Alternative Fuels? Can we find any?

You must not have traveled much around the USA. Biomass alone could meet all our power needs. Switchgrass, and various trees can be planted on millions of acres of land that is now used for nothing, but occcasional grazing. That is without touching farmland. That is not counting methane from sewage, and rubbish, solar, wind power, hydro etc. Hydrogen slurry or gas can be used as the medium to contain the energy. All the best, Ron Wagner

i read all the notes and still havent seen a chart on the bushels/ acres to a gal of gas,, we all seem to agree that we need to find another fuel,, but we can do most anything here, build a building that they say cant be done, yes there are lots of acres that we dont use,, and the goverment even pays us not to plant, but,, is there enough land to supply us with the millions of gallons of gas that we use each day?? im asking here?? just what does it take to get a gal,, and as noted at the cost to get it changed into fuel/ is it a place we even want to spend $$ to continue trying to make it work?? cant we use the time and $$ to really find a subsitute,,??? yes ive heard about brazil,, and let us look at the land/ consumption,, are we even in the same class?? i doubt it,, but its that much less for them and more for us,, right,, oil is going to run out, and then what,, do we know when its going to end, i bet its not going to be very long at the rate they pump it out, and its more and more every year,, we better get our butts in gear, and find a different fuel/ energy, soon, and get the oil companys out of a job, right!!!

I have seen a lot of very high level analysis in my searches. D.O.E. on down. Unfortunately, they all come up with different answers. I will try to find those references. They are buried in big PDF studies. I think the way to go is ,as Nike says, "just do it". I forgot to mention that corn stover ( stalks, cobs etc), can be used also. It may have more calories than the kernels themselves. It could be used for ethanol, heat, power etc. Leaving the kernels for whatever other use desired. I burn corn kernels for heat because it is the cheapest fuel there is, that doesn't require much work. I consider heat more vital than meat. Some resent burning corn, but it just goes for feed etc. etc. The cost will select the best use. People will pay for what is the most important use. It is better to burn corn stover, but too much work. Corn kernels are natures handy little pellet, and a lot cheaper and more available than pellets. The ethanol factories could use corn stover, or any biomass for their heating and make electricity as needed with biomass. The farmers could run all their equipment on ethanol or biodiesel. What we need is a paradigm shift, and most people haven't figured it out yet. All the best, Ron Wagner

thanks for the info,, ive heard alot about the corn pellets for heat,, theres lots of people thinking about buying one of the units to burn corn pellets,, i have a chart that shows its very high in the btu/lb, and very clean,, it seems to be a vegie that has lots of use,, i guess in time it will be utilized much more, thanks for the reply

I know most of you will not like this idea, but as a sailor, wind power is pretty good. I am working on a prototype vehicle right now that is a hybrid wind / electric vehicle. Granted we still must produce the electricity to charge my batteries (maybe photocells in the future), but it is a feasible plan. Several models have been built that prove the concept and there are full scale vehicles racing on salt flats every year. Here is a page with some renderings of a colleges' vehicle. Mine is similar, but will be street legal. His is designed for speed (115 mph+). http://www.sevenravens.com/landsailing/warpfactor. html Stephan

Very cool. Would work great if you live on salt flats or a frozen lake! Would be fun but scary.

I would suggest you contact Dr,Udupi srinivas of indian institute of science Bangalore who has developed an engine to run on Bio-fuel and adopted number of villages which are powered by gensets fueled by oil produced from seed of a tree i shall send you the e-mail Id of Dr.Udupi or you can log on to indian institute of science Bangalore web page and look for Dr.UdupiSrinivas .But only problem with this bio-fuel is emision of oxides of nitrogen if you can solve this issue you would be reaking in billions and billions of $ good luck murali

Thank you very much, but I am not a scientist. Just a prompter of biomass. I believe you are speaking of the Jatropa tree fruit or another tropical plant. I will definitely check it out though. All the best, Ron Wagner

Cornell University and the University of California at Berkeley published a joint study last year where they analyzed the economics of biomass as liquid fuel. The conclusion was that biomass makes no sense from a net energy viewpoint. It takes more energy to create fuel from biomass than you get by burning it. The study appeared in Natural Resources Research (Vol. 14:1, 65-76). There's an article about it here

We'll see whether they're proven right or not, but it clearly makes no sense to burn two barrels of oil to save one barrel. (Note that the paper only addresses the conversion of biomass into liquid fuel. Burning it for thermal energy has positive economics).

this is the type of info im talking about,, its a big problem, and getting worse, as prices go up,, and use goes up,, where is it going to stop?? the goverment gets more $$$ as the price goes up,, you think there going to want to stop it,, as the $$$ rolls in there pockets?? why would they,, we the consumers, and techs, and inventors, and all,, need to figure this out, and i havent heard about the billions of $$ weve invested into fuel cells,, what ever happened to that,, yea its in research,, why??? more $$$,, mean while the goverment sits back and collects the big taxes,, see the problem?? whos holding research back??

I like this real life story and would like to contribute further.We have come to a point where the price of fuel is going upupupup and up.And there are international standards for the environment setup by international bodies.Which are governed by heads of states. I would like to send this message to the leaders and scientists to get this alternative source of fuel of the future to be friendly to the environment for eg.Solar energy,Steam powered etc.etc.And if the petrol industry is blocking this from happening,the leaders of this modern world should shut them down.For the future of our Environment and not forgetting a future for our kids.Set and example for them to follow.And at the end of the day can be proud of the achievement.Come on leaders start implementing and not talk,talk and more talk.

An alternate fuel source needs to consider atmospheric pollution. One way to go is to convert cars to rechargeable battery operated cars. The gas stations are then to be called electro stations. The source of power for these electro stations may be pooled from a variety of sources as follows: Geothermal, Hydroelectric, solar, wind, sea current, wave, tidal, and nuclear fusion and fission. The electro stations will need to be located at intervals on a highway based on the capacity of each battery. The fuel batteries will need to be lightweight and of larger energy capacity, and easily recycled. Most fuels considered for replacement of petrol are chemical based, that is manipulation of the electrons in an atom. There is an almost infinite amount of energy stored in the nucleus of the atom just waiting to be tapped. For example, the reaction that causes the heat in the sun is a nuclear fusion of hydrogen changing to helium. Neclear fission is like the breaking up of the uranium atom to form two separate elements therby releasing energy. Nuclear reactors are already in use and we need to find ways to bring that energy to cars through electricity transmission. Samsook

Samsook, if you work through the power equations for city street and highway speed motive power you will discover that the energy demands are simply huge. The equivalent in electrical terms would require gigawatts or even terawatts of energy, something our existing electrical infrastructure simply cannot support without huge additional capital expense.

A couple of years ago, on Slashdot, there was news about a new Toshiba prototype super-battery that could get a 90% or better recharge in less than 10 minutes! (BTW, there are other companies with fast recharge batteries comming into the market now.) News of it of course kicked off speculation, prognostication, etc. and the analysis was enlightening. I did my own private analysis and circulated it inside my circle of energy conversion biz associates and simply told them that it was part of the future - the far future, i.e. years or decades down the road.

If you want to work it out, use a simple low number such as 20hp for power requirements at a steady rate for a small, streamlined car such as a Toyota Camry. Convert that to electrical use at 750 watts/hp and then multiply by all the cars that travel each day for their average travel time (you can get some of this from the DOT and DOE). You'll be stunned at how much electrical generating capacity we'll need to make this vision a reality. (Note: Be sure to use time in the equation so you get actual energy instead of just a power figure. Energy requires gen plants and power requires transmission lines. Although they are closely related, they are not the same thing.

I like the idea but it has a long, long way to go. It will take more technological breakthroughs and gobs and gobs of money to make this work.

I certainly appreciate the fact that it will take a lot to get this power distribution infracture in place. The thing is that a start is reguired and planning is definitely needed with a vision. All of the hydrocarbon vehicles will not be replaced in a short time, so that the energy supply is expected to go with demand and vice versa. It is certainly easier to run electric wires than it is to build roads say. Therefore this dream of having electric cars can be a reality over a long term, with proper planning. After all, Rome was not built in a week, neither was the USA nor Trinidad and Tobago for that matter :) Samsook.

i would like to think that the (leaders) of our countrys would do something about it,, but reality is that if the money is flowing into there pockets from taxes and fees (and wanting to add more taxes), that it seems hard to belive that they would be against anything to stop them from getting rich-ER. the oil companys take the blame day after day, but i am just starting to hear about the goverments part of the blame,, take away ALL the taxes and fees, and see who starts crying first! its the goverment, did you know that were getting taxed on taxes??? i thought they couldnt do that! but they do, so why would you think there on our side??? cant we stop the double taxes?? why?? dont the state put a tax on the price of gas, im betting its after the federal gets there tax, thats tax on taxes!! what would the price of gas be if there were no taxes???

Newsie,

Most of the taxes on motor fuels goes to pay for roads. Of course, we could just skip that part and drive on rutted trails but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't like it.

What about the fuel used to produce the crops? Remember our agricultural methods have also become oil intensive endevours. From machinery to fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and more. Is this factored into the equation? HYDROGEN is another misunderstood issue. Hydrogen is NOT a source of energy, only a vehicle. Guess what one of the richest sources of hydrogen is? Hello GASOLINE! Which is why we use it, of course.

Well, with all this talk of ethanol from corn, etc. What will it do to the cost of a bottle of booze? Supply and demand will drive the cost of liquor out of sight. In our present, fear based economy, that one should be of real concern!

Hmmmmm..... Brazil has almost completely converted new vehicles to run on ethanol. It took a major commitment politically & economically, but they now import almost no petroleum. Even with ethanol's lower energy content, they still have parity on a cost per klick driven. When the public perception demands a change, it will happen.

The "food vs fuel" argument is a red herring for a number of reasons. For example, corn-based ethanol is a byproduct that uses the starch; the protein still goes for animal feed, and there are up to 20 other products from that corn. Another reason is that economics will drive the process. If it is more valuable to produce food on a particular piece of land, the farmer will grow food, not fuel, whether it is corn, oilseeds, or switchgrass or whatever. So there will never be a food crisis caused by fuel crops. Also, one common mistake in logic here is that a particular solution to the energy crisis must solve the *entire* problem, when in reality even partial solutions have value. As for the Cornell/Berkeley energy balance study, I have to wonder why they are the only 2 guys coming to that conclusion when everybody else disagrees. Are they really that much smarter than the rest of us, or is the speaker circuit simply more lucrative for contrarians?

im not sure your thinking this through,, if a farmer grows fields to harvest, and goes to sell it,, he will sell it to the highest price, if all the products go to fuel, heat, energy, and at the bottom is food, the only way to get food back on the list is to raise the price,, and we know what that means,, more money for cereal, and all the other things it goes for,, and you can bet, that if its used for heat, it WILL sell for big bucks,, just look at what it has to compeat against,, thats why all the people i know are looking at buying a unit to utilize corn pellets, cause right now, the farmers are selling it at food price/bushel, cheap, you can have a semi truck load dumped and go all winter on it, for how much?? LOTS LESS THAN GAS&OIL so then what happens,, the corn goes sky high, cause everyone wants it to heat,, mean while the food is sitting back on the list,, its comming,, already here in the north, the manufacture cant make them fast enough,, theres a waiting list for the units that burn corn,,

Corn pellet stoves burn cow corn (animal feed). People eat sweet corn. (You are welcome to try to eat cow corn but I bet it tastes horrible.) Cow corn was indeed cheaper than heating oil in some areas of the country last winter, but there was no sweet corn shortage, and there was no shortage of animal feed. If there were a feed shortage, your corn stove would have cost more to stoke than an oil furnace.

Hi, maybe you should also checkout wikipedia for this, you can get some basic info there. I have read some studies from universities in germany about biofuel and esterification of the vegetable oils etc. and the area needed to grow the seeds per liter of fuel was also discussed. Maybe you can contact a university near you, they can probably inform you further. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

What is all the fuss about alternates if not politics? Methanol is a major byproduct of petroleum refining. Methanol can be synthesized by the Fischer-Tropsch process. Methanol burns clean. Methanol is already used to power race cars. Methanol is used as a petrol additive. Methanol is used in fuel cells. Etc. Yes Methanol has a lower energy content but it's cheap and plentiful. Cut out the politics. Burn Methanol!

Maybe. The hype about all of this "demand" generated price hikes (supply and demand) is accompanied by a lot of politically contrived "shell game" rhetoric. The OPEC countries supposedly have increased costs...The oil refineries in the Gulf have to lower production to fix their hurricane damage etc. So, they raise prices. We are paying for their problems, while (doubts about "windfall profits" aside)they still are making a profit, maybe the same profit as before. If I sold apples for 50 cents and a storm blew down one of my apple trees and I needed to make the same amount of money so I sell them for 2 dollars apeice. Who would buy my apples for 4 times the price? If I was the only place to buy apples and you needed them bad enough, if there was no competition, or the competition charged what I did even if their tree didn't blow down. Wait! I know! I will sell peaches! You can eat them like apples. Guess what? Where are you gonna buy peaches? (Methanol, ethanol, etc.) From my already in-place network. I'll set the price! We have oil in the US. The whole economy runs on it. Take away the auto industry and it would be disaster! No, finding alternative fuels is a good start. Fixing the system is more important. Or, make your own home brew fuels and hope somebody will wake up the guy at the switch!

After reading all of the posts so far I have to say that I feel that reality has not sunk in very well. Prices will continue to rise because of economics, not politics. Politicians can not fix the problem. If they try to put restrictions on prices, the oil companies will create shortages such as we saw in 1974. The gasoline will be sold in Europe where they are currently getting up to $6.00 a gallon or better for it. That is why price restrictions are not in place today. The solution as I see it is a combination of technologies coming together to solve the problem. We need renewable energy for the future. That is a given. Whether it be wind, water, biomass, etc. is not the main problem. Even geothermal and nuclear could arguably not be considered renewable but are alternatives that will be there for a good long time. What do we do with this energy? I am persuaded that we should go to electric transportation. This has been argued against because of the problems with fueling up at a "gas" station for long trips. So, the vehicle has to have more than one power supply medium. The hybrid vehicle is one small step toward addressing the problem. Ethanol is a good second power source. The ethanol would charge the batteries on a long trip and provide sustainable power. The "gas" station would sell ethanol, making the petroleum companies happy as they are already leaning toward this as a fuel. However, for the daily commute, all electric is the only thing needed, especially with the advances in Lithium Ion and other types of electrical storage. The power for your vehicle and your house could come from Photo Voltaic Cells on the roof. This power would be fed back into the electric grid and could actually make money for you if your energy needs were low enough and you lived in a favorable climate. Your vehicle would charge up at night when the demand for power is at its lowest. Many other sources of renewable energy would feed the grid simultaniously. This is not a one solution fits all type of problem and the only thing that is going to make the infrastructure change will be the pressures of economics and the eventual depletion of fossile fuel. We would all be driving electric vehicles already if it were not for the fact that gasoline was plentiful and cheap back in the early 1900s. Change is difficult and painful most of the time. That is why we are resistant to it. That and the fact that we are afraid of the unknown. But change we must and change we will. It will take some brave entrepreneurs and it will happen in small steps though. Until then...

In the medium-long-term, solar poweer has to be the answer. It's not yet economic to use photovoltaic cells to supply the grid, but at current rates of progress it will be within a dozen years - maybe twenty if technical progress reduces the cost of other energy sources. In some sunny places it's already economic for a consumer to use photo-voltaics rather than pay the retail price (as against the production cost) of electricity. Wind-power is cheaper than solar at present - it had a 1000-year head start - but is not reliable enough to be the main source. All the wind lobby claim that Denmark is leading the way but when the inter-connector with Sweden broke Denmark had a brown-out because it was actually relying on Sweden's nuclear power stations for the security of ssupply that its own wind-power generators cannot provide. The Dutch know what they are doing and use windmills for jobs where intermittent powerr supply is OK. Hydrogen cells are not a source of power, just a storage device; they may be the means to create a practical electric-powered car, but they need regular re-charging from mains electricity. We should still need hydroelectricity to provide baseload electric power at night, as electricity could be generated on the other side of the globe and transmitted around it but transmission losses over 12,000 miles of cable would be pretty awful. I've no objection to biomass helping us eke out the depleted supply of oil and gas until solar power is adequately developed but the sheer volume of biomass required to generate a megawatt of electricity means that it is not really practicable to use biomass a the sole energy source

The short answer to your question is direct. It is relatively simple to compute a raw yield for any of several biomass conversion methods. The reality is that this is a non-trivial, complex issue with lots of interacting variables. For simplicity, I'll keep it to basics and provide a couple of examples.

For corn (fermentation) based ethanol production the typical yield from a bushel of corn is 2.6 gallons. The most conversion efficient plants claim 2.7 gal/bu but part of that is due to adding denaturant which increases the volume of the fuel while making it undrinkable (something the ATF insists on - I can't imagine why).

Corn yield per acre varies with soil, sunshine and rainfall (or irrigation) but we could take a sort of national average in the 150 bushel per acre range, look at USDA statistics for how much corn is produced each year and come up with a theoretical maximum. I can tell you that it's not that simple since a lot of the corn is used as animal feed since it is a high energy material from a digestion standpoint. Cattle and other ruminants and to a lesser extent hogs and poultry consume most of the corn in the country so turning it all into ethanol could create a bit of a problem for livestock growers.

However, a valuable byproduct of fermentation ethanol is Distillers Grains (DG) and Distillers Solubles (DS), both important feed sources that can be used in place of corn in most cases. It turns out the DDGS (as it is known when it is in dry form) has higher nutritional quality than the original corn, but with a significant reduction in quantity. You get about 1/4th of the corn back as DDGS from every bushel and it is a preferred animal feed, especially for the cattle that we turn into burgers and steak. It's also good for dairy cattle but needs to be more carefully balanced in an animal ration to keep milk production at optimum levels. Hogs can use it too but again it's a little trickier since they are not ruminants and they need some extra amino acids in their feed that are not present in DDGS. It's a micro-nutrient thing - but I digress...

Hence, the corn can serve two purposes: 1) Valuable fuel and 2) Higher quality feed to support animal growth. That's value added and is part of the reason for the explosive growth of the ethanol industry. As an energy gathering and storing bio-machine, corn is about as efficient as it gets. It's a marvelous way to capture solar energy and turn it into something usable in a variety of ways.

Of course, getting the the conversion from corn to ethanol takes energy for grinding, heating, etc. and it's a relatively simple but sophisticated process (one I'm intimately familiar with). In fact, ethanol plants (especially the old ones) take a LOT of energy to crank out a gallon of fuel, so much so that the entire ethanol industry comes under criticism as a net energy loser. That is bunkum and the Cornell/Berkely study used so much outdated data and erroneous assumptions as to be laughable (you can see the bias everywhere in the study).

Just remember that ethanol production is an economic conversion, i.e. a form of economic arbitrage between commodities. You can track both on the Chicago Board of Trade. Do the conversion math from above and with some knowledge of the fixed and variable overhead (20-50 cents per gallon), compute typical profit (I can tell you, it's a LOT). Given the low price of corn and high price of gasoline it is extremely profitable. If the ethanol plants had no economic value they'd be out of business. Modern facilities are quite efficient and improving all the time so the so called "energy balance" criticism is really a red herring.

I've looked at most of the posts on this thread and I'll try to reply to a few of them, just to clear up some misconceptions and show that there is a real biomass based alternative to gasoline and diesel, one that is completely different from ethanol but still biomass based (hint, switchgrass is a possible alternative, just not in the way you may expect). You'll have to look later on in the thread for those posts.

I've gotta run and do some biz. Here's the link to the CBOT for those commodities (yes, ethanol is now a traded commodity, just like corn, gasoline and heating oil):

http://cbot.com/

if the folks at GM R&D, in 78-79' had been a bit more interested in my "zero-zero power system" and my homemade "sillioil" fuel(silly cause it ain't based on Crude oil and doesn't burn,or freeze,within reasonable temps, say -95 and +800 degreesF. it will vaporize at 500+ and re-condense rapidly(no messy,noisy tailpipes)closed,"Rankin cycle"!. but GM wanted to know how the carb worked, without air intake?!!. opps, guys, no burn/no air needed!. doing things my way, or the "Harley Eral way" the 80's GM line would have gotten two and a half to five(5) million miles to the system or "tank"?. my "sillioil is still "Pat.Pending" and similar system would use a liquid "hydrox fuel" h2andO+air; with cleaner air and water in the exhaust.give older ships/subs unlimited range,on water(fun power for electric plants too!. try me, at chuckylov1@verizon.net. You got some time,finances,and/or need. i mayhave your "ecolnomic" answer(s).. good luck, chuck