Ethanol is derived from agricultural products which already embody some 4 - 5 calories of fossil fuel energy at farm gate. I’m not sure if that accounts for the cast iron and steel in the farming and transportation equipment, as that embodies a pile of energy. The price of corn in the US is fairly heavily subsidized by a variety of programs, as are the fossil fuels and natural gas used in farming in equipment and fertilizer production, and later distilling, so the dollar cost of ethanol is not a reliable reflection of the net energy gain of the process. Most sources of information put ethanol production as a net loss.
Just as a general thought experiment, if ethanol production was an energy source it would be used to fuel the distillation. I’m afraid ethanol is a pork barrel for industrial and agricultural subsidy and spin offs to industrial feedlots, and genius greenwashing.
All this globel warming i dont see in the masters blue print in our life time as far as the death by ice.Most all will be eating drinking and giveing untoo mirage up intoo the time of the end is what i beleive. Not that the earth has not had ice ages and or may have more, i dont think its in our time frame.(Just My opinion)
I read some place the largest producer of Ethanol in Canada was Exxon Mobile.
They use natural gas as a feed stock.
What I am not sure of is where all this ethanol goes and I do not know where the ethanol in my fuel tank comes from.
My preferred Ethanol source is a 500ml beer can from the LCBO
The issue with solar is the fossil fuel power required to manufacture the panels (transportation and cabling embodying additional energy). Again the cost of the power generated isn’t an accurate reflection of total cost to society due to subsidies in fossil fuel production. I have read estimates that at least 9 years are required for energy break even of the panels in good locations and installations. Cabling, inverters etc for grid tie systems probably represent years more to net energy gain. Lead battery based systems require nearly 30 years to breakeven, so in fact they probably never produce a net gain.
We could conceivably spend all our remaining fossil fuel energy to get less back. If there are significant breakthroughs in solar pv efficiency that would make solar truly valuable.
Not quite, we moved the subsidies from agriculture to ethanol about 20 years ago because people complained about the subsidies for not growing anything and the price support money which gave farmers a subsistence because the price was so low.
The main problem is 180 countries ban or limit imports so we can’t sell it. So we turned it into an oxygenate to replace MTBE which we were importing from Qatar. And they kept screwing with the prices.
Over the last 20 years, they have improved the process to where it is a slight energy gain. We are also able to export the distillers grain as a feed additive which gets around some of the import limits.
So as a country it doesn’t really cost is anything and it keeps property values up in farm country and actually brings in more trade money.
The Europeans are the ones who have constantly complained about our ag industry. Namely because they have to heavily subsidize their own industry.
How many billion tons of lithium would be required for powering the world vehicle and tractor fleet? I don’t think the planet has a sufficient amount to replicate anything close to what we have developed for fossil fuel consumption, or could afford the power to extract it and manufacture the physical batteries. And the issues of the power grid needed to power that. The renewable generation would be immense, to a degree that the physical scale would alter continental weather.
Wood gas / biomass gas is probably the height of efficiency that can ever be gotten from a solar system unless there’s a breakthrough in PV efficiency, and for portable fuel probably greatest system efficiency from renewables. Sweden used to maintain a strategic emergency plan in case of lack of fossil fuels. Their estimate was Swedish wood supplies would run low in about 4 years.
I feel much thinking is being dedicated to replicating the failing current system, which has been essentially a 150 year bonfire that can be replicated once every several tens of millions of years. As much as we love excess energy, this model won’t continue to work.
The carbon footprint of the modules made in Spain (which has a cleaner grid than the average in Europe) is 37.3 and 31.8 gCO2e/kWh for mono-si and multi-si, respectively, while the energy payback times are 1.9 and 1.6 years. However, for the modules made in China, the carbon footprint is 72.2 and 69.2 gCO2e/kWh for mono-si and multi-si, respectively, while the energy payback times are 2.4 and 2.3 years. [13]
Garry your 9 year estimate is way off.
As to the comment about cabling I don’t follow you. Are your saying the one run from the roof to the inverter box in the house is that big a deal? The power company has miles and miles of cables to reach my house so does the cable company. Any cables for a solor system at your home are trivial in comparison.
Not to mention the efficiency issues with our current power grid. It takes alot of ff to get the power to your house.
As to your question about global lithium supply I have never heard it raised as a concern anywhere else. I still think similar to lead acid batteries where something on the order of 98% of all lead is recycled recycling is probably the answer if there is a limited supply. But there are other battery chemistries out there as well.
Another book you might like is “twilight in the desert” by Matt Simmons. I agree with everything you’ve said regarding energy demand vs supply. Right now, US fracking has taken the pressure off the supply side, but I don’t think this technology is solid for the long term. I’d hate to see long term irreversible contamination of the water table or whatever else may come about.
There is one potential saviour on the energy front, and that is nuclear fusion. Battery tech will need improvement before the transporting side can be figured out, either that or fusion powered hydrogen production will be the new gasoline.
Twilight in the Desert is a peak oil era book, Matt is dead now. He was an industry insider and an advisor to George W. I’m sure you’ve probably watched all the peak oil documentaries on YouTube, if so you already know all about him. You’re right, no one knows what reserves are left, the numbers are fudged because sales quotas are tied to reserves for OPEC nations, and none of them want to give up market share by telling the truth. Book is definitely worth a read.
I just look after my own household, hope for the best, prepare for the worst. No one would listen if I told them trouble was coming anyway.
The big study everyone from the FF industry was quoting, used like 8% efficient panels from like 2002. It was used for German propaganda against EnergieWende as was exported to the Americas.
China actually makes thin film solar panels, which don’t use silicon. China makes the silicon but they don’t use the coal fired kilns anymore. They switched to electric. They have since been erasing coal power plants and installing record amounts of solar and wind capacity. In fact, they just canceled building of 104 coal plants.
as would the fossil fuel industry. 90% of coal comes from government owned property… So there would be no coal without subsidies. A lot of ng/oil also come off federal property as well. We heavily subsidized the fossil fuel industry billions if not trillions of dollars over the last 80 years without counting the fact it is on our property.
But you should look at the result of the actual progress that has been made.
When you look at those pollution pics from china where you can’t see across the road because of all the particulate in the air, it’s no wonder they’re cancelling coal plants lol!
They also made a huge LNG deal with Russia a couple years back.
Sean the article I quoted that from is linked to in the post it is a more modern study. That is why the energy payback went from about 9 years to the 1 to 2 years listed there. Solar has come along ways in the last 10 years.
More recently, they made a deal to flatten the grid between china, south korea, japan, and maybe like malaysia or taiwan. so they are running an undersea cable to connect everyone together.
Linking the ring of fire with underground power cables doesn’t seem like a good idea. Tiawan is very unstable I was there for a year and a half and earthquakes are common.
Fracking is about the most environmentally damaging process for short term gains I have ever seem in a long time. Like mentioned it is only a few years of oil, but causes earthquakes and pollutes the ground water with the injection of waste fluids into the ground water supply.
