Ethanol....saviour or pipe dream?

[golfman2760]

sorry

now armma gonna go wash mahself with a rag and a stick

 

[DaveE]

The problem is (as it usually is) if the government get involved. I assume that there are goverment tax advantages and subsidies for ethanol producers. In a truly free market the cost/benefit basis would be clear.

I didn't know it had already started but yes there is. I guess this thread is somewhat timely but how is it that Rock started it?

Last night I saw a fluff news piece that one of our grocery chains, that also sells gas, was going to start selling E85 for $0.30 a gallon less than gas. "How can they do that" asks the news guy? With subsidies from the federal govt. it turns out. Great, we're all buying E85 whether we want to or not.

Why not just reduce taxes on gas and save us all some money? Oh yeah, the farm lobby.

 

[Rockford35]

Why not just reduce taxes on gas and save us all some money?

How do you fund a war without resources?

R35

 

[David B]

Ah, a subject near and dear to my heart...

I got my degree in Environmental Economics which dealt with, among other things, natural resources and energy production.

As many have discovered in this thread, Ethanol isn't anywhere near economically feasible yet, because of the fact that it is such a small part of the overall energy market.

Subsidization really isn't that bad as far as government handouts go... the oil companies get far more tax breaks than there are subsidy dollars poured into ethanol production.

The main problem facing a switch to ethanol from gasoline is the fact that we simply need too much of it. We consume about 20 million barrels of oil per day here in the U.S., so we're talking a significant amount of farmland that will have to be solely dedicated to producing ethanol. Once that farmland is converted over to that use, there will be less food products being produced, so you can count on higher prices for other products as the market supply decreases.

Also, ethanol isn't as engine-friendly as gasoline, so you'll have to change several engine seals to some that will tolerate the high alcohol content... this adds even more dollars to the total cost of ethanol conversion.

As far as tar sands and oil shales go, at least here in the U.S. those are about 50 years off before they become economically viable, which is why the Colorado oil shale project was scrapped... it's simply too expensive. The only successful tar sand production project right now is in Alberta, Canada, primarily because the tar sand seam runs right up to the surface, so all they have to do is scrape it away, rather than dig for it. The Canadian government also heavily subsidized it for the first 10 years, as they improved their technology, but it is now an economically viable operation as fuel prices have increased above their cost of production.

Honestly, the best hope for the future is fuel cells. We need to get away from combustion, which, at best, is only 10% efficient, and which also puts a bunch of crap into the air that we all then have to breathe. Fuel cells work at the molecular level, and this recombination of atoms gives off energy that is harnessed and put to work. It's also much more efficient, in the area of 50-60%... so we'll need 5-6x less fuel to do the same amount of work.

The main problem, right now, with fuel cells is that it takes a lot of electricity to produce hydrogen gas, so you'll need several more large-scale power plants (probably coal-fired) to supply the electricity... so essentially it's a trade-off. However, popular opinion (at least among academics), is that it's much easier to control point-source pollution (such as a power plant), than it is to control distributed pollution (such as the tailpipe's of cars). The holy grail is to find a 'green' source of electricity (or hydrogen) production to make it a win-win situation.

So far there are ongoing studies with an algae whose byproduct of digestion is hydrogen gas, but it remains to be seen if hydrogen can be produced on a large-enough scale for it to be economically feasible. Right now electrolysis is the primary way to produce hydrogen, though there are also studies underway that are examining the breakdown of the hydrocarbon chains in everyday gasoline to produce the hydrogen.

Ugh... I think that's enough to digest for one post.

 

[Rockford35]

The main problem, right now, with fuel cells is that it takes a lot of electricity to produce hydrogen gas, so you'll need several more large-scale power plants (probably coal-fired) to supply the electricity...

Nuclear, dude. So many benefits with such little risk.

R35

 

[token_hottie]

I would be willing to pay 10-20% more at the pumps for ethanol since it is a renewable resource and my $ would be going to the American "farm lobby" rather than buying oil from other countries. Keep it in the family.

 

[DaveE]

Nuclear, dude. So many benefits with such little risk.

R35

Holy crap, we agree on something.

 

[golfman2760]

after reading the briefs from this website it sounds like it is a lot better then fuel


http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid536.php

 

[David B]

Nuclear, dude. So many benefits with such little risk.

R35

While I agree with you in principle, it'll never happen here in the U.S.

Show me a politician that votes to put a nuclear power plant in their district, and I'll show you a guy out of work after the next election. Nuclear energy is simply too scary to the electorate.

Also, nuclear energy production may be cleaner than using fossil fuels, but what do you do with the waste? Realize that there is already enough waste stored at current nuclear facilities to completely fill Yucca Mountain, so we'll not only have to deal with current 'new' waste from these facilities, but an increased waste stream from even more facilities. This waste also has a half life in the millions of years... where on the planet do we store this stuff, that we don't plan on using for the next couple million years?

Keep in mind that Yucca Mountain is also located about 100 miles north of Las Vegas, the US' fastest growing city, and is also located in a seismically active area.

I'm not against nuclear energy, just that there are tradeoffs to nuclear just as there are with any other form of production... there's only so much desert to bury the waste in, and that area will essentially be 'contaminated' until life vanishes from this planet... I don't believe that creating a permanent problem out of a temporary solution is the right way to go... but that's just me.

 

[Rockford35]

I would be willing to pay 10-20% more at the pumps for ethanol since it is a renewable resource and my $ would be going to the American "farm lobby" rather than buying oil from other countries. Keep it in the family.

So you'd pay twice for ethanol?

Remember, subsidies pay for ethanol production, so you're paying that with your taxes. Then, you pay at the pump, plus you pay taxes on the fuel as well.

Keeps it in the family, but i'm willing to bet that system wouldn't sustain itself.

R35

 

[Rockford35]

While I agree with you in principle, it'll never happen here in the U.S.

Show me a politician that votes to put a nuclear power plant in their district, and I'll show you a guy out of work after the next election. Nuclear energy is simply too scary to the electorate.

If getting elected is more important that saving the environment and the lives of our children's children, perhaps we have the wrong guys leading our nations.

Also, nuclear energy production may be cleaner than using fossil fuels, but what do you do with the waste? Realize that there is already enough waste stored at current nuclear facilities to completely fill Yucca Mountain, so we'll not only have to deal with current 'new' waste from these facilities, but an increased waste stream from even more facilities. This waste also has a half life in the millions of years.

So does the input. Uranium is radiactive and occurrs naturally in nature.

If you get it from the ground, put it right back where it came from. It's been there for millions of years worry free, why are we worried about this now?

As i've touched on before, I work with geoscientists. Every single one to them is a pro-nuclear person. They will tell you exactly the same thing. The only reason that nuclear energy isn't more widely accepted is because the public has a warped perception of what nuclear power actually brings to the table. The days of Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island are over. New technologies and methods eliminate those problems of contamination and new reactors also don't produce enriched uranium, which is what nuclear weapons are made from.

Old school views are still todays popular belief. But as you've touched on, no politician will stand up and take one for Mother Earth, he'd rather get re-elected.

Keep in mind that Yucca Mountain is also located about 100 miles north of Las Vegas, the US' fastest growing city, and is also located in a seismically active area.

I can't vouch for idiot scientists. But there are plenty of areas with good cap rock that would support plenty of nuclear byproduct. Colorado, Northern Arizona, ect.

Sure, people would percieve this as a threat, but once they understood the science of it, they would see that alot of what was once a very sketchy procedure is now very, very simplistic.

R35

 

[token_hottie]

I learned all I need to know about nuclear power from the Simpsons.

 

[Rockford35]

I learned all I need to know about nuclear power from the Simpsons.

Exactly.

"Oh the Germans are mad at me! Oh, the Germans!"

R35

 

[David B]

So does the input. Uranium is radiactive and occurrs naturally in nature.

If you get it from the ground, put it right back where it came from. It's been there for millions of years worry free, why are we worried about this now?

Well, the main thing is that Uranium is found in nowhere near the concentrations it is after refinement... it's found in an ore just like most other elements, with a dilute dispersal, which must then be heavily concentrated for it to function inside a nuclear reactor.

I'll agree with you that there are indeed different technologies today that make nuclear energy production less of a risk, but even those are not completely proven. There's the pebble breeder reactors, which instead of uranium rods use a bunch of uranium balls coated in graphite, but they're still having problems keeping the graphite shell from deteriorating, which pretty much causes an immediate meltdown of the reactor when it fails.

If something can be done to make the waste stream completely safe, then I'm completely for nuclear energy... however, that's a pretty big 'if'. The main thing is that we can't foresee what will happen geologically in the next couple million years to determine exactly the best place to store nuclear waste. I don't want to sound alarmist, it's just that we have to think way beyond our own lifetimes with something of this magnitude.

I see that you mentioned Chernobyl... an interesting factoid about that incident was that that the meltdown occurred while performing a test on the reactor of how it would function during overheat conditions... looks like it failed. Unfortunately, the reactor didn't have the large cooling towers like we have here in other parts of the world, so they were unable to adequately control the overheat conditions...
In the Chernobyl reactor, the cooling rods ran through a block of uranium, and as soon as the reactor core overheated, it melted the rods shut so no more coolant could circulate... they were in a meltown situation in about 10 seconds... needless to say, the rest is history. Now the Russians have glowing cows instead of streetlamps.

 

[DouginGA]

Rock
Federal fuel taxes are are least correct in principle. fuel taxes are dedicated to go to road repair and building, so users are paying the for the use. thats a pretty fair and equitable system.

Funding a war is easy. borrow the money, which is what the US is doing.