Ethanol and Carbon Dioxide

Very ironic. So does the general brewing and wine making industry. No one has got this one nailed. Too many alcoholics in places of power.

That brings us to another question. Who now consumes the most of alcohol produced?

The cars or humans (including the alcoholics)? Does anyone have statistics on these?

Humans for sure there are so many more of them and drunks drive cars.

This means that drunk drivers are a triple threat right!

Yes.

No, it's not ironic. Burning fossil fuels causes a net addition to CO₂ in the atmosphere, but ethanol made by fermentation uses plant matter grown by extracting CO₂ from the atmosphere (photosynthesis). So it's carbon neutral.

Good point. Plus it's one step towards moving away from petroueum dependence. With China starting to burn mega-amounts of petroleum, like many of the larger countries, the price of petroleum will continue to rise. There are a few e-mails circulating, showing what Petro-dollars buy for the rich in the Near East petroleum producing countries. Homes the size of mega-hotels, cars made mostly from silver (except the engine, tires, etc of course), year-round ski slopes inside specially cooled buildings, etc.

So how much peroleum energy is used in the total life cycle to make the tractor, fertilizer, plant the crop,spray with herbicide and pesticides, harvest the crop, ship to processor, process, and deliver to enduser.

Carbon neutral - I don't think so, We are shifting a small number of dollars to farmers and Cargill, and away from Venezuela and OPEC but we are probably not BTU's ahead especially if we have to burn dirty gasoline to make clean ethanol. let alone of environmental impact from runoff on new acreage growing fuelstuffs...And we're now diverting foods from humans around the world to feed our...SUV's?

David Pimental was debunked by DOE on his claims that the energy balance didn't work, but even the DOE's numbers remain unconvincing...

I have not run the numbers myself, but even if we went to biomass fermentation- waste cellulose, I'm guessing that we could totally denude the planet of all plant matter in just a few years to keep up with our demand for liquid fuels. That would be a real, not imagined environmental catastrophe.

We need to engineer our way past the liquid fuels paradigm.

milo

Helo Milo you are fully correct Scientific American did cradle to grave look at this very subject it did not work out to be very green at all. www.sciam.com

Yes, this is correct, the production of ethanol is creating another problem. The main raw material for its production which is corn, has now become more expensive, prices have gone up to 10 year high. What is food for millions may no longer be affordable by poor countries. A chain reaction effect is that animal feeds has also increased in prices because of the high price of corn and may result to higher animal feeds production cost then to a higher meat prices. In most Asian countries, animal feeds formulation especially for poultry, comprise more than 50 percent corn. Corn Starch, a basic ingredient for many food preparations is getting more expensive to manufacture, as well, Corn Chips, Corn Snacks, Tacos, Tortillos, etc, may no longer be affordable to many people.

We now have to ask again, is it worth to make more ethanol to substitute for gasoline?

Ah but?

Rupertal

Actually the brewers waste [ leftovers after ethanol production ] is being used to feed livestock!

The reduction in volumn is 10-15%

The US farmers [corporate ] are making lot of $'s

The ethanol producers [ same coporations as rhe farmers], are actually in the feed biz, the ethanol being a cleaver way to be paid twice, raise prices on corn & most other comodites!

Hi Garthh,

True, by-products from the brewing industry are very good feeds material. We do this in beer brewing and even from the ADY and IY (bakers yeast) manufacture. But still the added income just go to the corn farmers, maybe not to the consumers.

Other grain prices may also be affected and increase as well because when corn becomes a high priced commodity, many farmers will shift to planting corn and create shortfalls in supply of other grains like wheat, soybeans etc.

For me, ethanol, petroleum, carbon dioxide, and global warming are related but separate issues. Ethanol from Jerusalem artichokes, for example, is as easy to make as ethanol from corn, but corn is much more plentiful. Why should I make ethanol when I can buy cheap gasoline for $3 to $6 per gallon?

I don't believe carbon dioxide has anything to do with global warming because every experiment I've done demonstrates that carbon dioxide radiates heat as readily as it absorbs heat, and it does this only slightly better than other atmospheric gasses. On the other hand, burning fossils fuels release great amounts of water vapor which can easily be shown to block the transmission of heat radiation from the Earth. Vapor trails from high altitude aircraft are as efficient as clouds in preventing Earth heat from being absorbed by the vast heat sink of outer space.

My preference to reduce our dependence on imported oil is to ration gasoline use but allow unlimited use of ethanol and natural gas. If we cannot get the major oil companies to sell ethanol and natural gas in their stations, then perhaps we need to persuade Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, and others to provide that fuel. We can then work on the carbon dioxide/global warming problem as a separate issue.

Choosing between bio and fossil fuels biofuels come out top because the total co and co2 production is less.

A new viable alternative might run away with first prize in the future.

Consider the following proposal for the production of fuel.

A really polluted river (Sewage, industrial, suburb runoff etc) runs past a informal settlement where coal and wood fires are made. The river is polluted to the extent that fish are sometimes dying. Also in the main stream after it was diluted.

The idea is now to cultivate maize using minimum tillage principles. and produce fuel. The by products will be used in The area.

I dare any body to show that this is a negative step.

Why corn?

Why not sugarbeets?

since sugar is what is being fermented, in ethanol production!

"A really polluted river (Sewage, industrial, suburb runoff etc) runs past a informal settlement where coal and wood fires are made. The river is polluted to the extent that fish are sometimes dying. Also in the main stream after it was diluted."

Please elaborate on your point?

I'm not sure that so called renewable fuel, will change much of anything in the context of global warming.

We can improve the quality of the air, we all breath

the people of earth need to, improve effeciency, reduce consumption & reduce population

I am in water usage and stopping of pollution. I used corn as an example because it is currently produced in the area and a production plant is available. Other crops will be investigated and introduced.

The reasons for the current pollution is complex. We seem to have lost control.

But I believe "1st world" countries also have major problems with polluted rivers.

My point is that polluted water will be used to partially supply an existing need. The total effect will be the best we can do with current technology.

The total CO2 production in the full cycle is minimal.

From who's point of view?

It seems intuitively obvious that it would take much less work to burn firewood than to go through all of the steps to get btu's out of corn. Economies of scale make coal an even less labor intensive commodity, from a personal economy/effort point of view. So unless yours is a scheme to get full agricultural employment, I'm guessing efficiency of harvesting btu's goes to coal and firewood from an energy density /labor point of view.

What exactly is the per capita income of these maize tillers in the scheme that you propose, and what else do they do besides till maize?

Clean rivers are nice, but folks will always choose to maximize their economic reward and minimize their direct labor. I'm thinking Animal powered tillage is not a High desire glamour aspiration for many folks these days. Condemning people to be children of the corn while the rest of the world has utilities piped and wired directly to their dwellings doesn't seem like an easy sell to a non-Amish urban worker.

"yes we want a clean environment, but only after we have the things we think are necessities of life" is the point of view that most people live under- determined by Maslow's hierarchy. This is also informed by the tragedy of the commons.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

milo

The North British Distillers Co, in Edinburgh, collect CO₂ at the rate of 4tonnes per hour from their processes. It is used for carbonating drinks (cola, etc), and can also be used for welding gas.

Whether there is more CO₂ produced by fermentation than was sequestered during plant growth, I don't know.