| krygny |
FTFA:
"The study found that ethanol from corn produces 25 percent more energy than was used to create it, while biodiesel from soybeans produces 93 percent more."
Conspicuously missing is the ratio for gasoline. |
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| N_Jay |
quote:
Originally posted by krygny
FTFA:
"The study found that ethanol from corn produces 25 percent more energy than was used to create it, while biodiesel from soybeans produces 93 percent more."
Conspicuously missing is the ratio for gasoline.
Maybe that is because it is a SCIENCE article and NOT a POLITICAL statement. :rolleyes: |
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| krygny |
quote:
Originally posted by N_Jay
Maybe that is because it is a SCIENCE article and NOT a POLITICAL statement. :rolleyes:
What does that have to do with anything? If it's so scientific, why don't they say how they arrived at those figures? It's the most natural of questions that the article doesn't answer. All I'm saying is, based on their criteria, how would gasoline compare? Those numbers seem fairly low to me; I would guess gasoline would be 300, 400, 500% but I don't know. |
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| Bill Balmer |
I'm not sure I get your point, N_Jay. I'm sure you'll say that's because I'm "not concerned with the facts", but really - I don't know anyone who thought that bio-fuel made from corn was a viable present-day total replacement for gasoline. All the article says is that we need to explore other, lower cost alternatives like wheat grass, and that we don't currently have a perfect solution. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. No new technology starts out being totally cost-efficient - that's what R&D is for.
Scientific method - hypothesize, experiment, analyze, refine hypothesis, experiment..... That's the process we're currently undergoing. Would you have us give up since we haven't perfected it yet? Would that be "good science"?
Comparing the ratio for gasoline to the ratios for bio-fuel would be meaningless, since gasoline is a non-renewable resource and therefore doesn't have the same costs connected with renewing (growing) it. I give them credit for not making that spurious comparison. On the other hand, I'm not sure how much creedance I'd put in the accuracy of the article after reading this statement:
"Some auto manufacturers are retooling some models to take advantage of an 85/15 blend of gasoline and ethanol."
While they didn't say "respectively", the uninformed reader would reasonably infer that E85 is 85% gasoline instead of 85% Ethanol. Sloppy reporting. |
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| N_Jay |
quote:
Originally posted by krygny
What does that have to do with anything? If it's so scientific, why don't they say how they arrived at those figures? It's the most natural of questions that the article doesn't answer. All I'm saying is, based on their criteria, how would gasoline compare? Those numbers seem fairly low to me; I would guess gasoline would be 300, 400, 500% but I don't know.
It's an article not a thesis!:rolleyes:
Intro Paragraph:
"Making Energy Takes Energy"
"Whether you are fueling your vehicles with something refined from oil, extracted as biofuel from plants, or harnessed from the sun using photovoltaic cells, you have to use energy to make that energy. But, if you can't make more energy than you put in, and do so more cheaply than competing energy sources, then that fuel isn't likely headed into widespread commercial production anytime soon."
They did not give the numbers for Solar either. The article is about BIO-FUELS.
Oh, Lookie, a source (Just like a news article should have!)
" . . ., a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Tilman and Jason Hill, also from the University of Minnesota, has confirmed that these fuels, in fact, do create new energy, . . . "
Oh my, they told us more about the source. Now why would they do that. (Oh yes, it's good reporting)
"This study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition for the week of July 10-14, 2006 and was funded by the Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Science Foundation, and the Bush Foundation."
Yes, there are news sources that do the job right!:4: :4: |
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| N_Jay |
quote:
Originally posted by Bill Balmer
I'm not sure I get your point, N_Jay. I'm sure you'll say that's because I'm "not concerned with the facts", but really - I don't know anyone who thought that bio-fuel made from corn was a viable present-day total replacement for gasoline. All the article says is that we need to explore other, lower cost alternatives like wheat grass, and that we don't currently have a perfect solution. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. No new technology starts out being totally cost-efficient - that's what R&D is for.
My point is that there is info out there without the political spin.
I know lots of people who have been mislead and believe that the solution is out there, just kept from us by the oil companies (car companies, etc.)
quote:
Originally posted by Bill Balmer
Scientific method - hypothesize, experiment, analyze, refine hypothesis, experiment..... That's the process we're currently undergoing. Would you have us give up since we haven't perfected it yet? Would that be "good science"?
Did I make any comment in that direction?
quote:
Originally posted by Bill Balmer
Comparing the ratio for gasoline to the ratios for bio-fuel would be meaningless, since gasoline is a non-renewable resource and therefore doesn't have the same costs connected with renewing (growing) it. I give them credit for not making that spurious comparison. On the other hand, I'm not sure how much creedance I'd put in the accuracy of the article after reading this statement:
"Some auto manufacturers are retooling some models to take advantage of an 85/15 blend of gasoline and ethanol."
Oh my!, loosing creedence due to an accurate statement!
Just because it is common knowledge to you does not make it common knowledge to all.
quote:
Originally posted by Bill Balmer
While they didn't say "respectively", the uninformed reader would reasonably infer that E85 is 85% gasoline instead of 85% Ethanol. Sloppy reporting.
Yep, the editor should have caught that.
(Hey, they are not perfect)
Next time you find a rabid "Alternative Energy" enthusiast, hit them with "If we use all of our corn and all of our soybeans just to make biofuels, we'll only be meeting about ten percent of our national transportation gasoline and diesel demand." and see if they believe you. |
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| DonP |
quote:
" . . ., a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Tilman and Jason Hill, also from the University of Minnesota, has confirmed that these fuels, in fact, do create new energy, . . . "
Oh crap. Damned public schools! I was taught that energy could neither be created nor destroyed. LOL :D |
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| prijo |
quote:
Originally posted by DonP
Oh crap. Damned public schools! I was taught that energy could neither be created nor destroyed. LOL :D
No new engergy is "created", it is just "extracted". Do you think the corn was grown without energy? It is all a conversion process...
Solar Energy -> promotes corn growth -> extracted with energy -> 25% bonus in the form of converted solar energy
inefficiencies in the process creates the conversion of energy into a form that cannot be recovered and stored (loss of energy), yet enough of the solar (and other) energy was converted out of the corn to give is a little more that what it took to extract it in the first place....
all is well in the world, the public schools still have it right.... :) |
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| krygny |
quote:
Originally posted by N_Jay
It's an article not a thesis!:rolleyes:
...
I'm not making a judgment about one fuel or another. I'm just saying a comparison is necessary for context. According to the criteria they used (whatever that is),
You get 125% yield from ethanol production. (Doesn't sound too good, but how would I know?)
You get 193% yield from biodiesel production. (Doesn't sound too bad, but how would I know?)
To put it in context, the most logical question is "Using the same criteria, what is the relative energy yield from producing gasoline form crude oil?" If it's 530%, both alternatives suck. If it's 150%, biodiesel is a panacea and ethanol is still a limited alternative.
That's context. That's perspective. That's what good journalist include in their articles. Answers to the readers' most likely questions. |
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| ramirami |
| I have said this before...I dont think we will find a renewable energy resource as efficient at fossil fuels... but the problem with non renewable resources is well they are non renewable... |
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| N_Jay |
quote:
Originally posted by krygny
I'm not making a judgment about one fuel or another. I'm just saying a comparison is necessary for context. According to the criteria they used (whatever that is),
You get 125% yield from ethanol production. (Doesn't sound too good, but how would I know?)
You get 193% yield from biodiesel production. (Doesn't sound too bad, but how would I know?)
To put it in context, the most logical question is "Using the same criteria, what is the relative energy yield from producing gasoline form crude oil?" If it's 530%, both alternatives suck. If it's 150%, biodiesel is a panacea and ethanol is still a limited alternative.
That's context. That's perspective. That's what good journalist include in their articles. Answers to the readers' most likely questions.
So write the author and ask. I am sure you would get an answer. Everyone there is very nice.
I did not consider it a fossil vs. bio article, just a news article bringing a National Academy of Science paper down to mass media level.
As for your question, maybe it was not addressed in the report the article was about.
(Although I don't think it is relevant to the issues discussed, but that is personal opinion.) |
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| N_Jay |
quote:
Originally posted by ramirami
I have said this before...I dont think we will find a renewable energy resource as efficient at fossil fuels... but the problem with non renewable resources is well they are non renewable...
Hence as non-renewable sources become more scarce, economics will drive towards other sources naturally.
No need to worry, no need to push.:2: :2: :2: |
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| ramirami |
quote:
Originally posted by N_Jay
Hence as non-renewable sources become more scarce, economics will drive towards other sources naturally.
No need to worry, no need to push.:2: :2: :2:
people worry because the price of gas puses a price of everthing up... peoples budgets get upset...
yes if you look at the big picture 100 years from now what you say will look fine in Economic text books.... but the pain for people in the transition period is real.... |
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| prijo |
quote:
Originally posted by ramirami
people worry because the price of gas puses a price of everthing up... peoples budgets get upset...
yes if you look at the big picture 100 years from now what you say will look fine in Economic text books.... but the pain for people in the transition period is real....
As long as our source of energy is controlled by those who wish to kill us, you are right, it will be painful.
The only way to get them to stop wanting to kill us is to convert to Islam, I'm not willing to do that.
So, tap alaska, that's all I'm saying :) (grow more corn, hash more grass, collect cow turds, heck, I've got lots of grass clippings we should convert to gasoline) :) |
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| eluwak |
quote:
Originally posted by krygny
I'm not making a judgment about one fuel or another. I'm just saying a comparison is necessary for context. According to the criteria they used (whatever that is),
You get 125% yield from ethanol production. (Doesn't sound too good, but how would I know?)
You get 193% yield from biodiesel production. (Doesn't sound too bad, but how would I know?)
To put it in context, the most logical question is "Using the same criteria, what is the relative energy yield from producing gasoline form crude oil?" If it's 530%, both alternatives suck. If it's 150%, biodiesel is a panacea and ethanol is still a limited alternative.
That's context. That's perspective. That's what good journalist include in their articles. Answers to the readers' most likely questions.
I don't know about gasoline but between soy based biodiesel and #2 the #2 has more energy... Not lots but more so I would guess that regular diesel would be around 200-250% |
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| N_Jay |
quote:
Originally posted by prijo
As long as our source of energy is controlled by those who wish to kill us, you are right, it will be painful.
Ah, the big lie.
We can get all the oil we need from other sources.
All we have to do is be willing to pay more.
quote:
Originally posted by prijo
The only way to get them to stop wanting to kill us is to convert to Islam, I'm not willing to do that.
With my experience in the the Middle East, I am not sure that even that would work.
My view is more "Smith-ian", with a belief that they will only evolve beyond this stage when they evolve economically.
quote:
Originally posted by prijo
So, tap alaska, that's all I'm saying :) (grow more corn, hash more grass, collect cow turds, heck, I've got lots of grass clippings we should convert to gasoline) :)
Screw tapping new sources! Use up all of the "Other People's Oil" we can while the prices are lower than our internal sources. |
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| jdeanski |
quote:
Originally posted by krygny
FTFA:
"The study found that ethanol from corn produces 25 percent more energy than was used to create it, while biodiesel from soybeans produces 93 percent more."
Conspicuously missing is the ratio for gasoline.
In my just received August issue of Discover magazine there is an article entitled "Life After Oil". It makes the case that biofuels can work and replace 30% of our gasoline within 25 years. It's a rather long and involved article so look for it on their website (it's not there yet)
It does state that when the energy of gas is calculated there are factors not considered but are thrown into the equation for biofuels. It also states that "............petroleum's fossil energy balance is negative. Making a gallon requires 23% more energy that it contains" |
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| prijo |
quote:
Originally posted by jdeanski
In my just received August issue of Discover magazine there is an article entitled "Life After Oil". It makes the case that biofuels can work and replace 30% of our gasoline within 25 years. It's a rather long and involved article so look for it on their website (it's not there yet)
It does state that when the energy of gas is calculated there are factors not considered but are thrown into the equation for biofuels. It also states that "............petroleum's fossil energy balance is negative. Making a gallon requires 23% more energy that it contains"
really. The benefit to making gasoline from oil is all the byproducts that you can sell and make a profit on. If it really is negative, costs more energy to produce gasoline than gasoline contains, hmm, what are we using to create gasoline, coal? (via electric power plants?)
N_Jay, not a big lie, do we or do we not get most of our oil from Arabs and Chavez? Don't they want to kill us? (which seems self defeating, if they kill their customer, who will buy, the Chinese I suppose, but then, after we are dead, it is only a matter of time till Islam finds another religion to persecute |
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| krygny |
quote:
Originally posted by jdeanski
...
It also states that "............petroleum's fossil energy balance is negative. Making a gallon requires 23% more energy that it contains"
That's not possible. Where do they get the energy to produce no energy? :confused: |
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| N_Jay |
Negative energy, wow! Give me a gallon of that stuff!
It is usually easy to find the biased articles (either way) in the energy discussion.
They have STUPID claims.
Discover Magazine is OK, but it is no Scientific America".
As for buying oil from those who want to kill us? Geeze, I have met some angry Canadians, but I dont think they want us dead. :) |
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| jay |
| I hope the real N_Jay has zero deductible Identity Theft Insurance. Who stole his hp.org password and made that last incomprehensible post?:confused: :8: |
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| N_Jay |
quote:
Originally posted by jay
I hope the real N_Jay has zero deductible Identity Theft Insurance. Who stole his hp.org password and made that last incomprehensible post?:confused: :8:
What????
It answers a bunch of stuff posted without my usual "cut and paste quotes".
(Hey I'm traveling and busy) |
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| ramirami |
quote:
Originally posted by N_Jay
Negative energy, wow!
feng shui should take care of that...
:2: |
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| DonP |
quote:
Originally posted by prijo
No new engergy is "created", it is just "extracted". Do you think the corn was grown without energy? It is all a conversion process...
Solar Energy -> promotes corn growth -> extracted with energy -> 25% bonus in the form of converted solar energy
inefficiencies in the process creates the conversion of energy into a form that cannot be recovered and stored (loss of energy), yet enough of the solar (and other) energy was converted out of the corn to give is a little more that what it took to extract it in the first place....
all is well in the world, the public schools still have it right.... :)
I was joking. Thus the "LOL" and smilie. |
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| jdeanski |
I now have access to the online article, here's the full passage:
"These improvements are crucial. From the start, the ethanol industry has been dogged by concerns about its net energy balance—whether ethanol requires more fossil fuel to make than it replaces. This is measured by adding up all the energy inputs at every stage of production, from growing corn seeds to cultivating and harvesting the grain, transporting it to the factory, and shipping the ethanol to a terminal. If ethanol runs a negative energy balance, as asserted by some critics (including those nattering West Wing characters), then the enterprise is doomed: What is the point of wasting fossil fuels that could be consumed directly somewhere else?
Studies by researchers at the Department of Agriculture over the last decade give reason for optimism. They consistently show a positive and improving energy balance. By 2001 every BTU consumed in ethanol production generated 67 percent more energy, when coproducts like distillers' grains are taken into account. Other researchers have reported a similar trajectory; taken together, their findings show an unmistakable upward trend.
Yet nagging doubts remain, stoked by two persistent skeptics: David Pimentel, a professor of ecology and agricultural sciences at Cornell University, and Tad Patzek, a professor of geoengineering from the University of California at Berkeley who started the UC Oil Consortium, an industry-sponsored research group. In their latest studies they conclude that ethanol's balance is negative. The researchers, who found that ethanol requires 29 percent more fossil energy than it provides, question the morality of using grain to fuel cars in the face of world hunger. "Expanding ethanol production," they write, "could entail diverting valuable cropland from producing corn needed to feed people to producing corn for ethanol factories."
Most researchers agree, more or less, on the energy required in the conversion process, but unlike Patzek and Pimentel, they include an energy credit for the coproducts. Most of the discrepancy, though, comes from different measurements about the growing of corn. Patzek and Pimentel count many more inputs than the others, including labor energy expended by field hands and energy embedded in farm equipment and in the ethanol factory itself. Such external sources are not normally calculated when the fuel is gasoline.
A more relevant issue is whether ethanol's energy balance is better or worse than gasoline's. After all, as energy economist Philip Verleger points out: "We don't keep our balances in BTUs; we keep them in dollars and cents. So if I can find an energy source that's cheap and easy to use, then it may make sense to use a lot more of that to produce a gallon of gasoline."
By definition, petroleum's fossil energy balance is negative. Making a gallon requires 23 percent more energy than it contains. Even using Patzek's unreconstructed estimates, ethanol outperforms the incumbent. Corn Plus's fluidized bed reactor further tips the argument in ethanol's favor. Using Patzek's methodology for every aspect of ethanol production save the conversion process itself, a gallon of Corn Plus ethanol consumes less energy than it contains—even before factoring in credit for coproducts.
Meanwhile, ethanol's efficiency is continuing to improve. New machinery developed by Biorefining Inc. in Minnesota precisely breaks kernels into their constituent elements, which may convert more of the starch into ethanol at a lower cost, while also freeing up more of the valuable coproducts like corn oil. The biotech companies Genencor and Novozymes have developed enzymes that convert starches into sugars and ferment the sugars into ethanol in a single step, streamlining the process. Seed companies are trying to engineer corn that is tailored to ethanol conversion." |
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| jdeanski |
............and more from discover.com
"At some point, though, corn ethanol will hit a wall. Even if the United States decided to ferment its entire corn crop, that would displace less than 20 percent of our gasoline consumption. A more realistic, if still optimistic, scenario sketched by the National Corn Growers Association anticipates that corn ethanol production will quadruple to 16 billion gallons by 2015, not quite 7 percent of the likely demand. That's where President Bush picks up the story.
It turns out that Rick Lunz (a corn farmer) left a lot of energy out in his field that night. Corn stover—the husks, stalks, and cobs chewed up and spit out by the combine—is, in a sense, about two-thirds sugar. The problem is that the sugar is accessible only after it is chemically converted from the tough molecules that make up the walls of plant cells: fibrous cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin.
Lignocellulosic biomass, as it is called, represents a vast, untapped natural resource. If we could find an effective way to convert it, corn residue could provide another 20 billion gallons of ethanol by around 2040, according to a recent report from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Better yet, every plant contains cellulose, so there is no need to restrict the fermentation process to corn stover.
Switchgrass, a tall prairie grass native to North America, is a much more promising raw material. It can reach nine feet high, and it grows easily from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian plains, from the Rockies to the Atlantic Coast. It can grow in poor soil as well as in dry climates, says agronomist David Bransby of Auburn University, so it requires little fertilizer and water and can grow in places that are not now useful cropland. An acre of switchgrass can produce more than twice as much ethanol as an acre of corn. By 2030 the Department of Energy envisions American farmers harvesting fields of switchgrass purely for their energy content.
People have coveted that energy for a long time. "When I first looked into the ethanol industry, there was this promise that the cellulose technology was just a few years away," Lunz recalled. "Well, it's been 25 years now." Biomass research that began at the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colorado, during the Carter years nearly came to a halt in the early 1980s and did not revive until George H. W. Bush became president. President Clinton expanded the facility, now called NREL, short for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Researchers there say they are tantalizingly close to fulfilling that early promise.
They have managed to solve a problem that has long bedeviled ethanol researchers: how best to split cellulose into simple sugars that can be fermented into alcohol." |
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