Tootsall

I'm putting this up not as an argument one way or the other but to point out another bit of information for those interested.

"Efficient methods could bail out biofuels: study"

One of the knocks against ethanol ("corn gas", "biofuel", etc.) is that a large volume of energy input units are required to get energy output units. For those who are interested in this option (and the taking away of land-base from food production and redirecting that resource to transportation and fuel production), take a look at this info: Efficient methods could bail out biofuels: study - Yahoo! News .

In the meantime the highway between my house and place of work continues to be loaded with semi-truck loads of wind turbine towers which are sprouting up like mushrooms after you've over-watered the lawn!

stchasking

The amount of energy input continues to decline for corn based ethanol. The latest development is in enzymes that reduce the cooking temperature for reducing corn starch to corn sugar. Molecular sieves help in the distallation process.

The increase in corn prices should only be temporary. The corn residue that was used for ethanol provides a high protein animal feed. It is more efficient as a feed because the carbohydrate has been removed. The material is dried and called distillers dry solids. It contains corn protien and yeast. Yeast is candy to a cow, hog or chicken. It can be shipped anywhere in trucks or rail road cars. The Australians call it vegimite and eat it. (Vegimite contains hops). When local live stock producers use this material in its wet form it becomes an alternative to buying cracked corn for feed and eliminates the energy required to dry the solids. This grain cycle takes some planning and commitment but it works. The mature ethanol plants in Iowa use this economic model efficiently. Even the carbon dioxide is captured and sold to bottling companies.

Ethanol plants are a stepping stone to butanol plants. Progress to that stage will take some time.

I am a member of the American Coalition for Ethanol. We have an excellent monthly magazine.

Manny Laureano

And this is what it's all about, in my opinion, efficiency not just alternatives. It's why I'm optimistic about the future. I have faith in the objective scientific community's ability to excel and come up with solutions for what "ails" us presently. All it takes is PATIENCE and a decision to not become hysterical about whatever challenges face us today.

ML

mattdalton

I couldn't agree more, Manny. We should all work to help ensure our society and governments support this kind of scientific work.

King,
I find myself thinking about my next car occasionally (my Honda Accord is doing fine but is getting up there in miles, 176K now) and am trying to learn about bio fuels here and there, as I would like to do my part to reduce carbon emissions. Biodiesel is appealing for many reasons, but the limited selection of diesel cars here in the U.S. is a factor. With all of the advances in FlexFuel engines, it seems like Ethanol could have a real future. I'd be interested in hearing your views on ethanol vs. biodiesel and which may be most practical and beneficial in the coming years. Thanks.

Tootsall

I'll toss a coin in here: I spent almost a month in Germany last summer where they use both ethanol and biodiesel. There's really not a lot of difference since one is essentiall "bio diesel" and one is "bio gasoline". The diesel appears to be more efficient due to the design of diesel engines (which are MUCH more prevalent in Europe than here). There are tiny little 3 cylinder, turbo-charged diesels used in tiny little cars. Friends of ours just purchased a Suzuki "Vitara" SUV. It's the same size as what is sold here in North America (not the 'Grand Vitara') but has a diesel engine (not availble here). It knocks down the equivalent of 40 US mpg; useful when they're paying the equivalent of $7-$8 per gallon and about double what their old Volvo stationwagon was getting (I know... I had to fill the gas tank on that thing about three times... at $120 per tankful!)

There is, however a side-effect of diesel (of any kind) which they are running up against in Europe and that is the particulate pollutants (especially the carbon). They are invisible until you get into large volumes of them and then they become a hazard. In Switzerland especially we observed that there is a HEAVY smog now laying along all of the narrow valleys which have main highways running through. These highways provide for a lot of the heavy truck traffic from Northern Europe down into the south (the Baltics, Greece, Italy etc). Some of the mountain ranges have been perforated with either highway tunnels or rail highways wherein you put your car, bus, or truck on a railway car and they shuttle back and forth through the tunnel. (You can elect to drive over the passes as we did but you wouldn't do that with a truck... you wouldn't make it!) As an indication of traffic density, some of the lineups to get onto these rail shuttles were over 2 miles long!

Is there a big difference between the two fuels? Not really; one is simply diesel and one a "gasoline". They are fuels that are burned in two different types of engine just as "fossil" diesel and "fossil" gasoline.

And let us not forget that only about 10% of the fuel we burn is used for transportation; the rest goes into factories, power plants and commerce.

Tootsall

A bit more on this: politics weigh heavily into whether or not ethanol (and bio-diesel) will become significantly more prevalent in the future. At work I receive a news bulletin related to the sweetener industry (I work in the sugar industry) on a monthly basis; here's a clip from the one I got just 15 minutes ago:

"At an Ag Forum, House Ag Committee Chairman Colin Peterson said, “I tell my people at home instead of growing sugar beets you might be growing switch grass.” At the same meeting, the head of the renewable fuels association said that five years from now the ethanol industry will be unrecognizable from what it is today because of cellulosic ethanol. The Department of Energy is appropriating $385 million to promote the production of cellulosic ethanol. USDA estimates that ethanol will consume 30 percent of the corn crop over the next decade, up from 20 percent currently. Meanwhile, the cattlemen’s association, which is concerned about high feed prices, has called for an end to ethanol subsidies and the 54-cent per gallon import duty. "


So you can see that there is much more to the issue than meets the eye of the average consumer!

stchasking

King,
I'd be interested in hearing your views on ethanol vs. biodiesel and which may be most practical and beneficial in the coming years. Thanks.[/quote]

Right now biodiesel holds an advantage over ethanol. E85 is most efficient at a compression ratio of 12:1. Our cars run at about 9:1.
Ethanol takes energy to make energy. We need to continue working on efficient processing.

When enough E85 pumps are out there, Detroit may design a dedicated E85 engine. Then your gas mileage will go up with the compression ratio and higher octane rating of ethanol. Keep an eye on the Indy racing league. They are converting to ethanol.

Biodiesel will have an advantage since it is a byproduct of soy protein processing. We use soy oil in many food products but there are plenty of oil seed plants to supply biodiesel.

I lean toward biodiesel.

Jim

mattdalton

Thank you for your comments and insights, Ed and Jim. Because of them I know more than I did before.

I was reading this morning about Honda's new clean diesel engine and their plans to introduce it in the U.S. in 2009 (my guess is that means the 2010 model year). Honda's new method of getting NOx converted to nitrogen without requiring urea sounds very promising. If they do get it to the U.S. market it will be a real boost for diesel here. I just hope that the engines will run well on pure biodiesel or bio/petrol-diesel blends instead of only petroleum diesel. I plan to attend a biodiesel forum here in Seattle in May, and might find out more about it then.

While I'd like to make a choice that's well supported in terms of fuel and engine availability, I'm not looking for either biodiesel or ethanol to "beat out" the other. It's exciting to see the advances for both and the promise it brings to reducing emmisions and helping to save the environment.

stchasking

Just to add a note here. I found an article on students who took the 300 HP engine out of a Corvette and replaced it with a 4 cylinder engine that was optimized for E85. The E85 engine develops 350 HP.

I am guessing the 4 cylinder engine had three main bearings to support the higher compression ratio. One bearing between each piston.

The technology for E85 is moving slowly forward.

Look up "Blender Pumps" and you'll see the next step in making other percentages of ethanol available.

stchasking

I hope this link takes you to an article on Butanol.
It is not the exact link but it takes you to a page that has several articles one of which is butanol.

American Coalition for Ethanol : Ethanol Today Magazine

Matt, I just noticed you are in Newcastle, Wa. I used to live in Renton by the Fairwood golf course. I visited the coal mines during an open house. Very interesting town.