SRBeef":2hi6f4ji said:
The energy balance calculation on ethanol can be calculated to show any result one wants to come up with. People with degrees after their names can (and do) calculate completely opposite answers, depending on who is paying their consulting bill.
It's all in your initial assumptions including how the corn was grown. Corn grain based ethanol can show a very positive net energy balance.
Jim
See what the American public doesn't understand is Exxon etc is in the money business not energy.
If it was cheaper to make energy out cow manure tomorrow they wouldn't drill another well.
That is one of the reasons a major refinery hasn't been built since 1974 you can't build one and pay for it in the next twenty years. Another reason diesel is so high it is cheaper to send it overseas or convert it to gasoline than build the units to remove sulfur to EPA requirements.
Btu's is what drives your vehicle no matter what it is.
That is just science you can't get around. A gallon of gasoline with out ethanol is roughly 115,000 btu's depending on winter time or summertime blend with ethanol 110,000. You are buying less energy per gallon so you have to buy more fuel to move X load Y distance.
Diesel is 130,000 btus per gallon or if you want to put it in pounds a gallon of diesel is 7.2 pounds gasoline 6.0 pounds.
This is why people think their diesel truck is getting better mileage per gallon and it is on a gallon basis.
On a pound basis it is not. The reason it is not sold on the pound basis is due to what is known as fluffing the barrel.
Through catalytic conversion and hydrogen uptake the oil industry has had the technology to expand the barrel volume by 15 % since WWII.
So a 100 barrels go in and 115 come out of higher octane than the original feedstock you can't do that with ethanol.
Gasoline is a higher energy cheaper fuel to produce with a infrastructure in place to move it. Again ethanol sucks in the transportation department as it absorbs water so ship and pipeline are the least desirable methods. Ethanol and water are miscible liquids is where the problem is created.
Oil and water don't mix. Pouring 10 mL of olive oil into 10 mL of water results in two distinct layers, clearly separated by a curved meniscus. Each layer has the same volume and essentially the same composition as the original liquids. Because very little mixing has apparently occured, the liquids are called "immisicible" or unmixable .
Pouring grain alcohol into water results in a single liquid phase. No meniscus forms between the alcohol and the water, and the two liquids are considered "miscible".
