Does cellulosic ethanol only apply to vehicles?

Question

or does it apply to home energy, factories and other sources?

Please list them for me, thank you.

Answer 1

The previous posters about the energy input are incorrect. If the only product you produced was ethanol then yes, you'd be wasting a lot of energy, but the mash left over is great animal feed and also the corn oil is separated during cooking. Most new facilities are also using their own waste product to produce the heat needed. When you put that all together, there is a much higher yield than some would have you think.

Ethanol is ethanol, and cellulostic ethanol is the 'holy grail' of renewable energy. When we are able to crack lignocellulose to get at the stored solar energy it contains, then any plant material could be converted into fuel. It will add value to non irrigated crops, like switchgrass or the current agricultural chaff wastes which currently go unused.

There are many uses for ethanol, but it's highest value would be as transportation fuel. It is currently used as a solvent for various applications, and as the base for alcoholic beverages. Some have experimented with making plastics as well, but I place one in my compost pile 2 years ago and it hasn't broken down yet.

I hope this helped. Good Luck!

Answer 2

"Ethanol currently requires more energy to produce than is recovered by burning it."

This is very controversial.  It's a complicated analysis, and the result one gets depends on exactly how you do the analysis.  Such things as how you treat usable byproducts of the process can flip the answer from one side to another.

A number of competent analyses, giving different results, here:

http://www.journeytoforever.org/ethanol_...

Most scientists agree it's a small net win.

Answer 3

You can use it for anything you want.

Answer 4

The source of the ethanol means nothing with respect to it's use.

Ethanol currently requires more energy to produce than is recovered by burning it.

Answer 5

Bob hit the nail-on-the-head.  The return is low but there is a very small return.  I recall it being about 84-86% energy ratio.  Meaning you have a 14-16% yield.  

Compared to regular fuels this is very low.  And when you look at the profit margin for the Big Three...well, it is too low for them to even consider.  

Here is a question for you - what was the 4th, 1st and 2nd quarter profits for Texaco?  Once you find that out then you may be aware of how much ethanol it would take to even come close to these numbers.