Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
The Cold Equations of Ethanol
There's a classic science fiction story by Tom Godwin, "The Cold Equations," first published in the August 1954 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.
It's been decades since I read it, so my memory is probably not all that reliable. But as I recall, it involves a young woman who stows away on a rocket in order to visit her brother on a colony world.
The problem was, stowing away on the supply ship, adding her extra weight, when every gram of fuel and cargo was carefully calculated, meant that the rocket would crash and both her and the pilot would die, and the supplies for the colony would not get there, and the colonists might die too.
The physics of the situation was absolutely merciless. No happy thoughts, no heroic scenarios, no hopeful just-in-time rescues. Just math and physics and not enough fuel. The girl was jettisoned — and died — in cold airless space.
It was a shocking story at the time, and probably still is, because it goes against the grain of so much of our fictional mind-food. We want to believe in heroes, and never-too-lates, and no-situation-too-hopeless.
The story slapped us in the face with the physical reality that these happy beliefs are sometimes, and sometimes often, not true. That you can't really count on a last-minute rescue. The happy endings, even when they're true, are told only by the people who survived the siege, got away from the rapist, escaped the approaching army. The ones whose parachutes finally did open. The ones who survived until Balto and the diphtheria serum got to Nome. All the others died without telling their side of the tale.
If there was any moral in the story, it was this: Look ahead. Make sure these dire situations don't happen. If you see a howling mass of well-armed men approaching, run like hell first, ask questions later. Because it's your ass if you don't.
Which brings me to this article on Ethanol.
David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of farmland, the same space needed to grow a year's supply of food for seven people. Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion into ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.
Further:
If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.
Cold equations. But where do they lead? Some of us can see the enemy approaching ... but can we do anything about it?
President Bush, that witless child of privilege and power, is confident that our energy outlook is peachy, that the future is glorious, and that nothing more than a Band-Aid is needed to get us through this difficult moment.
And maybe that scares me worst of all.
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I ran some figures on
I ran some figures on ethanol production a couple years ago using a paper that had just come out saying that ethanol production was a net energy gain--it required on the order of 6 gallons of ethanol-equivalent energy to produce 7 gallons of ethanol (I can't find my link to the paper, but I think those numbers are in the right ballpark). There have been more papers since; I think some have concluded that ethanol production is a net energy sink, others that it can be a bonus. Anyway, it seems to be right on the edge of breakeven. The paper did point out that not all the energy needed to be as concentrated as ethanol/diesel--I think they mentioned that waste heat from other reactions could be used to help produce the fertilizer or to distill the ethanol.
The 92% of arable cropland estimate is about what I got as well (actually, I got ~90% assuming that all US cropland was as productive as Iowa for growing corn. I think that is likely way optimistic). Since the ethanol production is so close to break-even, though, small changes in the efficiency of production would have large changes in the amount of arable land required.
Someone mentioned CO2 production--that's not an issue. Any CO2 produced by burning the ethanol will be taken up by the corn. Someone else mentioned natural production of fertilizer--that just doesn't seem practical for projects of this size.
I didn't run any calculations for ethanol production from anything other than corn; it makes sense that there would be something that could be more efficient.
Regardless, right now it seems like something that is theoretically possible but nearly completely impractical.
switchgrass
Indeed, switchgrass produces more EtOH than corn.
How would the corn take up the CO2, if we assume that every plant which grows to offset the CO2 output is itself bound to end contributing? I'd like to see a number crunch on that.
tantum religio potuit suadere malorum
Lucretius
energy
Ethanol is not part of the solution, thus it must be the precipitate [chemistry humor]:
Burning ethanol will continue to produce CO2 ad nauseum, as well as NxOy (nitric oxides). Why should we waste billions of dollars and years of "retrofits" for our economy on another short term solution?
Moving away from C-based combustion is the only solution. Period.
tantum religio potuit suadere malorum
Lucretius
Corn Fuel
Wow! I'm going to have to point my readers to this post. Well done, Hank!
OT
The short story, Cold Equations, was actualy made into a short film on the scfi channel a number of years ago. Just thought I would add that.
Assumptions about ethanol
President Bush, that witless child of privilege and power, is confident that our energy outlook is peachy, that the future is glorious, and that nothing more than a Band-Aid is needed to get us through this difficult moment.
I don't believe Bush is confident about our energy outlook beyond his lifetime. I think he doesn't give an oil-stained rat's ass about anything but keeping his useless privelaged carcass in a position to satisfy his greed and avarice. He could lead this country into road-warrioresque apocalyptic energy starvation and be happy as a clam as long as he gets to live in prosperity and has all his servants and peons and sycophants to tell him what a great and powerful moral authority he is.
Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.
This assumes that we only get our ethanol from corn and no other resource, that we only process ethanol using current technology and never come up with something new, that we only drive cars based upon current manufacturing designs and never improve or modify them for use with ethanol fuel in mind, etc. It's a good argument for doing nothing and is based upon the same assumptions that every petroleum-funded political hack on the planet uses to stifle every form of alternative energy resource proposed that doesn't also require huge investments in petroleum (like hydrogen fuel cells).
The reasons for using ethanol are because it burns more cleanly than gasoline, it's less toxic when spilled, and it's produced from living things over a short period of time (rather than over millions of years) making it renewable. So, lets come up with better ways of making it so that it becomes a viable solution instead of saying it will never work because the way we make it now sucks.
A good argument for doing nothing
I suppose it could be a good argument for doing nothing. But it's also -- and I should have written the piece longer to spell out my real meaning -- a good argument for looking at the REAL problem.
Ethanol spooks me because I can imagine some sort of frantic, fearful, Republican-driven initiative to rape every last bit of wildlands, wetlands, forest and water resource within reach in order to grow fuel crops. I can hear the shrieks now: "HEY, WE CAN'T LET SOME LITTLE OWL STAND IN THE WAY WHILE CHILDREN AND GRANDMOTHERS ARE FREEZING TO DEATH!! THOSE GODDAM FORESTS HAVE GOT TO COME DOWN!"
Every environmental problem I can think of is not a problem of too few resources; it's a problem of too many consumers. The REAL problem is the population graph zooming into the stratosphere.
Every environmental solution so far is about efficiency, conservation, doing more with less, finding alternatives to things we're running out of ... but with the automatic and unquestioned assumption of a steadily expanding population.
I'm not sure of what to do about it. But I'm sure of where it leads.
Burns more cleanly?
As long as ethanol has an energy return on energy investment ratio lower than 1, it'll never burn more cleanly, because you'll need oil to grow it (fertilizer, anyone?).
You don't need oil to make
You don't need oil to make fertilizer. Cows have been shitting the stuff out for millenia, for example.
Cows?
How many cows? On what will they graze if 97% of the land area is used for corn? Dang, more calculations...
From Corn, Yes. But what about sawgrass?
I wouldn't be surprised if everything in the referenced article is true. But it only talks about the costs of ethanol production from corn. Naturally, my skeptical hat "informs" me , and I won't take that article as the final word: I don't have anything to back this up at the moment (call me lazy), but I am pretty sure that there are other plants under research probably that can yield more ethanol, cheaper, on less land. If I am not mistaken, sawgrass is one of the most promising alternatives.
These non-corn sources of ethanol might not be the answer to the question, but they may provide a stopgap while other, more efficient technology is developed.
The Iowa problem
Maybe The West Wing's take on the subject over-dramatizes it, but it seems that part of the ethanol problem is that a lot of the economic activity that fuels it, pun intended, is concentrated in Iowa. Hence a politician has to pledge to subsidize ethanol to have a shot at winning the Iowa primary. Of course politicians break promises all the time, but I'm presuming that when the promise is close enough to an influential subset of the voters, breaking it will hurt the politician's career.