Alcohol fuel - The obvious answer, Yes or No?

[quadraphonics]

I think it certainly does. It tells you that the world is not as dependant upon the US as it once was.

That only follows if you equate trade with America to dependence on America. Considering that America sells almost as much to Brazil as the other way around (the number you quoted were for American exports to Brazil, by the way), and has for some time, I don't see why you'd do that.

Moreover, the development of the Chinese, Indian and Arab markets depends heavily on American trade, investment and expertise.

"As commoditity prices have increased several percent during that period, it seem very likely that even in absolute terms trade as measured by volume, has indeed decreased. I.e. the increase is not real even in absolute terms, only the effect of inflation and measuring trade by dollars, not volume shipped."

Very little of the trade between America and Brazil consists of commodities, so this is a red herring. It's stuff like airplanes, industrial machinery, parts, tires, etc. The trade between Brazil and China, Japan and the Arab states, on the other hand, consists almost entirely of commodities, so that's the one you should be discounting.

 

[2inquisitive]

Winter

So, the land in Iowa is not suitable for growing sugarcane, not because of some deficiency in the soil, but because of climate. Do you think there would be any problem growing grass because of the climate? Of course not, the land is suitable for some crops, but not others. Along with length of growing season, the amount of local rainfall also determines the suitability of the land for certain crops. It would be very difficult and expensive to irrigate uneven and hilly land, plus the equipment used in developed nations cannot harvest crops on such land. In many locations, the topsoil is not deep enough to bulldoze the land level without exposing the subsoil. The land is economically suitable only for pastureland or treefarming. In the hilly south where I live, most of the available land is like this, suitable for pasture or trees, but not cash crops. Good, level farmland with good drainage is much more expensive than this type of land. The land that is unsuitable for cash crops is mostly the type a friend uses for raising beef cattle before they are shipped to feedlots. He has also used some of his corn allotment land to grow Rye grass and alfafa to harvest for hay because the price of corn was so low he could not make a profit after paying the associated expenses for equipment, seed costs, fertilizer costs, fuel costs, etc. I have not seen him in over a year, so I don't know if he has started growing corn again since the price of corn has increased, or if he still has enough corn allotment left to make it profitible. He would have to buy some expensive new equipment to start growing corn again.

 

[Billy T]

So, the land in Iowa is not suitable for growing sugarcane, not because of some deficiency in the soil, but because of climate. Do you think there would be any problem growing grass because of the climate? Of course not, the land is suitable for some crops, but not others. Along with length of growing season, the amount of local rainfall also determines the suitability of the land for certain crops. It would be very difficult and expensive to irrigate uneven and hilly land, plus the equipment used in developed nations cannot harvest crops on such land. In many locations, the topsoil is not deep enough to bulldoze the land level without exposing the subsoil. The land is economically suitable only for pastureland or treefarming. In the hilly south where I live, most of the available land is like this, suitable for pasture or trees, but not cash crops. Good, level farmland with good drainage is much more expensive than this type of land. The land that is unsuitable for cash crops is mostly the type a friend uses for raising beef cattle before they are shipped to feedlots. He has also used some of his corn allotment land to grow Rye grass and alfafa to harvest for hay because the price of corn was so low he could not make a profit after paying the associated expenses for equipment, seed costs, fertilizer costs, fuel costs, etc. I have not seen him in over a year, so I don't know if he has started growing corn again since the price of corn has increased, or if he still has enough corn allotment left to make it profitible. He would have to buy some expensive new equipment to start growing corn again.

perhaps we are in agreement. I certainly agree that some land has its highest economic return by one (or a few) uses. For example no one would think of growing a few acres of corn in NYC. - apartment buildings and department stores etc are a higher economic use.

Likewise no one will build apartment buildings and department stores in the middle of a vast Iowa corn field. However the land in both cases is "suitable" for doing these economically unattractive things.

SUMMARY: You seem to be using "suitable" when you actually mean "most economically viable" or "highest economic use". To take another extreme example: a new 400HP V-8 engine is suitable as a yacht anchor, but that is not its highest economic use. Give it 200,000 miles or so, and that use may be the more economical than buying a more conventional boat anchor, but less convenient. It was "suitable" as a boat anchor at all stages of its existance.

 

[MetaKron]

Billy, your example of a CEO growing grass on top of concrete is actually a good example to support my claims. Grass isn't the same kind of crop and isn't planted the same way as wheat, corn, or soybeans. You can't plant using a wheat drill on a hard surface covered by a couple of inches of soil, especially when the depth of the soil is uneven, as it is in rocky soil like I've actually walked across in cow pastures. Cow pastures are often cow pastures because of rocks that make it impossible to seed the usual cash crops. The farmer either has to find or make suitable areas.

I haven't seen that list of the potential of biofuels, but the process for extracting fuel from hemp is very simple. The seeds are so soft that they can be crushed between your fingers. You can probably go to a petfood store and buy roasted hempseed. So whatever you think is "wild" about my claims, you're probably quite wrong.

 

[Billy T]

...Grass isn't the same kind of crop and isn't planted the same way as wheat, corn, or soybeans. You can't plant using a wheat drill on a hard surface covered by a couple of inches of soil, especially when the depth of the soil is uneven, as it is in rocky soil like I've actually walked across in cow pastures. Cow pastures are often cow pastures because of rocks that make it impossible to seed the usual cash crops. The farmer either has to find or make suitable areas.
I haven't seen that list of the potential of biofuels, but the process for extracting fuel from hemp is very simple. The seeds are so soft that they can be crushed between your fingers. You can probably go to a petfood store and buy roasted hempseed. So whatever you think is "wild" about my claims, you're probably quite wrong.

You make a good point about rocks impeding conventional planting means. The rocks can be removed. If you have ever driven around in the New England farm areas you have seen miles and miles of stone fences - all were field rocks at one time. (The deep soil penetrating freezes brings small rocks to the surface over the years by a process I do not fully understand. In prior post my point has been that if something necessary was missing, and the crop is valuable enough, you can buy it and add the missing items. I need to extend that idea to also include that if something is present and impeding the use of the land for some crop you need to remove it. (I did mention adding lime when soild was too acidic - that is sort of a "in situ" removal of the offening item.)

BTW, I owned a cattle ranch (approx 100 acres) in Brazil for just one month short of a full decade. It was my first purchase here - made during last visit before coming to live with Brazilian lady in her apartment - my "plane B" in case that did not work out as there were two small houses on it. It was very run down at time of purchase only supported poorly 15 steers. I got it up to 50 fat steers at time of sale by few thousand dollars for tractors and grass seed. Parts were too steep for tractors - they were plowed by man I hired and team of 4 oxen - amazing to watch him control those very powerful beasts with a little whip and few verbal commands. I do now know a thing or two about cattle farms but was very ignorate* when I bought the farm, mainly as "Plane B."

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*The locals I bought calves from and sold cattle later were not. These tranactions are by weight and made at large platform balance that may hold 4 or 5 steers at a time. The female's weight is discounted by 55% and the male's by 50%. On my first sale a local tricked me - he suggested that we not compute each separately but simply subtract the weights and then he would pay on the difference - I agreed as it would make it easier for me to check the calculation, which were quicky done in Portuguese. - When I got back home and reviewed the deal more slowly I realized that on that part of the transaction I effectively had sold some steers as if the were cows - that buyer could not read, but was far from dumb - he knew well how to "skin a greenhorn like me." By time of my last sale, I gave lots of salt the day before as selling water, as if it is meat, is a good deal.

 

[Billy T]

...I haven't seen that list of the potential of biofuels, but the process for extracting fuel from hemp is very simple. The seeds are so soft that they can be crushed between your fingers. You can probably go to a petfood store and buy roasted hempseed. So whatever you think is "wild" about my claims, you're probably quite wrong.

It was easy to find the relative yield of hemp. See: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html#ascend

In table there, 36 plants used for oil are listed. 28 have higher yields per acre than hemp (even coffee!) and only 7 have lower yields in the list of 36.

Hemp gives 39 gallons of oil per acre.

Rice gives 88 gallons of oil per acre (more than 2 times as much).
Opium poppy gives 124 Gal/acre (more than 3 times as much). (you should like that more than hemp. )
Castor bean gives 151 gal/acre (almost 4 times as much) BTW it grows wild all over Brazil and is used by simple rural people to keep tools from rusting etc.
Jatropha* gives 202 gal/acre (More than 5 times as much)
Macadamia nuts give 240 gal/acre (more than 6 times as much)
Avocado gives 282 gal/acre (more than 7 times as much)
Oil palm** gives 635 gallons / acre (16.3 times more oil than hemp per annual acre)
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*It is in full scale cultivation by small farmers in Brazil under contract to PertoBras, who processes if into "H-diesel" (hydrogen is used in the processing.) For picture of it, other photos, and much, much more about use and problems of SVO (straight vegitable oils) as fuels and everything related (how to convert your pick up truck etc.) see:

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html

There you can read:
"... The central problem in using vegetable oil as diesel fuel is that vegetable oil is much more viscous (thicker) than conventional diesel fuel (petro-diesel, DERV, "dino-diesel"). It's 11 to 17 times thicker. Vegetable oil also has very different chemical properties and combustion characteristics to those of conventional diesel fuel. If the fuel is too thick it will not atomise properly when the fuel injectors spray it into the combustion chamber and it will not combust properly -- the injectors get coked up, leading to poor performance, higher exhaust emissions and reduced engine life.

There are many different approaches to solving the problem -- including not admitting that there is a problem in the first place ..."

In several of your posts you have taken the path describled in the last paragraph imediately above. - CEASE POSTING YOUR "PRO-HEMP" IGNORANCE, please. (You have been smoking it too much, I asume, to be bothered with facts.)
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**larger scale Palm oil plantations are also spring up all over Brazil, but these are more business than family based. Government sees the much smaller Jatropha plant as the "cash crop" for poor farmers - has developed a "processing plant" on bed of small four wheel drive truck. So only the higher value finished fuel can be collected economically in 55 gallon drums. etc. In a few years, the law requires that 10% of the diesel in Brazil will be "bio-diesel" blended in to the regular fossil diesel. It is 2 or 3 % now. I think Brazil is leading the way in Diesel as it did in alcohol, but Quadphonics said EU is when I last stated this. I have traveled a lot in EU with euroRail when younger and did see a lot of sun flowers growing from the train windows so he may be correct. (He often is on the facts, if not IMHO on what they imply.)

If you must note some advantage for hemp, point out that it makes 4 times as much fiber as trees do. Why it is not economical for making news print, I do not know. Probably too costly to collect compared to logs.

PS Perhaps you now understand why I say that you often tend to post nonsense.

 

[MetaKron]

Billy, I really doubt the accuracy of a chart that says that you can only get 39 gallons per acre out of hempseed oil. The chart that you referred me to didn't give sources.

A lot of the plants you named require special conditions to grow, or are difficult to harvest and extract, or are even toxic. The castor bean is toxic and can easily be used to make an incurable poison. Your statements about vegetable oil being hard to use are true about some vegetable oils but hempseed oil is the lightest vegetable oil there is, suitable for lubricating aircraft engines.

Unfortunately hemp isn't all that well established as a source of oil or we would know more. It's easy to see the possibility of a pound of oil coming from ten square feet of soil, which would give us 4,000 pounds of oil per acre or about 500 gallons, and it's easy to see the hemp plant as possibly giving that much oil, especially if you've seen the plants that I have growing right by the roads in state parks in the U.S. You need moisture to do that, although I bet not as much as sugarcane needs, and it will grow where there is actually rain. Actual yields per acre do vary with fertilization, rainfall, and sunlight, and that 39 gallons sounds like sandy unfertilized soil during a drought.

Please stop bitching about me posting nonsense. The estimates do make sense, based on actual observations and real math. You also don't look credible simply dismissing each source as "pro-hemp."

 

[Billy T]

Billy, I really doubt the accuracy of a chart that says that you can only get 39 gallons per acre out of hempseed oil. ...
It's easy to see the possibility of a pound of oil coming from ten square feet of soil, which would give us 4,000 pounds of oil per acre or about 500 gallons, ...
You also don't look credible simply dismissing each source as "pro-hemp."

I will not search again. Four or five different sources gave essentially the same very low values for hemp's oil per acre yields. Thus, I believe these sources, instead of your UNDOCUMENTED claims for hemp.

Until you do support your claims with some reputable reference, I will continue to believe you are posting nonsense about hemp. It is for that reason (Your claims confilict with all the reputable sources I read.)* that I said you are "pro-hemp." I suspect that fact hemp has a psycho-active agent is the real reason for your UNFOUNDED claims.

I will be willing to look at any source you can find if it claims that hemp can yield even 10% as much as the oil palm. (Or even 1% of the sealed alge systems being developed.)
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*Also strong evidence that hemp is a uslessly unproductive oil source is the fact that not one of the dozens of organizations pouring "tons of money" in various bio-diesel efforts is interested in using hemp, even the slightest bit.

 

[MetaKron]

No one is going to get interested in using a source that is illegal, Billy.

 

[Billy T]

No one is going to get interested in using a source that is illegal, Billy.

Are you speaking of alcohol - making that at home for sale is also illegal* - more nonsense in support of hemp. Why not find even one reference that comes close to your wild claims for hemp?
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*There is nothing illegal about growing hemp to make rope or other industral fibers. - It is in fact one of the cheapest and best natural sources of strong fiber and used legally. It could also be grown for oil, but is not used to make bio-diesel because the yield per acre is so very low.

 

[MetaKron]

Are you speaking of alcohol - making that at home for sale is also illegal* - more nonsense in support of hemp. Why not find even one reference that comes close to your wild claims for hemp?
---------------------------
*There is nothing illegal about growing hemp to make rope or other industral fibers. - It is in fact one of the cheapest and best natural sources of strong fiber and used legally. It could also be grown for oil, but is not used to make bio-diesel because the yield per acre is so very low.

Please feel free to start an industrial hemp farm in the U.S., then.

 

[Billy T]

Please feel free to start an industrial hemp farm in the U.S., then.

After you produce one supportive hemp for bio-diesel reference.

 

[Tiago]

Sour oil is also corrosive

Billy T,

Alcohol is corrosive to the welds that have been used in older pipeline construction, oil is not.

Sour oil is also extremely corrosive, but special pipe has been developed for sour oil.

 

[Billy T]

Welcome to sciforums Tiago.

Billy T, Alcohol is corrosive to the welds that have been used in older pipeline construction, oil is not. ...

Just a technical correction to your post (to avoid someone taking this too literally). It is not the alcohol that is corrosive. It is the H2O in the alcohol that corrodes.
If memory serves me correctly the maximium percent of alcohol that one can achieve by distilation is 96%. That other 4% is water. If you want pure, 100%, alcohol the distilled product must be treated chemically (or with some "drying agent," which really is also "chemical treatment.")

I am an old, retired part time professor (more of a researcher than teacher - pay was better.). Thus my posts about physical subjects tend to be too long and excessively careful to not mis-state any facts, but of course I am some times mistaken, and thank all who correct me when that does happen.

 

[Billy T]

To metaKron:

As you have not been able to find and post even one reference that is supportive of hemp for bio-diesel or alcohol, I will make an easier request.(That first condition for me starting up my "hemp to alcohol" plant is probably impossible to meet, at least with a journal reference.)

Your argument that growing hemp in the US is illegal (to falsely explaining why that "great, best crop" for alcohol production is not used) clearly does not apply in many other countries. Just tell me why none of them is even slightly interested in Hemp as the crop to use for any type bio-fuel production. At least a dozen different crops are being used, some of which have 16 times the per acre yield of hemp! As I showed, with good reference link in post 286, hemp is nearly the least productive ever considered - even coffee trees are better!

 

[Harmonic_Subset]

I'm going to point out something here just to see if anyone bites.....

Ethanol might be able to displace up to 30 percent of current gasoline consumption. Therefore if we can reduce consumption by 70 percent we can transition our transportation sector to 100 percent ethanol. Strategies to reduce the fuel consumption of vehicles is by increased engine efficiency, fuel energy density, reduced mass, reduced frontal area, reduced drag coefficient, fewer starts & stops, shorter travel distances, lower speeds, among others.

Internal combustion engines aren't getting much more efficient than they already are, unless they employ electric-hybrid motors. The benefit of hybrids is mostly in the regenerative braking ability that may reduce fuel consumption by 35 percent. Any strategy to increase engine efficiency will probably cost more than the savings in fuel.

Ethanol certainly does not increase fuel energy density. It has much less energy than gasoline or diesel.

Reducing vehicle mass means smaller cars, as does reducing the frontal area.

Reducing the drag coefficient is a good idea that has not been fully exploited by car makers.

Fewer starts & stops is hard to design without locating people close to their place of employment. Many choose to live far away because of lower property values outside of cities.

Lower speeds just ain't gonna happen. People want to get where they are going in a reasonable time, and probably want to go faster.

In all my searches the cars with the lowest fuel consumption are:

Loremo LS, diesel, 153 mpg
Tesla Roadster, electric, 134 mpg
Chevy EV1, electric, 120 mpg
Clever Car, compressed natural gas, 109 mpg
FuelVapor Ale, gasoline, 94 mpg

All five of these cars employ all the strategies listed above. If you were standing next to them you would be looking down on them because they are all very small cars. However, notice that two of them are all-electric cars. None of them are ethanol cars. In fact the electric cars have up to 90 percent larger frontal area, and therefore more interior room than the others. They are inherently more efficient, and can accomodate more roomy interiors. Let's face it, nobody likes a tiny cramped car.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that ethanol is not the 'obvious answer'. I would prefer an electric car, and with battery and hypercapacitor technology improving as it is, electric cars seem just as likely to replace gasoline vehicles. Indeed, gasoline-electric hybrid cars are half-way there already!

Comments?

 

[Billy T]

To Harmonic_Subset:

It may surprize you but I tend to agree with all you stated. In the long term, electric cars recharged by nuclear power is very likely to be the "obvious answer" IMHO.

To solve the "rapid recharge at home" problem, I like idea of doing so from a big cheap, rugged iron/nickel battery that sits in your basement, recharging at "off peak hours" and is thus also used to load level demand. (Nuclear power is base load power. We neede to get the peaking units, typically gas turbines, out of the energy picture for reasons of efficiency and Green Houses Gases production and pay a little more for the nucelar power, until the very destructive of the enviroment "greenpeace types" can be educated and coal elimated - reserved as a chemical feed stock, etc.)

Unfortunately, "You can't get there directly from here." Shorter term, sugar cane based alcohol is the "obvious answer." The current stock of cars can not just be scrapped and replaced over night, but it can be converted to alcohol fuel faster than that fuel's production can be expanded. If it should turn out that cellulosic alcohol is economically competive, then perhaps smaller iron/nickel batteries in the basment, just for load leveling, and alcohol powered cars "forever" instead of electric cars is the way to go; but like controled fusion, the dream of celulosic alcohol is very unlikely to ever be economically attractive (with honest pricing i.e. without subsidies) IMHO.

One very important thing that could be done, which I am sure you just forgot to mention, is "tele-commuting." I would venture to guess that at least half of the current office jobs really need to assemble the workers in one place only one day each week. That alone is like 2 days of the five with no one commuting to work or a 40% reduction in work related car use.

Also very productive, but it takes roughly a decade to do much, is to greatly improved public transport in urban areas. There are lots of diffenent ideas as to what system is best. Probably very wise to try several in several different urban areas instead of spend 92 billion dollars on GWB's "oil war Iraq" (That is the Bloomberg estimate fot the total thru 2012. - I'm sure about the number, but may have remembered the source wrong.) That war and the alcohol from corn program are designed to preserve the current oil dominated transport system while giving the appearance of changing it. Make it absolutely free except at peak demand times in effort to lure people out of their cars. Detroit is "dying" anyway (in the sense that Toyota etc will be making the cars and exporting the profits in a decade) Lets get rid of privately owned cars ina couple of decades with vastly improved, electric-powered, public transport, but with cars available by reservation to rent for going where public transport does not go. (I do not care much whether or not these rent a cars are publicly owned or a busness venture, so long as they are clean, relible, and with very similar characteristics (top speed, stoping distances, layout of the controls etc.) Hell they can all be white as that is the safest color. (Henry Ford had it wrong when he said: "You can have any color you want, so long as it is black.")

That is my 2cents worth in responce to your request for comments - too long as is my usual style.

 

[Carcano]

Reducing vehicle mass means smaller cars, as does reducing the frontal area.

Or, it could mean using lighter materials than are just as strong as metal.
This car had its entire body replaced with carbon fiber, shaving 500 pounds off the total weight.

Expensive though...its also tends to shatter rather than dent on impact. This makes it more expensive to fix.

 

[Harmonic_Subset]

I recall an article on so-called "aluminum intensive vehicles" a while back, suggesting a weight savings of up to 25%. Apparently even with the added cost of aluminum, it turned out to be worthwhile due to cost savings in other areas. I'm not sure what the current state of the art is in this area. It's possible that composites are even better than aluminum. Lighter vehicles save on the energy needed to get up to highway speed, and also on rolling resistance. If that results in a 25% improvement in fuel economy it's an improvement. It can be used in combination with other strategies to achieve that targeted 70% reduction in fuel consumption.

 

[Billy T]

Growth rate of biofuels (2000 thru 2005):

Ethanol almost trippled 4.6 billion to 12.2 billion gallons annually.
Biodiesel slightly more than trippled (from ~ 20 times samller base):
251 million gallons climbed to an estimated 790 million gallons.

Ethanol facts:
"...Commercial bioethanol is mostly produced from sugarcane, sugar beet and corn. Other sources are sweet stem sorghum and cassava, and cellulosic material such as grasses, trees and various waste products from crops, wood processing and municipal solid wastes. {Not comercially competitive yet, perhaps never will be as it costs more just to get the sugar juice crushed from cane than from there to alcohol.} Bioethanol can be blended with conventional fuels to at least 10 per cent (10 per cent ethanol: 90 per cent gasoline). Kenya used blends of 20 per cent alcohol in the 1990s without significant affecting engine performance. And if engines are modified, a much higher percentage of bioethanol can be used. {85% is easy 100% an easy mod. Reaching 100% or only gasoline in "flex fuel" car as in Brazil is a little more complex, but nearly 90% of domestic production in Brazil is now "flex fuel" and driving on 100% is half as costly as gasoline.}

Biodiesel facts:
With a viscosity similar to petro-diesel, it can be used in diesel engines (cars, trucks, buses, construction equipment), jet engines, and heating and electricity generating systems. It blends easily with petro-diesel and can be used as an additive to ultra-low sulphur diesel to increase lubricity. Nearly all diesel-powered equipment can use blends of up to 20 per cent biodiesel, and many engines can use higher-level blends or even pure biodiesel with little or no modification. Most storage and distribution equipment take lower-level blends, but need special handling for higher-level blends.

Biofuel benefits:
Biofuels offer many benefits. By reducing demand for petroleum, biofuels could make energy supply more secure. Their use would also reduce import bills for energy-deficient countries and offer improved balance of trade and balance of payments. All these developments would unfreeze scarce resources for other pressing needs.
Emissions of greenhouse gases, carbon monoxide and particulates could all be significantly reduced. And biofuels also improve vehicle performance — biodiesel lubricity actually extends the life of diesel engines.
There are potential benefits for agricultural and rural development, including new jobs and income generation, which would undoubtedly help meet the Millennium Development Goals.*
Moreover, the move to biofuels will create new industries and bring increased economic activity. It should also provide opportunities for carbon trading for many African* countries. Biofuels are renewable, and bioethanol and biodiesel are clean burning. ..."

Except for {inserts by Billy T} above quoted from:
http://www.checkbiotech.org/green_News_Biofuels.aspx?infoId=16384
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*Original article had emphases on how biofuels would help Arfica. Another article I read today states more than 100 countries have climatic condition etc. to enter into biofuel production. Much better than sending dollars to Saudi arabia to finace the terrorists and recruiting ever more in their "religious" / "hate America" / "hate capitalism" schools. - Again See thread "How DUMB can US Voters be?" Saudi royal family has financed Bush family political campaigns since before GWB was gov. of Texas! (They wanted a "pro-oil" USA, and got it.)