Poll: Ethanol/Alcohol in gas, is it worth the price?

[ZippyDSMlee]

I am keeping it simple so here we go!

Ethanol destroys machines and makes food, gas and cars cost more, alcohol based alt energy needs to die, anyone care to debunk that?

 

[FalloutJack]

Just checking: Is this the one about converting fucking CORN - you know, which is for FOOD - into fuel? 'Cause if so, I have a bone and more importantly two clubs to pick with some politicians.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Just checking: Is this the one about converting fucking CORN - you know, which is for FOOD - into fuel? 'Cause if so, I have a bone and more importantly two clubs to pick with some politicians.

Yes. But also adding in anything else converted to alcohol which tends to eat engines.

 

[FalloutJack]

Just checking: Is this the one about converting fucking CORN - you know, which is for FOOD - into fuel? 'Cause if so, I have a bone and more importantly two clubs to pick with some politicians.

Yes. But also adding in anything else converted to alcohol which tends to eat engines.

Alright, good. Yes, I agree that this practice is pretty damn stupid. I'm more fixated on the methodology than the result - which is piss-poor anyhow - but you are absolutely right about that. People are going to have to come to the understanding that we need NEW ideas, not old and crappy jury-rigs to deal with the fuel problem. Food is for the FOOD problem anyway.

 

[omega 616]

Well in the least we have a better use for alcohol than acting like plonkers every weekend.

Can't say much more to be honest.

I guess to save on fossil fuels we could start building roads going downhill in both directions, that way we wont need fuel! By jove, I think I got something here!

 

[SpAc3man]

Electric is the eventual way to go. The amount of research going into wireless power transmission is huge. Several of my lecturers at uni are very involved in developing the technology to implement wireless transmission as a viable method of locomotion. One interesting thing I have heard from them is it wasn't very long ago where they could only manage to get it working over a gap of several centimetres while these days they can get it to work over 20 times that distance.

 

[Piflik]

Ethanol in gasoline is the stupidest thing politicians invented for quite some time...(even stupider than trying to shut down every nuclear power plant)

1. It uses agricultural areas that should be used to generate food. There are people starving everywhere. Especially in poorer countries people die because of this shit. The drought in the biggest crop exporting country (America) combined with 50% of the remaining agricultural area being used for fuel is devastating.

2. Ethanol contains much less energy than gasoline. This means that you will burn more fuel for the same distance. And this means the ecological 'benefit' is non existent. There might be less CO2 per liter (and even that calculation is not entirely kosher), but people don't drive liters, they drive kilometers (or miles).

 

[Spacewolf]

Probably a better idea than famers being told to produce less like it is in the EU

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Electric is the eventual way to go. The amount of research going into wireless power transmission is huge. Several of my lecturers at uni are very involved in developing the technology to implement wireless transmission as a viable method of locomotion. One interesting thing I have heard from them is it wasn't very long ago where they could only manage to get it working over a gap of several centimetres while these days they can get it to work over 20 times that distance.

I wonder what happens if you combine gas or diesel/electric engine filling compressed air tanks that power the motor. I bet that would make one hell of a vehicle!

 

[Kennetic]

Electric is the eventual way to go. The amount of research going into wireless power transmission is huge. Several of my lecturers at uni are very involved in developing the technology to implement wireless transmission as a viable method of locomotion. One interesting thing I have heard from them is it wasn't very long ago where they could only manage to get it working over a gap of several centimetres while these days they can get it to work over 20 times that distance.

We have the same issues with electric cars now that we had 100 years ago: short battery life, long recharge time, batteries degrade over time (which results in poor resale value due to replacement batteries being stupid expensive.) I thought the kinks in hydrogen fuel cells were finally worked out then all of a sudden it seems the research just stopped.

 

[NightHawk21]

Electric is the eventual way to go. The amount of research going into wireless power transmission is huge. Several of my lecturers at uni are very involved in developing the technology to implement wireless transmission as a viable method of locomotion. One interesting thing I have heard from them is it wasn't very long ago where they could only manage to get it working over a gap of several centimetres while these days they can get it to work over 20 times that distance.

We have the same issues with electric cars now that we had 100 years ago: short battery life, long recharge time, batteries degrade over time (which results in poor resale value due to replacement batteries being stupid expensive.) I thought the kinks in hydrogen fuel cells were finally worked out then all of a sudden it seems the research just stopped.

From what I remember some teacher saying, hydrogen fuel is not an effective replacement if you want to be ecofreindly at least because the production of the fuel is really taxing in terms of pollution.

The way I see it there's nothing wrong with ethanol in cars. There are a couple arguments you could make, and while some of them are valid, in most cases there are other avenues you could tackle to achieve a similar result. That's not to say that the process can't be done better.

Personally I think that electric will be the only way to go as the technology is getting there a lot faster, and we already have actual commercial cars that are entirely electrically powered and more are coming in the next couple years. What I'm curious about however is whether we will ever see the complete stop of production of fossil fuel powered cars now that fossil fuels are slowly becoming a renewable resource.

 

[Sean951]

Ethanol is fine, just look at Brazil. They have been using sugar cane ethanol for years with no ill effects. The US just didn't think this through and decided that corn, the worst thing to use, was the best idea. We also use beets in some places, but mostly corn. This, despite having switchgrass which would also be a great alternative.

edit: Using it for fuel doesn't mean that the corn can't be used for food. The by-product is one of the better feeds for cattle, which frees up other products for human consumption.

 

[WaysideMaze]

I am keeping it simple so here we go!

Ethanol destroys machines and makes food, gas and cars cost more, alcohol based alt energy needs to die, anyone care to debunk that?

Do you care to prove it?

Honestly, I know nothing about this subject, so figured I'd read everyones sources and educate myself on the matter. Except nobody has provided any.

 

[luckshot]

Probably a better idea than famers being told to produce less like it is in the EU

i believe that america has a similar plan that we also use where farmers get paid to not grow some.

 

[Dags90]

\Do you care to prove it?

Honestly, I know nothing about this subject, so figured I'd read everyones sources and educate myself on the matter. Except nobody has provided any.

I think the "it's stupid to use land for fuel when people are starving" is a wash of an argument. People in Africa/Asia aren't starving because there isn't enough land in the U.S., they're starving because they'll never be able to afford the prices developed countries charge. It's simply not economical to buy farming equipment at U.S. prices, then try and sell the food to Haiti for almost nothing. About 2700 Calories are produced per person per day by food growers around the world. That's enough to make the entire world fat. [footnote]http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Does_the_world_produce_enough_food_to_feed_everyone[/footnote]

 

[RobotDinosaur]

You're asking a few different questions here, that may be deserving of different answers.
-Not all fuels are automotive fuels. There are renewable fuels that aren't suitable for cars but that could be used for home heating or for use in power plants.
-There are renewable fuels that aren't alcohols. Most of these are still young technologies that aren't commercially viable on a large scale yet, though bio-diesel is doing fairly well.
-Alcohol fuels aren't an awful idea. Those include methanol, propanol, etc. But they aren't compatible with modern cars (not without modification, that is), and there are also concerns about toxicity in case of spills or leaks (methanol is much more toxic than ethanol).
-Ethanol fuels are somewhat convenient because they're basically compatible with modern cars. But from an energy standpoint, they aren't very good - it's extremely difficult to refine ethanol to fuel-grade purity. Until recently it took more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol fuel than was actually available in the fuel - I think we can break even now, but that's it.
-Ethanol from corn is fairly awful, and exists mostly because of politics. It makes little sense, for a variety of reasons, and I hope we see a shift away from it in the US within the next few years.

 

[jklinders]

Given the crop failures that are occurring in the US right now, I feel the need to add that as well as making the food supply more stretched to replace fossil fuels with a less efficient source it also makes energy more vulnerable to climate forces that have have a habit of cropping up to disrupt crap in the agricultural front.

I can't help that this is all downside with no upside whatsoever.

Now while this is not going to run the entire nation by a longshot but finding a way to integrate used vegetable oil into the equation is not a bad idea. Vehicles can run on it with very little modification and restaurants use oil by the drum load. Maybe city or county vehicles could use this as a resource providing they don't mind the extra maintenance.

But I agree with some posters above who say that new ideas and not retrofits of old ideas are needed to address the energy issue.

 

[BENZOOKA]

There's still a lot of suffering in the world caused by hunger. Making ethanol a considerable fuel source would mean transforming up to half of the current crops, from food to fuel.

If the current problem is the awfully unfair distribution of food, after that there simply wouldn't be enough food.

It's not a bad idea to use ethanol, alongside gasoline for example, but it's just one smaller source and will not offer any proper solutions to fuel crisis.