[CrstlSnail]

Originally Posted by jrdenn

Time just had an article on how the ethanol craze is fucking everything up. It is actually causing food shortages, we're taking food out of kids mouth and putting in our gas tanks.

There are alternatives. Switchgrass is a crop that is easy to produce and can be grown without a lot of maintenance. It's more expensive to process than corn, but switchgrass ethanol burns cleaner and reduces potentially harmful gases. And, unlike corn, switchgrass is not harvested for eating (not for humans, at least). It doesn't matter which way we turn. At the end of the day, biofuel is a renewable resource, and crude oil is not. It'd be nice to relax our dependence on foreign markets for crude oil.

[Vorenus]

Cane by GNP

[Zvengeance]

Originally Posted by Blank Creep

Currently it takes 176 gallons of crude to produce 175 gallons of ethanol.

gg

/thread

[Bla-Sume]

Thanks to everyone for sharing this information.

In Canadian they have the tar sands which have lots of oil in it. However, from what I know, we use more energy to get the oil out of the sand then we overall gain - and theres a bunch of pollution involved.

[Aas Gutú Adéli]

Originally Posted by CrstlSnail

There are alternatives. Switchgrass is a crop that is easy to produce and can be grown without a lot of maintenance. It's more expensive to process than corn, but switchgrass ethanol burns cleaner and reduces potentially harmful gases. And, unlike corn, switchgrass is not harvested for eating (not for humans, at least). It doesn't matter which way we turn. At the end of the day, biofuel is a renewable resource, and crude oil is not. It'd be nice to relax our dependence on foreign markets for crude oil.

Also, I can't remember the ratios, but I do remember the rankings of efficiency.

with approximations from memory
Corn (1.5:1 at current, 1:1.5 potential, 1.5 units of energy in gets 1 unit of energy out, not good, the US subsidizes corn ethanol to compete with gas and sugar ethanol)
Sugar (1:2 at current, 1:3 potential, energy profit! Sugar isn't a big US product, it is imported, so to protect the US farmer's corn they put substantial tariffs on the import of sugar ethanol so it can't compete with gas or corn ethanol)
Tree Bark (1:10 potential, not currently doable, but scientists have looked at the enzymes of worms that eat tree bark and are becoming familiar with the process of converting bark into ethanol. The 1:10 is considering the proper raising of the trees, the culling of the trees and the rendering of the trees to ethanol).

I don't know the ratio for Switchgrass.

[Aas Gutú Adéli]

Originally Posted by Blank Creep

Currently it takes 176 gallons of crude to produce 175 gallons of ethanol.

This is for Corn ethanol.
Sugar whoops its ass.

The prevalence of corn ethanol is political pandering and it is having repercussions on food supplies. It is moving the burden/demand from gasoline to corn (artificially).

I've heard some politicians state that it is only a between step to reduce our oil dependency and create an infrastructure for moving to better ethanols.

I hope the politicians remember: between step, don't stay on it long.

[Jay Pan ROKK]

Originally Posted by BIel Casen

They just found a huge petroleum reserve off the Brazilian coast. Its supposed to be one of the three largest ever found.

Kind of ironic now that they're all ethanol'd up.

Haha, true, it is ironic, however oil is not renewable as ethanol.

Brazil will sell oil to the world, as soon as they know how to get it.

[Jay Pan ROKK]

Originally Posted by Blank Creep

Currently it takes 176 gallons of crude to produce 175 gallons of ethanol.

No, just no.

Ethanol is good business, energy wise.

[Jay Pan ROKK]

Originally Posted by jrdenn

Time just had an article on how the ethanol craze is fucking everything up. It is actually causing food shortages, we're taking food out of kids mouth and putting in our gas tanks.

There is not a food shortage, quite the contrary there are more food today than ever before on human history.

The increase of food price is related to China and India, these guys are starting to eat, finally.

Which is a good thing.

[Jay Pan ROKK]

Originally Posted by CrstlSnail

There are alternatives. Switchgrass is a crop that is easy to produce and can be grown without a lot of maintenance. It's more expensive to process than corn, but switchgrass ethanol burns cleaner and reduces potentially harmful gases. And, unlike corn, switchgrass is not harvested for eating (not for humans, at least). It doesn't matter which way we turn. At the end of the day, biofuel is a renewable resource, and crude oil is not. It'd be nice to relax our dependence on foreign markets for crude oil.

That is the way to go.