Will food prices be that proverbial straw?

It takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol that the energy it can produce.
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No comment on the rest of your post but I have to point out that this is true for every energy source*. It takes more energy to refine a gallon of gasoline than that gallon can produce.
 
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While I like the coal and shale oil solutions the costs involved have, in the past all the way back to the Carter administration, proven to be prohibitive.

As with all things the technology has improved and will continue to do so. What has prevented the advancement of these technologies has been the low cost of oil. Once the cost exceeds a certain threshold the costs of alternative technology become "reasonable" and their promises attractive. Thus, those technologies gain new interest, new investment, and new ideas.
 
Sure.. blahblahblah invisible hand of the market at work blahblahlblah. The rising price of tequila ensures that not ALL farmers will move from agave to corn.
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While true, the prime motivator in this case is ethanol.

People have been starving and rioting all over the world and in your own backyard since oh, forever. Ethanol is hardly a root cause.
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It quite possibly could be the root cause this time as opposed to the food riots we had here in America back in ... uh ... um ... when was that? I kinda forgot.
 
Part of your interrogatory in your post #19 is answered HERE

While I used the term "aerable land" this study used the term "total land area" which are two very different things.

It also assumes a 100% ethanol compound in every tank.

I, however, stated that if 100% of the aerable land in the entire U.S. were to grow corn and the entire crop to the last ear were converted into ethanol it would only offset 17% of imported oil. I am still working on that answer for you. I just thought this would offer some perspective in the meantime.

o The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix) would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans.

o 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.
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I am just an old dumb country boy but I have two bones to pick concerning ethanol and its detractors.

I am sure that there are material plants more efficient than corn to make alcohol but alcohol made from corn, just corn, no sugar added in the making
filtered through charcoal with good water added to dilute to about 40% and mixed with odds and ends like tomato juice cannot be beaten. However the cost is greater time involved, etc. than potato alcohol which can be purchased cheaper most anywhere, which the Russians call "Wodka".

Now to the learned College Proffessors (sp?) who know to the penny how wasteful the conversion from corn to ethanol is, please design and manufacture me and other users a hydrogen producing fuel cell for less than a thousand bucks I can install in my car and truck and I will shut up......
 
The other side of this coin. It must be noted, however, that this is from the #1 ethanol producing country inu the world. Perhaps some day we can all gather around a corn fed campfire and sing "Kumbaya".

By the way, Castro and Chavez are not the only ones saying the food supply could be threatened. They are simply the two Commies mentioned in this story who have said the same thing that legitimate researchers have said.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/42398/story.htm

Ethanol Boom Won't Threaten Food Supply - Analysts

BRAZIL: June 5, 2007

SAO PAULO - Fears of world food shortages caused by booming use of sugar cane and corn to produce ethanol fuel for motor vehicles are overblown and politically motivated, analysts and politicians said on Monday.

Ethanol producers in Brazil and the United States have been defending themselves from warnings by Cuban President Fidel Castro and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez that growing use of biofuels will worsen hunger in the developing world by encouraging farmers to switch from food crops.

But many agronomists and global political leaders argue that the world has enough arable land to ramp up biofuel production without risking the food supply.

"No serious person can affirm that creating jobs and adding value to existing jobs in the countryside is a risk to the poor people of the world," Felipe Gonzalez, Spain's former prime minister, said at the opening session of a two-day ethanol summit in Sao Paulo, Brazil's business capital.

"This is a false ideological debate," he added, in a swipe at the leftist firebrands Castro and Chavez.

Since ceding power to his younger brother 10 months ago because of health problems, Castro has penned two editorials attacking US plans to increase ethanol production as "genocidal."

Chavez, whose country is a major oil exporter, has said substituting gasoline with ethanol would be "true madness."

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who says he is "obsessed" with ethanol, has dismissed their criticism and defended biofuel production as a way to create jobs in poor rural communities. Brazil is the world's leading producer of sugar cane-based ethanol and a pioneer in the use of biofuels.

ABUNDANT LAND
Some US economists have voiced concern that a surge in ethanol consumption in the United States could drive up the price of corn, the raw material for ethanol in that country.

But other economists say a temporary surge in corn prices does not portend a food shortage, arguing corn and sugar cane production for ethanol can grow significantly without encroaching on other food crops.

"There is enormous potential for growth because there is so much arable land, especially in Latin America," said Silvia Sagari, who heads the finance and basic infrastructure division at the Inter-American Development Bank.

In Brazil, already the world's largest sugar cane producer, cane accounts for less than 9 percent of the country's total planted area, according to the United Nations.

In Sao Paulo state, the heart of Brazil's sugar and ethanol industry, cane accounts for almost 20 percent of all planted area. But the state also has almost 10 million hectares of unused pasture land, some of which could be turned into cane fields to increase ethanol production.

"There's no need to switch other crops for cane. And there's no need to knock down any trees in the Amazon, because cane doesn't grow well in the jungle," said Jose Goldemberg, who heads the Sao Paulo state government's bioenergy division.

In time, research and development may help ethanol producers squeeze more energy out of each cane stalk. New technologies have helped lift productivity levels in Brazil in the last three decades to about 6,000 liters of ethanol per hectare of cane from 2,000, according to industry data.

"The availability of land is only part of the equation," said Lucia Carvalho Pinto de Melo, president of the Center for Strategic Studies and Management, a research center linked to Brazil's energy ministry.

Story by Todd Benson

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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Well the fact is that regardless of all the arguments regarding net energy loss, Peel's original point is correct. Food prices are climbing because of energy prices and one aspect of that is the blind rush to ethanol. Corn prices are climbing(which is why everything we have is corn this year) and beans are less profitable(which is why everything we have is corn this year).

My wife manages a large grocery store and tracks the price increases and the causes. Fuel, both in cost at the pump and effects due to purchasing/planting are the main reasons given. This IS having an effect amnd we WILL have to deal with it.

It's also another example of how the government just flat lies regarding economic figures. Just as "unemployment" only counts those seeking employment through official channels(despite unsupportable claims to the contrary) "inflation" only tracks what looks good at any one time. Actual food costs are up nearly 45% over the past 6 years(less for unprepared foods and more for "ready to eat" items). Just like energy. Just like housing materials. Just like many "durable" goods like used cars. Just like medicines.

But hey, inflation is only a couple precent if you listen to DC. All is well...right...isn't it?
 
Redworm

It takes more energy to refine a gallon of gasoline than that gallon can produce.
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Wrong.

It takes ~8,310 BTUs to refine one gallon of gasoline which can produce 125,000 BTUs / US gal or about 15 times as much energy out as what was put in.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061223183534AAbrHRa

How much energy does it take to produce a gallon of gasoline?

It takes about 2,270,000 Btus to refine 1 ton of gasoline(from the first source). Since gasoline weighs 6 pounds per gallon (from the second source), that is 333 1/3 gallons, so, doing the math, it takes about 8,310 Btu to refine one gallon.

OK, I see you want the cost of drilling and transport too. It is all in the first source. But you will have to do the work, because that source is the homework for some professor's class and it does not have all the answers. The homework is to calculate them. Good luck.
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FIRST SOURCE

SECOND SOURCE
 
SecDef

However, capture energy from a renewable resource (wind/wave/solar{maybe nuclear?!}) to power machinery to create ethanol and there you have it.
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Here is something that may put that in perspective. Simply find a place to put them; and get the NIMBYs and BANANAs to let you put them there; and make the wind blow 24/7/365 and you will have this answer.

http://home.swipnet.se/~w-65189/AP_html/weight_balance.htm

How Many Wind Turbines Would It Take to Replace a Single Off-Shore Drilling Platform Producing 12,000 Barrels of Oil Per Day?

"Let's say that this oil was destined to be converted into electricity at an overall efficiency of 50 % (Combined Cycle Plant, no co-generation). Assuming this was decent quality oil, and not overly burdened with a high sulfur content, this oil would go to make about 10,800 bbls/day of refined products (10 % of it is used to power the refinery/transport the oil). And lets assume the oil had an average thermal content of about 140,000 Btu/gal."

"Using 42 gallons/bbl and a 50 % conversion factor, 1 bbl/day could deliver about 861.2 kw-hr of electricity per day, or about 314.5 MW-hr/yr."

"Where I live (New York), a single Vestas V82 wind turbine placed near the Lake Erie coastline would produce more than 5400 MW-hr/yr. This one turbine would thus be the equivalent of 17 bbls/day of oil used to make electricity. And a lot of oil is burned to make electricity in New York State, in addition to significantly more natural gas."

"Thus tit would take 706 Vestas V82 wind turbines to produce the same amount of electricity that could be made with your 12,000 bbl/day oil well."

"However, if the oil was some of the sour Caspian Sea variety (15wt % sulfur), then the V82 would be the equivalent of about 20 bbls/day of oil."
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Ethanol can not be transported in regular pipelines...:eek: So it uses even more carbon based fuels for transport .

farmers and politicians love it though....
 
I have been gone a few hours but I am back. One reason I do not think there would be riots or any of that sort of thing is because we don’t need to use food grade, or things we would even consider food to create ethanol. Ethanol makes sense on a personal level. It is pointless to have a big company make it for you, you lose all the money you would have saved. for those of you who don’t brew, I suggest looking into it and converting an old tea pot into a bubbling mess.

Also worth noting, I am not suggest we run our house's and business of ethanol...that is something better left to steam.


why cant I transport ethanol in a pipe line? and why do I want to transport it in a pipeline?
 
why cant I transport ethanol in a pipe line? and why do I want to transport it in a pipeline?
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I'm not sure of the first answer but the second is pure economics. Transport through pipelines would be far cheaper than transport by surface transport. Gasoline pipelines criss-cross the U.S. usually along RR rights-of-way. Remember that big explosion out near San Bernardino after a train derailment a few years ago? The train ruptured a gasoline pipeline when it plowed off the tracks and dug into the earth deep enough to expose the pipeline.
 
I don’t want ethanol in pipe lines because at that point some company is making it for me. Probably illegal for the public to make because it’s too dangerous and I am back paying $2.50 for a gallon of gas.
 
If every aerable acre of land in the entire United States were to be planted with corn; and every ear grown turned into ethanol, the offset of foreign oil would be a mere 17%.
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Pimentel found that one acre of U.S. corn field yields about 7,110 pounds of corn, which in turn produces 328 gallons of ethanol.
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US land area*: 9,161,923 sq km = 2,263,960,478 acres
US percentage arable land*: 18.01% = 407,739,282 acres
328 gallons of ethanol per acre = 133,738,484,496 gallons
42 gallons per barrel = 3,184,249,631 barrels per year
365 days per year = 8,723,972 barrels per day
US oil imports*: 13,150,000 barrels per day
= 66.34% potential ethanol replacement of imported oil

* CIA World Fact Book
 
Wrong.

It takes ~8,310 BTUs to refine one gallon of gasoline which can produce 125,000 BTUs / US gal or about 15 times as much energy out as what was put in.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...3183534AAbrHRa
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oh excuuuuuse me, princess. :rolleyes: I should have said procure. But anywho, yahoo answers is not a source and neither of those links actually works.

That being said, it's IMPOSSIBLE to get more energy out of something than you put into it.

Impossible.

Completely.

Claiming that a gallon of gasoline gives you more energy than it took to get that gallon of gasoline ignores basic laws of physics.
 
Ethanol, just like gasoline, or a battery OF COURSE takes more energy to create than it releases
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You're not quite up against Conservation of Energy here. Gasoline comes from oil which is underground somewhere. Did it take more energy to create the oil than you get from the gasoline? Well, yeah, but the energy came from the sun over millions of years. So, it's essentially free to us, but not unlimited. The dinosaurs paid for it. We just have to get it out of the ground.


Does it take more energy to refine a gallon of gas than you get from the gas? Man, I hope not. Otherwise, I'm going to start driving around in a refinery.


The battery thing, yeah, it takes more energy to charge the battery than you get out of it. The dinosaurs didn't poop out batteries for zillions of years, so we have to use oil to make electricity to charge batteries.


As for ethanol, I guess it depends on how you make it. The guy who turns Krispy Kreme doughnuts into ethanol might spend more gas getting the doughnuts than he can make from them. Unless he lives right next door to a doughnut shop that routinely way overestimates the number of doughnuts they're going to need that day. There are a lot of variables.
 
well....now that you mention it, they have cut back on the number of doughnuts they throw out. but I do live just down the street from the place.

as for the gasoline being more energy efficient to make over ethanol...they really use the same things to be produced.

gasoline has had a very long time to develop its self and everything is set up to work with gas.

and now that I think about...ethanol should be cheaper to manufacture due to its lower boiling temp....I am not sure what temp gasoline boils, but I think its more then ethanol.
 
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