Bio-diesel versus ethanol - What makes more sense?

Question

I am just wondering if bio-diesel just makes more sense as a long term alternative energy solution than ethanal. Does it make more sense to turn corn into biodiesel than ethanal? We all know the critisisms of corn-based ethanal.

Good comments guys. Its seems bio-deisel as it is currently used makes sense because it is a reuse of something which would disposed of anyway. Cellulosic ethanol seems promising since you it is using something already discarded, therby now using anymore land for producing it. Couple either of these with new generation hybrids using li-po batteries, we might be making some headway.

Answer 1

Biodiesel. It doesn't impact feedstocks for other industries the way corn does.

In my opinion, ethanol is a dead end. I work for a major oil company and I can see we're only going with the flow on ethanol right now, while we investigate other, more sustainable options. We're actually being forced to convert to ethanol in some areas by the states, just to appease the various lobbyists.

F'ing politics. Let economics rule the day and we'll all win.

Answer 2

Biodiesel makes more sense, because it can go straight into a diesel engine and run it without any modification whatsoever.
But, if you want to follow the crowd, Ethanol 85 standardized is becoming cheaper to produce thanks to a revolutionary production technique involving microbes and the parts of corn that are unused (stalk, husk, roots, etc). This production technique was developed by a professor at The University of Florida at Gainesville.

However, back to biodiesel. The costly thing about that is creating it. You take vegetable oil that you would buy in bulk and run it through a biodiesel converter/purifier which might cost your leg (about $6,000 I believe). That you can run in your house off of AC electricity for, I believe, 70 cents a gallon?
If you want to learn more about biodiesel, the website to see is www.lokeytrucks.com.
I believe the most info is under the accessories tab.

Ethanol might be a better choice, simply because the government is pushing for it and will aid in the building of "ethanol stations" or amendments to existing gas stations that would carry ethanol, making it more convenient.

But, after all, Hydrogen could be used, but corporations, mostly oil, are paying big money to keep that under wraps.
I would too if I had that much revenue to forfeit otherwise.

Answer 3

Biodiesel makes a lot more sense. Plant oils can be burned directly in diesels, but plant starches must be fermented and then DISTILLED, which is an extremely high energy cost because of the latent heat of vaporization.

Just compare
http://www.mda.state.mn.us/renewable/renewablefuels/balance.htm

The diesel engine was designed to run plant oils (without biodiesel conversion.) The only reason to make biodiesel is to make the fuel thinner, which spares modifying the engine slightly. On large, industrial or fixed engines, like oil well pumps or locomotives, you would just modify the engine to run plant oil directly.

Answer 4

Forget the environmental aspects, since that isn't what sells in America. Bio-diesel provides better performance and mileage than mineral diesel, ETOH is less, biodiesel can be made from the waste oils which are now going from KFC, McD's, ect to the landfills. I have a friend who runs his G.I. Blazer on the old oil from behind the fast food restaurants, and all he does is filter it to get rid of the particulates.

Answer 5

Neither.

You have to burn both Bio-diesel and Ethanol creating co2 a green house gas.

We should skip the transitional step and go straight to the green fuel. Electric.

Solar, wind, Geo-thermal, tidal are a few methods of making green electricity.

Answer 6

hey dude i got one better bio-eth dude its all natrual think of this u got exrta grass and don't want compost on ur property right? well sell it to make bio-eth! bio eth is a ethanol that can be made for almost anything plus if u didn't hear there is a short in good farm land + the goverment is trying to reduce the amount of water we use for the crops and the taxes! ohh the taxes! they are higher than gas at 10.5 cents per gallon! well in neberaska anyway. and i can even hook u up with info on eth-hybrids! (totaly sweet, i know). haller back!

Answer 7

Bio-diesel is made from oil crops; ethanol is made from sugar or starch crops. Coincidentally, corn fits into both categories, but it isn't the best choice for either.

It is important to note that over 75% of corn crops and over 90% of soybeans go to animal feed.

Biodiesel is best made from true oil seeds like rapeseed (aka, canola), peanuts, sunflower, and (to a lesser yeild) soybeans. If a press is used to extract the oil, the remaining product (called "seed cake") can be used as animal feed. However, chemicals are most commonly used, which leaves a useless by-product.

Ethanol is best created from a sugar crop like sugar beets or sugar cane (where they can grow). This removes the need to convert the starch to sugar, like corn requires.

If we use higher yield crops, we can produce more biofuels with fewer acres.

Answer 8

I can't read a single thread on bio-diesel/ethanol without someone mentioning that hydrogen can be "produced from water." We get our hydrogen for fuel cells from either crude oil or natural gas. To make it from water requires more energy than it will create, thereby making the energy SOURCE something else. Although make it nuclear energy and you've got me sold.

Answer 9

I run a small corn-marketing business, where I sell corn for heating purposes. I have a farm background, and I'm a chemistry and physics teacher so I know the technical background behind this problem.

Neither one is a reasonable solution. Even though I make money from it, the money involved in building a biofuel industry is essentially from government subsidies. There is a whopping amount of government grants that go into building biodiesel and ethanol plants. When the corporations are investing "free" money, it really looks like they are profitable, when it's all a huge scam that the taxpayers are helping to push because they've been told that it's a solution to declining petroleum reserves. A few people, including the politicians that own stock options in these companies, make truckloads of money. But that doesn't mean that it will be a long-term solution.

It takes an enormous amount of energy to grow a crop. Fertilizer takes an enormous amount of energy to produce. The Haber process, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into a usable form for fertilizer, is one of our largest industrial process consumers of energy. The energy inputs to produce fertilizer are always ignored when calculating the energy inputs to grow a crop in order to make the energy balance sheet show a positive.

If ethanol was a solution, farmers would be using it to drive their tractors, trucks, and combines and to fuel their grain bin dryers. They don't, because it's not feasible. If biodiesel was a reasonable solution, farmers would be using it to run tractors, trucks, and combines and to dry their grain. Again, they don't, because it's not feasible.

We don't have a fuel crisis. We have an energy crisis. One of the things we need to do is learn to use less energy. We already have inexpensive cars out there that get around 40mpg. But.....American consumers won't buy them. They don't like driving a lighter, smaller car.

Probably our biggest untapped resource in farm country is wind. We can farm wind with windmills now almost as cheaply as we can with conventional power plants. If we did it in mass production, we could do it more cheaply. The government needs to divert the funds it is spending on biodiesel and ethanol plants as a political statement into wind energy, which is actually a common sense approach. That will help to solve some of the energy problem, if we are willing to convert more of our energy consumption over to electricity.
Eventually, the lifestyle of suburbia will have to end. We can get back to a sustainable energy-poor future if we return to the old model of rural, small town, and urban like we had a century ago. We can farm wind as we also farm on small farms. The big farms run by huge machines and few workers will have to go as petroleum depletes. We're already seeing the return of very small family farms, this time in the form of organic farms. We can farm that wind as well and send its electricity into the cities, where the city dwellers can rely on public transportation as they did a century ago. You can argue that wind energy is unreliable. I agree, the wind doesn't always blow. But, unfortunately, we no longer live in a world where energy is cheap and available. We're going to have to scrape by on what we can manage with, and that means making do. Wind is one piece of that puzzle.
Scientists are not going to "find" more energy sources. They can't "create" it. It's impossible. People that think "scientists will solve this problem" are burying their heads in the sand and failing to look at reality. We can only redivert energy that already exists. Take it out of a coal mine and burn it, for example. One of the fundamental things students learn in science class is "energy cannot be created or destroyed", yet we, and our leaders, somehow think that science will get around that fundamental law of science. Won't happen. We have to find ways to live on less, and to tap into the sustainable sources that are around us. Neither biodiesel nor ethanol is sustainable, primarily because their high production is dependent upon fertilizer and fertilizer is dependent upon petroleum energy and lots of it.

Answer 10

Please do not wounder .Use facts No 1 any food for human, used for either Bio-diesel or Ethanol will create food shortage or price rise,one can increase production of raw material to stabilise the supply and demand.For ethanol I am of the opinion Molasses (end product of Sugar making) is the best Raw material ..According to me 1.Palm Oil. 2.Jatopa Seed Oil.3. Algae surplus edible cooking oil,Used cooking Oil,Non edible Oil such as Caster seed Oil etc, are the best raw material for the production of Bio diesel.The raw material I am suggesting are wounder raw materiel which want affect human food supply chain .Best thing which can happen is, for years we are trying to subsidies Agriculture sector instead, that sector will start creating revenue , small villages will start to grow because of income increase to farmers.When farmers income go up by 10 to 12 fold tale me what happens to Family,Country and world economy/?Raw Material for both Bio Diesel and ethanol which I am suggesting makes seance after my own experience in Aggro industrial sector in Africa, India, Europe and USA..I will go for Bio-diesel.