Ha! Good one ...

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corn ethanol sucks because you get so little out for all the fertilizer and pesticides. Sugar cane with its higher energy content seems to be working for Brazil.

Ethanol from biomass may some day be energy positive but it would be darn stupid to go to all that work to make fuel only to waste 80% of it as heat in a combustion engine.

We need to cut out the middlemen(plants) from solar energy production.

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Ethanol is already "energy positive". The only one saying otherwise is a loony insect ecologist talking outside his field of expertise; unfortunately his flawed and thoroughly discredited paper was seized on and spread by conservative and libertarian types who would be repelled from him if they knew of his radical anti-technology, anti-agriculture, anti-human views.

As for biomass, any kind of biomass without exception can already be turned into methanol, today, with no further research. Including trash, sewage, crop residues (stems, leaves, etc.), weed plants, even coal and natural gas. No further research necessary.

So we need to make sure to include methanol in the alcohol fuel scene.

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It (ethanol) still has a carbon footprint, same as any petroleum product.

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How's that? Ethanol comes from crops which take CO2 out of the atmosphere. Unlike gasoline, when burned, it does not emit CO2. That's a massive net loss of CO2 added to the atmosphere.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/in-defense-of-biofuels

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Carney--

Double check your maths. Let me know when you can figure out how to burn a hydrocarbon without emitting CO2.

Ethanol combustion:

C2H5OH + 3 O2 → 2 CO2 + 3 H2O+ Energy

The only advantage is that the carbon going into it came from the air, but it is not carbon negative. You've made a lot of assertions in this thread, but haven't cited any sources beyond the blog you're shilling for.

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If it has carbon in it, like methanol (one carbon atom per molecule) or ethanol (2 carbon atoms per molecule) and you burn it completely you get carbon dioxide. Burn it incompletely and you get carbon monoxide and soot (pure particulate carbon). As far as I know there are no alcohols that combust without the release of oxidized carbon. I thought we were trying not to release CO2 into the atmosphere. There are better alternatives than burning biomass products, but biomass products produced in the US are certainly better than importing oil!

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Misnomer you are 100% correct. Carney means well but doesn't remember his high school chemistry. He does make the point that burning ag products or even wood is kind of carbon neutral. That is when ag waste (or wood) is allowed to decompose, the carbon is eventually released in various forms mostly into the atmosphere. Some of these products, like methane, are more damaging than CO2. Burning AG products doesn't reduce greenhouse gases however, but solar, wind, hydro, nuclear and hydrogen produced energy should.

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misnomer, I'm not a "shill" for the New Atlantis blog. Goodness. Leaping to assume sinister motives, payoffs, etc. is silly. I am what I seem to me, an admirer of Robert Zubrin. I read his article in the American Enterprise magazine kicking this whole thing off, then bought his book "Energy Victory", which sold me on Flex Fuel vehicles as the way forward short to mid term.

But double checking as you requested, you're right. In his book (pages 109-110) Zubrin never states that alcohol fuel doesn't emit CO2 and I was wrong to say so. I misread him. What he says instead is that burning plant material produces no NET CO2 increase, and that methanol from otherwise-flared natural gas and municipal waste that would otherwise rot is also global warming neutral. He goes on to discuss how growing plants is a powerful mechanism for global cooling.

He goes on to say that alcohol fuel, when burned in an internal combustion engine, produces no smoke, soot, or particulate pollution. He also says that they, produce much less nitrogen oxide pollution than gasoline because they burn cooler. And no sulfur dioxide, so most of the vehicular contribution to acid rain goes away. Also far less ozone and ozone smog.

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Unless we can find a way to grow the ethanol source crops without using fossil fuels in the tractors and harvesters and trucks, and without using fertilizers made using natural gas, then the production of the crops itself will produce CO2. Then there is the process of turning those crops into ethanol, those plants usually use fossil fuels to warm the fermenters and heat the distillers, that also produces CO2.

AFAIK, nobody has ever made commercial amounts of ethanol in a truly "carbon neutral" manner. Now, some could argue that perhaps use of ethanol could result in less overall CO2 produced, but they can't accurately argue that it is completely CO2 neutral.

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Good point, Chris M, But theoretically ethanol could be used for all those processes that support it's own production, and the growth of the biomass itself takes CO2 out of the atmosphere and fixes it into the plant substance. You are absolutely right, because we can't do this now because of inertia. That inertia is the result of many factors, but it can be overcome in time as oil production gets more expensive and ethanol technology gets cheaper. The elitest socialist would do it by raising taxes, but the market will do it much better without killing an economy that is already in free fall. We have to be patient here because it is becoming apparent that the case for man made global warming is based on questionable science. I suppose I will get replies spouting the conventional wisdom of the day, a la AL Gore, but it has been my experience that conventional wisdom is nearly always wrong. It's pretty arrogant to think that we humans have more control over climate than the natural fluctuations in solar radiation.

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Ooh, big bad scary agribusiness. Those darn corn processors!

So much worse than OPEC, with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, or Russia. Let's get all worked up about our piddly ethanol subsidies, which are what, $10 billion a year, and ignore the TRILLIONS we were forced to spend, thanks to our locked into oil only transportation system, on inflated oil prices since 1999. The price per barrel went up TEN FOLD between 1999 and 2007, by the way, due in large part to deliberate OPEC throttling of production.

Heaven forbid we seek to encourage a break out from this lock-in.

Now I'll admit the subsidies are unlovely. Personally I'd drop them, but also drop the tarrifs on imported ethanol as well.

The key strategy is to MANDATE that all cars sold in America have flex fuel capability. It's only $100 per car, the Big 3 are ahead of their foreign rivals in this so it's a net plus for them, and we'd have 50 million alcohol capable cars on the road in 3 years. With that much of a potential market, gas stations will start adding alcohol pumps on their own. And with methanol and (Brazilian and other) ethanol being so much cheaper than gasoline, the market demand will be there.

I don't think corn farmers need to worry - the demand for ethanol will be so great that there'll be more than enough business to go around.

I just wish they'd figure out that their current policy is not nearly as effective as a simple mandate that all new cars be flex fueled.

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