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Ethanol is not sound environmentalism

 
 
 
The next time you eat cheese, drink milk, or have a burger keep in mind cows are a major source of greenhouse gases.
 
I thought it was already pretty common knowledge that at least corn ethanol just makes the problem worse.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ethanol_fuel_mixtures

'...Several common ethanol fuel mixtures are in use around the world. The use of pure hydrous or anhydrous ethanol in internal combustion engines (ICEs) is only possible if the engines are designed or modified for that purpose. Anhydrous ethanol can be blended with gasoline (petrol) for use in gasoline engines, but with high ethanol content only after minor engine modifications.
Ethanol fuel mixtures have "E" numbers which describe the percentage of ethanol fuel in the mixture by volume, for example, E85 is 85% anhydrous ethanol and 15% gasoline. Low-ethanol blends, from E5 to E25, are also known as gasohol, though internationally the most common use of the term refers to the E10 blend.
Blends of E10 or less are used in more than 20 countries around the world, led by the United States, where ethanol represented 10% of the U.S. gasoline fuel supply in 2011.[1] Blends from E20 to E25 have been used in Brazil since the late 1970s. E85 is commonly used in the U.S. and Europe for flexible-fuel vehicles. Hydrous ethanol or E100 is used in Brazilian neat ethanol vehicles and flex-fuel light vehicles and hydrous E15 called hE15 for modern petrol cars in the Netherlands....'


I thnk ethanol was more about reducing dependence on oil than environmental concerns.
 
Ethanol is about corn. It was discovered a couple of years ago that native tallgrass prairie produces more fuel per acre than corn. Fat chance seeing intensive farming being replaced by passive mowing. Too many big players invested to make that happen.
 
Nice Squirrel said:
Ethanol is about corn. It was discovered a couple of years ago that native tallgrass prairie produces more fuel per acre than corn. Fat chance seeing intensive farming being replaced by passive mowing. Too many big players invested to make that happen.
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I'm ok with not using prairie grass as a fuel source. Great harm potential for all of the species which depend upon prairie. I also greatly oppose ethanol. And fracking.

Where I wish we would concentrate our efforts are: conservation and increasing efficiency for all of our fuel hogs. And solar, wind, etc.
 
Nice Squirrel said:
Um the advocates are for turning the farm fields back to grass.
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Uh, doesn't the grass need to be cut and bailed? Exactly what do you think will happen to the thousands of species who live in those grasses that will be cut and bailed and transported and turned into fuel? And how much fossil fuel will be consumed in the processes?
 
Thank you for making this point

Toni said:
I'm ok with not using prairie grass as a fuel source. Great harm potential for all of the species which depend upon prairie. I also greatly oppose ethanol. And fracking.

Where I wish we would concentrate our efforts are: conservation and increasing efficiency for all of our fuel hogs. And solar, wind, etc.
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We seem to be a society that has been conditioned to expect something for nothing in terms of energy. We also have been alienated from the physical realities facing us and other species in favor of that expectation. We have become a flabby society..in body and also in mind. Nature has been nudging us away from this constant replication of cheap energy and we just cast about to create the same type of thing with different resources. Our appetites are so large it does not matter much just which common resource we choose to convert for power. We will quickly see feedbacks and shortages. While it is possible to use some materials without too much harm to the environment, we cannot produce those resources in the quantity our current appetites seem to require. An example is hydrogen, perhaps the only one that could possibly be employed in carnot or turbine cycle power production. The problem is that this resource takes energy to produce. In the case of corn, it involved burning what has been our staple food.

Your answers are right, even with the switch grass. We need to develop a regimen of conservation and an understanding of its importance to all living things on the planet...that includes us.
 
The ethanol subsidies are clearly pork for Big Corn. They have nothing to do with environmentalism, even if they might have been sold that way.
 
This is old news. Sugar cane ethanol does deliver an economic and environmental return though, so in principle the biofuel idea is not dead.
 
Narapoia said:
This is old news. Sugar cane ethanol does deliver an economic and environmental return though, so in principle the biofuel idea is not dead.
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Although sugar can should certainly be exploited where it can be effectively grown, I predict that the future of biofuels will be in engineered organisms.
 
J842P said:
Although sugar can should certainly be exploited where it can be effectively grown, I predict that the future of biofuels will be in engineered organisms.
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Biofuels have their own carbon footprint. Burning ethanol creates CO2. In our atmosphere, the carbon cycle is about 2500 years. Plant life on the planet takes about that long to recycle CO2 as it has a very long residence time. So if we produce huge amounts of these fuels, we run into a dead end. That is not to say they have absolutely no place in our energy economy, but it does mean that it can never meet the requirements of our society over time.
 
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