I'm not a physicist, but I suspect that the numbers cited for fossil energy are equally applicable to nuclear energy.

Yes, you can't grow crude oil, which is why we'd be worse off if we wasted it making ethanol for less energy.

Sure, you need to use ethanol to make ethanol.

You're such an idiot.

The real problem is that ethanol and biodiesel are too much like the fuels needed to produce them. Both are fluid (as in movable) and concentrated, so they should be made from static, diluted or variable sources. In effect, they should be thought of as energy storage, not sources, like batteries. If they were produced by wind, solar or hydro (or nukular), then how much it costs wouldn't be so critical.
(The same can be said for hydrogen, by the way.)

Yes, we have huge stores of biomass and little oil.

Let's just pay the money straight to the s***kickers, save the overhead and the wear and tear on the environment. Wouldn't that be more in accordance with the Third Way?

No, we've plenty of oil and not enough land to grow the biomass.

You know, we all go through the stage where we "invent" dehydrated water as a boon to mankind, but the rest of us move on pretty quickly.

We've got plenty of water.

Mr. Cohen;

Now we know why The Wife handles the family budget. I can just hear OJ "But every dollar I spend on the weblog brings in 10¢ of revenue and we've got plenty of money!".

Oj, You might be cracking up, take a break man.

We've got plenty of water.

Thanks to the Time Zone rule, you've never spent much time in Nevada,or any other part of the Intermountain West east of the Casacades, have you?

Even here in the wet western portion of the Upper Left Washington, we've got to capture and store that water to put it to any use.

And Joe's right. Biomass requires farmland, and every acre takes away land that could instead be used for bison ranges or caribou wildlife refuges or wilderness areas or just lots of (unburnt) trees.

I'm fueled almost entirely by ethanol.

I'm not sure this tells us anything. Fossil fuels are spent extravagently on ethanol production precisely because they're so cheap - I might well believe we could spend less in energy (at higher total cost than today) if there was actually an economic point.

Raoul Ortega's first post is correct.

While this study, and others like it, are interesting and valuable from an academic standpoint, and should certainly be consulted to advise us on the most efficient way to produce alcohol, from a practical, American standpoint the response is "so what" ?

The U.S. have more fossil fuels than they know what to do with, but mostly in the form of natural gas, oil shale, and coal.

Our objective is to fuel personal transportation, and while coal can be used for such, it's not optimal.
Thus, it makes sense to burn up a lot of coal, in order to produce a modest amount of alcohol, which has various properties that we find to be more useful than those of coal or natural gas - such as FAR less pollution than coal when burned, and being far more dense than natural gas.

The factors for other countries and societies may be different, so not everyone should do as we do.

(A similar calculation explains why the U.S. produce 60+ pounds (boneless, trimmed (edible) weight) of inefficiently-raised beef per capita, per year, instead of simply eating the foodstock used to raise the beef, which would provide many more calories: We like beef, and we can afford to waste food.
We also produce near-50 lbs. of pork per capita, per year: Same story).

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 21, 2005 12:34 AM

Look, Ethanol is just a subsidy to the corn farmers. As a fuel strategy it is useless, as it takes at least a gallon of oil to produce a gallon of ethanol.

Bio-diesel is better because the ratio of energy input to output could be as high as 300%.

The real answer is that we shouldn't divert farm land to transportation fuel production. We will derive transportation fuel from Coal, Oil Shale, Undersea Methane Hydrates and Tar Sands. The technologies are in place, the only issue now is where the price of oil settles down.

Yahbut: we don't burn coal to grow corn, Michael, we burn diesel.

joe shropshire:

Sure, a lot of the fossil energy that goes into producing alcohol comes from petroleum, but:

In assessing inputs, the researchers considered the energy used in producing the crop, including production of pesticides and fertiliser, running farm machinery and irrigating, grinding and transporting the crop: as well as in fermenting or distilling the ethanol.

A lot of those activities use electricity, which mostly comes from coal, nat. gas, or uranium, and a significant amount is produced with renewable resources.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 21, 2005 12:56 AM

OJ:
"Sure, you need to use ethanol to make ethanol."

This sounds like an ethanol Ponzi scheme to me. Where does the first bit of ethanol come from? Can one gallon of ethanol make more than one gallon of ethanol? I confess to being a dimwitted liberal arts major, but this doesn't make any sense to me. You're an intellectual so I figure you can explain it down to a schmoe like me.

Bryan:

All you need is to use less ethanol bringing in the crop than you get out of it and you're ahead, just as the oil you burn to get gas is outweighed. You use more in the former scenario than the latter, but we have the crops to burn.

Regardless of which energy source one considers, any calculation of its costs must include how many people it can move efficiently.

What this country needs is corn-fueled rail service, right oj?

Atomic Train!

Raoul:

"that water"

David:

Given an infinite supply of money why would you care how efficiently you spent it?

oj,

Better still, give everyone nuclear-powered cars. Aand nuclear powered home heating. Sure, there will be a waste disposal problem, but hey, we can be like France and ship it to Africa or somewhere.

As far as terrorists misusing nuclear power, we can always pass some more laws.

What cars?

OJ: You can't get as much energy out of ethanol-grown corn as the ethanol you use to grow it. A moment's pause will make clear that if we only use ethanol to make ethanol, pretty soon all the arable land in the entire country will be growing corn in order to make exactly no ethanol.

I don't mind us wasting money, so long as we waste it on the stuff I like.

Michael: We'd still be better off using coal to make hydrogen, but we'd still be better off using oil directly.

David:

Not according to the story:

producing gasoline from crude oil requires 15 per cent more fossil energy than the fuel produced - half the net energy loss of ethanol

"We'd still be better off using coal to make hydrogen, but we'd still be better off using oil directly."

Hydrogen is a crock. It is far to difficult to store, ship and use. Coal can be transmuted in to liquid hydrocarbon fuels by well-known processes.

"producing gasoline from crude oil requires 15 per cent more fossil energy than the fuel produced - half the net energy loss of ethanol"

The guy must have misread his source. In energy terms, gasoline at the pump is 85% of what is pulled out of the ground. The 15% is lost in refining and shipping. In those terms, most estimates of ethanol show it at 0% or less.

Robert: Hydrogen is a crock, and yet still better than ethanol.

OJ: If it took more petroleum to get petroleum to market than the petroleum that actually got to market, how would any ever get to market?

On the other hand, it takes more ethanol to get ethanol to market than the ethanol that actually gets to market. How does that happen? Courtesy of the US taxpayer.

David:

Not according to the story:

producing gasoline from crude oil requires 15 per cent more fossil energy than the fuel produced - half the net energy loss of ethanol

Petroleum is NOT the only fossil fuel.

It takes more energy to produce a gallon of gasoline or alcohol than burning either releases, but so what ?

Powerful & compact are only two of MANY requirements for a widely-used fuel.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 23, 2005 4:09 AM