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BioFuels : Comparisons & Economics


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How far can you drive on a bushel of corn?

Crunching the numbers on alternative fuels.

 

Ethanol/E85

Ethanol is ethyl alcohol, often referred to as grain alcohol; E85 is a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Most ethanol is made from grain, just as moonshine is, though there is also research into making ethanol in commercial quantities from cellulosic plants--a complex process that uses plant matter such as switch grass as a base feedstock. A gallon of E85 has an energy content of about 80,000 BTU, compared to gasoline's 124,800 BTU. So about 1.56 gal. of E85 takes you as far as 1 gal. of gas.

 

 

BY MIKE ALLEN ... Popular Mechanics

 

Ethanol, king of the challengers to petroleum, is already found blended with gasoline at pumps across the country, and production is continuing to ramp up. Ethanol is probably the main fuel President Bush had in mind both in February, when he announced the Advanced Energy Initiative, and last summer, when he signed new energy rules into law. That legislation established a renewable-fuels standard that will require the use of 7.5 billion gal. of ethanol and biodiesel annually by 2012--a nearly 90 percent increase over today's usage--and extended tax benefits that favor both fuels.

 

In the lab, many gasoline alternatives look good. Out on the road, automotive engineers have a lot of work to do, and energy companies have new infrastructure to build, before very many people can drive off into a petroleum-free future. And, there's the issue of money. Too often, discussions of alternative energy take place in an alternative universe where prices do not matter.

 

For this special report, PM crunched the numbers on the actual costs and performance of each major alternative fuel. Before we can debate national energy policy--or even decide which petroleum substitutes might make sense for our personal vehicles--we need to know how these things stack up in the real world.

 

The Great Alt-Fuel Debate: It takes five barrels of crude oil to produce enough gasoline (nearly 97 gal.) to power a Honda Civic from New York to California. So how do the alternative fuels that may gradually reduce America's dependence on foreign oil stack up against the mileage and convenience of the filling-station stalwart? Download our comparison chart and find out.

 

...MORE: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2690341.html

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  • 1 month later...

I looked at the lovely diagram.

 

To paraphrase the results, the three top fuel choices in terms of cost are:

 

1. electric car (generated from coal fired power station) $60.

2. compressed natural gas car $110

3. regular gasoline car $212.70

4. biodiesel car $231

 

E85 ethanol - gasoline blend came in a mediocre fifth place at $425

 

So, the three cheapest choices so far are still non-renewables. The only renewable which is coming close on price is biodiesel.

 

frugalista

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Biofuels are a red-herring. You make them from food that itself requires oil to grow it. So far as I am aware, the real deal behind biofuels is political - something to do with it providing support to Midwest farmers. It may well be possible to make money out of it, but technically it is a non-starter.

 

Note that we don't really have enough food to feed the humans, the idea of directing food into fuel production is rather bizarre, but nicely illustrates the incompetence of the political leadership in dealing with the energy crisis.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It doesn't look like biofuels are going to be much of a goer:

 

http://www.rockrivertimes.com/index.pl?cmd...=2&id=13637

 

Increasingly it is getting harder and harder to meet the needs to the people. The people come before the vehicles. The world has failed to grow as much grain as it consumed during six out of the last seven years. Carry-over stocks are expected to fall to 57 days by the end of the year, and that assumes the harvest is reasonable and not reduced by heat or drought. Typically grain prices will rise when the carry-over falls below 60 days' supply. The projected carry-over for this year is the lowest in 34 years.

 

As in so many other areas, we are right up against the limit now, due to rising population and the increasing division of income between the richest and the poorest.

 

Will the rich continue to drive biofuel SUVs whilst the poor starve?

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The drought in the US corn and wheat growing states will not help either

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Re: I looked at the lovely diagram.

 

To paraphrase the results, the three top fuel choices in terms of cost are:

 

1. electric car (generated from coal fired power station) $60.

2. compressed natural gas car $110

3. regular gasoline car $212.70

4. biodiesel car $231

 

...

 

 

I have only quickly glanced at the diagram, but it looks like they have not stripped out tax from the energy costs and so are not using pure resource costs. Any economist worth their salt would at least do that. They are, therefore, meaningless figures. For a meaningful comparison you also need an idea of vehicle and infrastructure costs - again pre-tax.

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"electric car (generated from coal fired power station) $60"

 

Hmm./..

Put in the cost of making that electricity generation from "clean coal", and then what??

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