> I have read a number of studies over the years (Science, Scientific
> American, The Economist, etc.) authored by diverse groups of people ranging
> from engineers, physical scientist, economists, etc. and I have yet to see
> an article that comes up with anything than a negative energy return or, at
> the most, a very small positive return. Given your opinion of these
> studies, I would love to see any to the contrary; can you post any links?
Almost without exception, those studies have two howlers in them:
1. Failure to properly account for secondary use of the grain for feed.
2. Inclusion of ancilliary energy negatives without accounting for
them in other energy sources.
As to the first point, without the secondary use of the grain, the
energy gain is not all that great. It is a gain, but we're probably
better off putting our resources elsewhere. Unfortunately, the studies
then use a worse-case transportation cost for secondary use instead of
the normal use. The bulk of the secondary use is kept within 50 miles
of the facility. It's not uncommon to have a major feedlot within five
miles of the ethanol plant now that uses most if not all of it up. The
studies assume no increase in efficiencies, but static normalized
distribution. On the sourcing side of things, again, transportation
costs kick in and the studies are biased with using a normalized
average transportion distance, not taking into account that most of
these facilities source their grain close whenever possible to reduce
transportation costs. These studies fail to recognize that bean
counters run the business and if there is any way to shave beans they
will.
The ancilliary energy use items are the big ones. You'll see stupid
stuff like R&D applied to ethanol, but not added to other energy uses.
If the same criteria was used for gasoline, you'd see that
oil/gasoline is almost a net negative too. Especially, when you factor
in that to protect those big oil tankers going through the oceans, we
have to have a huge navy. We spend a trillion dollars a year keeping
the oil flowing from countries that hate us. I've even seen studies
that factored in traffic jam time for the cars consuming ethanol! Huh?
It doesn't stop with ethanol. I see the same thing applied to solar
and wind energy. I listened to a Yale lecture by some pointy-headed
intellectual who did a launch into his anti-wind energy rant. The
assumptions he was making made my head spin. The best one was how you
can only place towers so close to each other because they suck all the
wind energy out and there's nothing left for the next one in line.
Sorry, but the math did NOT support his theories and assumed perfect
alignment (which most wind farms don't have unless you are in
Germany). In worse case, you do get a little bit of wind energy
decline, (mostly from dispersion caused by turbulance from older style
blade design) but that assumes a lot of stuff in order for it to be a
real problem. Solar energy? My house is a energy negative according to
the studies. Oh well, I guess my monthly utility bill is lying to me.
Ethanol vs., straight gasoline (if you can even find it anymore,
thanks to oxegenization requirements). With some exceptions, you will
see a slight mileage decline with ethanol, but the price differential
usually accounts for it--if your local suppliers factor in the
blender's credit instead of just pocketing it. That's the problem out
east/west, your local supplier is ripping you off by not passing the
credit on.
Oh, BTW, a major fuel change here lately. Instead of using a base of
87 octane, they're now using 85 octane and using ethanol to boost it
up to 87. For most engines that barely function on 87 octane (lower
altitudes), this is like putting water in the tank.
As to mileage differences, I don't see too much, but I do see
performance differences. The ignition computer is adjusting the timing
for the fuel.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|