Talk:Ethanol fuel/archive2

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[edit] Contradiction in Ethanol in the US section

There is a contradiction in the number of pumps providing E85 in the US. The "Ethanol in the US" section says 200 pumps; the "Ethanol in the Midwest" section says 600.

It's not really a contradiction, because the number of pumps providing E85 is increasing quite rapidly. The two sections were just not updated at the same time. You should check the latest source and bring the two numbers to agreement. The rate of increase in the number of pumps will probably stay pretty rapid until about 10% of stations (especially stations with over 10 pumps) have ethanol pumps. Obviously this growth can't be sustained much further than that unless there is a much greater increase in the number of flexfuel vehicles (which seems likely to happen, given GM's new "Live Green, Go Yellow" ad campaign thing).
Also, even if there are a lot of E85 stations, for a long time the greatest market for ethanol will be for E10 unleaded blends. By the time there are a considerable number of E85 stations and when most unleaded gasoline sold in the US is blended with ethanol (5-10% ethanol blends), many of the currently being built ethanol plants will have come on line and cellulosic ethanol will be entering into full-scale commercial production. I agree that ethanol cannot totally replace gasoline in the US, but with full-scale cellulosic ethanol production and continued improvements in yields of corn and new cellulose sources, I believe 20% ethanol in 10 years is quite feasible. (I think it will probably turn out to be more like 10% in 10 years.)
Remember also that we (in the US) actually are using less total acres for growing corn today than we were 10 years ago, even though total bushels produced has continued to increase. Modest increases in the amount of farmed land can also help increase the available production capacity of ethanol in the US. This is likely to happen (without any external pressure), since the increase in demand for corn will make farming more profitable. Robotbeat 17:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethanol Fuel from Corn Faulted as ‘Unsustainable Subsidized Food Burning’

David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of farmland, the same space needed to grow a year's supply of food for seven people. Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion into ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.

Mr. Pimentel concluded that "abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuels amounts to unsustainable subsidized food burning".

Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what Cornell University agricultural scientist, David Pimentel, calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.

At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some lawmakers, Cornell’s David Pimentel, one of the world’s leading experts in issues relating to energy and agriculture, takes a longer range view.

"Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning", says the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings are published in the September, 2001 issue of the Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology .

Among his findings are:

An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel’s analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.

The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline.

Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. "Put another way", Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU".

Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. "That helps explain why fossil fuels-not ethanol-are used to produce ethanol", Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn’t afford it, either, if it weren’t for government subsidies to artificially lower the price".

Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. "Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol".

The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States. Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: "In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace".

Nickels and dimes aside, some drivers still would rather see their cars fueled by farms in the Midwest than by oil wells in the Middle East, Pimentel acknowledges, so he calculated the amount of corn needed to power an automobile:

The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix) would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans.

why are we spending so much time with the pimentel data, which has been discredited by numerous sources (see farrell article). this portion of the article should be removed about 11 acres being required to grow enough corn to power one auto, that is false as are pimentels premises of outdated ag productivity, spurious arguments aobut fueling human labor and ignorance of environmental externalities Anlace 20:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I think I detect an error in paragraph six. Mr. Pimentel doesn't take into account the market price for corn, when analyzing the "cost" of the "feedstock". The "acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn" cited above amounts to approximately 127 bushels of corn, for the 2005 market price at approximately $2 per bushel(56 lbs), amounts to about $254 cost of raw material to produce "328 gallons of ethanol"...sounds like $0.774 corn cost per gallon, to me, instead of the "feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon". I cannot speak to the cost of production, but if it is off by a similar amount, the whole analysis is in question. If corn costs that much to produce, I'd say the farmer is getting screwed...and probably is, since the farmer never sets the price on the corn as a commodity. Dennis Deckard dgdeckard@hotmail.com 5 May 2006

[edit] This article

Is full of repetition and needs a major rewrite and weight-loss programme to bring it to a decent state. Guinnog 18:36, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I second that. This is easily the worst important article I've come across in months. The status of ethanol as a net-positive/net-negative source of energy is a debate ripe for tackling by Wikipedia. Leo132.239.215.69 07:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Here's an important question. Can we agree that 'production' is not the best word to use about the extraction and use of non-renewable fossil fuels? They are not being produced; quite the reverse if you think about it. Guinnog 17:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree that this article needs to be a lot more terse. Robotbeat 17:38, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Can somebody find a source for these statements?

Today the US Gas usage is approximately 360,000,000 U.S. gallons per day. 28.8% of the US surface area (~ 685,000,000 acres) would be required to grow the biomass required to produce enough ethanol to cover current domestic US gas demand. The US currently has 455,000,000 acres of arable land. There are currently about 80 million acres of corn planted in the US (~40% of the world's supply).

http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/statistics/gasoline_per_capita.html -- 464 gallons per capita in 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_states -- population in 2004 was about (eyeball linear interpolation) 295 million.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html -- arable land 18%, area is 9.63e9 km2 or 2.37e9 acres
Arithmetic: 464*295e6/365 = 375e6 gallons/day. 18% of 2.37e9 is 426e6 acres of arable land. Depending on feedstock and who who one wishes to believe, ethanol production is from 250 to 800 gallons/acre/year. If we optimisitically assume this can be brought to 1000 gallons per acre, 464*295e6/1000 = 137e6 acres, or about 30% of the arable land in the country. If only 300 gallons/acre, multiply by 3 (i.e, 90%). Frankly, given that fuel consumption is going to _rise_, then even if the stuff has a positive EROI these figures suggest the entire concept simply will not scale. Shades of wind turbines, solar power, and the like. mdf 19:32, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethanol is economic for energy usages

This was originally posted at 11:56, 24 April 2006 by 213.42.2.21 in the article page. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethanol_fuel&diff=49907137&oldid=49793846.) I have moved it here. 12.217.192.63 00:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with those who say that ethanol is not economic for energy usages. See the below article.

The literature on the energy cost of fermentation ethanol as a liquid fuel is reviewed and separation of pure ethanol is highlighted as one major factor. Ways of reducing energy consumption in the traditional distillation are examined, and adsorption is considered as an energy saving alternative. Experimental work has been carried out on both a laboratory and pilot plant scale to study the efficiency of corn granules as an adsorbent. The corn shows stability over 40-50 cycles of adsorption, and results are reproducible. A product of better than 99.5% w/w ethanol was obtained from feed concentration of 75-98% w/w with best results from 85% w/w . Feed rate granule size were varied, and the best product was obtained at a rate of 4.7x-4 gm min-1 ( gm corn )-1 using 0.85 mm granules. Regeneration by 50-120 liters/min air at 100oC for 2 hours gave a good product in the next run; however, longer times or higher temperatures “ over-dried ” the corn and gave poorer product initially. Alcohol was present in the effluent air stream in amounts varying with the feed concentration.

Dr. Abid Ali Hassaballah E-mail: abid_hssbllh@yahoo.com

[edit] Big Oil

Right now big oil owns virtually all ethanol production in the United States. There is has been accusations that big oil is intentionally slowing down ethanol production and trying to keep ethanol from replacing gasoline or being mixed with gasoline in large amounts. The government has put a huge tariff on all Brazilian ethanol importation, "to protect the domestic industry" even though there barely is a ethanol industry in the United States. Brazil has a large surplus of ethanol and are beginning to export it. I just wanted to state my opinion (that is why this is the discussion page). Aceofspades 14:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, to be pedantic about it, the discussion page is to discuss the article in question and improvements to same, not one's opinion[1]. However, it's likely that people can tolerate a few rants now and then ... if they are substantiated by references and the like. To that extent, if what you claim is true, it sounds like a reasonable addition to an "ethanol" article, or perhaps some other article "emerging geopolitics of ethanol", "protectionism", "hypocrisy" or whatever. mdf 16:25, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Air, Water, Sun & Catalyst

Is there any technical or practical reason why ethanol cannot be maufactured in a reactor cell with the aid of a suitable catalyst directly from air, water and sunlight ? Of course, finding that catalyst (even if it exists) may involve a long quest. Also, it would be nice were the energy recovered from the ethanol greater than the energy produced in an equivalent photovoltaic cell and later recovered. There is also the advantage for vehicles of a liquid fuel over stored electricity or hydrogen.

Basically, what you are talking about my friend, is the water-splitting reaction: 2H2O goes to 2H2 + O2 (hydrogen and oxygen) via a catalyst and sunlight. This is the Holy Grail of Chemistry, but has not yet been accomplished for economic, large scale production. Once you make hydrogen, then you can react it with CO2 in air to make alcohol, or methanol, which is a fuel in itself that can be used to make other fuels such as dimethylether. Methanol is also the feedstock for producing many organic chemicals that are used for polymers, drugs, dashboards, everything really.

[edit] Soil contaminaton

The soil contamination section was 90% discussion of soil contamination by petroleum (clearly not relevant), with only an offhand reference to ethanol at all. And that comment was an opinion, unsupported by any references. Nahaj 02:08, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved "Other Alcohols" to Alcohol fuel

I moved the whole chunk on other alcohols to the page Alcohol fuels to make the articles in general more organized. I hope this is a positive change. If you disagree, please comment here. --Rifleman 82 22:05, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is the point of the 'Cost' section?

What is the argument that the 'Cost' section is making? If it's arguing that you need to burn gasoline in order to produce ethanol, that's not strictly true; there's no conceptual reason why farm equipment can't itself run on ethanol. If a farm internally produces a hundred gallons of ethanol, even if it uses fifty of them to run all the equipment needed to do so, it's still energy-positive. I don't understand that point that's being made. It's either nonsense or poorly explained, and I'm not sure which. grendel|khan 04:15, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not about production, it's about refining. It takes more energy to refine ethanol than it generates in an ICE engine. [2] 67 percent more, to be specific. That energy is coming from the electricity network which is generated from a number of sources including via coal and oil burning, among cleaner methods. Additionally, just because farm implements could run purely on ethanol (unlikely, see the Ethanol fuel blends section of this article) doesn't mean they are doing so. unsigned comment
That energy is coming from the electricity network--not necessarily. As pointed out in ethanol fuel in Brazil, the process there burns part of the sugarcane plant to provide energy to run the refining process, and actually produces an electrical surplus, which is sold back to the grid. I still don't see the point. Brazil cannot simply be playing a shell game with the real costs of producing ethanol; they're energy-independent. If ethanol did not actually replace petroleum, they would be importing ever more of it. grendel|khan 15:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
The argument is that even if the EROI is positive, human economies put more value in gasoline than ethanol, so it's a waste of money to run the conversion. Of course, if the EROI is negative then it is a waste of energy to convert fossil fuels into ethanol -- a "pre-burned" hydrocarbon, as some have said -- and it's simply impossible in this case to use ethanol to make ethanol ... and all of this would be true no matter what value humans may place on these substances. However, it needs to be said that whether or not the analysis given in the section is true, it is completely unreferenced: who originally made the argument and where was it published? mdf 01:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
That assumes that petroleum is used in the production of ethanol, and in significant enough quantities to make the economic argument against ethanol production. As I pointed out in the above comment, Brazil's ethanol production system is economically viable; the amount of petroleum used in the production process is necessarily cheaper than the ethanol gotten back out of it. As for the analysis, it looks a bit like original research; the individual numbers are referenced (a bit vaguely; I couldn't find them in the referenced articles, but the referenced articles are very large PDFs), but I still have no idea what question the whole mess is actually answering. What is meant by "save the energy in 1 gallon of gasoline"? It would make sense if the 'Cost' section asked what the energy inputs were, and what the outputs were, to determine the efficiency of the process. But there are already papers about that. [3] [4] I still don't see why that section is here. Perhaps a summary of studies and the efficiencies they derived, in table format? grendel|khan 15:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Any economic argument against ethanol is going to hinge on whether or not anyone can sell the stuff for a profit. The argument appears to be that "no one can because the costs exceed the revenue" -- and this is true even if there is an energetic argument in its favour (and all of the conditions given are upheld). Also note that the argument is focued on corn-ethanol in the United States, not sugarcane-ethanol in Brazil. Indeed, the argument notes that the conclusions can change because As yields improve or different feedstocks are introduced, this analysis might argue economically for ethanol production.
But we should not be distracted from the more serious citation issue. If no one can reference the argument, it should be zapped whether or not the analysis is correct. At least if the "no original research" rule is to have any meaning. mdf 20:21, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
i support what grendelkhan is trying to convey. i think some of the important issues here are:


::::: * what makes petroleum the "gold standard" .  it is simply a historically cheap resource which               is becoming extinct.
::::: * more attention needs to be given to the realities of the exhaustion of petroleum as a cheap available fuel.  in fact future costs of petroleum production can be expected to rise sharply as marginal exploration costs increase to extract from greater depths, etc.
::::: * environmental externalities must be quantified if cost analysis is performed
Anlace 10:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Why don't ethanol detractors ever factor in the cost of war in the Middle East? --Mlprater 17:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

There is still much to be done here, but I've been trying to go through the various sections and trim to the bare essentials. This article should stay focused on ethanol as a fuel, and resist the temptation to talk about global political issues (e.g., the theory that energy independence will reduce global international terrorism). The chain of conclusions is too tenuous and I think distracting to the overall article.

I feel that we can get close to resolving the net energy balance issues for corn-ethanol. I think most agree that current techniques are either near neutral or negative energy balance. But also that energy balance is not the sole issue in using ethanol as a valuable commodity.

Some major restructuring is still needed, but hopefully trimming the individual sections first, will reduce the raw volume of content that needs to be re-organized.

As to a resturcturing, here is the current contents or the article:

  1. Ethanol sources
  2. Ethanol production
  3. Ethanol fuel blends
  4. Ethanol and government intervention
  5. Other alcohols
  6. Ethanol and hydrogen
  7. Alternate sources to corn
  8. Net fuel energy balance
    1. Ethanol energy balance in the United States
  9. Arguments and criticisms
    1. Air pollution
    2. Renewable resource
    3. Dependency on foreign oil
    4. Statism
    5. Cost
    6. Deforestation
  10. Ethanol fuel in Colombia
  11. Ethanol fuel in Brazil
  12. Ethanol fuel in the United States
    1. Ethanol fuel in the Midwest
    2. Notes
    3. See also
    4. External links

I would propose this new format:

  1. Sources
  2. Production and Distribution
  3. Economics
  4. Environmental Factors
  5. Regulations and Subsidies
  6. New Technologies
  7. South American Production
  8. Notes
  9. External links

Mike Koss 06:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I would add a section on efficiency; it's an oft-repeated claim that ethanol costs more energy than it produces, and I think it's important enough to warrant its own section. The 'Cost' section currently purports to do this, but it doesn't make any sense. (See the thread above this one for my thoughts on the matter.) grendel|khan 16:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
The whole business strikes me as a huge distraction. It is trivially true that "making ethanol" will result in a net energy expenditure. The laws of thermodynamics will see to that. The question is how much energy input do humans have to provide to get the job done, and this is standard resource allocation that economics is supposed to solve for us. Say you are given a tank of gasoline. Q: does it make sense to convert it into ethanol, or does it make more sense to just burn the gasoline directly and to hell with the capital investments of ethanol plants, agriculture subsidies, the state of Iowa, bribing politicians and the rest of it? This depends on prices and the like. For example, if ethanol was incredibly expensive on the free market, then converting cheap gasoline to expensive ethanol would be a no-brainer even if the EROI was woefully negative. All that needs to occur is the price ratio to exceed the conversion ratio. Another example: if the EROI was again massively negative, but there was no petroleum left, it doesn't take a proverbial rocket scientist to figure out that human civilization will be building more than a few nuclear power plants (or similar) and converting some nuclear binding energy into ethanol (or perhaps something more useful, on an easier energetic path, etc) simply to maintain its current "standard of living". Notice that in either of these cases (or others of the genre), if the EROI is positive (stored sunlight), then that's just pure gravy: we are getting a bit of a free lunch, which is nice, but not a hard prerequisite.
I haven't come across any of the above at the "usual references", but surely someone has pointed this out in print. If so, more than anything, it needs to be said to basically short-circuit what is ultimately Yet Another Pointless Political Debate being disguised by science. mdf 21:06, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
It's not a distraction at all, but rather the crux of the issue of ethanol sustainability. Since the value of ethanol is as an ENERGY SOURCE, replacment of other energy sources with ethanol only makes economic sense if you get more energy out, than you have to put in. The price of ethanol in the market will have to follow very closely the price of other energy products. The point being that ethanol can do nothing to help with our energy import problems, if we have to consume more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy we get from a gallon of ethanol. Mike Koss 04:26, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
The crux of ethanol sustainability is not a question of the conversion efficiency but whether or not the necessary quantity of feedstock can be grown ... and not starving to death doing it. Also critical is whether or not the entire exercise is simply converting mining petroleum into mining the soil and water table. And ethanol is not, in the end, an "energy source": it is useful only as a form of energy storage. Solar panels can't power a car, and nuclear reactors won't be pushing jets around any time soon. Civilization is critically dependent on portable stored energy, and it will be made one way or another, regardless of the conversion efficiency. Hence my speculation the entire "debate" on this matter is just an inability for the "ethanol lobby" (to give them a name), and even some of its opponents, to confront the fact that solar power isn't going to run the world: once the pools of oil dry up, we must be synthesizing the stuff or its energetic equivalent, or a major catastrophe will ensue. Vast, gigantic, gobs of energy are needed to replace current fossil fuel use ... and that's not going to be obtained by covering the planet with sugarcane. mdf 18:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

OK - how about replace "Economics" with "Sustainability and Energy Balance". And "South American Production" with "International Experience" (include Brazilian production, energy independence, columbia, European usage and regulations, and US regulations and changes). Actually it would be great to have a chart/table of annual consumption of gasoline and ethanol for US, Brazil, Europe. Mike Koss 05:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

  1. Sources
  2. Production and Distribution
  3. Sustainability and Energy Balance
  4. Environmental Factors
  5. Regulations and Subsidies
  6. New Technologies
  7. International Experience
  8. Notes
  9. External links

[edit] Text dump from main article, while awaiting edits. These are mostly country specific information which I intend to split off into separate articles.

[edit] Alternate sources to corn

Sugar cane grows in the extreme southern United States, but not in the cooler climates where corn is dominant. However, many regions that currently grow corn are also appropriate areas for growing other crops that can be used for energy production. These crops include corn stover, sugar beets, wheat straw, hybrid poplars, and dedicated herbaceous biomass feedstocks such as switchgrass or bermudagrass. Some studies indicate that using these sugar beets would be a much more efficient method for making ethanol in the U.S. than using corn. United States Department of Energy reports have shown that at a minimum farmgate price, hybrid poplars and switchgrass would be economically advantageous over conventional crops in certain regions of the U.S.

In the 1980s, Brazil seriously considered producing ethanol from cassava, a major food crop with massive starchy roots. However yields were lower than sugarcane, and the processing of cassava was considerably more complex, as it would require cooking the root to turn the starch into fermentable sugar. The babaçu plant was also investigated as a possible source of alcohol.

Brazil now makes ethanol out of sugar cane. Ethanol made out of sugar cane is almost eight times as efficient as ethanol made out of corn. [5]

There is also growing interest in the use of waste biomass as a source of fuel alcohol. New technologies such as cellulose to ethanol production could provide much higher positive energy ratios of 2 to 3 times more energy in ethanol produced than input. Cellulose to ethanol production could also run on any cellulose and hemicellulose source from farm waste, hay/grass, basically any plant matter including wood, cardboard and paper. Theoretically farms could produce fuel without sacrificing food production, because all that is needed is the left over plant matter after harvesting. Cellulose to ethanol production is still in development and has seen limited use in industrial ethanol production. However, a bioenergy corporation in Canada is producing 1 million gallons/year of cellulosic ethanol from their Ottawa facility. Using current technologies, 1 ton of biomass (such as switchgrass) would be able to produce 80 gallons of ethanol using a conventional enzymatic fermentation process. The biggest challenges in using cellulose as a feedstock is the treatment and disposal of process waste and the conversion of C5 sugars (hemicellulose). Lignin, a part of the cell wall that provides plant structure, does not readily break down to simple sugars but has an energy equivalent of soft coal. Extensive research has been put into solving the C5 sugar metabolic deficiency in baker's yeast by the means of metabolic engineering. Other organisms such as E. coli can make effective use of pentose sugars but the end product of these fermentations is organic acids rather than ethanol. Lignin would be incinerated to produce energy for the ethanol plant and surrounding areas or gasified to produce a syngas (hydrogen and carbon dioxide). Unlike grain based processes which produce a by-product known as distillers grain with minimal waste treatment needs, cellulosic processes are typically effluent and waste treatment intensive. Cellulose to ethanol production is a focus of President Bush's administration. Increased ethanol production from cellulosic sources was one method that President George W. Bush mentioned in his 2006 State of the Union Address to decrease America's "addiction to foreign oil." [6]

Distiller grain is a protein enriched animal feed with much higher nutritional value than natural grain and is typically priced at less than half that of natural grain. It therefore tends to be a desirable product for animal feeders. Approximately one-third of grain usage in the production of ethanol in modern plants is recovered as distillers grain.[7] [8] [9]

At this time, most of the different processes for converting biomass into ethanol and other fuels are very complicated and not particularly efficient. A few processes have seen increasing buzz, including thermal depolymerization (though that process produces what is described as light crude oil).

It is possible to decompose cellulose into sugar in strong or weak solutions of sulphuric acid, but this process also decomposes and wastes perhaps half the potential sugar content and creates large amounts of acidic waste, so scientists are searching for more efficient and less polluting enzymatic and microbial processes for breaking down cellulose into sugar.

Another approach under development is to gasify biomass by heating it in an oxygen-poor environment. This yields hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide as well as noncombustible carbon dioxide and nitrogen compounds. Bacterial cultures have been isolated that can convert the reactive gasses into ethanol, which is then distilled out of the liquid medium.

[edit] Statism

Some critics dislike the idea of an ethanol economy because they see it as leading to increased government subsidy for corn-growing agribusiness, and statism. Minnesota's banning of straight gas was unpopular with some, and the US government mandates ethanol use while placing heavy tarriffs on brazilian ethanol, ensuring that consumers must purchase more expensive and taxpayer-subsidized Midwest ethanol.

The Archer Daniels Midland Corporation of Decatur, Illinois, better known as ADM, the world's largest grain processor, produces 40% of the ethanol used to make gasohol in the U.S. The company and its officers have been eloquent in their defense of ethanol and contributors to both political parties; petroleum companies have been consistent donors to both political parties as well.

One U.S. government study, Tax Incentives for ethanol and petroleum, examined subsidies historically given to the oil industry and to the ethanol industry and found that the amounts of those to the oil industry are far higher. However, this study applies only to historical subsidies and doesn't investigate the question of what the case would be if petroleum fuels were substantially replaced by ethanol.


[edit] Arguments and criticisms

The use of alcohol as fuel leads to several beneficial effects to the environment, greater independence from petroleum, and economic advantages. Critics dispute some of these arguments, claiming that the switch could be expensive, and object to perceived need for increased government subsidies, taxes, and regulations.


[edit] Ethanol fuel in the Midwest

The so-called corn belt in the Midwestern United States produces large amounts of corn. Sugars from this corn are used to make ethanol. Minnesota has pioneered the use of ethanol fuel mixes in the United States, and currently it is the only state in the U.S. in which all gasoline mixes must have at least 10% ethanol (90% gasoline) by volume. Laws have been passed which mandate a 20% mix in all gasoline in the state by 2013.[10] There are almost 600 gas stations in the United States that serve E85[11] (almost 200 in Minnesota alone), which is a fuel mix of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.[12]

--Rifleman 82 06:02, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

................................

[edit] The figures in the “Notes” don’t tally up with the CIA Factbook!

CIA Factbook USA: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html#Geo

Area: 9.2 mln sq km (2.3 bln Acre)

arable land: 18.01% (1.65 mln sq km = 421 mln Acre)

USDA http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/US.htm

Total land area = 2.3 bln acres

Total farmland = 940 mln acrs

Percent of total land area = 42%


Note the arable land (42%) compare with CIA (18.01%)

So, what is the total area of all the farmable lands in the USA?

And where is the water to irrigate that amount of land?

82.70.40.190

[edit] Brazillian energy independence

We should close the loop on the story of Brazillian oil independence and it's relation to ethanol production. I found an article to show that Brazil now produces 1.9 million barrels per day including a new offshore oil rig now in production. This compares to consuption of only 1.85 million barrels per day. [13]

This works out to total consumption of 15 billion gallons per year of gasoline consumption (at 20 gallons per barrel). The Ethanol fuel article claims Brazil produces 4 billion gallons of ethanol per year.

Since ethanol has only 70% the energy content of gasoline, Brazil actually produces the equivalent of 17.8 (15 + 2.8) billion gallons of gas-equivalent. Thus, ethanol accounts for 16% of total fuel production.

I think anything over 10% is significant, so if this analysis holds up, I think it should be added to this article. Mike Koss 05:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Presumably the above is correct, but I notice the caption on the first image reads By using renewable energy sources...Brazil has eliminated its dependence on foreign oil giving the impression that alternative energy rather than domestic oil production is the biggest factor. This is obviously intended to be misleading. Why can't this article stick to the facts and leave out the political spin? In the end, sea level will rise or not according to reality and not according to what people want to believe. Man with two legs 12:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Right... I have seen that statement before as well and I also found it... confusing. But the FACT is that Brazil is self-suficient in oil. this is however, more due to the fact of its oil production (and recent discoveries of oil new oil reserves and the new deep water oil platform) -- rather than the ethanol production. Nevertheless, if ethanol was to be scraped from Brazil from one day to the other, this would affect the figures of self-suficiency. Bottom line, I agree the text must be "reworded" or "revised" but we shouldn't disregard the role of ethanol in Brazil's auto-suficiency completly. --Pinnecco 13:30, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Water/ethanol/gasoline solubility

If water is soluble in ethanol (or vice versa) and ethanol is soluble in gasoline, what happens in a mixture of ethanol, water, and gasoline, since water is not soluble in gasoline? Do you end up with a layer of ethanol/gasoline and a layer of water/ethanol or does the added ethanol allow the water to mix with the gasoline?

At very low concentrations of water in a mixture of water and gas, it'll be completely soluble. In higher concentrations you'll get an emulsion. You can read up about ternary phase diagrams for this. -- Rifleman 82 04:28, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Deforestation

User Anlace has removed a sentence on deforestation stating "remove sentence that is unsourced, since the source cited in UK energy policy had nothing to do with rainforests"

Actually, that report does contain a bit about it: (althought you have to look for it):

"These issues must also be considered from a wider international perspective, because it is likely that greater demand for biofuels in the EU will attract imports. Palm and soya bean oil are already being imported to the UK to produce biodiesel, and the duty incentive for bioethanol being introduced from January 2005 could see imports of bioethanol.
We are not aware of specific research on the broader international environmental impact of supplying bio-fuel feedstocks from outside the EU to meet growing EU demand. However, there are more widespread concerns about deforestation in some countries to meet growing demand for products such as palm oil. For example, although prohibited by Indonesian law, a 2002 WWF report stated that clearing of natural forest for palm oil tree plantations was continuing at an alarming rate, with devastating effects on biodiversity.
Clearly the UK would want to avoid an outcome whereby measures introduced to mitigate one environmental problem simultaneously resulted in significantly contributing to another. However, given the international nature of the problem, it is not clear whether there are real practical measures that might achieve this - at least in the short term."

This does illustrate a valid point which is still worth including in the article especially since it is not that hard to work out that growing something will require farmland which is often created by clearing rain forests. Man with two legs 10:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Anlace has now restored the relevant sentence in an improved form. Man with two legs 14:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

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