Does corn Ethanol need to die?

[wingsandsword]

The problem with prices going up for corn is related to the US Economy's downward spiral into irreverence and well as the rising cost of oil.. Sadly, it take oil (in the form of diesel) to harvest the crops and produce the ethanol.

So, harvest it using biodiesel driven machinery. . .and create the biodiesel from corn oil.

 

[Arnwyn]

I mean, watching the news and they talk about the price of wheat going up over double it's last year value and the price of flour going up almost three times it's value last year and then claim that it's because more land is used for corn and that there is a spike in wheat demand.

So.... when do we shut down the corn ethanol plants?

Who knows?

Simply put: energy costs money (especially the internal combustion engine), and we're going to pay for it in one way or another, whether it's dwindling oil supplies or land being used for biofuels. There will always be cost consequences.

 

[EricNoah]

I do feel like recently I have been hearing and reading a lot about the downsides of biofuels -- particularly how much water is needed to produce them. I have also been hearing that ultimately we will probably need a blended approach to energy in the future -- lots of different sources, each for its own purpose, and some of them able to feed into the "grid". If there are some tasks that just can't be done without liquid fuel, maybe small amounts of biofuels might be part of that picture, but no one source will fix everything.

 

[Umbran]

Sugarcane is a much better source for ethanol, and it's easier and more efficient to convert simple sugars than polysaccharides into ethanol.

Correct, but see again that bit about how sugarcane doesn't grown in the American plains - it needs a tropical or subtropical environment, with a goodly amount of rainfall. Switching from foreign oil to foreign ethanol does not put you into a better economic position.

Switchgrass is native to (even a dominant species in) the American plains. Stuff grows like gangbusters, and if I recall correctly is generally hardy to drought conditions - such that it may be a viable resource even in global warming conditions.

 

[Umbran]

I have also been hearing that ultimately we will probably need a blended approach to energy in the future -- lots of different sources, each for its own purpose, and some of them able to feed into the "grid".

Yes, but we should be aware ultimately, fossil fuels will run out. There is argument as to when, but it is recognized that they are finite and nonrenewable. Ultimately, maybe decades or centuries down the line (depending on whose estimates you read), they will have to be phased out of our large-scale energy plans.

There is some evidence that suggests we are already past peak production on petroleum, that our technology for extracting it is no longer keeping up with the difficulty of extraction, meaning that oil may be on the fast road to economic inviability.

 

[kenobi65]

...the US Economy's downward spiral into irreverence...

That wacky economy!

Perhaps you meant irrelevance.

 

[kenobi65]

You don't know how good you have it. There was an article on the Dutch news this morning saying that the price of petrol has just hit the EUR 1.50 mark. That's per litre. It works out at around USD $10 per gallon.

I paid EUR 65 for 45 litres just the other day.

Oh, absolutely. When I visited Ireland in 1995, even then, the difference in gas price was astonishing. Back then, gas was about $1.50 in the U.S., and it was 3 or so times that in Ireland.

My understanding is that the primary driver of the difference between U.S. prices and European prices is the taxes placed on gas in Europe.

Nonetheless, the price for gas in the U.S. has doubled (or more) in the past 4 years. Gas here had been so cheap, for so long, that people took it for granted, and had no incentive to buy (or develop) efficient cars, or invest in developing alternate fuel sources.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Yes, but we should be aware ultimately, fossil fuels will run out. There is argument as to when, but it is recognized that they are finite and nonrenewable. Ultimately, maybe decades or centuries down the line (depending on whose estimates you read), they will have to be phased out of our large-scale energy plans.

I suspect we'll, one way or another, wind up using nuclear power a lot more in the future. We've got thousands of years worth of uranium available in domestic sources, and it doesn't generate anything that would contribute to global warming. Switching over to mostly nuclear eases pressure on fossil fuels like natural gas and fuel oil, and abundant electricity will make electric cars a lot easier to use.

The problem, of course, is twofold: No one wants nuclear plants near them, and then there's the waste issue.

Other alternatives appear to be wind and solar power. Supposedly, there's enough potential solar power in Arizona to run the country, and enough potential wind power in the Dakotas to do the same (though that would appear to require turning the state into a giant wind farm).

Brad

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I've sometimes wondered if garbage based ethanol would be viable. All the vegetable and fruit matter that goes down the garbage disposal, into the trash, or best case into compost being fermented...

In other most probably impractical ideas, I've often found myself wondering if "thin power plants" set up down the medians of interstates could work, using solar and wind/vibrational energy.

 

[Jdvn1]

Yes, but we should be aware ultimately, fossil fuels will run out. There is argument as to when, but it is recognized that they are finite and nonrenewable. Ultimately, maybe decades or centuries down the line (depending on whose estimates you read), they will have to be phased out of our large-scale energy plans.

You realize that they don't even know where oil comes from? Like, how it came to be. It was believed that it came from dinosaur fossils, but no one's figured out how to take fossil, pressure, and heat, and make oil. It's theoretically possible that it could be synthesized, but no one's tried. We just assume that there are big tubs of the stuff deep below the ground and that's all there is to it.

There is some evidence that suggests we are already past peak production on petroleum, that our technology for extracting it is no longer keeping up with the difficulty of extraction, meaning that oil may be on the fast road to economic inviability.

Yeah, but there's also evidence that suggests we're not past our peak production.

There's an economic argument for the idea that we'll never actually "run out" of oil, that there'll always be some left, even if there's a finite amount. Now, it may become so rare that prices become exorbitant, and it becomes in inviable source of energy, but we'll never run out (what do you think they would do if there was 100 barrels left? how much would those barrels sell for? it'd be unrealistic to run a factory or a anything off it it--what would they be used for?).

Oh, and we used to grow sugar cane down here in Texas not too long ago, I think. My understanding is that it doesn't grow in the north, but it does in the south... it's just cheaper to get sugar elsewhere.

Directly to the original point, though, the problem isn't corn ethanol. The problem is the scarcity of alternatives, caused partially by farm subsidies. Nuclear energy would help a number of problems (and, a nuclear engineer tells me the waste issue only becomes a problem in a length of time where the earth is eaten up by the sun anyways).