Bio-Energy

[wdyasq]

Study shows ethanol isn't the key to energy independence.  Or, even a crutch as we get away from the 'oil economy'.  

http://tinyurl.com/c4hya

Appears to me to be a give-a-way progream for farmers and the energy industry.... There is a subsitity of about half a dollar for each gallon of ethanol produced and it is required as an additive.

Ron

[Gary D]

 The professor has it right if you don't figure in the byproduct (high quality hog/cattle feed). If he'd put digesting the manure that could be harvested for methane production to feed the electric grid, the numbers would be better. How much is the real question... Truely surprised (not) that he ignored the 24/7 prodution potential of animal waste in favor of nuke plants. Obviously he doesn't live as near TMI. as I do, altho I understand that the U.S. government truely isn't interested in dropping electric power use (period). Enough ranting. Have a good day...

[Shadow]

This guy must be associated with an oil company! I wonder if he's done a comparison report on oil and gas? By the time you figured in exploration, enviromental damage/cleanup,pollution,etc, etc, I cant possibly see how bio can be any worse.

[scottsAI]

Why does it take two years to study this?

I think this guy was fishing for something, didn't find it. Wrote a very week paper, makes it long so nobody will read it:-) Anybody been able to find it? Why is it not available?

An example of bad thoughts:

“The price you pay is that in Brazil alone you annually damage a jungle the size of Greece ."

A great statement, very grand. What's bad? Once land is cleared, you can grow on it for more than one year!! So why the reference to annually damage..., oh written by a PHD.

A paper published in response to Tad Patzek's:

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=27864

Which states 35% net gain...

“All told, he believes that the cumulative energy consumed in corn farming and ethanol production is six times greater than what the end product provides your car engine in terms of power.”

It all ways comes down to the money.

If the energy to produce ethanol was 6x more than the replacement fuel cost, then it would cost 6x more. Considering Gas cost >$2/gal, than that is $12/gal he is claiming it cost in fossil fuels. The cost of Gas and other fuels are +-50% the same per BTU.

I searched for quite a while, I can't find where the gov/state is chipping in $10/gal to produce the ethanol. What I did fine (as mentioned in the start of the forum) was a 5.4 cent and a 54 cent tax credit for alcohol used as fuel. Where is the rest of the $9.45?

http://www.energybulletin.net/5062.html has link to

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=27864

Appears Patzek is counting the solar energy to grow the corn. Hah?

There is no fossil fuel burned to produce the solar energy so, to include it in the equation is done for no other reason than grandstanding, making a grand statement using correct data to intentionally miss lead a conclusion. Which is wrong.

Have fun.

[georgeodjungle]

also not to mention that ethanol and aclohal eats rubber.

[rotornuts]

It took two years to do this study because the man has stepped out of his area of expertise to produce this paper. As a matter of fact he indeed does seem to have a very intimate relationship with the oil industry.

Have a look for your self here.

http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/faculty/faculty_pubs.php?name=Patzek

His conference paper titles are especially telling.

This man has deviated a long way from his turf to produce the bunk sited in the posted article.

Research please!!!!!

Mike

[monte350c]

Hi!

It depends...

Here's a good article from an award winning ethanol plant design. It's a how-to if a guy had the inclination. If details are looked after and attention is paid to the details, profitable output is very likely.

http://tinyurl.com/a3wdz

Ted

[rotornuts]

I'd like to qualify the reseach statement by saying that in this case it's easiest to study the source rather than the content.

Mike

"There are more things in heaven and earth, ... ,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Shakespeare

[Tom in NH]

I think the author may be correct about the negative energy balance of ethanol, but I'd hate to see increased reliance on nuclear energy as he advocates. Virtually all of our agriculture is extremely energy intensive. Equipment, processing, and transportation is just the tip of the iceberg. Corn requires lots of fertilizer and they make it from natural gas. A lot of our energy consumption goes into producing fertilizer so we can maintain our food supply. Fertilizer and equipment needed to grow the corn to make ethanol makes it very costly energy-wise.

It is a scary thought to contemplate the possibility that if there were a prolonged disruption to our energy supply, we could be facing famine, not just the inconvenience of not being able to drive around wherever we want. --Tom

[georgeodjungle]

nuke is cleaner than coal and hydro.unless an accident bla bla bla.

best to make our juice.

all so with the population doubling again,the farming space should reserved for food.

it's hard to see the big picture.

home brew is a good start.

this site rocks.

[scottsAI]

An intelligent discussion of the various studies:

http://www.usda.gov/oce/oepnu/aer-814.pdf

Document is very good. Net energy gain using modern farming and producing methods.

This is how Patzek should have compared his study. State explicitly how any why, not some long winded 50 page document. I wonder if he got paid by the word!

Have fun.

[rotornuts]

Into the nitty gritty.... The fertilizder requirement is a consiquence of production method not the plant. Overuse of fertilizer has damaged the soil(soil is a living organism)more fertilizer is needed to compensate, the soil ecology is further damaged, weeds pop up to try and balance the soil,more herbicides are needed, beneficial organisms in the soil are killed by the herbicides further compounding the problem and more fertilizer is added.

There is more to this than most have time to understand. My above statement is oversimplified but true and only a scratch on the surface.

I suggest a look at the credentials of the author is in order.

Mike

[finnsawyer]

Concerning land clearing in Brazil.  I understand that in the rain forest the fertility is in the existing biomass.  Remove that and the soil has very low fertility.  The local indians would clear an area farm it for a few years and then move on allowing it to revert back to jungle.  There is also the issue of erosion.  There's a reason it's called the rain forest.

[whatsnext]

We wouldn't face famine. The rest of the world would and that may or may not be the worst thing for them. MEN had an intersting article about a decade ago about powering farms with sunflower diesel. If I remember correctly farmers needed to plant 25% of their land in sunflowers. There are lot's of answers out there. All the doom and gloom stuff is just nonsense.

John.......

[bob golding]

although you can use 20% of land to grow sunflowers to make bio diesel you still need 15-20% methanol as well. this is still coming from gas or as a by product from the petro chemical industry. i have  seen a report that someone has managed to make  bio diesel using ethanol. you also need lye as well. hink for stationany engine use wood gas might be better bet. as you say there are many solutions.

bob golding

[Bruce S]

The one part of this report I actually thought was right was the fact that the author at least tried to show that there is more than just the cost of making the juice; except even he got it wrong.

The rest looked like an oil company plug, and nukes? What's he been drinking?

 What should have been and was completely vacant in the report was the use of the Alky to replace the MTBEs that ruins lakes and can kill so much so that California has them it's use in the entire state.

Other items that should've been in the report was that the US gov subsidies the fuel to help stimulate the use of this renewable product, not did he take into the account that the by-product is highly used by the farmers as feed stock. So much so that they government actually has different grade levels for the different by-products.

This "Phd" didn't use the lessens that he himself is supposed to be teaching, i.e. take into account ALL of the costs and incomes.

Poor reporting just makes him look stupid of worse yet bought-off.

IMO

[DDT77]

While I support Biofuels for local or individual use, the commercial idea to continue / displace current fuel usage seems totally insufficient.

US petroleum consumption:

from: hxxp://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/excel/aeotab_2.xls

approximately 38.9 Quads (2004)

US corn production (record 2004 crop):

roughly 11 BILLION bushels.

Conversion (gallons of ethanol from 1 bushel of corn):

from: hxxp://www.ethanolmt.org/php/marchapril05.php

2.8 gallons / bushel

Energy content of gallon of ethanol:

from: hxxp://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id18.html

84100 BTU / gallon

Gross Energy Result:

2. 6 Quad(s)
   
2004. US Gasoline consumption:
      
17. 31 Quad(s)
    
    

Now what if the corn stover was also utilized?

from: hxxp://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/analysispaper/biomass.html

"At conversion yields of around 60 to 100 gallons per dry ton,

the available corn stover inventory would be sufficient to support 7 to 12 billion gallons of ethanol production per year"

For $#|+s and giggles, lets use the 12 BILLION Gallons / year number, assuming the same energy content per gallon stated above:

Gross Energy Result:

1.0 Quad(s)

Lets take a look at soy derived bio-diesel...

Another record crop from 2004, of approximately 3 BILLION bushels

Gallons of Bio-diesel / bushel of soybean ratio:

from: hxxp://www.agmanager.info/agribus/energy/Biodiesel%20Is%20it%20Worth%20Considering.pdf

1.5 Gallons Bio-diesel / Bushel Soybeans

Energy content of bio-diesel:

from: hxxp://www.agriculture.state.ia.us/biodiesel.html

120000 BTU / gallon

Gross Energy Result:

0. 54 Quad(s)
   
2004. US Distillate consumption:
      
8. 29 Quad(s)
   
   

[DanG]

Nothing is going to replace the easy energy we loot from petroleum deposits, just like no one can synthesize again the easy wealth the Europeans took by swarming into the New World. Here in Minnesota we have zero petroleum deposits and near zero hydroelectric reserves, the wind farms are already maxing out the transmission lines & no one wants to give up anything to build more so I am using 2/3rds coal and 1/3rd nuclear electricity to view/post here on fieldlines.

Ethanol sure beats walking. I had the Gopher State Ethanol plant two miles from me, set up to make 15 million gallons annually plus 120 tons of liquid carbon dioxide DAILY. The USA's only urban plant, it reeked of something worse then death as the batches neared completion. But I would gladly fight to buy their ethanol if the current infrastructure went tits up due to whatever. The subsidies stay in the community, the local farmers co-ops supplied our ethanol plant, plus they used certain out-dated food stuffs and un-saleable carbonated beverages. People complaining we can't duplicate overnight a resource that took millions of years to develop is irrational plus irratating. Any and all alternatives will be needed, chose your favorite and help develop it. Even at 10% input/output gain ethanol sure beats walking, or freezing as the case may be....

[Bruce S]

Nice numbers.

Very well gathered and made for some very interesting reading.

However,these numbers show only what the current porductions are. If the US got into theirs heads that enough was enough and we stopped paying framers NOT to grow on their lands and went full tilt, the output in Missouri's soy/corn crops would be nothing less than 10 fold.

was easy to find, numbers came from the bootheal's coops.

And with the increase of ethanol, methanol would no longer be need to be used for the bio-diesel production. Methanol is used currently as it has a 25% better clarifaction than ethanol.

No famine problems just a whole bunch of crop prices falling if the fuels didn't keep using enough to keep the supply / demand ratio correct so the farmers can pay thier bills.

Besides the net displacement of petrol NOT being used the air in many states would get better due to the lower sulfur and carbon out put, just by making these changes.

I don't believe these should be made over night, this would be bad for a more than a handfull of reasons, but doing them at ever increasing levels out weighs the ramifactions of not doing anything.

 

[finnsawyer]

I started cutting my new hayfield yesterday.  The timothy was four feet tall and the trefoil at least two and the stuff was thick.  About the thickest I've ever grown.  Why?  Fertilizer!  And you know where that comes from.  Petroleum.  Well at least part of it does.  The rest is mined and moved using fuels.

So, we need a plant that's prolific and doesn't need fertilizer.  May I suggest the lowly Lupine.  It can produce 100 or more seeds from a single plant and will grow like hair on a dog without fertilizer.  Just find a way to process it.

[rotornuts]

GeoM, I grew up on a farm and have cultivated, seeded and harvested many a field and we would occasionally fertilize as well although the manure from the cows made up the bulk of it. I"m not going to suggest manure or compost as a replacement for chemical fertilizers because it's impractical on a large scale but there are alternatives available already and the motivation for using them goes far beyond ending a dependancy on petrolium. You no doubt realized a increased yield from an application of the NPK nutrients and if you used a really good fertilizer the may have had some micros in there too but your going to require heavier applications in the future to maintain the same yield because you will destroy the soil structure and the soils ecosystem and balance. Your soils structure, microbial life, available nutrient content(macros and micros) water bearing capacity and cation exchange capacity depends on a healthy soil with a good humus content and chemical fertilizers only support vigorus plant growth not healthy soil. Unhealthy soil leads to unhealthy plants despite their vigor and outward appearance and leaf analasys supports that theory every time. Have a look for your self in the links provided. Remember that there are snake oils in every industry and exagerated claims are also a reality but I personally met an individual at a sustainable agriculture conference two years ago who farms three thousand(3000) acres of barley totally organic and has a european market for his crop. Organics isn't just small scale hippy crap, it's real, it's sustainable and it's not new.

http://attra.ncat.org/fundamental.html

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howard.html

http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/altsoilamend.html

http://bioag.ab.ca/index.html

http://www.humate.com/potentialf.html

The only requirement is the will to do.

Mike

[finnsawyer]

Well, I don't have the will to do.  Not at this age.  The real point of my comment concerned finding plants for producing oil or alcohol without using fertilizer.  I do realize that any type of single crop agriculture can remove micro-nutrients.  Even though the Lupines can come back year after year in great abandon and they grow in apparently poor soils, it is possible that harvesting them might deplete some nutrient they need and hence lead to lower yields over time.  Maybe what's needed is different types of plants that be rotated over the years.

[rotornuts]

That's an excellent point. There is a great deal of merit in the idea of selecting crop types according to the soil conditions in a specific site. Rotating crops and fallow peroiods are important in the mix as well like you said.

It's a complex issue as are most and one can only do so much. Availability of materials or products can be a real damper on ones will to do. The time to do can be another.

Mike