is ethanol-biofuel sustainable

[poe]

excellent 95 page paper by tad patzek dept. of engineering at uc-berkley, titled, "Thermodynamics of the Corn Ethanol-Biofuel Cycle." can be found and downloaded at www.energybulletin.net

[Massacure]

1. My math says that there isn't enough land to power the U.S. on ethanol.

However that doesn't include that new microbe thingy that uses the stalk of corn and not the actual kernals.

[punpirate]

2. Haven't yet read the paper...

... (it's a bit long for a quick scan), but as I recall, one of the major problems is energy input v. output. The figures I've read are, currently, 1.4 calories of input per calorie of fuel. Before widespread industrialization of agriculture, the ratio was something like 0.8:1.

I think that ratio could be improved by using more creative ways to power the distillation process, but, as you suggest, there's little likelihood of enough arable land to make it a uniform fuel source nationwide.

As a stopgap measure, however, the logical use of ethanol would be on feed corn farms, to reduce diesel fuel use, since the mash can be dried and used as a high-protein feed, while the carbohydrate can be used as fuel. Would probably produce leaner beef, etc., as well. Ultimately, because of the poor energy balance, even that use is not completely renewable.

Cheers.

[diamond14]

3. YES ! and it's not just ethanol...LOTS of chemicals can be made from corn

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/today/8150cargill.html

-snips-

In reality, the Blair facility is a corn-processing plant, making high-fructose corn syrup, ethanol, lactic acid, and other products out of corn grown on neighboring farms. But to Cargill executives, the facility is nothing less than a refinery--or, more specifically, a biorefinery--differing from an oil or chemical refinery only in the feedstock it consumes. (CORN !)

At a briefing for reporters at the facility earlier this month, Cargill managers made their case that the chemical industry is on the cusp of a new era. Just as the business transitioned in the 1940s from a largely inorganic one based on mineral feedstocks to an organic one based on petroleum, Cargill is betting that it will soon move again into a new era based on renewable agricultural feedstocks.

In February, James R. Stoppert, a 30-year veteran of Dow Chemical, was named Cargill's senior director for industrial bioproducts and charged with leading Cargill into this new era. Stoppert earlier headed Cargill Dow, a joint venture that has commercialized polylactic acid, a plastic made out of lactic acid that has been fermented from corn-derived glucose.


But Cargill is not just any company. With almost $60 billion in annual sales, it's the largest privately owned firm in the U.S. As half owner of Cargill Dow, it has invested more than $350 million in the development and commercialization of polylactic acid. And just by matching government grants, it has already committed $8 million to the three bioproduct platforms.


cheap, easy to make, simple replacement for 'oil-derived' chemicals...making 'corn-derived' chemicals for plastics and other better living, non-polluting, solar and wind powered.....the geologists and oil engineers are going crazy, as the CHEMISTS take over....