Butanol production breakthrough at University of California

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

GIThruster wrote:Dan, here's an example of good cost analysis concerning this issue. This is an old analysis and it is for ethanol, but you can begin to start to understand from it, just why bio-fuels cannot compete with fossil fuels on a even basis.
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David Pimentel, an agricultural scientist at Cornell University and one of the foremost critics of ethanol, has conducted numerous cost analyses on ethanol production. He's made a name for himself mostly by driving the ethanol industry raving mad. From its very beginnings, when hoe enters soil, ethanol production has not changed much since the nineteenth century. Pimentel found that one acre of U.S. corn field yields about 7,110 pounds of corn, which in turn produces 328 gallons of ethanol. Setting aside the environmental implications (which are substantial), the financial costs already begin to mount. To plant, grow, and harvest the corn takes about 140 gallons of fossil fuel and costs about $347 per acre. According to Pimentel's analysis, even before the corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock alone costs $0.69 per gallon of ethanol.

More damning, however, is that converting corn to ethanol requires about 99,119 BTUs to make one gallon, which has 77,000 BTUs of available energy. So about 29 percent more energy is required to produce a gallon of ethanol than is stored in that gallon in the first place. "That helps explain why fossil fuels (not ethanol) are used to produce ethanol," Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn't afford it, either, if it weren't for government subsidies that artificially lower the price." All told, a gallon of ethanol costs $2.24 to produce, compared to $0.63 for a gallon of gasoline.


and here's a more recent treatment of this issue:

http://cornellsun.com/node/34938
I think it is more damning when one considers in addition the costs to get the product to the pump as well.

This is the 'Elephant in the Room' the Green Revolution tends to ignore. The fundamental costs and resources expended to be green tends to be higher than not being green which invariably include significant fossil chains in the processes required. To be successfully green, we need green that completely sidesteps the driving issue, which is fossil usage. So far, not so good, with the arguable exceptions of Nuclear (The Horror! exclaim the Greens), Hydro (Gasp! go the Greens) and Geo-Thermal (look of consternation on the Greens). I did not list Solar on purpose.

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

I think the educated environmentalist's attitude (not the radical greens) toward nuclear has changed greatly over the last decade. It's because of the AGW scare and "climate change" after it, that environmentalists have been forced to look more carefully at what they're proposing. Nuclear starts to be a nice option when you look at all the alternatives. It still has huge waste issues, but next gen reactors might not only change that, but help burn up what we've produced over the last few decades.

To be plain about it, a continent powered by nuclear and transport powered by batteries and caps, is about as clean a future as anyone could hope for. This is making a lot of otherwise radical greens into more moderate pro-nuke folk, which is why POTUS can press forward with new nukes.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

I agree and can only hope.
But I fear it will take some doing and some time to unwind all the damage done to our ability to develop nuclear to where it could be. A shame given that if it had not happened, and IMO driven in a great way by the retards in Hollywood, we could have been in fantastic shape today in regards to being green and even reduced or removed any dependance on foreign oil by magnitudes. Such a shame.
Think of what our economy and world geo-politics would look like today if we had. I think a very strong argument could be made as to how much better things could have been.

Let's hope not to miss the bus this time. If we do, I am not sure we will survive it again as a country or as a world.

D Tibbets
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Post by D Tibbets »

ladajo wrote:
GIThruster wrote:Dan, here's an example of good cost analysis concerning this issue. This is an old analysis and it is for ethanol, but you can begin to start to understand from it, just why bio-fuels cannot compete with fossil fuels on a even basis.
-------------
David Pimentel, an agricultural scientist at Cornell University and one of the foremost critics of ethanol, has conducted numerous cost analyses on ethanol production. He's made a name for himself mostly by driving the ethanol industry raving mad. From its very beginnings, when .... To plant, grow, and harvest the corn takes about 140 gallons of fossil fuel and costs about $347 per acre. According to Pimentel's analysis, even before the corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock alone costs $0.69 per gallon of ethanol.

More damning, however, is that converting corn to ethanol requires about 99,119 BTUs to make one gallon, which has 77,000 BTUs of available energy. So about 29 percent more energy is required to produce a gallon of ethanol than is stored in that gallon in the first place. "That helps explain why fossil fuels (not ethanol) are used to produce ethanol," Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn't afford it, either, if it weren't for government subsidies that artificially lower the price." All told, a gallon of ethanol costs $2.24 to produce, compared to $0.63 for a gallon of gasoline.


and here's a more recent treatment of this issue:

http://cornellsun.com/node/34938
I think it is more damning when one considers in addition the costs to get the product to the pump as well.
That is a very dated study. Gasoline cost at $0.63 per gallon? IAt crude prices at ~ $100 per barrel, even with near perfect conversion efficiency gasoline would cost ~ $2 per gallon. And fuel costs of 140 gallons per acre. That is so outrageous, I cannot help but to be skeptical. I (family) have planted corn on a small scale (a few acres), and the gasoline used was much less. Perhaps in the region of 20-40 gallons. With the above numbers the fuel costs for 100 acres of corn would be ~ 14,000 gallons or ~ 30 to 50 thousand dollars or more.

I have seen other studies that gave different results. While the energy out/ energy in is not impressive, it has been calculated as modestly positive. And the input energy for processing and distilling is mostly natural gas, a commodity which is currently being pushed by the petroleum industry as a cheap plentiful source of energy. This negates this energy balance question to a degree. The issue is liquid gasoline available for powering cars, not the total energy available in fossil fuels. Converting to liquified natural gas may be ~ as efficient of fermenting corn (or several possibly more efficient feed stocks), but it would really require a complete rebuilding of the infrastructure. This is not necessarily a bad thing in special situations- like converting city buses to natural gas.
Also ignored is that the corn is not completely consumed in the process. It still has some value as feed for livestock.

And, finally, as Bussard pointed out, if cheap electricity is available, like from a Polywell, the need for natural gas is eliminated [EDIT- except for possibly fertilizer - if it contributes anything other than the required energy].

The viability of bio ethanol, etc. is not the conversion efficiency so much as it is the quantity. They can supplement gasoline, not replace it, unless considerable conservation eliminates a significantly greater portion of the fuel needs.

Note: If the quoted study considered the the total energy cost of the corn growing and harvesting- the cost of building the tractor, combine, trucks, storage silos, train cars, etc. I could see such an inflated value of ~ 140 gallons of gasoline equivalent as being reasonable.
This is like a study I saw where it was claimed that owning a dog consumed more energy than owning a BMW. He added every conceivable cost to the dog- food, vet supplies, weight of the dog, etc. While he only considered the gasoline cost in the car. He conveniently ignored the cost of the steel, plastics, oils, factory, etc. And he did not provide consideration for variations in how far the car was driven.
If you cook the books, you can reach almost any answer you wish.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

Fair points Dan.

The study is dated.

Overall, I do think the basic premise is correct. The costs for green typically are far and above the costs for not. And generally require non-green energy sources to get there. But, this in itself can be argued as a lack of green infrastructure.

Overall though, I do know that the navy for instance is struggling with the costs of biofuel, both standalone and as a supplementment to existing JP-5 and aviation fuels. It is much more expensive, and although functional, not comparable at all in cost. They continue to work this angle with suppliers looking for ways to drive the costs down. On the other side of the argument is the projected rising costs of oil. The current theory is that they will meet somewhere upcurve where biofuesl become competitive. Of course this discussion tends to ignore the global economic repercussions of baseline oil at the predicted crossover points.

Without a game changer, things are not gonna be pretty or fun.

D Tibbets
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Post by D Tibbets »

ladajo wrote:Fair points Dan.

The study is dated.

Overall, I do think the basic premise is correct. The costs for green typically are far and above the costs for not. And generally require non-green energy sources to get there. But, this in itself can be argued as a lack of green infrastructure.

Overall though, I do know that the navy for instance is struggling with the costs of biofuel, both standalone and as a supplementment to existing JP-5 and aviation fuels. It is much more expensive, and although functional, not comparable at all in cost. They continue to work this angle with suppliers looking for ways to drive the costs down. On the other side of the argument is the projected rising costs of oil. The current theory is that they will meet somewhere upcurve where biofuels become competitive. Of course this discussion tends to ignore the global economic repercussions of baseline oil at the predicted crossover points.

Without a game changer, things are not gonna be pretty or fun.
Agree mostly, though Wikipedia gives a consensus of mildly positive energy balances, and cellulose fermentation can improve the margins even more. Ethanol in general dilutes the need for foreign oil a small amount, and may result in mildly less CO2 output, but for now ethanol is spreading the wealth around some, with less of a monopoly by the oil industry. That by itself is mildly attractive. I admit though that significant biofuel advantages are mostly predicated on continuing oil price increases and eventually major shortages. Meanwhile, the SUV's, trucks and high horsepower cars indicate the lack of commitment by the US consumer to conservation which of course can have a much more significant and immediate effect on the oil picture.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

D Tibbets wrote: That is a very dated study. Gasoline cost at $0.63 per gallon? IAt crude prices at ~ $100 per barrel, even with near perfect conversion efficiency gasoline would cost ~ $2 per gallon.
I think the link was dated 2005, and the figures used for the cited analysis could easily have been a decade older. This guy has been at this for along time. Still, it's important to recognize that you can't look at retail prices at all. They include taxes, and the taxes are not just on gas at the pump. Any real analysis (and we have to hope this guy at Cornell's was pretty good--it's his claim to fame) will include all manner of "hidden costs". Long story short, it's usually very cheap to suck crude out of the ground. (Some modern methods may be exceptions.) It appears when making a judgement short of all the details, that the axiom "its cheaper to gather than to grow" holds some water.

Most spectacularly, it's key to note that growing foods for fuel will indeed force food prices up. Also it's important to note that if we planted every fallow acre in the US, we could not produce enough bio-fuel to suit our needs. That means bio-fuels will always be second measure fuel sources, that cannot by themselves remove the need to drill for energy independence.

Until we have a viable replacement for fossil fuels, we need to find and gather our own. We've known this since the very early '70's. So where's the boggle? We need to drill, and pursue real alternatives.

BTW, there are people here pursuing wireless recharging of electric transport. All by itself, that's a much better alternative than bio-fuels.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

GIThruster wrote: Also it's important to note that if we planted every fallow acre in the US, we could not produce enough bio-fuel to suit our needs.
Yet right off the coast of TX and LA is a "dead zone" of varying size. This dead zone is due to excess algae growth (an algae bloom) that results from fertilizer run-off. The algae die, sink, and in moldering in their grave they suck up all the O2 down there.

That dead zone is about the size that would be needed to grow enough algae to supplant all the petroleum imported to the US.

A convenient circularity there?

Gandalf
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Post by Gandalf »

GIThruster wrote: Also it's important to note that if we planted every fallow acre in the US, we could not produce enough bio-fuel to suit our needs.


This is wrong. NREL (SERI at the time) proved with the "Aquatic Species Program" that in excess of 10,000 gallons of oil per year per acre could be produced by cultivating algae. A portion of Nevada could provide all US energy needs, arid land, brackish water and all. Google for references.

The Wikipedia page on this subject states: "Land is not a limitation. 200,000 hectares (490,000 acres) could produce one quad of fuel. Thus, resource limitations are not an argument against the technology"

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

Gandalf wrote:
GIThruster wrote: Also it's important to note that if we planted every fallow acre in the US, we could not produce enough bio-fuel to suit our needs.


This is wrong. NREL (SERI at the time) proved with the "Aquatic Species Program" that in excess of 10,000 gallons of oil per year per acre could be produced by cultivating algae.
It's not wrong. I wrote "PLANTED". You don't plant algae, you grow it in vats the infrastructure for which is tens of thousands of times more expensive than planting corn or especially grass.

As I said, algae produces the most fuel per unit area, but for it to do this, you need a very expensive infrastructure. Planting grasses are the opposite end of the spectrum and the one investors are looking at, because with grass you plant it once and you're done. After that all you need is water and sunlight, but you need more area than is possible for us to commit to fuel production, if you want to replace all fossil fuels.

I'll note to you the article on this at Wiki is extremely and deliberately misleading in dozens of areas and is in no way balanced.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

D Tibbets
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Post by D Tibbets »

Infrastructure? Everything requires infrastructure, either new or modified from previous use. Wireless electric? Are you a Tesla fan? Even if you could field this entirely new technology (trickle charging cell phones from one foot away doesn't count), High intensity beams of EM radiation, sounds dangerous. People have been fried by stepping in front of high power radars.
And this is an alternate delivery method. It says nothing about the origin of the energy. Are you going to burn oil in a power plant, transmit the electrical power, etc, with each step introducing inefficiencies so that more cost in oil supplies, coal, natural gas,nuclear, etc. are consumed . Only nuclear would be meaningfull from a carbon emmisions standpoint, and if nuclear assumed the burdons of powering cars, the supply of uranium would run out almost as fast as natural gas. Only a truely revolutionary energy source will change the picture. The only two that I know of is Fusion, and thorium fission.

PS: Hydrogen is a joke. It has to be made, always at an energy cost greater than the hydrogen gives back, and the hydrogen storage and dificulty adds a very great penalty. Ethanol, butanol, liquified natural gas, etc. are all much more viable than hydrogen, or batteries (unless New primary energy production and to a lesser degree, battery technology is developed).

Dan Tibbets
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GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

There are several wireless recharging schemes being pursued simultaneously at the moment. One is being pursued by someone who posts here at T-P. He has successfully transferred tens of kW wirelessly with no discernible heat generation. There is no evidence that the fields used for this are in any way hazardous, but the method of employing this technology precludes people being injured even were this possible. I cannot comment further on this subject.

Yes, for fossil fuels to be removed from an economy you can't just remove them from transportation. Pretty obvious. I would likewise look at uranium fission, thorium fission and fusion in that order.

I'm not a Tesla Fan because I'm not a fan of cars that have such short range and long recharge periods. Otherwise I'd love to give a Tesla a go. I understand they handle like a Lotus, are comfortable and luxurious inside and have fabulous acceleration. Only problems are the price and range, as far as I understand it. If however, I was wealthy like much of Hollywood society, and could afford several cars, I'd certainly own a Tesla for around town. I think they make a better statement than a Prius or a Leaf. The vast majority of my driving could be handled by a Tesla. Unfortunately for LA, they only get 11% of their power from nuclear and 6% from hydro. The rest is fossil so it's pretty hard to justify $100,000 for an electric car when it doesn't even reduce emissions in the city.

Its long been known hydrogen is not a viable alternative. When you burn hydrogen in air, you don't get just steam. You get clouds of toxic acids. Likewise, hydrogen requires VERY heavy tanks and as you said, more energy to produce than you get when you burn it. Bad solution in all sorts of ways.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

GIThruster wrote: It's not wrong. I wrote "PLANTED". You don't plant algae, you grow it in vats the infrastructure for which is tens of thousands of times more expensive than planting corn or especially grass.
Or you scoop it out of algal blooms that occur in the ocean with planting anything.

Indeed, there are ENORMOUS tracts of the equitorial Pacific that are what is known as HNLC (high nutrient, low chlorophyll) zones. The only reason there aren't gigatonnes of algae there now is due to a lack of MICRO nutrients like iron. Minute additions of iron to such waters will bring on an impressive algal bloom. Then just scoop it up.

Furthermore, many of the algae in such blooms are reflective of incoming solar radiation, lowering the heat input into the ocean and cooling (minutely) the Earth. An nice added benefit.

Maybe Tuvalu(?) should start that kind of harvest rather than spending huge bucks on PV cells.

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

GIThruster wrote: Yes, for fossil fuels to be removed from an economy you can't just remove them from transportation. Pretty obvious. I would likewise look at uranium fission, thorium fission and fusion in that order.
I would look to Thorium fission. Uranium works but has more issues than it is worth (IMHO), issues that Thorium either doesn't have or has at a MUCH lesser degree. Fusion would take the lead if it ever works. LENR would be in the mix if it ever works.

Gandalf
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Post by Gandalf »

GIThruster wrote: I'll note to you the article on this at Wiki is extremely and deliberately misleading in dozens of areas and is in no way balanced.
It's a Wiki. Change it.

Oh, and Pot, meet Kettle.

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