Ethanol takes another hit
 

Ethanol take another hit. The negatives keep adding up. This is actually something I never thought of. Water is already becoming like oil in some parts of the US.

That was news to me. And it's an unfortunate parallel to the water situation in the Canadian tar sands. They consume an enormous amount water to "steam" the bitumen out of the sand.

Ethanol use in this country is a product of farm lobbies. Doesn't make sense economically, carbon footprint wise, and other factors. Efforts should be concentrated on making cars more fuel efficient.

Efforts should be made to keep political topics/viewpoints off this forum.

You're of course welcome to discuss the science, if you wish.

Thanks.

But there's no reason in the world why the water has to be an open system. It can easily be recycled if need be, so the ethanol plant would use water in the same way your car's radiator does. Imagine if you just let the cooling water boil away, instead of recycling the same few quarts of coolant for years.

Exactly.
You wouldn't get away with an open system over here if it carries a lot of pollutants.

Humm... Am I the first to notice that the linked press release is from 2007? That's not news, that's olds :-)

But I think it's symptomatic of a lot of the criticism of fuel ethanol (and biofuels in general). The critic pick out the obvious faults of a new technology being bootstrapped into production, and assume they'd extend to a mature system.

I actually remember seeing something about report on the water usage and subsequent quality but I never read the report. I'll look that one up later.

In this case it's something that has been brought up, dealt with, and then regurgitated all over the internet as being a major problem. Water is a huge concern for biofuel production since biofuels tend to be made from agriculture. There should be more concern about what happens to the water not just how much water flows through the facility. Large amounts of water is used for Oil production too.

Okay, I found an article about the water used per gallon of Ethanol.
MinnPost - University report warns water consumption for corn-ethanol on the rise
The rate for Minnesota Ethanol plants is 3.5:1 water:Ethanol. Which is good for their unirrigated land. The irrigated land raises the water consumption to 9 gallons of water per gallon of Ethanol :eek: for the state.

These plants produce millions of gallons of Ethanol per year so large amounts of water are used.

...makes one wonder how much of that water is actually used in "growing" versus how much water is being lost to evaporation.

...in the desert areas (southwest), LOTs of water is lost to evaporation just getting it from the source to the cities...and open-field irrigation is one of the worst offenders.

Those desert areas are also close to oceans, too bad they don't make them pipe ocean water, pipe it in with black pipes and a big air gap, blow the wet air underground, instant desalination.

That's kind of hard to believe. Irrigated land, I mean. In my admittedly limited experience of Minnesota, getting things dry is the real problem.

The biggest single engine in the production of ethanol is solar energy.

One seed is transformed into 500. Using free solar energy. Farmers drive across the fields 2-4 times a year with their efficient diesel powered equipment. Ethanol producers are springing up in the farming areas so that the transportation costs are minimized.

In the central part of the country there are millions of acres of fairly flat, fertile ground. For the most part there is not irrigation used and rain fall is plentiful. Every year a new crop is grown using the power of the sun and the rain. One of the major biproducts of ethanol production is gluton. Cattle love eating.

Most critics of ethanol live in cities and have never driven all day past fields of corn and other products, they are strictly consumers not producers. It is very humbling to see the vastness of this country and the efficiency of it's production.

In addition the food supply issue that seems to plague the ethanol debate, there is more importantly the issue of renewable fresh water, which depending on whose projections you follow, has just a short a life span as fossil fuels.

Any fuel, like ethanol, that is based on fresh water requirements is not a viable alternative to fossil fuels and should not be looked at as a future source of energy. Factor in the food issue, the destruction of farmable land that corn can cause, and the less known studies that show that ethanol may create more CO2 emissions then gas. (Found one in the US Department of Transportation that was a study on why biodiesel should be used, it pointed this out) and I think the conclusion is ethanol is not, and should not be around much longer.

Err... Ever hear of rain? The fresh water problems exist fin places like the southwest where they build cities that far exceed the available water supply, or the Great Plains, where they mine aquifers to grow irrigated crops (evolved to grow in far wetter climates) instead of things suited to the local environment. But visit places like Voyageurs National Park or the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and you will see that lack of fresh water is hardly a problem. Then there are those Mississippi floods...

Whyever not? The problem is not lack of fresh water, it's trying to grow stuff that needs lots of water in places where there isn't that much. Likewise for the CO2 issues &c. Sure, by doing the growing & processing in a deliberately inefficient manner, you might be able to create some example that uses more energy or creates more CO2 in the production process that is captured, but those aren't the norm.

You do need to remember that in the long term there simply isn't an alternative.

Corn and the Environment- Corn and Climate Change

According to that article, 17 times as much Co2 is removed from the air than is used in the production of corn. How fast that CO2 is released back into the air depends on how the corn and plant material is used. Take the corn, eat it, burning it to heat a house, or convert to ethanol it's released pretty quickly, if the remaining plant material is either fed to cows or left on the ground to rot/fertizise the ground it's released pretty quick too.

Burning Fossil fuels only releases.

I think what the critics are complaining about is the fossil fuels used in growing corn & converting it to ethanol: diesel for tractors, synthetic fertilizers, distilling the ethanol, etc. And it might be true that if you do all those things in the most CO2-inefficient way possible, and maybe fudge the accounting a bit, you can "prove" that the production of corn-based ethanol (or other biofuels) emits more fossil CO2 than is saved by using it as fuel. What you need to remember, though, is that the people who prove this are philosophical kin to the ones that produced the infamous "Green Hummer" study, that purported to show that cradle-to-grave a Hummer produced less emissions than a Prius.

The other half of the equation is that corn-based ethanol was a way of jumpstarting the market. There are lots better crops, and more efficient production techniques, but no one would invest in them unless they were certain of a market for their product. But there were surplus corn crops, and agribusinesses eager for some government subsidies...

Regardless of the type of fuel used, the energy is coming from the same biosphere, from one area or another. If we take it from crops, we are removing potential surface area of the planet from other uses (human or natural). If we take it from wind or tides we are interfering with currents and harming wildlife. Everything is connected so there is always a cascade of little effects on the whole environment. Nothing is free! Perhaps the closest thing to free that we have is fossil fuels. These politics are all about finding an energy source where the effects are not very noticeable, such that most people won't know or care about them. In fact most ignorant people are tricked into believing there are no effects by all the talk about "sustainability" and "renewability", blah blah. It's only the tragedy of the commons again, and the way that humans trick themselves and others into thinking they are doing something better or worse for the planet, for political reasons, because the masses of ignorant people are empowered to make the decisions.

Perhaps in the future the effects will accumulate into something big (=people care about it), or perhaps not. They will always be there to one level or another whether the average person notices or cares about them or not. Does it matter at all? Under what circumstances? It all comes down to perspective anyways.

I think we'll be very lucky to create something "sustainable" when stupid people are in control. But it's a good thing, because sustainability is a goal which is only pursued by such people anyways. The real issue is how long it will take for our political systems to be revolutionized, and what is left at that point, and how we go forward from there. But I don't think that the whole discussion on fuels will be much of an issue then.

Hah? :confused:

Friendly reminder for the noobs (& those who can't resist): EcoModder is not a forum for political comments/discussion. (Nobody reads the &*&^% user agreement!)

Please restrain yourselves, people. Keep the discussion to the technical aspects, and/or bite your tongues.

Thanks!