[kartaron]

Originally Posted by Jay Pan ROKK

First, there is scam in every business and oil is the biggest, imo.

Second, just change corn to hemp, switchgrass or sugar cane and all food problems are gone.

There is still a problem with actual arable land. Not enough acreage available for growing fuel.

[busdriver01]

The solution is to enforce ethanol

Forcing the population to use ethenol will just inflate ethenol prices. Hence defeating the point.

[Jay Pan ROKK]

Originally Posted by kartaron

There is still a problem with actual arable land. Not enough acreage available for growing fuel.

This maybe is true only in Europe where every single area already is taken.

USA farmers are being payed to not farm, these guys should work.

Then we have south and central america, almost all africa, good part of asia to expand.

For example, Brazil can grow 30% of arable land in a blink of the eye, without hurting any protect forest, another 30% is possible if roads also were build.

[Jay Pan ROKK]

Originally Posted by busdriver01

Forcing the population to use ethenol will just inflate ethenol prices. Hence defeating the point.

Here is the trick, mix ethanol with regular gas, to begin like 5%, then add 2% every year.

Farmers will increase ethanol production regularly.

Cars can run this mix up to 25% of ethanol without a change, people will not even notice.

This process will run for 10 or 20 years, the sooner we start drop dependence on oil the better.

[AZ BJJ]

Originally Posted by Jay Pan ROKK

First, there is scam in every business and oil is the biggest, imo.

Second, just change corn to hemp, switchgrass or sugar cane and all food problems are gone.

Yeah, what he said. My goodness, we can grow both energy and food, and can do it more effectively and efficiently than nearly any other nation on Earth. Now, we just have to do it.

[vogues157]

Originally Posted by Chesten_Hesten

On peak oil production:

What You Need to Know about Peak Oil - Article - OmniNerd

Good article. Here is the part of it I found to be most disturbing in regards to ethanol:

Because ethanol contains a lower energy density than gasoline, this is the energy equivalent of about 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline. In other words we are using 14% of our corn crop to produce an alternative fuel equivalent to 2% of our gasoline consumption. If we turned 100% of the corn crop into ethanol, we would produce the equivalent of less than 15% of our annual gasoline consumption. And this analysis doesn’t even take into consideration that ethanol requires substantial fossil fuel inputs in order to produce it, reducing the net energy produced even more.

[chriskiss]

Originally Posted by Jay Pan ROKK

Here is the trick, mix ethanol with regular gas, to begin like 5%, then add 2% every year.

Farmers will increase ethanol production regularly.

Cars can run this mix up to 25% of ethanol without a change, people will not even notice.

This process will run for 10 or 20 years, the sooner we start drop dependence on oil the better.

Let me start with your argument about ethanol not impacting food production. Firstly, you're displacing food crops by now growing food. Second, you're using up farmers who will want to grow ethanol crops because it is more profitable.

Now, the ethanol argument. Ethanol and water mixtures have something called an azeotrope. This means that the mixture can only be distilled to a particular purity; in this case, 95% purity of ethanol. It takes a lot of energy or extra reactants in order to produce the 99.5% purity that is required for ethanol to be an additive in gasoline. The net energy used to produce fuel grade ethanol is negative. Ethanol is a lie that the government has adopted in order to assure the public that the energy crisis is not a crisis.

[chriskiss]

Originally Posted by AZ BJJ

Yeah, what he said. My goodness, we can grow both energy and food, and can do it more effectively and efficiently than nearly any other nation on Earth. Now, we just have to do it.

Everyone agrees that corn is not the solution. America cannot grow the other crops. Sucarcane and switchgrass do not grow in your climate and good luck trying to grow hemp. Hemp has been touted for making superior everything from paper to health foods and it grows like a weed (pun definitely intended). The reason it hasn't been grown is because of the stigma associated with it. It just hasn't happened and for that reason, I assume it never will until there is an even greater need.

[Mithra]

Originally Posted by chriskiss

Everyone agrees that corn is not the solution. America cannot grow the other crops. Sucarcane and switchgrass do not grow in your climate and good luck trying to grow hemp. Hemp has been touted for making superior everything from paper to health foods and it grows like a weed (pun definitely intended). The reason it hasn't been grown is because of the stigma associated with it. It just hasn't happened and for that reason, I assume it never will until there is an even greater need.

Switchgrass and sugarcane may not grow well here in the U.S, but that can be changed using bioengineering.

The real problem is whether you can produce a net positive, which I think is possible and whether we have enough arable land to grow enough fuel...which is questionable.

I like the potential of bacteria that produces ethanol from gas emissions, I could see burning coal and then piping the gas into a "well" full of algae or this bacterium that then turns the gas emissions into further fuel

[chriskiss]

Bacterium that produce ethanol is a good concept. The issue is that you can't get a high concentration once again. Once you reach a certain level of ethanol, the bacterium die so you're forced to constantly remove the ethanol as it's produced at a low concentration.

This form of ethanol would be useful for cracking but not as a burning fuel. I fully support it if they can apply it to fuel cells.