The future of ethanol and fuel cells / great article!(Washington Monthly)

[xray s]

Check this article out. Very interesting research into cost effective ethanol production using biomass other that corn, and breakthroughs in fuel cell technology.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.jaffe

[The Zanti Regent]

1. Don't worry, the Oil companies will suppress this!

I'm sure that the Nazi Party is doing everything possible to sabotage it!

[GHOSTDANCER]

2. Your'e fooling yourself if you think there is still.....

<>

[brokensymmetry]

3. I've got a question.

Let's suppose that ethanol is practical...and let's ignore the need for fertilizer based on petroleum products.

It's my understanding that a lot of the world's food production depends on petroleum based fertilizer, pesticides, and farming equipment. As oil gets more expensive, food gets more expensive - and, perhaps, less available.

What happens to the ethanol choice when we start having to choose between eating and fueling our vehicles?

[xray s]

4. read the link

the new technologies use waste biomass (stalks/leaves) instead of the corn. Plus, they can use other biomass (they mention switchgrass. I have heard hemp would make a great feedstock too).

These new technologies do not rely on food to make ethaol so the choice of food vs energy is moot.

[NNadir]

7. I think the technology described here is definitely valuable.

First I agree that ethanol, like hydrogen, has been way over hyped, and that the environmental costs of these schemes has been vastly minimized.

Still, on balance, I think it may be possible that ethanol can provide a usable fraction of our energy needs, albeit a relatively minor one, particularly in farm states, depending on the efficiency with which it is made.

Cellulosic ethanol is an advantage, since it theoretically eliminates the food/fuel dichotomy: Humans do not digest cellulose. Under these circumstances, if the technology lives up to it's promise, it is possible to imagine that plant stems, as opposed to grains, could be used for ethanol production. Depending on their particular design, fuel cells can offer some real gains in efficiency and it certainly possible to imagine farming equipment powered by ethanol fuel cell driven electric motors.

The real problem with ethanol schemes has been, and may continue to be that they are largely water based batch processes as opposed to continuous processes involving relatively high purity starting materials. This has been the chief environmental and economic limitation on ethanol based fuel growth.

As for the organic chemical needs of the future, we are fortunate to live in a golden age of chemistry. Theoretically at least it is possible to obtain serviceable bulk chemicals from just about any feedstock. Ethanol is now made from ethylene, a fossil fuel. The reverse process is available, assuming a source of energy.

In the twenty first century it is not that energy is not available, but that the methods of producing energy must be changed. Making responsible choices in how we make this change is the challenge, a challenge that requires a responsible and educated public. Creating a responsible and educated public in turn is the real difficult task. There will be very little hope of achieving this goal in the United States unless John Kerry is elected President.

[cjohn17]

10. Earth is Not Getting Warmer... Algore's "Raison D'etre" in Jeopardy

Better call Dave Matthews, too. Ben and Jerry are inconsolable.

Studies Also Show Climate Models Break from Reality Says NCPA Scholar.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Contrary to popular myth the Earth is not warming significantly, according to new research published last month in Geophysical Research Letters by scientists with the universities of Rochester and Virginia.

The reports note two important findings that run counter to the view that human activity is causing catastrophic global warming.

"It's been known for some time that satellites and surface thermometers give different temperature trends," said one of the reports' co-authors Prof. S. Fred Singer, president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). "We now have independent confirmation that the satellite results are correct and that the climate is not warming." Prof. Singer, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is also a former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service.

Proponents of global warming theory have long pointed to thermometer measurements at the Earth's surface as proof that the Earth is warming. Other scientists have pointed to balloon and satellite readings of temperatures in the Earth's lower atmosphere that show no significant warming. The scientists from the universities of Rochester and Virginia employed a new, independent way of determining the temperature, using historic meteorological climate data to construct temperature values for each grid cell of the Earth at an equivalent height of two meters. This analysis agreed with the satellite and balloon measurements, establishing that the disparity is close to the surface and mainly in the tropics.

In another report, the Rochester/Virginia scientists found that the computer climate models used to assert that the introduction of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO2), into the atmosphere is causing the Earth to warm, and that the effect increases with altitude becoming twice as strong at about three miles up, are in stark contrast to the actual data of the past quarter-century. Comparing the results from the three commonly cited climate models with four independent observational data sets, the scientists found that the models all showed temperatures increasing with altitude, while the actual observations showed the opposite occurred.

"If the global climate is not warming, why all the fuss?" asked Singer. "The whole issue of controlling CO2 emissions is moot."

The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D.C., that advocates private solutions to public policy problems. NCPA depends on the contributions of individuals, corporations and foundations that share its mission. The NCPA accepts no government grants.

[NNadir]

12. Here we have our little bushie boy dragging out bushie boy paid

"scientists" to advance scientifically illiterate commentary.

Doesn't wash here, bub. Quick, what is the absorption maximum for CO2?

As for Fred Singer, he is hardly a environmental scientist, is he?

Or does the ability to launch satellites imply in Bush world (where pronouncements and dogma are untroubled by reality and facts) to be confused with an understanding of atmospheric chemistry?

Singer was trained at Ohio State in Electrical Engineering and got a PhD in Physics from Princeton. That's Physics which is hardly a degree in metereology, hardly a degree in atmospheric chemistry. Oh, yes, and he's a political hack for the Cato Institute, a collection of science despising Bushies who are trying to undermine the quality of science in the United States by hiring PhD's in unrelated fields to comment on one another's work.

In fact Dr. Singer is unqualified by profession to comment on the subject about which he generates considerable drivel, appealing only to those with very limited educations who fall for the frequently employed logical fallacy (which we repeated bring up here) of "appeal to authority." Here is why it's a "fallacy," bub: Almost everyone who employs it appeals to authorities who are not qualified to speak on the subjects about which the authority is implied. What this particular mindless hack used to do, before selling mock scientific credibility to the scientifically illiterate in order to snow the scientifically illiterate, was to design rockets and spacecraft.

When you search Dr. Singer on the internet, what you get is a lot of drivel attacking Al Gore. Well I guess he's "Non-partisan," at least in the universe of doublespeak religious hacks of the Bush apologists, who think can't tell the difference between a tractor trailer and a cache of world ending apolcalyptic weapons of mass destruction, who can't tell the difference between trillions of dollars in debt and a balanced budget, who can't tell the difference between a terrorist and a minor despot, who can't tell the difference between a polluted sky and a clear sky, who can't tell the difference between cheese and chalk, who can't tell the difference between a healthy forest and a clear cut forest, who can't tell the difference between Brittany Spears and Madonna, who can't tell the difference between limited government and kicking down the doors to see who you're in bed with, who can't tell the difference between the constitution and fiats from the fuhrer...

Hey, that gives me an idea! Why not get Dr. Singer to declare Iraqi children potential weapons of mass destruction? I mean he's nearly as qualified to rule on the psychology of Iraqi children (who might grow up to be 'terrorists' and need some of that Bushie pre-emption) as he is to comment on reading a thermometer, isn't he? He's a "scientist" and we know that every "scientist" (especially those in the Cato Institute) knows everything about everything, especially when we need scientific doublespeak to confront our obvious failures as rational thinking beings.

Go away twirp. You bother us.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bdog]

17. Value of manure

http://eesc.orst.edu/agcomwebfile/edmat/html/EM/EM8586/EM8586.html
Nitrogen generally is the limiting nutrient to plant growth and the most expensive to purchase. Nitrogen in commercial fertilizer costs approximately 30 cents per pound and $5 per acre to apply. Phosphorus costs 20 cents per pound, and potassium costs 15 cents per pound.

Figure 5 shows the annual fertilizer value of manure from 100 dairy cows. This illustration does not take into account loss during storage or handling or incomplete availability of nutrients.

If losses and incomplete availability are taken into account, the annual value of nutrients in manure from 100 lactating cows exceeds $10,000.

Proper management of manure can increase farm profits and reduce risk of environmental damage.

[Trillo]

5. I couldn't get much farther in the article than this bull:

"And while Kerry is on the right track when he argues that the only long-term solution to our dependence on imported oil is "inventing our way out of it," his plan to move America to a hydrogen economy by 2020 doesn't go much beyond President Bush's plan for funding more research on hydrogen-powered vehicles. According to an MIT study published last year, even aggressive research is unlikely to put a viable hydrogen car on the road during the next two decades--and wouldn't even necessarily produce less carbon than today's hybrid automobiles."

That paragraph is flat out wrong.

http://www.auto123.com/en/info/news/news,view.spy?artid=26667&pg=1
http://www.ford.com/en/innovation/engineFuelTechnology/hydrogenInternalCombustion.htm
http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/FuelCellToday/IndustryInformation/IndustryInformationExternal/IndustryInformationDisplayArticle/0,1588,668,00.html
http://www.focaljet.com/allsite/content/h2rv.html
("Two H2RV vehicles, based upon the best-selling Ford Focus wagon, are now on the streets of southeastern Michigan, generating thousands of real-world miles. ... Emissions from the H2RV of all pollutants, including carbon dioxide, are nearly zero.)

[AZCat]

6. The problem isn't with the car

The problem is with the fuel. While using compressed gaseous hydrogen as the fuel produces very low emissions from the car, the hydrogen must be produced using energy from another source. Currently in the US our dominant energy source is coal (I think we get about 50% of our energy from it).

While a H2RV might be efficient, we still need to get around the problem of dirty energy sources elsewhere or the total carbon being produced won't change significantly.

[Trillo]

8. I understand, but that's not what the sentence I bolded stated.

Essentially, that sentence, quoting some nebulous MIT source, said that a "viable hydrogen car" was "unlikely."

The "hydrogen 'car'" is not the problem!

http://www.focaljet.com/allsite/content/h2rv.html :

"H2RV is proven technology - it could be put into production," said Dr. Gerhard Schmidt, vice president, Ford Research and Advanced Engineering. "What we are lacking are the other two legs of this three-legged stool - a fueling infrastructure for hydrogen, and uniform laws and regulations that will allow its use across the nation."

It appears that "innovation" is stymied by "laws and regulations" that appear to disallow the use of hydrogen powered cars across the whole nation.

With today's oil-based deceit ecopolitics, I presume the stymieing laws and regulations are designed deliberately to keep alternate technologies from "competing" with oil.


On edit, add:
I think this is what some 50+ years of increasingly obscene campaign contributions have brought all citizens: Special laws for select corporations.

[Trillo]

11. Hydrogen Production Methods

Production methods for Hydrogen:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/RE/hydrogen_production.html

Using Photoelectrochemical, here's one technique being investigated, and it looks like the research is "old", but the page isn't specifically dated:
http://www.hionsolar.com/n-hion96.htm

At high temperatures, above about 1800 K, water vapor (steam) begins to dissociate into a mixture of H2, O2, H2O, O, H and OH. The extent of dissociation increases with increasing temperature and decreasing pressure. The water and the diatomic hydrogen and oxygen species completely dissociate into H(atomic hydrogen) and O (atomic oxygen) above about 3500 K under equilibrium conditions at 1 mm Hg absolute pressure. ... The pumping losses and glow-discharge losses are, in reality, electrical power requirements, which, if met by photo-voltaic means, can be considered a capital cost.

Search Engines provide many similar sites.

[AZCat]

15. It's not the knowledge we lack

We know how to do it. But what gets skipped in the discussion in the Major Media is how to develop the infrastructure necessary to provide accessible hydrogen to the consumer. This is where Dubya gets sneaky- funding research for the actual vehicle doesn't do jack for promoting actual use (your point above about the three-legged stool is good). He can throw a few million to the auto companies to keep their R&D programs alive, but unless we develop an Eisenhower-like plan for hydrogen fuel supply, we will get nowhere.

For reference:
Here is the MIT article referring to the MIT study by name

Here is a link to the study itself (warning- pdf file - 254 kb)

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, I will do that sometime today.

[Trillo]

16. Thanks for the link to the MIT PDF.

For the record, in the post above, that quote about the three-legged stool wasn't mine: I selected that quoted paragraph from the link above it.

The MIT study was to compare: Fuel Cell (FC) vehicles running on hydrogen derived from either natural gas or onboard conversion from gasoline, versus Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles running on gas/diesel mixtures, making assumptions regarding typical improvements expected over the next 20 years in vehicle weight, as well as rolling and wind resistance. However, the last sentence of the study abstract says that hydrogen derived from non-fossil sources (or from fossil with carbon sequestration) is the only identified method of lowering greenhouse gas emissions further than the study's concluded levels.

Very Important: The MIT authors didn't study non-fossil-fuel-derived hydrogen-powered vehicles!

The link I provided above to hionsolar.com is one such process to derive hydrogen without fossil fuel (carbon).

The Ford Focus in the focaljet.com site is an ICE running on hydrogen. Ford is not the only company that has built working hydrogen-powered cars.

Almost any existing ICE can be converted to run on a gaseous fuel including propane, CNG, or hydrogen.

~~~~~~

Regarding the points about the current lack of hydrogen producing and distributing infrastructure, that does indeed need stimulus. Maybe Kerry can do that--I don't know.

I do know that Bush appears hosteled up with his oil buddies.

[fedsron2us]

13. Interesting article. Thanks for posting it.

Unfortunately, our current leaders seem to regard war as the solution to all energy problems.

It would be interesting to know what the EROEI is for the current debacle in Iraq.

[Bdog]

14. Any body that thinks Penmital is a good source of information

is seriously misinformed.

http://www.saljournal.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/2879/format/html/displaystory.html

But here’s the reality: The debate over ethanol’s net energy was largely a strawman, and a strawman constructed with faulty data at that. The relevant issue is whether burning ethanol as a fuel reduces greenhouse gases.

It does.

from page A1

And ethanol plants are making a killing right now — without subsidies. At current prices, profit margins easily can exceed 40 percent.