Ethanol. Is it the answer to the world's energy needs.?

Question

A lot of people have used Brazil as an example what a country can do with ethanol to make them energy independant. It's great for Brazil, and I'd like to see what the US can do with it.

However, Brazil only uses about 2 Million Barrels of oil per day. The US uses about 20 MB/Day. Brazil's biomass is at least as much as the US Biomass.

From where would we get the additional biomass to make 10 times the amount of Ethanol that Brazil does?

Answer 1

Ethanol is one answer to our transportation energy needs but as you correctly point out it will not be adequate all by itself. We do use a very large amount of oil and bio fuels cannot be made in the same quantities. Recent studies indicate that we can expect to produce between 1/3 and 1/2 as much bio fuel as the oil we currently consume. That is clearly not enough.

The solution to this problem is to change the technology we are using for transportation. Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) are the solution. That technology uses a combination of an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. It adds batteries a little bit bigger than today's full hybrid vehicles like the Prius and an electrical cord. The car is plugged in at night to charge the batteries. The batteries are designed to operate the car for about 50 miles or so, which is far enough for most peoples daily driving. Once the batteries are exhausted the car would start to operate just like a Prius using the engine and also the electric motor. In that mode the battery is charged by the motor or by braking and coasting down hill. There have been Priuses converted to operate that way and they get between 80 and 250 miles per gallon, which is about 4X to 10X better than a conventional car.

You can see that if we switch all cars and trucks to this technology our fuel consumption will fall by more than 3X and therefore the amount of ethanol that we can grow will be more than enough.

Charging cars at night will not put any additional strain on the electrical grid because right now our day time electrical consumption is far higher than our night time consumption so there is plenty of extra capacity to charge everyones cars.

Answer 2

I have been wondering who is behind all those "The president says" advertisements on Yahoo. It has been some time since "the president" is much more than a charismatic figurehead to a rather large organization. To think otherwise may be a rather simplistic view of the world, but it is not clear if that is your view or how you view others. Taken in one way some may feel your question is offensive. You seem to have all the answers. Your question is an argumentative challenge to prove otherwise. I am not entirely sure it is possible to prove anything to someone who has already made up their minds. Are you familiar with the zen story of the teacup?1 Do electric cars not sell well? What is selling "well?" Is it lots of big numbers? Or is it selling every car that is made?2 Would you condemn a baby because it does not speak well or does not walk well? Would you ask how can a baby do anything useful in this world? A simplistic view might. It is doubtful that any "alternative fuel" source will drive down the cost of oil and gas through competition. Demand for these products will continue to rise, overseas if not in the US. Supplies are marginal now. If we have reached the point of peak oil (3) then supplies will be ever shorter. Alternatives will only decrease demand if like electricity in an EV they are not able to be placed in the petrol engine. Some alternatives like tar sands or oil shale require a high price for oil to be profitable. Petrochemical companies want fuel to fill their filling stations for the public. It is in their interests to keep prices high. There are not enough players in the oil business to create the competition to drive prices down.

Answer 3

What's wrong with petroleum? The United States can't be 100% ethanol, unless we import ethanol instead of petroleum. From a global security standpoint, it's better to import from Brazil than the Middle East. Aside from that, the US still has oil and a blend of gasoline and ethanol would be the best fuel for cars today and the near future. Many cars right now are using a 80% gasoline/20% ethanol blend. As ethanol becomes cheaper and gasoline becomes even more expensive, it could go to a 50/50 blend with modified engines.

Answer 4

No ethanol comes from corn and to grow corn you need lots of pesticides, fertilizers and water.

Modern corn hybrids are very greedy plants, demanding more nitrogen fertilizer than any other crop. Corn requires more pesticide than any other food crop. Runoff from these chemicals finds its way into the groundwater and kills off marine life.

Chemicals like Nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas and pesticides from oil.

The answer is BIODIESEL made from soy it supports our farmers without the use of fossil fuel and can be used in transport trucks right now without any modifications to the engine.

BIODIESEL is even a better answer than the expensive hybrids that still use fossil fuel and toxic batteries.

I own a VW Jetta and run it on BIODIESEL whenever I can. I can interchangeably use regular diesel if BIODIESEL is unavailable.

Answer 5

It's a great step in the right direction but mainstream use of corn based ethanol will put a strain on food supplies and is not the most ecologically friendly crop to produce. I am very interested to see what we can do with switch grass.

Answer 6

I liike the idea of using materials other than corn to make ethanol. Their are many other waste products that are available. Such as grain leavings after harvest, wood chips from saw mills, and any other plant life.

I am not sure if this would completely do away with our usage of oil but it would make a significant enough dent in it to slow our dependence on OPEC.

Answer 7

NO, u have to make a lot of corn to get enough 4 all of the cars in the world, and people just cant keep up with that demand.

Answer 8

No. I don't believe Ethanol is the answer, i think Hydrogen is.
Ethanol is probably a good holdover before we switch to Hydrogen though
So its half the answer

Answer 9

I don't think it is the "answer" but it is a great start. We must get serious about renewable energy sources.

Answer 10

I'll go with solar.