Bread Basket in drought. How is Bush going to find corn for alcohol???

[benburch]

[fearnobush]

1. Thats a good question because it shows the volatility in the potential

ethanol market soon to come. Gas prices will sore during drought seasons - a by product of Global Warming predicts longer and wide ranging droughts to the mid latitudes, specifically the American mid west.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. A drunk can always find alcohol...

...oh, I see what see what you mean. Sorry, don't know. :)

[stepnw1f]

3. People Will Pray

and starve while doing so. Happens everyday in Iraq.

[madrchsod]

4. good question out here in northern illinois

we`ve got two ethanol going but last year it was the driest in years. of course fat denny didn`t vote for drought relief for his district..

[Webster Green]

5. I thought he was gonna use switchgrass...

Whatever the fuck that is.

[tridim]

7. I don't know what it is either, but TDS pointed out

that this is a switchgrass processing machine:

[JohnWxy]

24. He was talking about cellulosic ethanol, which can be made from

'energy' crops such as switchgrass (native to the plains, does not need much water and little to no fertilizer and no pesticides). Cellulosic ethanol can be made from agricultural and forest product waste - which we produce tons of each year and currently bury or burn.


Oak Ridge National Laboratory has estimated ethanol's potential for the U.S. at 30% of total gasoline demand (given current state of the technology). (I dont' know if this includes anything for ethanol production from energy crops such as switch grasss which can be grown on agriculturally marginal ground - i.e. ground not currently being used for growing crops.).

Ethanol may not be the whole answer but it certainly will be a part of the answer to fossil fuel dependence.

An important thing about corn ethanol is that we are currently producting it, it is practical now and it can be scaled up in production quicker than any other alternative fuel source we now have.

...this is important because one of the things we have to be concerned about is a crimp in the oil supply due to human induced (terrorist attaack) or natural disaster (anther hurricane season like 2005). This is somethnig we may have to deal with in the next 3 to 5 years. IF 5-6% of our fuel supply was being met with corn ethanol this would give considerabel protection from a reduction in the gas supply. We should be trying to double our ethanol production as quickly as we can.

[tridim]

6. He'll just go with the switchgrass plan

Switchgrass don't need water to grow does it Dick?

[rooboy]

8. There you go again with more of your "reality-based world" crap :) n/t

[benburch]

9. Obviously I don't watch enough Fox News. nt

[rfkrfk]

10. corn $2.32 a bushel, yield is 2.5 gallon per bushel, do the math

corn to ethanol is 2.5 gallons per bushel,

leaving behind ten to twenty cents worth
of livestock feed

gasoline, 1.41 a gallon
ethanol has two-thirds the energy content by volume, of gasoline

www.bloomberg.com

[benburch]

11. If you can get the corn in the first place!

If there is a drought, no corn.

And you have to add in the cost of production to the above numbers. You have to make mash, ferment it, and then distill it before you have the alcohol.

Also, the price of corn is tied to the price of liquid fuels because modern corn agriculture requires six tractor passes, and fuel for the tractor is a major cost.

And finally, fertilizer requires energy to produce, so you have to factor its cost in, too.

[rfkrfk]

12. there is a reason for the {past} goofy pricing of ethanol

there is a shortage of production facilities,

if there were surplus production facilities for ethanol,
the price of wholesale gasoline would set a price
floor for corn

[benburch]

13. No, you aren't getting what I'm saying, I think.

Corn requires as an input significant liquid fuels and significant electrical power. As the general price of energy rises, so rises the price of corn. And, as corn is taken out of the food market for energy use, it's price as a food rises, and also effects the price of the ethanol.

I'm not saying that it isn't worth doing, but I am saying that the simple math you present does not represent its eventual cost per gallon at all.

Also, the original topic here, drought brought on by global warming, means that the actual supply of corn itself is not secure at all, and will result in some amazing price fluctuations as we grow to depend upon it for energy.

[rfkrfk]

14. I understand your concern about future supply.

I understand you concern about,
future supply of corn, future cost of corn,
cost of farming inputs, dry weather, etc.

I can't predict the future, any better than anybody else.

I just felt like posting some real numbers, for today's market.

People who downplay the future importance of ethanol,
don't seem to realize that the 'alcohol infrastructure'
is only now being built up.

[benburch]

17. Oh, I'd never downplay it!

I've been on the "gasohol" bandwagon since the 70s. I just see its limitations.

[JVS]

22. right on!

[JVS]

21. And what is the cost of the oil necessary to distill it?

[JohnWxy]

23. Argonne National Laboratory study shows 38% gain for ethanol production

Argonne National Laboratry study

USDA study showed 65% GAin in ethanol production

Michigan State University study: 56% gain for ethnaol.

Gasoline - The amount of energy you get in gasoline is about 19% LESS than the energy it takes to produce it (Wang- Argonne National Laboratory).

[Strelnikov_]

15. Peal Oil Means The End Of Laissez-Faire Faire Energy Planning

if we are to survive, that is.

As you point out, a system dependent on biofuels will be subject to crippling shortages during drought years. Can you imagine the effect of a ‘dust bowl’ series of years on a biofuel industry?

I believe that biofuels need to be exploited to their maximum practical extent. But any energy infrastructure system would have to address periods of reduced production of these fuels. One way to mitigate would be to build a ‘strategic coal stockpile’ with mothballed liquefaction capacity ready to be put on line in the event of a shortfall. Mothballed capacity and stockpiles are not a part of a Laissez-faire system.

In the coming world of energy scarcity, the current ‘free-market’ dynamic will be incapable of providing a relatively stable energy supply. We will need a diverse, redundant and integrated energy infrastructure that will require planning and coordination far beyond what ‘market signals’ (re: price) can provide.

Once we have established a USEA (U.S. Energy Authority) that provides centralized planning for the energy infrastructure, we can begin basing infrastructure development on a energy balance basis. This would hopefully avoid the building of inefficient systems, an example of which is the ethanol plant being built 7 mi. east of where I am now. This plant will burn coal to produce a liquid fuel with an EPR of 1 (corn ethanol) when you could produce a liquid fuel with an EPR of 5 from the coal directly.

[benburch]

16. Alternatively, we produce ethanol in good years and store it.

Seems to me that the same sorts of salt domes that will hold oil for millions of years would hold ethanol for dozens at least. And we will have no end of empty wells soon.

As a fringe benefit, when you pump that ethanol back up, it will have some easily extracted petroleum in it, and that is useful for many, many things besides fuel.

[poopfuel]

18. a good discussion

Remember, a sizeable amount of ethanol can be made from water-based plants and in dry, arid regions, with crop such as pimelon, Buffalo gourd and mesquite, which do not require a lot of water.

[benburch]

19. But which also do not grow fast. nt

[poopfuel]

20. actually

"If we grew pimelon on an area the size of the Texas panhandle, we'd be able to produce about 17 billion gallons of alcohol--well over 10% of our annual motor fuel usage. And we'd have about two and a quarter million tons of high quality animal feed to boot. In an arid country like the Texas panhandle where it takes 100+ acres to range feed one beef steer, feeding pimelon meal after processing ought to make such acreage more productive. '

David Blume, Alcohol Can Be a Gas
(Publication date: July 2006)

Good energy system design trumps all other issues.
You can ask him about marine algae too.
permaculture.com