Richard Branson: ethanol would be cheaper than gas if America stopped taxing sugar imports
Billionaire Sir Richard Branson made headlines recently when he knocked the way Americans produce ethanol. In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Branson fleshed out his ideas on ways America can improve the way it produces the alcohol fuel. Thirty minutes in, he says sugar produces seven times more ethanol than corn per acre and would not emit CO2. Branson also said sugar would not mean cutting down the rain forest because there is plenty of it and the price is at an all-time low.The best argument Branson gave is that "sugar-based ethanol would be cheaper than conventional fuels imported from the Middle East." Of course, if we lived in Branson's world, we may not have to worry about making fuel from plants at all. He explained that his plans for going into space with Virgin Galactic could one day help fuel the world: just "two space ships full of helium 3 [from the moon] will power America's electricity for a year," he said. Space mining sounds interesting, but what if that space ship crashes?
Related:
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- Branson looks towards Virgin territory: biofuel
- Richard Branson promotes alternative fuel movement by driving a Saab 9-5 BioPower
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Karen Pease 8:36PM (2/18/2008)
Virgin Galactic is about as close to making it to the moon -- heck, about as close to even making it to orbit -- as a snorkelist is to making it to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. And really, I wish this was hyperbole, but it isn't. Most people have no clue of the vast difference in terms of difficulty between getting to "space" and getting to "orbit" -- something that Virgin Galactic gladly exploits.
Not that there aren't small-ish private rocketry companies that are actually making progress toward getting to orbit. Keep an eye out for SpaceX and their Falcon series and Dragon spacecraft. It's quite possible that they'll beat NASA's Ares/Orion to the ISS. SpaceX, of course, being a company headed by Elon Musk. :)
As for helium-3, it's a nonsense argument. We can't even achieve sustainable fusion with Dt-T yet, and Helium 3 has an order of magnitude higher Coulomb barrier. And for what purpose -- lower neutronicity? It's idiotic. Not to mention that we can *make helium-3 here on Earth*; it's a decay product of tritium, and tritium can be made from bombardment of lithium. The whole helium-3 argument is a transparent attempt to raise money for another moon jaunt; it's not a serious economic prospect.
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Tony Belding 9:02PM (2/18/2008)
Helium-3 makes no sense as nuclear fuel. We don't have any working, practical reactors that can burn it.
The fusion reactor technology that's probably closest to working at this time is the IEC Polywell. . . but it doesn't require helium-3. It should work just fine -- better, actually -- with boron-11 fuel. And boron is plentiful as mud right here on Earth.
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why not the LS2/LS7? 8:46PM (2/18/2008)
He's wrong, but hey, whatever.
And that's before you counted the impact that it would have if Brazil (further) denuded their forests to sell us sugar to fuel our cars.
Our sugar tax is dumb, but I don't think it's really the cause of ethanol prices being what they are.
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Wise Golden 8:56PM (2/18/2008)
I say false and here is why: It might work for a very short term, but eventually, one of two things would happen. 1) the price of sugar would climb and make corn look cheap, or 2) we would begine importing the refined product of ethanol rather than the sugar. It would make no sense to move a gillion tons of sugar rather than a billion tones of ethanol -- less to move once it's refined. That being said, it will be refined in countrys that have lax emision regulations in comparison to the USA equating to more pollution.
This is not necessary a race to find the cheapest source of energy -- that would remain oil. It's a race to find a secure source of energy that pollutes less.
Now, keep in mind, the largest producer of sugar in the world is the USA (Florida, Hawaii.) In those locations, sugar makes a lot of sense, but if we remove bariers to importing, then down comes the rain forest -- he's seriously underestimating just how much sugar we would really need. I worked out the acrage once and it equates to the state of Arizona -- that's how much rain forest would need to be cut to grow enough sugar to make our ethanol. Meanwhile -- fruit falls on the ground in Florida, California and Hawaii and nobody bothers to harvest because it just isn't worth our time. That produce could be made into ethanol.
Once we have the cellulostic technology that is slowly coming on-line, we'll forget about things like corn and sugar and move on to much, much, much more productive plants like sawgrass (of which, we could likely grow enogh to produce about half of our fuel.) Sawgrass will really change the energy equation dramatically in the favor of ethanol, but work is yet to be done.
Point is, I would hate to see us resort to an imported agriculture and cut down forest, simply to change feedstock in a few years -- the forest will grow back, but it will take centuries. Also, I would hate to see us replace one dependency with another -- that just doesn't fit the bill. We can find a solution that will reduce pollution, reduce imports, improve our national security and fuel our economic growth at the same time. Sugar is not the item that will get us there, but it could help us get there in states like Florida, Hawaii and California.
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Wise Golden 9:04PM (2/18/2008)
Karen says:
As for helium-3, it's a nonsense argument. We can't even achieve sustainable fusion with Dt-T yet, and Helium 3 has an order of magnitude higher Coulomb barrier. And for what purpose -- lower neutronicity? It's idiotic. Not to mention that we can *make helium-3 here on Earth*; it's a decay product of tritium, and tritium can be made from bombardment of lithium. The whole helium-3 argument is a transparent attempt to raise money for another moon jaunt; it's not a serious economic prospect.
Wise Golden:
Well duh. That all goes without saying.
Just kidding. Seriously though, what???
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Wise Golden 9:24PM (2/18/2008)
Actually, on second thought, his plan could have a percentage of merit. Here’s why: The island nations of the Caribbean produce a lot of sugar AND they import all of their oil. It does not make sense to move sugar to the US and refine it into ethanol, but it does make sense for these island nations to use their own sugar in their own countries to produce ethanol that they would use themselves. This would displace oil and eliminate the need to transport oil and sugar, while at the same time boosting the agrarian economy of the nation involved. It would also save the fuel required to transport the oil to these nations and make them more self sufficient economically.
This could be a nice shot in the arm for some of these nations. It may seem like a drop in the bucket, but I’m the kind of guy that believes that this problem will be solved one drop at a time.
But, be clear on this, if we allow this product (ethanol) to be imported into the US, the EU, or China, we will be destroying the rain forest as a result – I promise you. And if I were a betting man, I would say that China will be the first to allow the import of ethanol from these nations.
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s10 11:02PM (2/18/2008)
Wise Golden.... A few years ago I was on the small french Reunion Island near Madagascar... their economy used to be based on sugar... nowadays it is cheaper for mainland France to get the sugar elsewhere.. so 50% of the population is out of work... at the same time.. oil is imported from mainland France and cost a fortune on the island... The solution seems so simple, but politicians have other agendas, as usual.
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Blaine Decker 10:55PM (2/18/2008)
Though it does take a stupid (Bush) country like ours to use food for fuel. Multiple technologies have come about and then suddenly dropped and never spoken about again. My thoughts, and I am sure a bunch of you out there too, the government is the one behind all of it. Whatever makes them rich and controlling. If we use solar and wind generators, then we remove ourselves from the grid, then they can't track us, they lose control. If they can't control us or tax us, then we can actually better ourselves.
Taxes on the land we own, the homes we have, the cars we have, the gas we buy, the food we buy, the products we buy, even water, electricity, taxes on our income, our sewer, our trash, what we watch, where we go, even taxes on taxes. Saving money in a savings account, yep its taxed too.
Lets all try electric cars charged by our solar panels and wind generators, and pay cash on everything through private sales, then we will see who the real people are in control.
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Nathan Schock 12:42AM (2/19/2008)
Brazilian ethanol yield is reportedly 662 gallons per acre. In 2007, the average yield for corn production in the U.S. was 151.1 bushels per acre according to the USDA. The average dry-mill ethanol plant can produce about 2.8 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn. According to the math I learned in school:
bushels/acre (151.1) x gallons/bushel (2.8) = 423
While it is true that 662 is more than 423, it is not seven times more.
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EVan 1:03AM (2/19/2008)
Blaine Decker:
How do you know the government isn't spying on you now?
Autoblog is owned by Weblogs, Inc which is owned by AOL which is a subsidiary of TimeWarner... one of America's corporate empires that collaborate with The Man in keeping us down.
What if you've uncovered something? Doesn't it seem sketchy that they require your email address for making a post? It's probably so the government can track down dissidents and make them pay more taxes!
:)
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PJD 1:01AM (2/19/2008)
"Space mining sounds interesting, but what if that space ship crashes?"
While not so good for the pilot, or anyone directly under the crashing ship... it doesn't seem like there would be any extra concerns over helium 3. It's not an unstable isotope (non radioactive). They even use it with certain types of lung MRI... they have people breath air with helium 3 while being imaged. Further, all helium is lighter than air and would immediately head up and eventually be lost from the atmosphere as helium always does (which accounts for the fact that it is only 5.2 ppm in the atmosphere).
Is there something in particular you meant by that question, or is it just the general assumption that all things unknown to ownself must be bad?
I will have to say that I find any concept involving getting resources from space to be a bit hard to believe from an economic standpoint.
I would also agree with a previous comment that the IEC Polywell fusion technology will be an exciting one to watch this year.
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Lascelles Linton 6:30AM (2/19/2008)
PJD,
"Is there something in particular you meant by that question, or is it just the general assumption that all things unknown to ownself must be bad?"
I just assumed if something had enough energy to fuel America for half a year, a crash might be bad. Even if there is no giant explosion as pollution, that can't be good.
The economic thing actually seem to make sense to me. Two trips powers America for a year? Profit from selling energy to the US must be cheaper than two space flights, right?
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Tim 9:53AM (2/19/2008)
Import tax is one of the FEW tools we have that both level's the playing field AND generates revenue. It’s a revenue generating Gov't subsidy to indigenous industry.
Perhaps, if the gov't stopped ALL direct subsidies to big business, oil prices would rise and ethanol from imported sugar would become more competitive.
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figers 10:30AM (2/19/2008)
You wouldn't create helium-3 because the production and storage of huge amounts of the gas tritium is probably uneconomical, as roughly eighteen tons of tritium stock are required for each ton of helium-3 produced annually by decay. If commercial fusion reactors were to use helium-3 as a fuel, they would require tens of tons of helium-3 each year to produce a fraction of the world's power. fusion power plants operating on deuterium and helium-3 would offer lower capital and operating costs than their competitors due to less technical complexity, higher conversion efficiency, smaller size, the absence of radioactive fuel, no air or water pollution, and only low-level radioactive waste disposal requirements. Recent estimates suggest that about $6 billion in investment capital will be required to develop and construct the first helium-3 fusion power plant.
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Karen Pease 12:32PM (2/19/2008)
"You wouldn't create helium-3 because the production and storage of huge amounts of the gas tritium is probably uneconomical, as roughly eighteen tons of tritium stock are required for each ton of helium-3 produced annually by decay."
You're just quoting Wikipedia, I'm sure :) There is absolutely no way that storing a mere 18 tons of a mildly radioactive gas is remotely comparable to flying rocket ships to the freaking moon and mining for something found there in only ppb quantities and shipping it back.
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PJD 2:01PM (2/19/2008)
"Recent estimates suggest that about $6 billion in investment capital will be required to develop and construct the first helium-3 fusion power plant."
As they say, the only thing that stays the same with regard to fusion research is the additional money and number of years before it's successful.
I'm not a fusion disbeliever... but until the science questions are answered, which they haven't been, any estimate should really be called a wild guess.
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Karen Pease 3:29PM (2/19/2008)
"Recent estimates suggest that about $6 billion in investment capital will be required to develop and construct the first helium-3 fusion power plant."
Which is, of course, pure nonsense. Even much, much easier to achieve Dt-T fusion is scheduled to cost $14.6B for merely a proof of concept plant (ITER). Alternative methods -- NIF, Z-machine, stellarators, etc -- are likewise expensive. There are a number of "low cost" (comparatively) proposals, but there's a lot of doubt in the scientific community that they could scale to even breakeven.
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Wise Golden 3:50PM (2/19/2008)
Blain Decker -- our country is not stupid. You are.
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Wise Golden 3:55PM (2/19/2008)
Nathan, Good point. While your average is correct, it is not at all uncommon for an American farm to produce 250 bushels in an acre -- especially in places with the perfect climate like Iowa.
250*2.8=700
Also, Poet Energy has a plant thast is producing 3.4 gallons per bushel.
250*3.4=850
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