Is the net environmental cost of ethanol better than fossil fuels?

Question

I have read a few places that the energy used (ie planting, transporting, and creating) to make ethanol is more than fossil fuels. Everyone keeps talking about how good it is in and of itself but I hear very little about the big picture. I wonder if the negatives I am hearing are coming from the fossil fuel industry or that because we are so excited about something that is not a fossil fuel we are not being intelligent about it.

Answer 1

Everything depends on the place. Here in America most primary energy is going to come from coal or oil. Even to make batteries  you will use energy that comes from a fossil source. To rely in natural removable forces, wind, sun, geothermal,  we have first to reduce our energy requirements. Otherwise we still forced to use fossil fuels because they are cheaper and easier to harness.

Answer 2

Ethanol is not worth it in the case of corn and sugarcane.  However switch grass will grow about anywhere with little effort and can yield up to a 540% return on energy investment.

Answer 3

The ethanol will be the more expensive but when it comes down to work done they will produce about the same CO2.

Answer 4

It costs quite a bit per gallon to make and much of it is subsidized and hidden.  It then is expensive to transport and store.  It is slightly less fuel efficient.  I think it is more like 80 per cent as much mpg, (not 5 per cent).   Personally I think it is a boondoggle for farmers and a bad idea.  It has some potential, but I don't think corn is the answer.  It is just an opportunity for politicians to throw money at voters and campaign donors.

Answer 5

right know to make cars that run on etanol would be alot of money and they don't even get neer to what to day's cars would for gas. the mpg are so low it is like 5 mpg and the fule cost more to so for right know yea but i see us using it in the next 30 years or so

Answer 6

There are two camps on this subject: one that over counts the amount of fuel used and one that under counts the amount of fuel used to produce ethanol.

The anti-ethanol camp adds in costs that don't exist like irrigation. Almost no corn is irrigated. They won't consider by products of ethanol production such as cattle feed and fertilizer. Some of the studies assume everyone is using 1970s gasoline tractors. The studies backing this point of view are almost always backed by the oil industry and almost all of them are produced by one scientist in California that really doesn't seem to like ethanol.

The pro-ethanol camp has a bad habit of not including all of the costs. Such as the fact that production doesn't always run at peak efficiency. Some of their studies leave out the farm production, etc, etc. These studies are produced by a wide variety of Universities and organizations across the USA.

The end result is that ethanol is probably better for the environment than straight gasoline, but not by a huge amount. At least 20 percent better, and likely higher. Most studies put it between 20 and 70 percent gain in efficiency.

Answer 7

One side of this question really takes in bigger issues than fossil vs ethanol as such, as it is about logical use of the crops and farm land ect. Technically, the energy cost to produce argument against ethanol is somewhat false logic, since that is an indictment of farming as such, never mind the product, and it too COULD be done more cleanly.

Ethanol, in the end as it is being made can't be the whole solution, but it IS technically closer to "Carbon neutral" at least, even with all the critical comments of production cost/carbon, since in Us, it takes less energy to refine and transport and is by definition a recycling of atmospheric carbon.

What you should be asking yourself is this; Why is biogas NEVER even mentioned as a possible replacement for both coal power and fossil fuels?

Particularly since it would reduce Methane being released to the Ozone, and can be made from any green waste, not what would otherwise be food, unlike Ethanol which it is claimed CAN be made this way by highly technical process....

Methane is 20 times more " dangerous" as a green house gas, and it runs far cleaner than fossil fuels, could be made/captured by every city and village on the planet AND by almost every farmer too.

The by product is superior fertilizer. ( add  the agro/chemical industry to list of its enemies, along  energy companies with sewerge  treatment/management utiliies)

Of course, government won't be getting its usually substantial cut of the fuel biz, because it will now be so much cheaper, so add every tax payer abusing government to the list of enemies...((... Is there any OTHER kind of government? None I've ever seen...))

Product from burning is co2 but even then its at least clean co2 unlike fossil fuels that also have a swag of nasty chemicals too.

Gee, I wonder if the oil business would be happy if we could run a big percentage of our energy and transport stuff on methane from wastes and didn't have to pay them anymore..?

It will run standard diesel engines pretty much unmodified, can be used for cooking and heating and power generation AND to run vehicles.

On that note, one of the reasons people claim ethanol is less efficient is partly false, since this is based on low compression tunings for petrol cars, which doesn't suit ethanols ideal performance range.

Race cars routinely run on methanol and ethanol, because they produce MORE power at higher compression ratios than petroleum gas does. ( technically they have less energy per weight ect tho) If you have a car set up for the right compression ratios, ethanols relative disatvantage is much more modest.

Similarly to above comment, hydrogen, if you ask big oil, is very hard to make. ( Yeh, if you make it from oil, which is their plan, really!! ) In fact any electrical current through water will make it, which could be run from solar panels ect.

Many people have designed little hydrogen generators in their carberators and gotten 10 to 50% better fuel economy from this trickle through their engines, so the whole idea that an engine needs 100% hydrogen is a joke and a lie. Hydrogen is much more powerful than petroleum gas, in the same measures used to compare ethanol unfavorably to gas. Its not a rocket fuel by accident, this stuff is potent.

There is no need to store it in tanks, every car could store water and make it as needed, so the whole can't store large enough quantities safely c**p is in fact, another ( true factoid )

irelevent misdirection, as such large scale storage is not needed.

Beware big oil, they are lying cheating b******s.

The main reason that THEY want to store dangerous hydrogen ( true enough that its dangerous ) is so they dont have to try to make a buck out of selling you water, that would be tough wouldn't it.

You see there is no need for a hydrogen infrastructure, only a public that knows and demands the real technology.

That is why you will ALWAYS see hydrogen on the "in 10 or 20 years list of future technology" because big oil will never let you have it if its up to them, it gives them nightmares about losing their world beating monopoly.

"Peace is not the absence of war"

later

Ps if any of you doubt the massive power of the oil industry, heres a factiod for you, the (roughly from memory ) 20th largest ECONOMY ( Ie compared to richest countries) in the world is an oil company. ( thats just the biggest one of course... naturally this is also the worlds largest company and makes old Bill Gates look like a beggar... food for thought..?)