20 in 10

[Shawnee123]

Bush wants to cut back on greenhouse emissions and regulate higher fuel efficiency.

In his State of the Union address in January, Mr. Bush set a goal of reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent over 10 years. Under his plan, this would be accomplished by increasing the use of alternative fuels to 35 billion gallons by 2017 and boosting fuel efficiency standards in new vehicles.

It seems a good idea, on the surface. Bush gets to look green, car manufacturers are forced to produce higher fuel efficiency cars. What are your opinions? Here are a few of mine:

1) What about now? I'm sure many people would love to buy into a high efficiency car; many of us cannot afford to buy a new Prius or other hybrid. Meanwhile gas prices are through the roof. Are we smoke-screening the issue that gas prices are a hardship on many, that the oil companies still make billions upon billions of dollars with the promise that in 10 years we'll feel better?

2) The burden on our already faltering auto industry is another issue. I'm all for big corporations being environmentally responsible, but another news report I saw last night talked about the eventuality of auto companies being forced to send the work overseas, that a US car will be in name only.

I'm interested in you politically/ environmentally/ economically savvy folks' opinions.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Ethanol is a false god, being touted without full disclosure.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Ethanol is a false god, being touted without full disclosure.

I agree.

[HungLikeJesus]

This week I'm in a two-day biomass conference in Wyoming. The presentations are mostly related to cellulosic biomass. Cellulose is the part of the plant that is usually considered waste (corn stover, cobs, the fiber that gets between your teeth). It also includes other woody biomass (wood chips, construction and demolition waste, MSW, etc.)

The parts of plants that are currently converted to ethanol are the starch and sugars. These are also the parts that are edible by humans. Studies estimate that the maximum quantity of US transportation fuel that can be replaced by sugar-based ethanol to be about 5-10%, based on land requirements.

In 2006, US ethanol production was about 5 billion gallons.

Because of high corn prices, farmers are planting more corn for ethanol production. Since there is a limited amount of farm land, this reduces production of other crops, making all food more expensive - including meat.

There are many projects currently under way to produce ethanol from cellulosic sources, including corn waste, straw and switch grass, C&D waste, yard and vegetable waste, and other wood residues.

Other products are also being investigated, including DME - which is an isomer of ethanol that can be used in a special diesel engine (Chemrec and Volvo), and standard diesel from FTL (CHOREN and Daimler Chrysler).

It's thought that cellulosic biomass can be used to replace up to 20% of our current transportation fuels.

Tomorrow's presentations include "Wood Biomass to Ethanol" and "Production of Syngas from Wood Biomass."

[Griff]

Originally Posted by HLJ

This week I'm in a two-day biomass conference in Wyoming. The presentations are mostly related to cellulosic biomass. Cellulose is the part of the plant that is usually considered waste (corn stover, cobs, the fiber that gets between your teeth). It also includes other woody biomass (wood chips, construction and demolition waste, MSW, etc.)...

What's the outlook for home-based bio mass conversion?

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by Griff

What's the outlook for home-based bio mass conversion?

Griff - there are some things that you can do right now, for instance wood for heat, which is not new of course, but conversion methods are getting cleaner and more efficient. These methods include pellet stoves and stoker stoves (also called outdoor boilers, stick boilers, etc.). Some of the stoker stoves (generally these are boilers that are located outside the house and are fed whole logs once or twice per day) are very dirty, and they've been banned in several states. But the Colorado Governor's Energy Office is testing equipment from 3 manufacturers, including (I think) Tarm, because the Department of Public Health wants to ban them here also. Here is a link to one discussion of some outdoor boilers.

Residential pellet stoves have been around for a long time, but now there are a few pellet furnaces and pellet boilers available in the US. Some of the pellet manufacturers are investigating bulk pellet delivery, so that you don't have to deal with the 40-lb bags. Bulk delivery should reduce the cost of pellets, but I don't know if it's available anywhere yet. In addition to wood pellets, some of the pellet stoves can also burn corn and some can burn coal.

As for transportation fuels, you can make biodiesel in your kitchen. There are books and videos available if you want to learn how to do that, and you might be able to find websites with that information. Biodiesel isn't the same as diesel - it has a different pour point and cold flow properties, and is not as stable. This means that you have to have two fuel tanks - one for biodiesel and one for regular diesel - and the biodiesel tank might need a heater if it's to be operated in a cold climate.

Making corn ethanol isn't too hard - hill people have been doing it for a long time - but reducing the water content to almost zero (resulting in 200 proof alcohol) might be a challenge. If you do a search for "homemade ethanol" you'll find lots of links.

I'm not aware of any commercially available kits or equipment for making ethanol, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone else knows of something.

[Happy Monkey]

I heard someone on C-SPAN this morning testifying that this was the first year that ethanol made a net increase to the fuel supply.

I'm not sure if he meant last year, or a projection for this year, of financial year, or what.

[xoxoxoBruce]

But at what cost?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

But at what cost?

I don't know. What cost?

[xoxoxoBruce]

How about your weekly food budget climbing from an average of 10% of your income to at least 40%. That's until Global warming makes more land unproductive at which point it gets worse.

But not to worry, we can always eat nice safe Chinese exports.
And with the resurgence of food tasters, full employment.

[Shawnee123]

These are more things I don't know:

Do you need a certain car to burn ethanol? What does it cost? Is it currently marketed to the general public?

[Happy Monkey]

That would be a plus. It would be nice if corn got expensive enough that it wasn't used to simulate every other food. Maybe get some real sugar in our twinkies and some real fruit in our juice.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

That would be a plus. It would be nice if corn got expensive enough that it wasn't used to simulate every other food. Maybe get some real sugar in our twinkies and some real fruit in our juice.

Now there I'm interested. I never thought about the price of corn going up (duh, shawnee, supply and demand) with increased use of ethanol. Will we end up with no better prices? Will the demand keep up?

This is why I started this thread. I'm a bit clueless on economics and I really enjoy this insight.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

That would be a plus. It would be nice if corn got expensive enough that it wasn't used to simulate every other food. Maybe get some real sugar in our twinkies and some real fruit in our juice.

That's all well and good but with the fuel mandates and government subsidies more land will be switched over to corn production. How much do you think you'll have to pay for lettuce or carrots in order for the farmer(agricultural corporation) to consider growing them instead of the guaranteed profit in corn?

When they can efficiently make ethanol from non food biomass we'll be in good shape.
When Brazil has a bad growing season they import ethanol from the US and Canada.

One more thing, all the meat that eats grain will go up too.

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

That's all well and good but with the fuel mandates and government subsidies more land will be switched over to corn production. How much do you think you'll have to pay for lettuce or carrots in order for the farmer(agricultural corporation) to consider growing them instead of the guaranteed profit in corn?

When they can efficiently make ethanol from non food biomass we'll be in good shape.
When Brazil has a bad growing season they import ethanol from the US and Canada.

One more thing, all the meat that eats grain will go up too.

I wish I'd said that.