Designing something to BENEFIT HUMANITY

[Jersey Tom]

stop using ethanol and give all that corn to 3rd world countries. Ethanol was a right step toward cleaner fuel, but it uses more fuel than it saves, and also corn prices have gone up and we're in a world wide reccession so its a double whammy.

Completely disagree.

Why?

I know that all of what he said isn't right on but if you disagree you might as well explain why that is.

Pretty simple.

1. Ethanol is sustainable. Crude oil is not. Yes it requires energy input to process and make ethanol.. but this can come from any number of clean sources. Wind, solar, nuclear, clean coal... coal is a finite quantity but we have hundreds of years of it left
2. SUPPLY CHAIN LOGISTICS. Think of how many gas stations there are. How many tanker trucks. All set up to transport room temperature liquid fuel. Going to something dramatically different would be such a huge, expensive endeavor.
3. Transport logistics. How many cars are in the world today with internal combustion engines of one sort or another (includes hybrids!). Quite a few. Most if not all, could be converted over to run on ethanol instead of gasoline.

IMO Ethanol is the way to go.

[mx_tifoso]

That's exactly what I was on to when I asked 'why?'. It just takes a bit of prodding to get the full responses from you.

And thanks BTW, I appreciate the different perspectives this place has to offer, especially when they are fully explained.

[jon-mullen]

There is some validity to the claim that ethanol production affects food prices, even to the point of causing riots in Mexico over tortillas.

CNN: Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket
CNN: Ethanol eyed as culprit in food price spike
bloggingstocks.com: Mexico's Tortilla Riots
VentureBeat: Ethanol use causing corn shortage, spiking price of tortillas

Of course the economy's a complex system and there was a lot going on at the time, especially over energy deregulation, futures trading, rising gas prices, the war in Iraq, etc. I wouldn't pretend to be even an amateur economist but it seems to me that we can do better engineering-wise. Rising food costs disproportionately affect the poor. Plus, burning ethanol still puts CO2 into the atmosphere. Not as big an issue as Peak Oil or food prices in my opinion but it's still something to consider.

[Jersey Tom]

There is some validity to the claim that ethanol production affects food prices, even to the point of causing riots in Mexico over tortillas.

CNN: Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket
CNN: Ethanol eyed as culprit in food price spike
bloggingstocks.com: Mexico's Tortilla Riots
VentureBeat: Ethanol use causing corn shortage, spiking price of tortillas

Of course the economy's a complex system and there was a lot going on at the time, especially over energy deregulation, futures trading, rising gas prices, the war in Iraq, etc. I wouldn't pretend to be even an amateur economist but it seems to me that we can do better engineering-wise. Rising food costs disproportionately affect the poor. Plus, burning ethanol still puts CO2 into the atmosphere. Not as big an issue as Peak Oil or food prices in my opinion but it's still something to consider.

There's the theoretical side of "can we do better" in terms of engineering solutions, but that has to be weighed against practical limitations of "what are the implications."

As an aside, putting CO2 into the atmosphere is not inherently bad.

But let's say we come up with something radically different, some propulsion system that doesn't use a liquid fuel source, doesn't use an ICE, doesn't make "bad" pollutants.

Think of the industrial and environmental impact of having to replace just the 250 MILLION passenger vehicles in the US alone. PLUS all the infrastructure. Every gas station. Every refinery. Every tanker truck. Every tanker ship. Every petroleum-fueled aircraft. Every petroleum-fueled boat.

Think of all the heavy industry required to do that. All the industrial pollutants, etc. How long would it take to offset that?

It's similar to economics of machine depreciation and value, efficiency, etc. Let's say you're a small business and you have to get a new machine to replace an old one. On one extreme there's Option A, which is cheap, maybe not super efficient, but in the short term.. the next couple years you can generate positive cashflow and be profitable. Then there's Option B, which is 10x more expensive... 15 years from now when its paid off you might be making cash hand-over-fist from how well it operates. In the short term though, if you can't offset that up-front cost and you go out of business in 2 years.. it makes no difference.

Alternate way of looking at it from a micro scale.. let's say an awesome hybrid car is $50k. Let's say from your fuel savings, it will pay for itself in 5 years! Makes no difference if you don't have that 50k up front!

Bottom line, eventually there's a point where no matter how awesome some technology or new thing is... the monetary or environmental or otherwise practical cost to implement it outweighs everything.

The biggest issue to oil dependency, IMO, is that it's not sustainable. Hubbard's curve projects the realities of this. We've seen the implications already in the US and globally with fuel cost spikes and the hit to the auto industry. Ethanol is sustainable, and practical.

[flynfrog]

Ethanol is sustainable, and practical.

Not in the states we dont have enough land to grow enough corn. Also corn ethanol is not very efficient to produce. I think it has just recently started to pay back is COM.

[jon-mullen]

The biggest issue to oil dependency, IMO, is that it's not sustainable. Hubbard's curve projects the realities of this. We've seen the implications already in the US and globally with fuel cost spikes and the hit to the auto industry. Ethanol is sustainable, and practical.

First, I absolutely agree with you regarding oil. I appreciate your careful wording but I don't think oil is sustainable any more in ANYONE's opinion.

However, I disagree that you can call any fuel sustainable or practical if it causes anyone anywhere to starve. When the second CNN article I cited went to print, the price of corn was up 117% over the previous year. If we take a $20K income to be the poverty line for a family of four in the US (pathetic), and a grocery budget of $125 a week before a price rise like that across the board, their grocery budget goes from 32% of their income to a whopping 71%!

I agree that it is a big undertaking to go to something like hydrogen or biodiesel, but there are significant infrastructure and mechanical changes to be made if you want to run all those vehicles on even a compromised blend of ethanol/gasoline as well. We'll have environmental and industrial costs to deal with no matter what we switch to, but doing it at the expense of the less fortunate being able to eat is neither sustainable nor conscionable.

[gcdugas]

Switchgrass and hemp both yield about 8 times the ethanol/acre that corn does... but the grow wild and the politics of farming subsidies is corruptly against using them... especially harmless hemp. So perfectly edible corn is taken from the market to be used. Only in Amerika. I think Brazil uses sugar to get their ethanol... Switchgrass is the most efficient but, alas it has no political lobby so it falls by the wayside.

[Jersey Tom]

Ethanol is sustainable, and practical.

Not in the states we dont have enough land to grow enough corn.

Conquer Mexico and/or Canada. Or import corn or ethanol from elsewhere. Brasil? Doesn't need to be domestic.

When the second CNN article I cited went to print, the price of corn was up 117% over the previous year. If we take a $20K income to be the poverty line for a family of four in the US (pathetic), and a grocery budget of $125 a week before a price rise like that across the board, their grocery budget goes from 32% of their income to a whopping 71%!

Tell em to eat potatoes instead of corn.

[jon-mullen]

Tell em to eat potatoes instead of corn.

Maybe it's the late hour but that strikes me as a little callous.

[flynfrog]

Lets not ruin this topic with our off topic debate.

less than half of the planet has made a phone call what about a cheap communication infrastructure.

[Ciro Pabón]

Conquer Mexico and/or Canada. Or import corn or ethanol from elsewhere. Brasil? Doesn't need to be domestic.

Conquer Mexico and Canada? Again?

[bhall]

In regard to ethanol, I sumbit Algenol. It's ethanol produced by algae, which the company says can eventually yield 20,000 (!) gallons per acre per year rather than the ~400 gallons and ~900 gallons per acre per year produced, respectively, by corn and sugar cane.

Moreover, the algae produces the ethanol as part of its growth; it doesn't have to be harvested like corn or sugar cane. It's grown in saltwater, so any area with access to the sea can produce fuel, and it doesn't require rich farmland. It requires lots of CO2, which can be captured from the atmosphere or captured from industrial sources.

My mind is aflutter with all the possibilities.

[jddh1]

1. Ethanol is sustainable. Crude oil is not. Yes it requires energy input to process and make ethanol.. but this can come from any number of clean sources. Wind, solar, nuclear, clean coal... coal is a finite quantity but we have hundreds of years of it left
2. SUPPLY CHAIN LOGISTICS. Think of how many gas stations there are. How many tanker trucks. All set up to transport room temperature liquid fuel. Going to something dramatically different would be such a huge, expensive endeavor.
3. Transport logistics. How many cars are in the world today with internal combustion engines of one sort or another (includes hybrids!). Quite a few. Most if not all, could be converted over to run on ethanol instead of gasoline.

IMO Ethanol is the way to go.

I'd go for fuel produced by algae. Much more efficient and won't increase food prices. Just saying.

EDIT: Just noticed the guy above said. I was reading from the top of the page and didn't see it. But at least it's not just me talking about it.

[jddh1]

Lets not ruin this topic with our off topic debate.

less than half of the planet has made a phone call what about a cheap communication infrastructure.

Two cups and a string are still the cheapest.

[hollus]

Since this is a F1 site, I have to agree with dcdugas... KERS!!!
A williams style KERS can surely do wonders in elevators, cranes and such. A tiny drop in saving energy.