In article ,
Peter Stickney wrote:
In article ,
"George Z. Bush" writes:

"D. Strang" wrote in message
news:gXJZb.9592$Ru5.1337@okepread03...
"George Z. Bush" wrote

Our ethanol experience suggests much wishful thinking on your part,
unfortunately for us all.

Ethanol is a welfare program. It has nothing to do with future energy.

You don't know what you're talking about. When you pour a gallon of it into
your gas tank, that's one less gallon of gasoline that you're going to need,
because it's supposed to burn just about as good as gasoline does.
That has to
do with reducing gasoline consumption, the way I see it. Unfortunately,
for
some reason, it never caught on with consumers.


I just read something that said that Ethanol production on Iowa
returned about 35% more energy than that it took to make. It went on
to say that Iowa needed little irrigation, and in a dry state like
Nebraska artificial irrigation would require more energy input. I
think I read it in Economist.

Ethanol subsidies is pork barrel politics of the highest order, and
that's saying something given the obsecne subsidies we give Big Sugar
(mostly in Flordia). Remind me, what's the Fla Govener's name again ?
We also protect Peanut and Tobacco growers. There are only a handful
of companies that get Peanut money. Tobacco is more of a small
indy-farmer business, I'm told. ADM gets most of the ethanol
subsidy and lots of other agricicultural pork.



It's certainly not the case that a gallon of Etanol would displace a
gallon of Gasoline - Ethanol has an energy content much
lower than gasoline. (Roughly 55% of gasoline)
So, for an equivalent amaount of power, you have to burn twice as much
Ethanol. It's got some other problems as well - it doesn't atomize as
well in a fuel injector or carburator jet, and it tends to suck up
water, which leads to more problems with clogging injectors & jets.

It does have the advantage of having the detonation resistance of
about 150 Octane gasoline.

There are also heavy demands on energy in the agricuture producing
Ethanol. I don't have the numbers at hand, but I wouldn't be
surprised if it took more energy to make a gallon of Ethanol than it
does to make a gallon on gasoline.

It also has a tendency to eat various plastic components in many fuel
systems.

Hydrogen, BTW, is much, much worse. It takes a lot of electricity to
electrolytically separate it. That electricity has to come from
somewhere. If it's not going to be Nukes (Politically unpalatable,
especially to the Greenies), we're talking about comventional means,
with the concominant, inevitable environmental damage that that
causes. When was the last time a big hydroelectric dam was built in
the U.S. or Canada? I don't want to even think about the negatice
impact of the so-called Green Techs, Solar & Wind - on a partacal
commercial scale, you're talking all sorts of nasty effects.


What I'm talking about is the DOE funded Algae program. The NREL
is creating exciting Hydrogen fuel-cell ideas, and studies:

http://www.nrel.gov/

This organization can do real research with the money that NASA is
blowing, and no people were killed in the upper atmosphere over Dallas
to do it.

In the Packaged Power business, we used to refer to them as Fool
Cells. Again, you require something to feed it - you don't get
anything for nothing. WHile you may be able to convert Hydrogen &
Oxygen into water & electricity, (And the ones that aren't directly
using Hydrogen are cracking it out of something else, like Ethanol or
Methanol) you will still be requiring that the total cycle of, say,
making a vehicle move a mile will require more energy than is required
by using gasoline. There are some applications where thay are useful,
but they aren't going to be the magic bullet that some people believe.

Algae feeds on CO2, an Algae pond at every fossil power plant would
jump-start this oil producer.

http://www.ott.doe.gov/biofuels/pdfs...m_algae_es.pdf

There is a point where the production of biodiesel is profitable, and I
believe
it has been stated that if diesel prices reach $2.00 a gallon, that the
current technology in algae production would be able to match that price,
with future prices going lower as production increases, and technology
improves.


That's all well and good, but 25+ years after they started looking into the
possibilities, there is still nothing available that is cost-effective enough to
put on the market. Since no one denies that we ought to be able to rub our
bellies and scratch our heads at the same time, why haven't they created greater
demand on vehicle manufacturers to produce engines capable of simultaneously
reducing fuel consumption and expanding the life of our petroleum reserves and
stocks while, at the same time, continuing to explore alternative sources?
That's a rhetorical question, and I'm sure you know the answer as well as I.

The answer is, actually, simple economics. The alternatives exist,
but they are too expensive at this point, and for the forseeable
future.All teh wonderhype and proclamations of "If we're so clever..."
can't change the Laws of Physics that govern how energy prodiction and
consumption work.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster


--
Al Dykes
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