How hard would it be to convert a car? Is it a costly process? Sounds interesting if the stations are around with ethanol.

 

ethanol is compete government pork barrel crap. From what I've read it takes more than 1 gallon of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol. You get poorer gas mileage from it. Just say no and hope for "true" alternative fuels, instead of government sponsored crap. Vote any politician out of office that backs ethanol as they only represent special interest.

 

ethanol is compete government pork barrel crap. From what I've read it takes more than 1 gallon of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol. You get poorer gas mileage from it. Just say no and hope for "true" alternative fuels, instead of government sponsored crap. Vote any politician out of office that backs ethanol as they only represent special interest.

Come on, really? No way it takes more than a gallons of gas to make a gallon of ethanol. What petroleum lobby think tank made that up? I'm sure it does take some external energy to make it, and it's not as easy as getting free black goo that flows from the ground.

It's not really about ethanol. Any alcohol fuel would work too. You invent one, and there will be cars that can burn it.

Also, touting any ideas as "government sponsered crap" doesn't help the situation. Would we be driving ULEV vehicles if it weren't for clean air bills or the EPA? Would we even have an interstate to drive on if it werent't for "government sponsored crap"?

 

ethanol is compete government pork barrel crap. From what I've read it takes more than 1 gallon of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol. You get poorer gas mileage from it. Just say no and hope for "true" alternative fuels, instead of government sponsored crap. Vote any politician out of office that backs ethanol as they only represent special interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

You could be right about ethanol derived from corn. But have a read of this article. Seems like sugar cane is much better. Also, Brazil has been able to turn into a non-dependant oil country because of this. Of course there are still some envior and social consequences but seems to be much less than oil. Also, the gas prices will be much lower

 

ethanol is compete government pork barrel crap. From what I've read it takes more than 1 gallon of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol. You get poorer gas mileage from it. Just say no and hope for "true" alternative fuels, instead of government sponsored crap. Vote any politician out of office that backs ethanol as they only represent special interest.

Agree, it does take more energy to produce on gallon of ethanol than that one gallon generates. Ethanol is not a viable alternative to petroleum products.

 

Agree, it does take more energy to produce on gallon of ethanol than that one gallon generates. Ethanol is not a viable alternative to petroleum products.

So your saying that as technology improves and ethanol can be made from many more things with increased efficiency that having no cars that car burn it would be a good thing?

If we don't create the demand for something we can't possibly sway companies to make an effort to produce it.

BTW, did any of you naysayers actually listen to that interview? He claims that while ethanol contains less energy than gas it can be produced without subsidy for $1.50 a gallon. This equates to $2.80 for an equivalent of a gallon of gasoline which is over $4.00. Now I'm sure that doesn't include road tax etc, but that has to be around $0.50 a gallon(remember it sold for just over $1.00 before GWB). How can you sell ethanol for $1.50 a gallon if it takes using a $4 gallon of gas to produce it?

It was also mentioned that ethanol isn't the solution, but perhaps a significant component.

 

Since I 've been hanging around here since yesterday, I'll jump in by pointing out that water is a true flex-fuel source of energy. Search on youtube for "smacks booster" and you'll see how he's done a lot of experiment based on Stanley Meyer's idea from the '70s. Meyer was a Groveport native of Ohio who got a patent for water electrolysis. The idea being to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, both are volatile and highly combustible when separated. The by-product of this process is water, so no pollution.

 

Agree, it does take more energy to produce on gallon of ethanol than that one gallon generates. Ethanol is not a viable alternative to petroleum products.

+1 on this, as I've heard this time and time again in the last six months or so. In the mean time, food costs continue to skyrocket because too much corn is going into ethanol production, which means it's more expensive for the farmers to buy corn for animal feed. IMHO, the entire "ethanol solution" is just a big pile of manure!

Ranchers here in Colorado are selling off their breeding stock, as they can't afford to feed the cattle any more (I actually heard this from a rancher). Beef may be affordable now, but it will surely go way up down the road when there are fewer cattle around.

 

Sorry, wasn't not my intent to ruffle feathers. I should have stated CORN based ethanol is the joke. There are other ethanol's based on other plant matter that makes better sense. The corn based one is doing nothing but driving up food prices around the world. The farmers are living a government subsided dream for growing corn for ethanol.

The only way true alternatives will exist is if gas is priced go higher and folks just quit driving/buying.... yeah, a crappy choice. Honda's new hydrogen based Accord is a fine example of alternative, although it require storage locations for hydrogen. Is fun to watch all the alternatives crop up..... From folks filtering and using old fryer oils to vegetable alternatives.

GM had a really cool hydrogen based prototype years ago that was a rolling chassis that could be used from van to trucks to cars. If you needed service, they lifted the chassis off and put you on a loaner chassis. Big oil and government is the main reason why we don't see much more on "true" alternatives. The America's (USA/Canada/South America) could lead a innovative future to forge new technologies based on non oil alternatives if special interest and Government and oil companies were not in the picture. I pray that some day this will happen and we will see something sensible. Increasing production and exploration for new sources of oil isn't the answer as our children will some day attest.


Sigh.... depressing....

 

OK, a few myths seem to need busting.

1. It takes more than a gallon of gas to make a gallon of corn ethanol. It appears this was once true, in about 1973. Today, the figure is much better due to improved ag yields and better alcohol production methods and appears to be a net gain per gallon. But more importantly, such rhetoric ignores the cost of converting OIL to gas. Pumping the stuff out of the ground half a world away, transporting it via supertanker, refining it, transporting it to gas stations all combined probably uses close to one gallon of gas per gallon delivered too! How is it worse to expend energy transporting gas across the world than growing and refining alcohol right here?? Corn clearly isn't the long term answer, but if it STARTS the process of getting ethanol out there in good quantities and results in more cars capable of using it, that is a GOOD thing. Free markets will eventually result in more efficient means of ethanol production than corn (switchgrass is an intriguing example).

2. I can convert later. Not really. It is VERY cheap to modify the design of a car to run on E85. It is just some programming and fuel line materials. It is very EXPENSIVE to retrofit a car to E85. Look at the option cost to get E85 on a Chevy Impala or Suburban. Practically free. Why NOT make all cars compatible? What's the downside (besides the few bucks)? If the whole fleet has the capability, we will have more options if Iran gets all fiesty (or Venezuela, or Nigeria.....)

3. Water is a great energy source.
No it isn't. You can MAKE hydrogen out of water, but it requires more energy input than you can get back out of the hydrogen later. This is basic conservation of energy stuff folks. You cannot create or destroy energy, only change its form. And every time you change its form, you loose some in the form of heat loss. This is different from the ethanol efficiency argument because ethanol is fundamentally solar power. The solar energy input goes into making the plant. We then convert it to ethanol and extract it. Unless you use solar power to make water into hydrogen (currently MUCH pricier than ethanol), you will use more energy than you make.

4. Ethanol drives up the price of food. Perhaps it does. Is that an awful thing? I'm not so sure. I went to school in Wisconsin and the farms kids I knew came from families always on the edge of bankruptcy (except those close to urban areas who could sell land to developers). Perhaps it's about time farming became a viable living again. Maybe it reduces the amount of surplus corn we have to ship as aid to poor nations. Such shipments have arguably bankrupted local farmers in those nations and resulted in a self-perpetuating cycle of famine. Maybe making farming a viable living there would be a good thing too. Worth thinking about, anyways.

 

Great points manualman!

I'm not sure if you listened to that interview, but you've pointed out some of the same points, and added a few too.

After reading #1, I noticed a point about that what you call "rhetoric". When they say that it takes over a gallon of gas to make a gallaon of ethanol, they may mean to net a gallon of ethanol. In other words spend one to get two. They make it sound like spend one (or more) to get one. Twisting the language to suit their agenda....


"ethanol is fundamentally solar power" great point. This is my argument too. In fact, IMHO all power is solar. There would probably be no wind currents if not for the heat of the sun. Dead dinosaurs needed the sun too, to grow the plants they ate. Water power? How did the water travel from one place to another? Evaporation from the sun. It always seem to come back to the sun...

The third world farming thing was brought up too. Great stuff.

 

I read a recent article that stated that ethanol is currently one third more expensive than gas and gives one third less gas mileage. This was confirmed by a webinar I had to watch on alternative fuels put on by my agency. It appears that bio-diesel will be the fuel of the future.