For anyone who still doesn't believe Saudi Arabia's government is evil.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
1. This place won't even allow you to ask an honest question. But thanks for playing VJ and Geronimo

BS. You were obviously being rhetorical.

[Fake Boris]

No.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
No.

In that case the answer is that the current gas emissions would be more damaging.

[Dinner]

The front page of the Sunday Times (the main paper competing against the San Francisco Chronical in the San Francisco bay area) had an article on Genetically Modified Biofuels today. Believe it or not the same nonprofit group which decoded the human genome is now working on mapping the genome for poplar trees and switch grass since both produce large amounts of oil & fermentable cellulose while maintaining very high growth rates. The idea is to speed up the growth even more and to create new subspecies which have still more oil and cellulose sugar in them.

The claim was that in 10 years or so they think they can start releasing GM versions of poplar trees and switch grass which will help drive the cost of ethanol down to $1 per gallon. That means E85 could be sold much cheaper then gasoline is today and around 90%-95% of the gasoline-ethanol blend would be domestically produced instead of imported.

[mrmitchell]

IIRC ethanol is only in the same ballpark as gasoline prices because of government corn subsidies.

edit: yeah

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031128.html

[Kuciwalker]

Ethanol is a government corn subsidy.

[GePap]

Why the obsession with ethanol? What about the fact Diesel engines can run on plant oils as well as on petroleum products?

Heck, we can run cars on corn oil and peanut oil with technology we already have.

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
2. There are many places where agricultural land is saturated. Quebec for instance - it may be a large country, but from what I remember of my geography classes we're pretty much using up every square mile of viable agricultural land already.

Yes there are -- and there are many places where it isn't, like the US midwest which I just mentioned. A part of your claim was that increasing corn ethanol harvests would require deforestation. Like I tried to say, this would be false since there's already plenty of existing farmland which isn't used around 500 miles from where you live (you live in Quebec, right?). The fact that there also are areas where there aren't existing farmland is a red herring, it has nothing to do with me debunking your claim.

Why the obsession with ethanol? What about the fact Diesel engines can run on plant oils as well as on petroleum products?

Heck, we can run cars on corn oil and peanut oil with technology we already have.

Yep, and we can artificially refine gasoline without actually having crude oil (takes a ****load of energy, but can be done). I'm glad that this forum has realised that the 70's like "peak oil" hystery claiming that the world is doomed since oil is running out any minute now is nothing but a way for hippies to feel superior when compared to rest of the population -- there are alternatives available. They may be much more expensive than crude prices in the 90s, but we'll manage that just fine

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
IIRC ethanol is only in the same ballpark as gasoline prices because of government corn subsidies.

edit: yeah
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031128.html

Dear Cecil:

We are from a farming community that grows a lot of corn. Ethanol (alcohol) and corn production are both heavily subsidized. My thinking is that they both are "pork barrel" projects. Doesn't it take as much or more fossil fuel energy to produce a given amount of ethanol energy? Maybe the ethanol lobbyists and producers aren't telling us the full story? --Roger R., the midwest

Cecil replies:

Maybe not, but who can blame them? The full story seems to be that ethanol subsidies are a complete waste. One can't expect a lobbyist to walk into a farm belt congressperson's office and say, "Sir or madam, ethanol subsidies don't reduce our dependence on foreign oil, alleviate air pollution, or benefit the country in any other demonstrable way. A large portion of the money goes directly into the coffers of a single multibillion-dollar corporation. Some experts say that manufacturing ethanol consumes more energy than the fuel produces. In fact, all the ethanol industry dependably generates is profits for itself and campaign contributions for you. Can we count on your vote?"

Corn belt states began subsidizing ethanol after the Arab oil embargo of 1973. The federal government joined the party a few years later. The Energy Tax Act of 1978 authorized an excise tax exemption for biofuels, chiefly gasohol (a gasoline blend containing at least 10 percent ethanol). Another federal program provided loan guarantees for the construction of ethanol plants, and in 1986 the U.S. even gave ethanol producers free corn. It's estimated that the excise exemption alone costs U.S. taxpayers as much as $1.4 billion per year.

The immediate beneficiaries of ethanol subsidies have been corn farmers and, more significantly, the Archer Daniels Midland Corporation of Decatur, Illinois, better known as ADM. The world's largest grain processor, ADM produces 40 percent of the ethanol used to make gasohol. As might be supposed, the company and its officers have been eloquent in their defense of ethanol and generous in contributing to both political parties. The politicians have been generous right back. The libertarian Cato Institute estimates that every dollar of ADM's ethanol profit costs taxpayers 30 bucks.

One might not mind spending the money if it bought us something--energy independence, say, or cleaner air. But based on current evidence, it doesn't. Ethanol contains only about two-thirds as much energy per gallon as gasoline, so cars using ethanol blends get lower mileage. Though ethanol can reduce carbon monoxide emissions, the fuel may well produce more of other air pollutants. True, the ethanol industry drives corn prices up, which helps farmers--but a 1986 USDA study found we'd be better off mailing the farmers checks rather than propping up an entire industry with tax dollars. (Ethanol has since been touted as a substitute for MTBE, an additive that makes gasoline burn cleaner but also causes groundwater pollution. However, skeptics claim that due to improvements in engine technology, it'd be better just to dispense with such additives altogether.)

The capper, though, is the claim that it takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than you get by burning it. One of the most vocal proponents of this view is Cornell University ecology professor David Pimentel. In an analysis published in 2001 in the peer-reviewed Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology, Pimentel argued that when you add up all the energy costs--the fuel for farm tractors, the natural gas used to distill corn sugars into alcohol, and so on--making a gallon of ethanol takes 70 percent more energy than the finished product contains. And because that production energy comes mostly from fossil fuels, gasohol isn't just wasting money but hastening the depletion of nonrenewable resources.

These findings were denounced by ethanol producers and their allies. Michael Graboski, a professor of engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, published a rebuttal of Pimentel's paper, saying he used obsolete data, etc. Pimentel in turn rebutted the rebuttal. The debate has gotten pretty technical. I make only a few observations: (1) Pimentel seems to have tweaked his calculations--in an August bulletin from Cornell, he says making a gallon of ethanol takes 29 percent more energy than it provides, not 70 percent. (2) That conceded, the guy is no flake, among other things having chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated ethanol economics (and reached similar conclusions) in 1980. Graboski, on the other hand, is a consultant to the National Corn Growers Association. (3) Given that ethanol production involves the conversion of massive amounts of energy from one form to another, the contention that the process is an efficient way to make fuel seems to fly in the face of basic physics--so much so that I'm inclined to regard the subsidy program, and the fact that it has survived for a quarter century, with something approaching awe. Money-wasting government schemes are hardly rare. But how many do you know of that flout the second law of thermodynamics?

--CECIL ADAMS

(my emphasis)

"Given that ethanol production involves the conversion of massive amounts of energy from one form to another, the contention that the process is an efficient way to make fuel seems to fly in the face of basic physics." This statement alone shows that Cecil gets this issue embarrassingly wrong.

Ethanol production itself doesnt convert massive amounts of energy from one form to another. The energy in the biomass is chemical energy and the energy in the ethanol is also chemical energy.

The "massive conversion of energy from one form to another" takes place much earlier in the chain of events when energy from sunlight is converted to chemical energy in the crops.

The real issue the critics cecil references are raising has nothing to do with conversion of one form of energy to another but rather involves objections that current agricultural practices are so fossil fuel intensive that those supporting activities manage to use more fuel than is eventually produced from the crops raised. 29% more according to the latest estimate provided in the article.

However, this is a completely variable relationship and the assertion that this ratio of fuel produced to fuel consumed is some sort of inevitable consequence of applying the laws of thermodynamics to massive conversion of energy from one form to another is so wrong it's almost painful. For one thing none of the energy in the fossil fuels acts as a source of any of the energy in the resulting ethanol fuels. It's all used for support roles like powering tractors and providing fertilizer and pesticides all manner of other things that increase crop yeilds for unmodified crops and all of these things are acheivable by other means. In particular use of GM crops that do not require petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides (they fix their own nitrogen from the atmosphere and express their own pesticides) would only require consumption of fuel in the operation of the farm equipment.

Simply by altering the farm subsidies to subtract fossil fuel consumption from the amount of subsidy granted would even encourage reductions in the fossil fuels used in powering all that farm equipment.

Furthermore, check this link to see an example of how a favorable ratio of fuel production to fossil fuels consumed could be achieved even in the absence of genetic modification simply by using a production process based on switch grass rather than current practices involving maize.

I lost a lot of respect for the straight dope from that article.

[chequita guevara]

Increasing sugar production in the US will only detract from other crops, not from protected wetlands and rainforest. The pesticides are a problem, but the crop could be produced organically. Cuba does it.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sava
But in a more economically viable way than from oil?

"Economically viable" is relative.

If you impose the full cost of petrol at the pump, including the environmental costs, alternative methods may suddenly become a lot more viable.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
IIRC ethanol is only in the same ballpark as gasoline prices because of government corn subsidies.

edit: yeah
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031128.html

The idea is to develop more efficient means of fermenting cellulose so that corn kernals (or other types of grains) won't have to be used.

BTW that article from straightdope is completely outdated. Even Bush was able to understand and explain why fermenting plant cellulose (I.E. plant fibers found in every plant on earth) is different from fermenting grains or frutose barring crops. If we ferment cellulose then we're not fermenting the corn kernals; we'd be fermenting the corn husks and corn stalks. Since the corn would still be sold as a food stuff (just as it is profitablely done now) the extra ethanol would be a total bonus for farmers. Currently the stalks and husks are just left out in fields to rot since no one has figured out how to make money off of them. This turns this wasted resource into cash crop.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
As can ethanol which suprising enough can be used to power vehicles.

Bio-diesel is better.

[Dinner]

For most bio-diesels we'd have to switch to new crops but for ethanol we could continue using the crops which all the world's farmers are already using. Which is why ethanol would be easier to impliment.

[Urban Ranger]

There is no panacea to solve the environmental issues. The main theme is to conserve.

Environmentalists have been suggesting the following:

1. Reduce
2. Reuse
3. Recycle

The main ill of the US in this area is that it is a very wasteful country. Just look at Las Vegas. It's a city that takes huge amount of resources to maintain. The SUVs, the urge to drive even the shortest of distances, etc. Even the a portion of food is big (sadly, bigger in Vegas).