Find ethanol free gas near you.

[billswan]

OK Guys more slanted info from us ethanol scamers




OK cognos and bio tear me a new one

Is this total crap?

It argues exactly in reverse of what some people say. Bio your position is that ethanol production uses more btu's to produce than is received. This chart shows that oil is really the one that takes more btu's to produce and that it is getting worse over time while ethanol is improving.

The first ethanol that was produced 20 + years ago probably was produced at a loss. But the methods to produce it and the corn that is used have improved markedly.

On my farm when I started in 1977 the average yield of corn was about 120 bu to acre.
Now the average yield is 180 bu to acre.
Some of the seed companies are predicting 300 bu to acre into the not to distant future.
The same improvements have taken place in the E plants over the later years.

Billswan

[cognos]

I'm not here to tear anyone a new anything!

The chart makes no sense to me. I can't see how it could possibly be that way. It isn't that way in a refinery - in a modern refinery, there is a mass vs. cost balance available to operators in real time. It isn't negative... mind you, it doesn't include the fuels used in exploration, drilling, pipelining, and getting the stuff to the pump... but the last time I checked, those big gasoline tankers that leave the refinery full of fuel still had some to put in the tank at the gas station when they got there - they didn't burn it all on the way... 
We'd be consuming so much fossil fuel in production, that there would be nothing left at the end to send to the pump. This isn't the case.

In any event - that matters not at all... it still boils down to how much it costs to produce vs. how much profit is made selling the stuff... as long as fuels produced from crude oil remain profitable - and more profitable by many orders of magnitude than anything else currently available - then nothing else will be used unless it's forced on the consumer by regulation, for whatever reason - be it to decrease greenhouse gas, or provide farmers with a living wage.

[BioHazard]

This chart shows that oil is really the one that takes more btu's to produce and that it is getting worse over time while ethanol is improving.

I honestly don't understand what you or the graph are trying to say. Yes, ethanol production is becoming more efficient. It can't really be compared to gasoline the way that graph is trying to. Oil comes out of the ground as BTUs. Every drop that comes out is another net gain. It's like corn somebody planted a billion years ago and stored for us until now.

Like I said, ethanol is a battery, a storage mechanism, not a fuel source. Oil is raw fuel.

[mbryner]

Doesn't the chart just say for every 2.2 BTU's of fossil fuel extracted from the ground, 1.2 goes back into drilling, processing, transportation, refining, etc.?  1.0 BTU's goes to gasoline at the pump.

[billswan]

Doesn't the chart just say for every 2.2 BTU's of fossil fuel extracted from the ground, 1.2 goes back into drilling, processing, transportation, refining, etc.?  1.0 BTU's goes to gasoline at the pump.

well yes that is what it looks like to me, that works out to 55% of the crude goes into getting the last 45% to the point of use. And if that is right no problem by me. We sure cannot change it, drilling stem , casing, pipelines, refineries all are necessary to get the BTU's to the point of use.

Billswan

[deeiche]

rm /

[LowGear]

I'm curious what the ratio is for the oil we get from Canadian Tar sands?

I think this is the same sugar plumb that many folks in Montana dream of too.

Casey

[Crofter]

The ratio is not good, I know that. A monstrous amount of material has to be stripped aside to use for reclamation. The first areas developed only had 50 or so feet of cover over the tar soaked oil layer but that low hanging fruit is not the main course. The majority of the field will have to be steam extracted from underground. The tar is exactly like the roofing cement for patching and lap sealing rolled roofing but each barrel of it is soaked into a ton of sand and looks more like pot hole patching. Very abrasive on all the pumps and piping and high in sulphur and heavy metals. Light sweet crude it is not. There had been some preliminary work to do underground nuclear to liquify it and create a big drain cavity to collect it. That was cancelled due to agreements on underground nuclear testing.  I have flown locally over the workings a number of times and it sure is a scar on the landscape.

The only good part is there is lots of it and they sure don't have to worry about having blow outs like in the Gulf last summer. They do haul a lot of ethanol in to keep the inmates occupied.