lee]

Big cars won't be abandoned- change won't happen that fast. We had our $4 gas "wake-up call" and as of today the roads are still clogged with tards in single occupant SUVs and mud trucks. I think the fleet will see a painfully slow gradual conversion to higher fe ONLY WHEN fuel prices go high enough to cause some pain, as in gee, I've maxed out my borrowing power and now I have no other option but to choose between food and shelter, or tearing around in my stupidmobile.

I like ethanol if only for the fact that it is one alternative that got out of the lab and into the real world. And we need to take action on exploring alternatives to petrol on a large commercial scale. There are ALWAYS unforeseen twists, turns, and consequences in the real world that ruin our nice little theories. If nothing else ethanol gives a start on a knowledge base for what issues may be waiting for alternative fuels.

I tend to believe that the energy conversion for ethanol isn't as horrible vs. petrol as many say. I think the difference is petrol has been around so long we are accustomed to subsidies and inefficiencies of it- they're considered normal and quite invisible to the consumer.