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Nbadan

06-13-2006, 05:00 AM

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/929/1122/400/corn.jpg

I wonder if cars fully digest corn?

H-E-B Food Stores announced this week that it will start carrying an ethanol-based fuel at five of its gas stations in Central Texas. Two in Austin, one in Waco, Killeen store, and one near San Antonio will begin to sell the corn based product in August.

E-85 will sell for about 30 cents less per gallon than unleaded gas and will continue to cost less than gas as gas prices continue to rise.

With a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, E-85 could help reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

More than 450,000 Texans drive vehicles designed to run on the alternative fuel.

Click HERE (http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/flexfuelvehicles.php) to see if your vehicle can use E-85.

Cool, my vehicle is a flex vehicle.

scott

06-13-2006, 07:28 AM

Who is paying for E85 to cost less than gasoline? Wholesale ethanol cost 360 cpg.

exstatic

06-13-2006, 07:58 AM

There is a Fed subsidy of .50c per gal, and I imagine that the gas tax might only apply to the "gas" portion of e85?

boutons_

06-13-2006, 12:16 PM

"There is a Fed subsidy of .50c per gal"

There is also a federal import tax of $0.54/gal on imported ethanol, eg, from Brazil where ethanol and flexfuel cars have just about made Brazil independent of imported oil for fuel.

If the US would drop the prohibitive import tax, Brazil says they could ramp up their production of ethanol, mainly from the sugar cane, which is much superior to corn.

The USA is as fucking insane and irrational as any drug addict in need of a fix.

The oil and coal companies fucking own the USA and get exactly what they want, ie, our $$$.

Extra Stout

06-13-2006, 12:19 PM

Aggie Hoopsfan

06-13-2006, 12:57 PM

If the US would drop the prohibitive import tax, Brazil says they could ramp up their production of ethanol, mainly from the sugar cane, which is much superior to corn.

The USA is as fucking insane and irrational as any drug addict in need of a fix.

The oil and coal companies fucking own the USA and get exactly what they want, ie, our $$$.

You're a dumbass (as usual). The agriculture and farming lobby are responsible for that tariff, not big oil.

xrayzebra

06-13-2006, 04:33 PM

The insane part is that OUR congress will not let US Oil Companies drill off the
coast and in Alaska and produce our own oil. E85 may be a resource later, but
now it is an excuse.

Nbadan

06-13-2006, 04:38 PM

Ethnol's other shoe drops...

U.S. motorists are grumbling at the increasingly high price for ethanol, a trend the could drive Washington to rethink its protection of the industry.

The price of ethanol, normally 5 cents to 10 cents cheaper than regular gasoline, is now 5 cents more expensive, KELO-TV, Sioux Falls, S.D., reported Tuesday. And that differential is expected to grow as summer driving season advances.

That it's $2.85 a gallon is ridiculous, it costs a lot of money, said Danielle Sickinger.

Big News Network (http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=e878cf7de10795e4)

scott

06-13-2006, 05:55 PM

There is a Fed subsidy of .50c per gal, and I imagine that the gas tax might only apply to the "gas" portion of e85?

Even if we say that the gas tax doesn't apply at all to E85 and take out the fed subsidy, I still can't get cheaper than gasoline.

Ethanol was 372 cpg today.

372 - 50 = 322 - 40 = 282 cpg.

exstatic

06-13-2006, 06:32 PM

Don't forget that a gallon of E85 only contains roughly 5/6 of a gallon of ethanol, scott.

clambake

06-13-2006, 06:36 PM

2.85 a gallon! Here it's 3.70!!!

scott

06-13-2006, 08:24 PM

Don't forget that a gallon of E85 only contains roughly 5/6 of a gallon of ethanol, scott.

If ethanol is more expensive than gasoline, mixing the two in any quantity you desire cannot create a substance with a price lower than gasoline. Simple algebra, buddy.

exstatic

06-13-2006, 08:31 PM

If ethanol is more expensive than gasoline, mixing the two in any quantity you desire cannot create a substance with a price lower than gasoline. Simple algebra, buddy.
At straight market prices, I'd agree with you. You seemed to be trying a pricing formula for a gallon of E85 that included a gallon of ethanol, and that does not compute. Simple algebra, buddy.

Das Texan

06-13-2006, 08:31 PM

does ethanol get you better mileage?

my old truck was e85...too bad there were a grand total of 0 stations in san antonio when i had it.

that was useful.

scott

06-13-2006, 08:38 PM

At straight market prices, I'd agree with you. You seemed to be trying a pricing formula for a gallon of E85 that included a gallon of ethanol, and that does not compute. Simple algebra, buddy.

Think for a second, ex.

Retail Price of Ethanol = $2.82 * 85 % = $2.40

plus

Retail Price of Gasoline - $2.70 * 15% = $0.41

E85 Price = $2.81

Again, you can't take a product that cost more than gasoline and blend it into gasoline to make gasoline cost less.

scott

06-13-2006, 08:39 PM

does ethanol get you better mileage?

my old truck was e85...too bad there were a grand total of 0 stations in san antonio when i had it.

that was useful.

Ethanol is typically higher performance but less fuel efficient.

jochhejaam

06-13-2006, 09:05 PM

Here's a decent article on the difference in mileage.

E85 and gas mileage: Where lies the truth?

Gene Johnston
Managing Editor, Successful Farming

5/08/2006, 9:27 AM CDT

As consumers across the country hear more about flex-fuel vehicles and corn-based ethanol, a mini-battle is brewing over just how big an impact ethanol has on a car's fuel economy.

Ethanol supporters and detractors agree that ethanol reduces gas mileage, because of its lower energy content. But by how much? The Iowa Corn Growers E85 Web site says that if you have a flex-fuel vehicle and burn E85 (85% ethanol, 15% regular gasoline), you'll experience a gas mileage drop of 5-15% compared with regular gasoline. Taking the middle, a car that gets 25 mpg on regular gas would get 22.5 mpg on E85.

Others say the gas mileage penalty for E85 is more severe. For instance, a story in USA Today this week told its millions of readers that the E85 mileage penalty is 28%. That means your 25 mpg car now only gets 18 mpg if you flex to E85.

While many consumers might willingly sacrifice 2.5 mpg in order to burn American-produced renewable ethanol, will they sacrifice 7 mpg? At that rate, a tank full (about 15 gallons) of regular gasoline would take you 100 miles farther than a tank of E85.

As with most issues, the truth on this one may lie somewhere in the middle. We called Dale Schroeder, administrator of fleet vehicles for the Iowa Department of Administrative Services. That state has over 1,000 E85 cars in its vehicle fleet (mandated by the governor and the state legislature). Iowa started using E85 vehicles in 1991. So, we asked Schroeder, what is the impact on gas mileage of E85 in real-world conditions?

"In the first few years, I kept very close track of this," says Schroeder. "We had a 17% reduction in fuel economy with E85."

Still, that answer is not so neat and tidy. Most people -- including state workers -- can't always put E85 in a car. There are still only a few hundred pumps nationwide that dispense E85. So, at least until recently, few flex-fuel cars have burned E85 exclusively. They will burn a tank of E85, then a tank of the more readily available E10, then another E85. As a result, the 17% reduction that Schroeder reports is based on his fleet burning about 55% E85, and 45% E10. "I was told that the [mileage] reduction could be 25%, so I didn't think 17% was too bad," he says.

"I know the technology on these E85 engines is better now than it was then, but I don't know that it's dramatically different," Schroeder says.

Unfortunately, the cost of E85 to the state of Iowa is higher than the cost of E10. On Friday, May 5, Schroeder said the cost of E10 at the state's bulk tank, untaxed, is $2.20 a gallon. E85 is $2.77. Schroeder theorizes that the difference is because of the current high demand for ethanol, particularly in places like California where ethanol must replace other fuel additives.

"Our governors and our state legislature have long supported ethanol," says Schroeder. "It creates jobs in Iowa, it promotes energy independence, and it's a cleaner fuel. I want us to continue to use [E85] in our state vehicle fleet. In the next year and half, we're going to move rapidly in that direction."

Schroeder puts his own money where his mouth is. He drives a flex-fuel Ford Ranger. On a recent long road trip, he only filled up with E85. Compared to other trips on only E10, he had a 20% reduction in fuel economy. Despite that, "I'm personally a big fan of E85," he says. "And finally, there are a number of stations out there that sell it."

scott

06-15-2006, 08:49 PM

PS: Apology accepted.

exstatic

06-15-2006, 09:29 PM

PS: Apology accepted.
Yes, let's just stay enslaved to the Saudi's. :rolleyes

Extra Stout

06-15-2006, 10:32 PM

Yes, let's just stay enslaved to the Saudi's. :rolleyes
If we swear off Saudi oil so that only Europeans and Asiana purchase it, then we can claim some kind of moral victory when Saudi-funded terrorists kill Americans, because hey, at least we didn't pay for it.

That's a lofty goal.

xrayzebra

06-16-2006, 09:07 AM

^^I know I sound like a broken record. But we could just drill in our own backyard
and use our own oil.

Extra Stout

06-16-2006, 09:09 AM

^^I know I sound like a broken record. But we could just drill in our own backyard
and use our own oil.
Yeah, we could. It would be more expensive, but we could.

What we can't do is stop other countries' people from buying Arab oil.

xrayzebra

06-16-2006, 09:18 AM

Agreed ES, we cant stop them. But do we want to? There is nothing to stop us
from continuing to do research on other fuels. Which I think is already going at
a steady pace. Although, much of our research is still based on using oil (gasoline)
for so called alternative fuels. Fuel cells, I think, will more than likely be the
ultimate choice for alternate power. And maybe coal as a replacement for oil,
carbon based, but very abundant. I doubt I will ever see the general use of it
but you never know.

sickdsm

06-16-2006, 01:33 PM

What's the point in going green if it means we are dependent on a different country?

Energy independence. that's the key.

Fuck saving the rain forest just so Brazil can cut and clear to make more room for corn and beans.

exstatic

06-16-2006, 07:48 PM

exstatic

06-16-2006, 07:48 PM

Extra Stout

06-16-2006, 10:41 PM

It's not all about buying the oil, it's about being the Saudi standing army/navy/AF and fighting their Middle East battles, and propping up their repressive regime. Sure as God made little green apples, our military follows Exxon's oil tankers wherever they go, killing locals and generally pissing of the world, not to mention large portions of the people of the Middle East.
If we completely wean ourselves off Saudi oil, and then sit back and allow a revolution against the Saudis, all hell still breaks loose.

Our economy is irrevocably tied to the countries that do buy a lot of Saudi oil, like the EU. As it is now, Saudi Arabia is only like our fourth- or fifth-biggest foreign supplier.

Extra Stout

06-16-2006, 10:42 PM

Uh, dumbfuck, we grow corn here, too.
We can grow enough to replace like 10% of the fuel supply, which would be enough to wean us off Saudi oil, though I think doing so accomplishes basically none of the benefits you think it would.

sickdsm

06-18-2006, 09:21 AM

Uh, dumbfuck, we grow corn here, too.

Hey blowtorch, they were talking about replacing corn based ethanol with more effiecient sugar cane based ethanol from Brazil.

Go finger a scissors or something.

sickdsm

06-18-2006, 09:26 AM

We can grow enough to replace like 10% of the fuel supply, which would be enough to wean us off Saudi oil, though I think doing so accomplishes basically none of the benefits you think it would.

Once again, its not an all or nothing situation. As a short term supplement, Brazilian Ethanol is fine. I'm 26, in my lifetime i'll be shocked if i'm don't grow 400 bushel corn. The way the advances in GMO seed is coming along, Corn evenually will be only a couple of feet tall, less fuel to raise it (less trash to get rid of) etc....

On a level playing field, no one beats the American Farmer.

boutons_

06-18-2006, 10:03 AM

"It would be more expensive, but we could."

The US has enough oil reserves to be self-sufficient in oil?

The ONLY hope for energy indepedence (fuel for transport consumes 70% of US oil) is an extremely aggressive, Apollo-like program to push transport fuel conservation to the limits, as fast as possible.

What if $500B - $1T wasted on the phony Repug Iraq war had been put into oil conservation?

Convert oil-fired heating to electrical heating (requires more nuclear plants and/or clean coal-fired plants, the coal industry refuses to upgrade/build clean plants, and their money keeps Congress off their backs).

The Repugs will never put conservation as the #1 priority as that would hurt the oilco profits. "what the oilcos want, the oilcos get"

boutons_

06-18-2006, 03:06 PM

U.S. Lawmakers Push Sugar As Fuel Source

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

The Associated Press
Sunday, June 18, 2006; 3:23 PM

WASHINGTON -- With the market for corn-based ethanol booming, lawmakers from sugar-producing U.S. states are hoping that beet and cane growers can soon jump onto the renewable fuel bandwagon.

They cite the model of Brazil, which produces ethanol made from sugar cane. But critics, pointing out that sugar is much cheaper in Brazil than in the United States, question whether the economics of sugar-based ethanol would work in America.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to issue a long-awaited study around July 1 on the viability of converting sugar into ethanol.

Keith Collins, the USDA's chief economist, said that the soaring demand for ethanol and Brazil's successful track record make it worth discussing sugar-based ethanol in the United States.

"At some point in the future it may be worthy of commercial development," he said. "Technologically, it's possible. The question is: is it economically feasible?"

Collins noted that besides cheaper sugar, Brazil has higher yields per acre because of better climate and investment in more-productive strains of sugar cane.

"So, obviously, we can look at the technology of conversion, and learn some things from them about that," Collins said. "But it's a little hard for us just to look at Brazil and conclude that their structure of production would be our structure of production. We can't conclude that."

Sugar in the U.S. is made from two sources: beets in some northern and western states, and cane in a few southern states, including Hawaii. Minnesota is the largest producer of sugar produced from beets, while Florida leads in sugar from cane, according to the American Sugar Alliance, a trade group.

There is skepticism among some sugar growers that ethanol is a viable end product for their crop.

"If I was going to guess, I would say the economics are not going to be there," said Steve Williams, president of the American Sugar Beet Growers Association, who farms about 700 acres of sugar beets in Fisher, Minnesota. "The food value is better for sugar than for ethanol."

But backers see room for growth in the ethanol area, especially if oil prices remain high.

"It would be absurd in 10 years if we're doing 60 billion gallons of ethanol, and the only crop in America that's not participating is sugar," said Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican and one of Congress' leading champions of sugar-based ethanol.

Coleman is backing legislation that would encourage the use of renewable fuels, including the 100 million-gallon mandate for sugar-based ethanol.

Jack Roney, an economist with the American Sugar Alliance, agreed that the government would need to step in to stimulate a sugar-to-ethanol industry.

"It would take a combination of consumption mandates to ensure that the demand would be there, and conceivably some production incentives to use sugar ethanol," he said.

"The way that the Brazilians established their program is through 30 years of government intervention in energy and agriculture markets, to ensure there would be adequate demand and supplies."

___

Fred Frommer can be reached at ffrommer(at)ap.org
© 2006 The Associated Press

sickdsm

06-18-2006, 05:03 PM

Brazil isn't held to the same standards as american farmers are, not only on GMO crops but they don't pay technology fees, enviroment standards, etc...

Even playing field the american farmer would blow the brazilian corn producer out of the water.

RandomGuy

06-19-2006, 01:14 PM

Let's assume:
1. Corn is as efficient as sugar cane in producing ethanol. The reading that I have done is that it is still much less productive at converting mass into fuel, but let's roll with this for simplicity's sake.

2. Ethanol has as much energy in it per volume as gasoline. I seem to remember it is a bit less, but again, simplicity.

From the wikipedia article on ethanol in brazil, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil) we can pull out the following information:

Amount of sugar crop acreage allocated to Ethanol in 2003-2004:
8789 square miles.

45,000 km2, of which half is used for ethanol, and converted into square miles)

This square area produces:
88 Million barrels of ethanol per year

(cubic meters converted to liters at 1000 liters per cubic meter, converted to gallons at .256 liters per gallon, converted to barrels at 42 gallons per barrel of petroleum)

Directly converting this to gasoline would yield 88 million barrels of gasoline per year using our simplified assumptions.

The US uses 3,321,500,000 barrels of gasoline per year per ( http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/ep/ep_frame.html )

3.3Bn divided by 88M= 37.75 (the number of times larger that US gasoline consumption is than Brazil's consumption)

37.75 times 8789 square miles is 331,521 square miles.

Assume we can find 50% of that figure in unused crop land, that leaves us with 160,500 square miles of NEW crop land that would be need to completely replace gasoline with ethanol at current usage rates.

Factor in the fact that Ethanol has less energy per unit of mass, and that square mileage will go up. Substitute a less efficient crop of corn, and that square mileage will go up.

According to the CIA factbook (http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html) the united states has only 87,000 square miles of irrigated land now.
Where would we get the water to irrigate the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES of crop land that fully replacing gasoline with ethanol will take, ASSUMING we can find the arable land?

Saying "let's just replace our gasoline powered cars with ethanol" doesn't make it viable as a realistic solution.

Rolling forward a bit:

Yes, we will have to start driving less and buying more efficient vehicles. This will reduce the square mileage needed.

Our population is also growing, as is the economy. This will increase demand for fuel. This will offset gains from efficiency somewhat, if not a lot.

Yes, agricultural production will become more efficient, again reducing the square mileage issue. But not by enough of a conceivable factor to replace gasoline as it stands.

Biodiesel will face the same problems of water and arable land. Keep in mind that the figure given was just for gasoline, and not for diesel. Replacing oil-diesel with biodeisel will require a similar ramp up in devoted area to crops.

One good factor that the wikipedia article pointed out is that a good chunk of the waste mass from producing ethanol can be used to produce electricity beyond what the refining process uses.

I am not saying that ethanol is stupid.
Ethanol is certainly part of what I consider part of an energy solution that takes a longer term view. I am all for ramping up usage of this renewable source of energy.

I simply wanted to point out the scale of the problem we are trying to address

scott

06-20-2006, 11:10 PM

Yes, let's just stay enslaved to the Saudi's. :rolleyes

First of all, I was talking about ethanol prices and your lack of 3rd grade math skills.

But, since you brought it up, we are "enslaved" to the Saudi's to the tune of 7% of domestic product supplied. Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela are each bigger suppliers of crude and product than Saudi Arabia.

http://api-ec.api.org/filelibrary/Bac-Mar06.xls

scott

06-20-2006, 11:14 PM

^^I know I sound like a broken record. But we could just drill in our own backyard
and use our own oil.

xray, I think you vastly overestimate the amount of reserves available domestically. If we did tap into them it would help some, yes, but not to the degree you probably think. "Drop in the bucket" is how I'd put it... the US consumes about 20 million barrels a day of oil products, Alaska might offer 500 MBPD (M = 1 thousand) or maybe optimistically 1 MMBPD (MM = 1 million). Canadian oil sands production is more of a long term solution than Canadian drilling, which is why we see money being poured into production projects in Alberta.

scott

06-20-2006, 11:17 PM

Uh, dumbfuck, we grow corn here, too.

You just don't get it, do you exstatic? Corn is an inefficient ethanol feedstock. You can make ethanol out of any carbohydrate that can undergo enzyme conversion to fermentable sugar. That means we could make ethanol out of potatoes or juniper berries if we really wanted to - but that doesn't make it economically sound.

As a supplement to an overall ethanol industry, corn makes sense where economies of scale, economies of scope, synergies or technical efficiencies exist - but as the feedstock for the entire domestic ethanol industry (which the corn lobby has done a fantastic job of ensuring), it makes no sense whatsoever (as shown by math that is obviously over your head).

boutons_

06-20-2006, 11:33 PM

April 10, 2006

With Big Boost From Sugar Cane, Brazil Is Satisfying Its Fuel Needs

By <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/larry_rohter/index.html?inline=nyt-per>LARRY ROHTER

PIRACICABA, <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/brazil/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>Brazil

* At the dawn of the automobile age, Henry Ford predicted that "ethyl alcohol is the fuel of the future." With petroleum about $65 a barrel, President Bush has now embraced that view, too. But Brazil is already there.

This country expects to become energy self-sufficient this year, meeting its growing demand for fuel by increasing production from petroleum and ethanol. Already the use of ethanol, derived in Brazil from sugar cane, is so widespread that some gas stations have two sets of pumps, marked A for alcohol and G for gas.

In his State of the Union address in January, Mr. Bush backed financing for "cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but wood chips and stalks or switch grass" with the goal of making ethanol competitive in six years.

But Brazil's path has taken 30 years of effort, required several billion dollars in incentives and involved many missteps. While not always easy, it provides clues to the real challenges facing the United States' ambitions.

Brazilian officials and scientists say that, in their country at least, the main barriers to the broader use of ethanol today come from outside. Brazil's ethanol yields nearly eight times as much energy as corn-based options, according to scientific data. Yet heavy import duties on the Brazilian product have limited its entry into the United States and Europe.

Brazilian officials and scientists say sugar cane yields are likely to increase because of recent research.

"Renewable fuel has been a fantastic solution for us," Brazil's minister of agriculture, Roberto Rodrigues, said in a recent interview in São Paulo, the capital of São Paulo State, which accounts for 60 percent of sugar production in Brazil. "And it offers a way out of the fossil fuel trap for others as well."

Here, where Brazil has cultivated sugar cane since the 16th century, green fields of cane, stalks rippling gently in the tropical breeze, stretch to the horizon, producing a crop that is destined to be consumed not just as candy and soft drinks but also in the tanks of millions of cars.

The use of ethanol in Brazil was greatly accelerated in the last three years with the introduction of "flex fuel" engines, designed to run on ethanol, gasoline or any mixture of the two. (The gasoline sold in Brazil contains about 25 percent alcohol, a practice that has accelerated Brazil's shift from imported oil.)

But Brazilian officials and business executives say the ethanol industry would develop even faster if the United States did not levy a tax of 54 cents a gallon on all imports of Brazilian cane-based ethanol.

With demand for ethanol soaring in Brazil, sugar producers recognize that it is unrealistic to think of exports to the United States now. But Brazilian leaders complain that Washington's restrictions have inhibited foreign investment, particularly by Americans.

As a result, ethanol development has been led by Brazilian companies with limited capital. But with oil prices soaring, the four international giants that control much of the world's agribusiness * Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Born, Cargill and Louis Dreyfuss * have recently begun showing interest.

Brazil says those and other outsiders are welcome. Aware that the United States and other industrialized countries are reluctant to trade their longstanding dependence on oil for a new dependence on renewable fuels, government and industry officials say they are willing to share technology with those interested in following Brazil's example.

"We are not interested in becoming the Saudi Arabia of ethanol," said Eduardo Carvalho, director of the National Sugarcane Agro-Industry Union, a producer's group. "It's not our strategy because it doesn't produce results. As a large producer and user, I need to have other big buyers and sellers in the international market if ethanol is to become a commodity, which is our real goal."

The ethanol boom in Brazil, which took off at the start of the decade after a long slump, is not the first. The government introduced its original "Pro-Alcohol" program in 1975, after the first global energy crisis, and by the mid-1980's, more than three quarters of the 800,000 cars made in Brazil each year could run on cane-based ethanol.

But when sugar prices rose sharply in 1989, mill owners stopped making cane available for processing into alcohol, preferring to profit from the hard currency that premium international markets were paying.

Brazilian motorists were left in the lurch, as were the automakers who had retooled their production lines to make alcohol-powered cars. Ethanol fell into discredit, for economic rather than technical reasons.

Consumers' suspicions remained high through the 1990's and were overcome only in 2003, when automakers, beginning with Volkswagen, introduced the "flex fuel" motor in Brazil. Those engines gave consumers the autonomy to buy the cheapest fuel, freeing them from any potential shortages in ethanol's supply. Also, ethanol-only engines can be slower to start when cold, a problem the flex fuel owners can bypass.

"Motorists liked the flex-fuel system from the start because it permits them free choice and puts them in control," said Vicente Lourenço, technical director at General Motors do Brasil.

Today, less than three years after the technology was introduced, more than 70 percent of the automobiles sold in Brazil, expected to reach 1.1 million this year, have flex fuel engines, which have entered the market generally without price increases.

"The rate at which this technology has been adopted is remarkable, the fastest I have ever seen in the motor sector, faster even than the airbag, automatic transmission or electric windows," said Barry Engle, president of Ford do Brasil. "From the consumer standpoint, it's wonderful, because you get flexibility and you don't have to pay for it."

Yet the ethanol boom has also brought the prospect of distortions that may not be as easy to resolve. The expansion of sugar production, for example, has come largely at the expense of pasture land, leading to worries that the grazing of cattle, another booming export product, could be shifted to the Amazon, encouraging greater deforestation.

Industry and government officials say such concerns are unwarranted. Sugar cane's expanding frontier is, they argue, an environmental plus, because it is putting largely abandoned or degraded pasture land back into production. And of course, ethanol burns far cleaner that fossil fuels.

Human rights and worker advocacy groups also complain that the boom has led to more hardships for the peasants who cut sugar cane.

"You used to have to cut 4 tons a day, but now they want 8 or 10, and if you can't make the quota, you'll be fired," said Silvio Donizetti Palvequeres, president of the farmworkers union in Ribeirão Preto, an important cane area north of here. "We have to work a lot harder than we did 10 years ago, and the working conditions continue to be tough."

Producers say that problem will be eliminated in the next decade by greater mechanization. A much more serious long-term worry, they say, is Brazil's lack of infrastructure, particularly its limited and poorly maintained highways.

Ethanol can be made through the fermentation of many natural substances, but sugar cane offers advantages over others, like corn. For each unit of energy expended to turn cane into ethanol, 8.3 times as much energy is created, compared with a maximum of 1.3 times for corn, according to scientists at the Center for Sugarcane Technology here and other Brazilian research institutes.

"There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to improve that ratio to 10 to 1," said Suani Teixeira Coelho, director of the National Center for Biomass at the University of São Paulo. "It's no miracle. Our energy balance is so favorable not just because we have high yields, but also because we don't use any fossil fuels to process the cane, which is not the case with corn."

Brazilian producers estimate that they have an edge over gasoline as long as oil prices do not drop below $30 a barrel. But they have already embarked on technical improvements that promise to lift yields and cut costs even more.

In the past, the residue left when cane stalks are compressed to squeeze out juice was discarded. Today, Brazilian sugar mills use that residue to generate the electricity to process cane into ethanol, and use other byproducts to fertilize the fields where cane is planted.

Some mills are now producing so much electricity that they sell their excess to the national grid. In addition, Brazilian scientists, with money from São Paulo State, have mapped the sugar cane genome. That opens the prospect of planting genetically modified sugar, if the government allows, that could be made into ethanol even more efficiently.

"There is so much biological potential yet to be developed, including varieties of cane that are resistant to pesticides and pests and even drought," said Tadeu Andrade, director of the Center for Sugarcane Technology. "We've already had several qualitative leaps without that, and we are convinced there is no ceiling on productivity, at least theoretically."

RandomGuy

06-21-2006, 08:03 AM

scott

06-21-2006, 06:03 PM

Ethanol can be made through the fermentation of many natural substances, but sugar cane offers advantages over others, like corn. For each unit of energy expended to turn cane into ethanol, 8.3 times as much energy is created, compared with a maximum of 1.3 times for corn, according to scientists at the Center for Sugarcane Technology here and other Brazilian research institutes.

BINGO!

Nbadan

06-29-2006, 03:09 PM

Maybe it's time to invest some of that hard-earned cash in corn...

"Ethanol plants need a lot of corn and a lot of water, and Minnesota has a lot of both. But even the land of lakes and cornfields has its limits.

Suddenly, so many new ethanol plants are planned in Minnesota that a once-unthinkable debate has begun: Will there be enough corn to go around?

Investors plan to quadruple the size of Minnesota's ethanol industry within just a few years, according to permit data from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. If they do, they'd devour more than half of Minnesota's 1.2 billion-bushel corn crop."

snip

"In Iowa, the effect is even more dramatic. There, some 55 ethanol plants are open or proposed, and "if all these plants are built, it would use virtually all the Iowa corn crop," said Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner."

Twincities (http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/business/14916259.htm)

boutons_

06-29-2006, 03:36 PM

June 25, 2006

The Energy Challenge

Ethanol Bonanza Is Reshaping Sleepy Cow Towns in Heartland

This article was reported by Alexei Barrionuevo, Simon Romero and Michael Janofsky and written by Mr. Barrionuevo.

Dozens of factories that turn corn into the gasoline substitute ethanol are sprouting up across the nation, from Tennessee to Kansas, and California, often in places hundreds of miles away from where corn is grown.

Once considered the green dream of the environmentally sensitive, ethanol has become the province of agricultural giants that have long pressed for its use as fuel, as well as newcomers seeking to cash in on a bonanza.

The modern-day gold rush is driven by a number of factors: generous government subsidies, surging demand for ethanol as a gasoline supplement, a potent blend of farm-state politics and the prospect of generating more than a 100 percent profit in less than two years.

The rush is taking place despite concerns that large-scale diversion of agricultural resources to fuel could result in price increases for food for people and livestock, as well as the transformation of vast preserved areas into farmland.

Even in the small town of Hereford, in the middle of the Texas Panhandle's cattle country and hundreds of miles from the agricultural heartland, two companies are rushing to build plants to turn corn into fuel.

As a result, Hereford has become a flashpoint in the ethanol boom that is helping to reshape part of rural America's economic base.

Despite continuing doubts about whether the fuel provides a genuine energy saving, at least 39 new ethanol plants are expected to be completed over the next 9 to 12 months, projects that will push the United States past Brazil as the world's largest ethanol producer.

The new plants will produce 1.4 billion gallons a year, a 30 percent increase over current production of 4.6 billion gallons, according to Dan Basse, president of AgResources, an economic forecasting firm in Chicago. By 2008, analysts predict, ethanol output could reach 8 billion gallons a year.

For all its allure, though, there are hidden risks to the boom. Even as struggling local communities herald the expansion of this ethanol-industrial complex and politicians promote its use as a way to decrease America's energy dependence on foreign oil, the ethanol phenomenon is creating some unexpected jitters in crucial corners of farm country.

A few agricultural economists and food industry executives are quietly worrying that ethanol, at its current pace of development, could strain food supplies, raise costs for the livestock industry and force the use of marginal farmland in the search for ever more acres to plant corn.

"This is a bit like a gold rush," warned Warren R. Staley, the chief executive of Cargill, the multinational agricultural company based in Minnesota. "There are unintended consequences of this euphoria to expand ethanol production at this pace that people are not considering."

Mr. Staley has his own reasons to worry, because Cargill has a stake in keeping the price of corn low enough to supply its vast interests in processed food and livestock.

But many energy experts are also questioning the benefits of ethanol to the nation's fuel supply. While it is a renewable, domestically produced fuel that reduces gasoline pollution, large amounts of oil or natural gas go into making ethanol from corn, leaving its net contribution to reducing the use of fossil fuels much in doubt.

As one of the hottest investments around, however, few in farm country want to hear any complaints these days about the risks associated with ethanol. Archer Daniels Midland, the politically connected agricultural processing company in Decatur, Ill., and the industry leader that has been a longstanding champion of transforming corn into a fuel blend, has enjoyed a doubling in its stock price and profits in the last year.

One ethanol producer has already sold shares to the public and two more are planning to do so. And the get-rich-quick atmosphere has drawn in a range of investors, including small farm cooperatives, hedge funds and even Bill Gates.

For all the interest in ethanol, however, it is doubtful whether it can serve as the energy savior President Bush has identified. He has called for biofuels * which account for just 3 percent of total gasoline usage * to replace roughly 1.6 million barrels a day of oil imported from the Persian Gulf.

New Jobs, New Life

To fill that gap with corn-based ethanol alone, agricultural experts say that production would have to rise to more than 50 billion gallons a year; at least half the nation's farmland would need to be used to grow corn for fuel. But that isn't stopping out-of-the-way towns looking for ways to pump life into local economies wracked by population loss, farm consolidation and low prices from treating the rush into ethanol as a godsend.

"These projects are bringing 100 new jobs to our town," said Don Cumpton, Hereford's director of economic development and a former football coach at the high school. "It's not as if Dell computer's going to be setting up shop here. We'd be nuts to turn something like this down."

That the United States is using corn, among the more expensive crops to grow and harvest, to help meet the country's fuel needs is a testament to the politics underlying ethanol's 30-year rise to prominence. Brazilian farmers produce ethanol from sugar at a cost roughly 30 percent less.

But in America's farm belt, politicians have backed the ethanol movement as a way to promote the use of corn, the nation's most plentiful and heavily subsidized crop. Those generous government subsidies have kept corn prices artificially low * at about $2 a bushel * and encouraged flat-out production by farmers, leading to large surpluses symbolized by golden corn piles towering next to grain silos in Iowa and Illinois.

While farmers are seeing little of the huge profits ethanol refiners like Archer Daniels Midland are banking, many farmers are investing in ethanol plants through cooperatives or simply benefiting from the rising demand for corn. With Iowa home to the nation's first presidential caucuses every four years, just about every candidate who visits the state pays obeisance to ethanol.

"There is zero daylight" between Democrats and Republicans in the region, said Ken Cook, president of Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research policy group in Washington, and a veteran observer of agricultural politics. "All incumbents and challengers in Midwestern farm country are by definition ethanolics."

The ethanol explosion began in the 1970's and 1980's, when ADM's chief executive, Dwayne O. Andreas, was a generous campaign contributor and well-known figure in the halls of Congress who helped push the idea of transforming corn into fuel.

Ethanol can be produced from a number of agricultural feed stocks, including corn and sugar cane, and someday, wheat and straw. But given the glut in corn, the early strategy of Mr. Andreas was to drum up interest in ethanol on the state level among corn farmers and persuade Washington to provide generous tax incentives. But in 1990, when Congress mandated the use of a supplement in gasoline to help limit emissions, ADM lost out to the oil industry, which won the right to use the cheaper methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, derived from natural gas, to fill the 10 percent fuel requirement.

Past Scandal

Adding to its woes, ADM was marred by scandal in 1996 when several company executives, including one of the sons of Mr. Andreas, were convicted of conspiracy to fix lysine markets. The company was fined $100 million. Since then, ADM's direct political clout in Washington may have waned a bit but it still pursues its policy preferences through a series of trade organizations, notably the Renewable Fuels Association.

Some 14 months ago the company hired Shannon Herzfeld, a leading lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. But she is not a registered lobbyist for ADM and said in an interview that the company was maintaining its long-held policy that it does not lobby Congress directly.

"Nobody is deferential to ADM," contended Ms. Herzfeld, who says she spends little time on Capitol Hill.

But ADM has not lost interest in promoting ethanol among farm organizations, politicians and the news media. It is by far the biggest beneficiary of more than $2 billion in government subsidies the ethanol industry receives each year, via a 51-cent-a-gallon tax credit given to refiners and blenders that mix ethanol into their gasoline. ADM will earn an estimated $1.3 billion from ethanol alone in the 2007 fiscal year, up from $556 million this year, said David Driscoll, a food manufacturing analyst at Citigroup.

[And the company may be concerned by the recent statement by Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, who suggested that if prices remain high, lawmakers should consider ending the ethanol subsidy when it expires in 2010. "The question needs to be thought about," he said on Friday.]

ADM has huge production facilities that dwarf those of its competitors. With seven big plants, the company controls 1.1 billion gallons of ethanol production, or about 24 percent of the country's capacity. ADM can make more than four times what VeraSun, ADM's closest ethanol rival, can produce.

Last year, spurred by soaring energy prices, the ethanol lobby broke through in its long campaign to win acceptance outside the corn belt, inserting a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that calls for the use of 5 billion gallons a year of ethanol by 2007, growing to at least 7.5 billion gallons in 2012. The industry is now expected to produce about 6 billion gallons next year.

The phased removal of MTBE from gasoline, a result of concerns that the chemical contaminates groundwater and can lead to potential health problems, hastened the changeover. Now, government officials are also pushing for increasing use of an 85-percent ethanol blend, called E85, which requires automakers to modify their engines and fuel injection systems.

In the ultimate nod to ADM's successful efforts, Mr. Bodman announced the new initiatives in February at the company's headquarters in Illinois.

"It's been 30 years since we got a call from the White House asking for the agriculture industry, ADM in particular, to take a serious look at the possibilities of building facilities to produce alternative sources of energy for our fuel supply in the United States," said G. Allen Andreas, ADM's chairman and Dwayne Andreas' nephew.

Now, ADM is betting even more of its future on ethanol, embracing a shift from food processing to energy production as its focus. In April, it hired Patricia A. Woertz, a former executive from the oil giant Chevron, as the company's new chief executive.

While ADM has pushed ethanol, rivals like Cargill have been more skeptical. To Mr. Staley, ethanol is overpromoted as a solution to the nation's energy challenges, and the growth in production, if unchecked, has the potential to ravage America's livestock industry and harm the nation's reliability as an exporter of corn and its byproducts.

Threat to Food Production

"Unless we have huge increases in productivity, we will have a huge problem with food production," Mr. Staley said. "And the world will have to make choices."

Last year corn production topped 11 billion bushels * second only to 2004's record harvest. But many analysts doubt whether the scientists and farmers can keep up with the ethanol merchants.

"By the middle of 2007, there will be a food fight between the livestock industry and this biofuels or ethanol industry," Mr. Basse, the economic forecaster, said. "As the corn price reaches up above $3 a bushel, the livestock industry will be forced to raise prices or reduce their herds. At that point the U.S. consumer will start to see rising food prices or food inflation."

If that occurs, the battleground is likely to shift to some 35 million acres of land set aside under a 1985 program for conservation and to help prevent overproduction. Farmers are paid an annual subsidy averaging $48 an acre not to raise crops on the land. But the profit lure of ethanol could be great enough to push the acreage, much of it considered marginal, back into production.

Mr. Staley fears that could distract farmers from the traditional primary goal of agriculture, raising food for people and animals. "We have to look at the hierarchy of value for agricultural land use," he said in a May speech in Washington. "Food first, then feed" for livestock, "and last fuel."

And even Cargill is hedging its bets. It recently announced plans to nearly double its American ethanol capacity to 220 million gallons a year. Meanwhile, the flood of ethanol plant announcements is making the American livestock industry nervous about corn production. "I think we can keep up, assuming we get normal weather," said Greg Doud, the chief economist at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "But what happens when Mother Nature crosses us up and we get a bad corn year?"

Beyond improving corn yields, the greatest hope for ethanol lies with refining technology that can produce the fuel from more efficient renewable resources, like a form of fuel called cellulosic ethanol from straw, switchgrass or even agricultural waste. While still years away, cellulosic ethanol could help overcome the concerns inherent in relying almost exclusively on corn to make ethanol and make the advance toward E85 that much quicker.

"The cost of the alternative * of staying addicted to oil and filling our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and keeping other countries beholden to high gasoline prices * is unacceptable," said Nathanael Greene, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York. "We have to struggle through the challenges of growing and producing biofuels in the right way."

But the current incentives to make ethanol from corn are too attractive for producers and investors to worry about the future. With oil prices at $70 a barrel sharply lifting the prices paid for ethanol, the average processing plant is earning a net profit of more than $5 a bushel on the corn it is buying for about $2 a bushel, Mr. Basse said. And that is before the 51-cent-a-gallon tax credit given to refiners and blenders that incorporate ethanol into their gasoline.

"It is truly yellow gold," Mr. Basse said.

Alexei Barrionuevo reported from Chicago for this article, Simon Romero from Hereford, Tex., and Michael Janofsky from Washington.

boutons_

06-29-2006, 08:28 PM

June 29, 2006

Ford Shifts Its Focus Away From Hybrid Vehicles

By MICHELINE MAYNARD and JEREMY W. PETERS

DETROIT, June 29 — The Ford Motor Company, which has prided itself as the leading innovator of hybrid vehicles among American car companies, said today that it would not meet a previously announced goal to build 250,000 gas-electric vehicles by the end of the decade.

Instead, Ford said it would place a greater emphasis on developing vehicles that can run on fuels other than gasoline, like E85, a mix of ethanol and gasoline.

( aka flex cars, flex engines, which enable Brazil to move to sugar ethanol)

Hybrid vehicles will still be in the company's lineup, but they are more likely to be cars than trucks or sport utility vehicles, officials at the company said.

The move represents an increasing focus among American automakers on ethanol, a fuel derived from grain alcohol, as a gasoline substitute.

In September, the automaker's chief executive, William Clay Ford Jr., announced the ambitious hybrid goal as part of a marketing campaign that touted the company's green credentials.

In an interview today, Mr. Ford acknowledged he was likely to face criticism for backing off the company's hybrid vehicle goal.

"This is in no way a lack of commitment to hybrids," Mr. Ford said. "It's an expansion of our commitment to other technologies."

Mr. Ford, known for his lifelong interest in environmental causes, went on: "The goal all along is a sustainability goal. It is not a hybrid goal."

Last fall, when Ford set its hybrid goal, it was acting in the face of growing hybrid sales by Japanese companies, particularly Toyota.

But in his message to employees on Wednesday, Mr. Ford wrote, "What I didn't foresee at the time was how rapidly other technologies would evolve."

Nonetheless, Ford was the first American auto company to sell a hybrid vehicle, the small Escape sport utility vehicle. It has been the most aggressive of Detroit's automakers to pursue and sell hybrid technology, vowing to offer a full range of hybrid vehicles by the end of this decade.

General Motors plans to introduce hybrid models later this year, while Chrysler plans some for later this decade.

All three Detroit companies trail Toyota, which sold more than 100,000 Prius hybrid cars last year and is about to introduce a hybrid version of the Camry, the nation's best-selling car. Honda also sells hybrid versions of its Civic and Accord, and it is developing a new, lower-cost hybrid vehicle that will go on sale later this decade.

Mr. Ford said in his message to employees that instead of focusing so heavily on hybrids, the company instead plans to double the number of vehicles it makes that run on ethanol and other more environmentally friendly fuels like bio-diesel.

"Our strategy going forward is not to wed ourselves to a single technology, but to manage a more flexible approach to meet our goals for customer needs, environmental impact and shareholder interests," he wrote.

Environmentalists have questioned the motives of the automakers pushing for E85. Car companies receive a credit for each vehicle they produce that is capable of running on ethanol or a similar bio-fuel.

But Mr. Ford noted today that there are also credits to the buyers of hybrid vehicles. "It's not a credit-driven thing," he said. "We get credit either way."

More important, he said, was to spend money on technologies that could lessen the country's dependence on oil. "We need to keep a hand in everything so that when a break comes, we can move fast," he said.

Micheline Maynard reported from Detroit for this article, and Jeremy W. Peters from New York.

scott

06-29-2006, 08:59 PM

If Ford is doing it, you can be rest assured it's a bad idea. :lol

Nbadan

06-30-2006, 04:10 AM

If Ford is doing it, you can be rest assured it's a bad idea. :lol

The ultimate goal for almost all american car companies is bankruptcy and debt restructuring of employee pensions and benefits. So your right, if FORD is doing it, it's a bad idea.

scott

06-30-2006, 07:37 AM

The ultimate goal for almost all american car companies is bankruptcy and debt restructuring of employee pensions and benefits. So your right, if FORD is doing it, it's a bad idea.

I think you give Ford way too much credit, Dan... Ford has the Dubya Bush of Corporate Management Teams... probably well intentioned, just not smart enough to fully understand what they are doing.

xrayzebra

06-30-2006, 08:46 AM

shelshor

06-30-2006, 12:15 PM

I heard on the radio last Saturday, cant think of the guys name, but he is the
Automotive guy on KTSA and he was talking about there were some companies
now selling some kind of chip that that can go into the cars computer so it
could use E85. I didn't catch all of it, because I was in and out the car so fast.
It just caught my ear. Anyone heard of that?
I haven't heard that one, but it sounds suspiciously like the magic carburetors that claim to one's milage from 18 mpg to 125 mpg
Was talking to my mechanic the other day and he says the main difference between a regular engine and the E85 engines is the material the seals in the gas line are made out of; 20% or more ethanol will dissolve the conventional engines' seals, but gasoline doesn't

boutons_

07-01-2006, 07:32 AM

Doesn't scale up to national solution, but funny anyway. After the grease has poisoned Americans vascular systems (trans fats, etc), it at least serves some useful purpose.

=================

Grease Guzzlers

These Folks Fuel Their Diesel Cars With Cooking Oil. Slick, Huh?

By Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 1, 2006; B01

In these days of eye-popping gas prices, Mike Leahy gets fuel for his Volkswagen Beetle at the Barking Dog, a popular Bethesda pub. Shane Sellers fuels up at a Chinese restaurant in Frederick. And Ben Tonken heads to a Tex-Mex eatery in the District.

"There's a bit of a smell when you get out," said Leahy, a D.C. lawyer. "A slight french fry smell. I kind of like it; it's kind of sweet. It smells better than diesel."

Welcome to the world of greasel -- the shorthand some use for grease and diesel. Leahy and the others are among a tiny but growing band of environmentalists and thrifty consumers who are turning to restaurants for free, used vegetable oil to fuel their diesel-engine cars.

With a little filtration and a car conversion kit, oil that once fried potatoes, egg rolls or tortilla chips is ready for its second act: air pollution fighter.

Sure, saving the world would be nice. But these folks don't really expect to. Most seem to be getting their hands greasy more to prove a point: There are alternatives to fossil fuels, and vegetable oil, according to studies, burns cleaner than diesel fuel. What's more, it can save money.

As for performance, drivers say there's virtually no difference. Wear and tear on the engine is the same, as is acceleration. So is gas mileage: about 40 to 55 miles per gallon, depending on the vehicle.

( hmm, not "gas mileage" but "diesel/greasal mileage" )

When Sellers, 31, bought an $800 conversion kit two years ago, "it had nothing to do with fuel prices; it was just a decision on having some sort of independence and challenging the use of fossil fuels," said the adjunct professor of art at Frederick Community College.

But with gas prices skyrocketing, he's saving $80 to $100 a month. Sellers is already on his second grease car, a 2002 VW Golf hatchback. He installed the conversion kit himself, but those who lack the mechanical chops pay an average of $900 to have it done. Installation in trucks can cost as much as $2,500.

Sellers's car still uses diesel when it has to. But once the engine and the vegetable oil warm up, he flips a switch to convert to vegetable oil, which is stored in a separate fuel tank. He burns through about 30 gallons a month, mostly canola oil.

The concept of vegetable oil as fuel is more back-to-the-future than leading edge. In 1900, an engineer named Rudolf Diesel used peanut oil to demonstrate his new high-compression engine at the World Exposition in Paris. Historians say he hoped that small-scale farmers would be able to "grow" their own fuel. But petroleum-based fuels soon became plentiful and cheap and wound up the fuel of choice.

More than 100 years after the world's fair, the "greasers," as some enthusiasts call themselves, are once again piquing the public's curiosity.

About a half-dozen times a day, as businessman Ben Tonken's silver 2002 VW Jetta station wagon idles at a red light, fellow motorists pepper him with questions after spotting the car's "powered by vegetable oil" decal.

"Some people laugh," said Tonken, 32, of Rockville, as he drove in Northwest Washington. "That's unfortunate. They're the nonbelievers."

Jim Hickey, 46, of New Market also gets his share of wisecracks as he drives his 1984 Volvo equipped with a VW diesel engine. He fuels his car with canola oil that has fried tempura shrimp, vegetables and chicken at The Orchard, his whole-foods restaurant in Frederick.

"It smells more like a chicken barbecue," Hickey said. "Everyone laughs about it." And some ask: "How's the tempura taxi running?"

Jokes aside, the idea is catching on, said Lee Briante, a spokesman for Greasecar in Amherst, Mass., one of the largest manufacturers of conversion kits.

The company has gone from selling about 20 kits a month in 2000 to as many as 100 a week this year, he said. In its six years of existence, the company has sold 3,000 kits nationwide, including 50 in Virginia, 30 in Maryland and 10 in the District.

"In general, we see a direct relationship with fuel prices to sales," Briante said. "Over the last two years, I'd say more folks just can't afford to run their vehicles."

There is no official count of the number of U.S. vehicles fueled by pure vegetable oil. Briante and Charles Anderson, owner of Golden Fuel Systems of Springfield, Mo. , another leading manufacturer of conversion kits, guess that there are 8,000 to 10,000.

Still, Jonathan Overly, executive director of the East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition, sees limited growth ahead. "It's really going to be your green community," he said. And people must be determined enough to collect used oil from restaurants.

"There's a whole lot of individuals who don't want to do that," Overly said.

Leahy, a lawyer for a wildlife conservation group, noted that the resources are finite. "I don't think there's enough used cooking oil to fuel the masses," he said.

A more practical option, Overly and others said, is biodiesel, a more sophisticated formulation that combines plant or animal fats and some form of alcohol, such as methanol. It burns cleaner than conventional diesel fuel and requires no conversion kit for the diesel engine.

Some municipalities, including Falls Church, use biodiesel to run fleets of trucks or buses. About 75 million gallons were produced in the United States last year.

Another popular alternative, ethanol fuel, is a mix of fermented corn sugar and gasoline that can be used in regular car engines. Last year, nearly 4 billion gallons were produced across the country.

Still, the "greasers" remain true to their low-tech fuel. And for now at least, getting grease is a cinch. Most restaurants have to pay to dispose of it, so they're happy to give it away.

One recent evening, Leahy pulled up to the Barking Dog in downtown Bethesda to pick up his fuel, which he would take home to filter.

As kickball players filed through the front door for a night of beer and frivolity, owner John McManus brought out a five-gallon pickle pail for Leahy. The pickles were long gone; soy oil sloshed to the brim.

"I wish everyone would do it," McManus said.

Staff researcher Karl Evanzz contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Nbadan

07-03-2006, 03:27 AM

WP column: The False Hope of Biofuels
For Energy and Environmental Reasons, Ethanol Will Never Replace Gasoline
By James Jordan and James Powell
Sunday, July 2, 2006; Page B07

Biofuels such as ethanol made from corn, sugar cane, switchgrass and other crops are being touted as a "green" solution for a large part of America's transportation problem. Auto manufacturers, Midwest corn farmers and politicians are excited about ethanol. Initially, we, too, were excited about biofuels: no net carbon dioxide emissions, reduction of oil imports. Who wouldn't be enthusiastic?

But as we've looked at biofuels more closely, we've concluded that they're not a practical long-term solution to our need for transport fuels. Even if all of the 300 million acres (500,000 square miles) of currently harvested U.S. cropland produced ethanol, it wouldn't supply all of the gasoline and diesel fuel we now burn for transport, and it would supply only about half of the needs for the year 2025. And the effects on land and agriculture would be devastating.

It's difficult to understand how advocates of biofuels can believe they are a real solution to kicking our oil addiction. Agriculture Department studies of ethanol production from corn -- the present U.S. process for ethanol fuel -- find that an acre of corn yields about 139 bushels. At an average of about 2.5 gallons per bushel, the acre then will yield about 350 gallons of ethanol. But the fuel value of ethanol is only about two-thirds that of gasoline -- 1.5 gallons of ethanol in the tank equals 1 gallon of gasoline in terms of energy output.

Moreover, it takes a lot of input energy to produce ethanol: for fertilizer, harvesting, transport, corn processing, etc. After subtracting this input, the net positive energy available is less than half of the figure cited above. Some researchers even claim that the net energy of ethanol is actually negative when all inputs are included -- it takes more energy to make ethanol than one gets out of it...

(The writers are research professors in Maglev Research Center at Polytechnic University of New York.)
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063001480.html?nav=most_emailed)

xrayzebra

07-04-2006, 09:43 AM

And then you have these folks. If you got the money. But I am impressed with
the 0-60 in three seconds. Range of the car is still a little ify. And recharge time
will be a problem. Although I read the other day, some folks are working on a super
capacitor that will recharge in short order at an ordinary outlet. Now that is a thought.
But talk about a bang if it explodes which sometimes happens with capacitors.

Silicon Valley Start-Ups Want to Resurrect Electric Cars

Thursday , June 29, 2006

SAN CARLOS, Calif. — Like many Silicon Valley engineers, Martin Eberhard loves cars, especially fast ones. But the self-described "closet gearhead" didn't feel comfortable buying a hot rod that guzzled gas from the Middle East or some other troubled region.

So three years ago, Eberhard and friend Marc Tarpenning launched Tesla Motors Inc. Their goal: to design a sports car that would go as fast as a Ferrari or Porsche, but run on electricity.

With about 80 employees, Tesla just raised $40 million from high-profile investors including Google (GOOG) founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. It plans to start selling its first model next year.

"I'm not the only person that would like to buy a car that's beautiful and fun to drive but also remain on the moral high ground," said Eberhard, 45, who sold his previous company, electronic book maker NuvoMedia, for $187 million to Gemstar/TV Guide International (GMST) in 2000. "None of the energy that goes into an electric car comes from the Middle East."

Silicon Valley thinks it can do what Detroit could not — create a thriving business selling electric cars. In the 1990s, General Motors (GM) and other automakers spent billions to develop battery-powered vehicles, but they flopped because most couldn't travel more than 100 miles before having to recharge.

By tapping the Bay Area's engineering expertise and culture of innovation, a cluster of entrepreneurs, engineers and venture capitalists here are racing to bring their own electric cars to market. But unlike the Detroit and Japanese automakers, they're working on high-performance sports cars for wealthy car enthusiasts.

At least three Silicon Valley startups — Tesla Motors of San Carlos, Wrightspeed Inc. of Woodside and battery maker Li-on Cells of Menlo Park — are among a small cadre of companies nationwide developing electric cars or components.

As fuel costs rise, technology improves and consumers seek more environmentally friendly vehicles, this new generation of electric car companies sees potential in a market niche largely neglected by the big automakers.

But some industry analysts question whether electric cars could ever become cheap enough, or have the battery life, to compete in the mainstream auto market.

"To attract consumers en masse, the price has to be low enough where they can see the break-even point," said Anthony Pratt, an automotive analyst at J.D. Power & Associates. "The problem with electric vehicles is that they tend to be limited by the battery technology."

Some major automakers are also working on electric-vehicle technology, but most are focused on hybrid cars that run on a combination of gas and electricity, Pratt said.

Backers of electric cars, powered by batteries charged from an electric outlet, say the country could quickly reduce its dependence on foreign oil — as well as emissions of "greenhouse" gases blamed for global warming — if more drivers went electric.

But so far, efforts to bring electric cars to market have stalled.

In the 1990s, the major automakers introduced several thousand electric cars under a California state mandate to develop cars with no tailpipe emissions. While those cars attracted a small but devoted following, they didn't get much traction in the marketplace because of their restricted driving range.

The big automakers lobbied against the mandate until it was overturned in 2003. Most car companies then recalled their electric vehicles and destroyed them, sparking an outcry among loyalists.

While those models were hobbled by limited driving range, advances in battery technology and electronic components can allow electric vehicles to go more than twice as far on a single charge.

Tesla and Wrightspeed are using lithium-ion batteries that are more powerful, lighter and efficient than the lead acid batteries used in early electric cars or the nickel metal hydride batteries used in today's hybrids.

"The battery technology has improved," said Ron Freund, chairman of the Electric Auto Association in Palo Alto. "They keep getting better. They last longer, they're smaller and they charge faster."

The success of Toyota's (TM) Prius and other hybrids have shown there's a market for eco-friendly cars. Page and Brin, Google's billionaire founders, are known to drive Priuses.

But Tesla's Eberhard thinks the Prius is "terrifically ugly" and believes other wealthy car enthusiasts feel the same way.

In Tesla's workshop about 20 miles south of San Francisco, Eberhard and Tarpenning offered a glimpse of their first model — a sleek two-seater called the Roadster that resembles a Lotus Elise — but would not allow photographs. They plan to unveil it at an event for prospective buyers next month in Santa Monica.

"We're building a car for people who like to drive," Eberhard said. "This is not a punishment car."

To build the Roadster, Tesla engineers designed a sophisticated battery system with more than 8,000 lithium-ion cells and a network of computers to control them, Eberhard said. They also built an electric motor that is more than twice as powerful as earlier electric vehicles.

The Roadster will be able to drive about 250 miles on a single three-hour charge, drive up to 135 miles per hour and accelerate from zero to 60 in four seconds, Eberhard said. It will cost between $85,000 and $120,000.

Named after the inventor Nikola Tesla, known for his pioneering research in the field of electricity, the company has big ambitions. Tesla executives talk about building a "new kind of car company" and hope to eventually introduce a series of models, starting at the market's high end and bringing down the price as technology improves.

But the company must first undergo rigorous government safety and environmental tests — a process whose complexity the founders admit they didn't anticipate.

"The car business had more challenges than we expected," Tarpenning said.

Ian Wright, who left Tesla to start Wrightspeed last year, is aiming at the same $3 billion market for high-performance sports cars. The New Zealand-born electrical engineer spent nine months retooling an Ariel Atom race car to run on a lithium-ion battery — a prototype of the car he hopes to eventually sell for about $120,000.

Wright frequently takes prospective investors — and reporters — for a spin in the hills near his Woodside home.

With no doors, roof or windshield, a drive in Wrightspeed's X1 feels like a roller coaster ride and can leave passengers wind-beaten and queasy. It accelerates from zero to 60 mph in 3 seconds, making it one of the world's fastest production cars. Last year, Wright's X1 beat a Porsche and Ferrari in separate races.

"I wouldn't describe myself as a radical environmentalist," said Wright, who is still trying to raise his first round of funding. "I think my customers will buy my cars for performance. The energy efficiency is nice to have, but it's not the reason they will buy the car."

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RandomGuy

07-04-2006, 03:40 PM

boutons_

07-04-2006, 04:45 PM

July 4, 2006

Tapping the Latent Power in What's Left Around the Barnyard

By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

In a sense, it is the ultimate renewable source of fuel. Weather anomalies can kill off corn crops, calm the winds, obscure the sun — but through rain or shine, gusts or stillness, cows and hogs and turkeys spew forth a steady stream of manure, one of nature's richest sources of methane, a principal component of natural gas.

And now, farmers and entrepreneurs are recognizing that this immutable fact can yield a steady stream of revenue and profit, too. Slowly, but steadily, they are replacing the malodorous lagoons used to treat the waste with machines that can wrest energy from excrement.

According to AgStar, a federal program that promotes the conversion of manure to energy, there are more than 100 anaerobic digesters — devices that create an oxygen-free atmosphere in which bacteria digest manure and release gas — operating in the United States today, with another 80 on the drawing boards.

"These are the only kinds of waste management systems that can actually put money in farmers' pockets," said Kurt Roos, program manager of AgStar.

There are a number of reasons for the new spotlight on what is called brown energy. http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif Oil and gas prices have soared, even as environmentalists have sounded alarms about climate change. In the last two years, various state and federal agencies have subsidized purchases of digesters, since they capture methane — a potent greenhouse gas — before it escapes into the atmosphere. Many utilities operate in states that require them to include environmentally aware energy sources in their portfolios. They will often accept manure gas, since many farms have installed equipment to clean it.

In fact, more utilities are thinking of buying the gas outright. Pacific Gas and Electric has agreed to transport gas from a big digester that Microgy, a digester manufacturer, is building in California. Right now Microgy plans to sell the gas on the open market, but Robert Howard, vice president for gas transmission and distribution, said P.G.& E. may buy some gas itself. "This technology provides pipeline-quality gas and reduces carbon emissions, so of course we're in favor it," he said.

The environmental boons are many. According to Agstar, digesters are already keeping 66,000 tons of methane from escaping each year into the atmosphere, while generating enough energy to power more than 20,000 homes.

And technologies, some of which have been around for decades, have finally grown more reliable. "There's been a lot of time and energy spent on making these as effective and efficient as possible, so anaerobic digestion will be a growing business," said Daniel J. Mannes, vice president of Avondale Partners, a securities research firm that recently initiated coverage of the Environmental Power Corporation, the company in Portsmouth, N.H., that owns Microgy.

The potential market is huge. Agstar officials say that at least 70,000 dairy and swine farms are big enough to support a commercial digester and could collectively provide enough energy to power more than 560,000 homes, while keeping more than 1.4 million tons of methane out of the atmosphere.

"The business model of producing energy along with food will transform the economics of rural America," said Michael T. Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, based in Washington.

Indeed, anaerobic digestion yields not just methane, but leftover liquids that farmers can use or sell as fertilizer, waste heat that can heat their homes and barns, and fibrous solids that make excellent bedding for cows. Farmers also save the costs of controlling odors and treating waste. "Two years ago I couldn't even convince farmers that digesters work," said Melissa Dvorak, marketing manager for GHD, a company based in Chilton, Wis., that sells digesters. "Now, all they ask is what the payback will be."

The deals are struck in different ways. In most cases, farmers buy digesters and either use the gas themselves, sell it to a utility, or use it to power a generator that feeds electricity to the utility's grid. In another model, the manufacturer owns the digester and sells the gas. In those cases the farmers provide the manure and the land, and get the fertilizer, bedding and a cut of revenues from sales of gas. Last year, for example, Hunter Haven Farms in Pearl City, Ill., paid $960,000 — half of it subsidized by state and federal grants — for a GHD digester that processes waste from 600 dairy cows. Hunter Haven then pipes its methane into a generator, and sells the resulting electricity to Commonwealth Edison for 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

Douglas R. Block, Hunter Haven's president, said the farm was saving $60,000 annually by using fibrous solids from the digester as bedding, and sells $12,000 worth of bedding to other farmers. And he anticipates at least $16,000 in added revenue from carbon credits, the tradeable units for reducing methane emissions.

Five Star Dairy, a 900-cow dairy farm in Elk Mound, Wis., anticipates a similar profit stream from the $1.2 million Microgy digester it installed in 2004. Lee Jensen, Five Star's general manager, said the Dairyland Power Cooperative pays him about 5 cents per kilowatt hour for energy, and that he is saving money on bedding and fertilizer.

"We're not taking any risk, the reduction in odors is huge, and we're powering 600 homes with 900 cows," he said. "You've got to admit, that's pretty efficient."

The digester companies are betting their futures that more farmers will agree with him. Environmental Power is phasing out an older business in burning waste coal to focus on its Microgy subsidiary, which uses a technology that it licensed from Xergi, a Danish company. Microgy, whose digesters can accept used cooking grease as well as manure, has already sold three of its machines in Wisconsin, and is building one in Huckabay, Tex., that will process waste from 10,000 cows. It will own that one itself, and hopes to sell the resulting gas on the open market.

GHD is cutting back on its business of cleaning up pollution from underground gas tanks to concentrate on the anaerobic digestion patents it has held since the late 1990's. It has sold 15 small manure digesters and is building 6 more.

Intrepid Technology and Resources, based in Idaho Falls, Idaho, is discontinuing its engineering services business to concentrate on its digester processes. Dennis D. Keiser, Intrepid's chief executive, said that in five or six years, he expects Intrepid will be collecting manure from 100,000 cows on 50 farms, and generating enough gas to serve 40,000 homes. "We're not profitable yet, but in the next 12 months we will be," he predicted. That may yet depend on the utilities that accept the processed gas, particularly since Agstar and some states have cut back on subsidies.

"Digesters need to get at least 6 cents a kilowatt hour to break even, and too many utilities want to pay 2 cents," said George Sterzinger, executive director of the Renewable Energy Policy Project, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.

But utilities are coming around. Dairyland is taking enough manure-generated electricity from Microgy projects in Wisconsin to power 1,800 homes, and John M. McWilliams, the utility's resource planner, said he hoped to have 30 digesters linked to his grid soon. Mr. McWilliams called manure-to-energy systems one of the few environmental technologies that can offer guaranteed supply and stable prices.

"Wind blows intermittently, people don't want more rivers and streams dammed up, there aren't many new landfills to tap, and we're captive to railroads to transport coal," he said. "Manure digestion is probably the only way we can expand."

Central Vermont Public Service is letting its customers choose. In October 2004 it gave its 151,000 customers an option to pay a few cents more for "cow power," so that the utility could pay for the more expensive electricity generated from manure. More than 3,000 customers have agreed to do so, and David J. Dunn, a senior energy consultant at the utility, said more keep signing up.

The utility is buying gas from one farm now, but Mr. Dunn said two others are installing digesters, and two more plan to do so soon.

"We've already got more customers signed up than cow power to sell them," Mr. Dunn said. "Cow power is really a market-driven program."

=========================

I read once where 90% of USA corn goes to animal feed. Animals now as corn convertors and pre-digestors producing for sh!t digestors.

scott

07-04-2006, 09:21 PM

Methane = CH4

Carbohydrates = Cn(H20)n

People = Full of carbohydrates.

You connect the dots (http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24011&highlight=human+crude).