Ethanol

[Reindeer^]

The topic was about ethanol and now people are talking about acts of terrorism.
Ethanol is reality and hydrogen is (maybe) future.
Only problem is that there is not enough ethanol for cars.

[Antichrist_Online]

We were side tracked by someone's idea that an overunity machine can be made... then got onto more real topics. The more changes to an energy soucre, the more inefficient it becomes, it never becomes more efficient. It contridicts the very laws of physics.
On the point of ethanol, it's not that good a fuel source, it's costly to produce, still produces CO2 when burnt (not getting into a debate about the effects of this), and requires huge tracks of land to produce.

[Racetyme]

I did an analysis on the changing production of crops in the US, and basically, we are shafting ourselves. This year is slated to be the biggest corn crop in US history. Great right? Not so much. All that corn is being used to form ethanol. Which is fine, except most of the plants in the US that produce ethanol do it with coal. Granted, if you are one of those people who hates arabs and thinks depending on foreign oil is bad, you are throwing a party. If you are like me, I see burning coal and burning oil as basically the same thing.


Further, where is all this corn coming from? Soybeans. We are cutting out soybeans like crazy. I hate tofu. I'll admit it. But cutting any food product (especially an extremely useful, versatile one like soy) to make a fuel source for internal combustion engines which is created by burning coal seems crazy to me. (Sorry about the convuluted last sentence, I tried to cram it all in. Just read it three or four times)

[Elros]

I had a question about Ethanol:

I do not know too much about it, but from what I understand it supposedly does not rely on the oil market like Gasoline and Diesel does. If that is the case then why are Ethanol prices rising with the Gasoline and Diesel prices? For instance where I live(South Carolina, USA) the Gasoline is about $3 a gallon on the average and the Diesel is about $2.85 a gallon. However the Ethanol is up at about $2.65 a gallon. Ethanol used to be alot cheaper however when the Gasoline and Diesel prices rose, the Ethanol rose as well.

Is this just because that Ethanol market knows that it can raise their prices to make more profit but still undercut the Gasoline and Deisel? Or does it somehow rely on the same factors that are stimulating the increase in prices for Gasoline and Diesel?

[deadboy]

It is due to the fact that at the moment in wealthy countries 99% of ethanol is created by cracking large alkanes from crude oil into ethene and then hydrating it into ethanol, and so at the moment it is reliant on oil prices. Why? It is because currently the land to grow crops to ferment costs more in wealthy countries than crude oil, and so it is more cost effective, as they have large enough reserves of oil. Whereas in poorer countries, such as Brazil, the land is cheaper and so almost all of their ethanol is created via fermentation as it is more cost effective for them than hydration

[Darkle-ish]

Yes, and Brazil is doing wonderfully economically at least as far as they don't import all that much, and are almost completely self-sufficient.

Yay Brazil!

[Elros]

Oh ok. Thank you both very much. So what you are saying then, is taht at the moment ethanol is being made using the same oil that gasoline and deisel are made by also. Doesn't that sort of defeat the point of an altrenative fuel?

[Darkle-ish]

Yes. Just as with hydrogen, they process it with oil; with electricity, sure, you get the electricity from your house, but where do you get that? Oil; and hybrids have not only the problem of using oil but also the problem of using electricity which made from oil.

So. What have we learned today children? Life sucks, and government doesn't make sense.