Sugar

JohnDenver · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 29, 2004 Posts: 1883

There was an interesting cover story in Newsweek (Aug. 8, 2005) about sugar cane ethanol from Brazil. After reading it, I am convinced that ethanol (like gas-to-liquids) is a serious contender for replacing crude oil in motor fuels.

1) Brazilian sugar cane ethanol is much cheaper than oil. From the article: "Super-efficient Brazil now sells ethanol at the equivalent of $25 dollars a barrel, less than half the cost of crude." So I think we can dispense with the incorrect notion that no other form of energy is as cheap and convenient as oil. Brazilian sugar cane ethanol is much cheaper than oil, just as convenient, and environmentally superior because it does not increase CO2 levels. ("In terms of price, the average cost of fuel ethanol production in the country (Brazil) is around 50 cents per gallon" Source)

2) Serious money is being invested: "To keep up with demand, local sugar barons and giant multinationals will invest some $6 billion in new plantations and distilleries over the next five years." This is on a par with Shell's $6 billion GTL facility in Qatar.

3) Ethanol production is booming. The growth rate is about 9% per year:

4) World production of ethanol in 2004 was 10.77 billion gallons (=40.8 billion liters). On the average there are 19.5 gallons of gasoline in a barrel of crude oil (Source), so ethanol is providing the equivalent of 1.5 million barrels/day of crude oil. For comparison, Iraq produced 2mbd in 2004. Ethanol is as big a factor in the world oil market as Iraq.

5) There's weird goings-on in the global sugar market:

Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 5123

Dukat_Reloaded · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jul 31, 2005 Posts: 1009

Multinationals investing billions of dollars in brazil to grow suger cane. You do realise their farming practices there don't you?. They burn down the forests and use that land to grow biofuel and after afew growing seasons they have to burn down more because the soil is depleated away so they then move on to burn down more rainforests to replant. Doesn't sound very sustainable to me.

gg3 · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 8:21 am Post subject:

Right; there's a sustainable way and an unsustainable way to get there from here.

If I recall correctly, rainforest topsoil cover is notoriously thin. This makes it an inefficient growing medium for (whatever). Therefore, soil that is properly maintained (with manures and so on) will if anything be a more efficient growing medium.

eric_b · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:18 pm Post subject:

Great idea JD.

Lets encourage more slashing and burning of the amazon river basin so we can have cheap
ethanol for our vehicles. Doesn't sound very sustainable. Cleared rainforest land generally
is not productive for more than a few years... beyond that it needs massive inputs
of fertilizers.

Besides, this would drive up the cost of sugar. How will I be able to afford the seven lumps
for my tea the way things are going?

Sheesh.

cube · Fusion Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 3786

I don't know why greenies have such a fixation for ethanol and biodiesel. It's actually worse for the environment then drilling for oil....IMHO. *seriously*

A lot of people don't know this but the number one most environmentally destructive activity humans engage in is agriculture. To engage in agriculture is to declare war on the environment. First you must clear a very large patch of land. Plow the field (which in the long run will destroy the topsoil). Irrigate the field. (might have to build a dam to get that much water). Spray the whole place down with fertilizers, pesticides, and whatever.

BTW I'm not trying to demonize agriculture or farmers, I'm just stating the facts. Besides I gotta eat whenever I get hungry. Anyhow, I find it rather strange that half the time the ideas that environmentalists support actually do more harm for the environment then good. Rolling Eyes

rogerhb · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:51 pm Post subject: Re: Sugar

As Monbiot points out once you go down the biomass route and it's more economical to divert land to biomass rather than food you run into a few problems.

Caoimhan · Intermediate Crude Joined: May 10, 2005 Posts: 562

I just don't see why we can't have both food and biomass... cellulose to ethanol works great with cereal grain straw and other such agricultural "waste".

EnergySpin · Fission Joined: Jun 25, 2005 Posts: 2381

Caoimhan · Intermediate Crude Joined: May 10, 2005 Posts: 562

Only if high-intensity "conventional" petroleum-based methods of farming are used. Tilling straw back into the soil helps to mitigate the damage already being done by such farming methods.

I'm having trouble locating the article now, but a report was just published from an 8+ year study on organic vs. conventional farming methods. Organic methods (using natural fertilizers) produce less initially (in the first few years), but eventually end up producing comparable yields to conventional farming. Plus, organic farming does this while improving the soil quality. It could be argued that the improved yields are as a direct result of the improved soil quality.

EnergySpin · Fission Joined: Jun 25, 2005 Posts: 2381

Caoimhan · Intermediate Crude Joined: May 10, 2005 Posts: 562

We ought to be requiring all organic household waste go to composting sites. And TDP facilities would become spurious if we composted that organic waste, too, and returned it to the soil.

agni · Tar Sands Joined: Jun 14, 2005 Posts: 93

ubercrap · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 27, 2005 Posts: 344

Kylon · Expert Joined: Aug 12, 2005 Posts: 802

You know that seaweed from Africa thats a ecological hazard, because it grows ultra fast?

Why don't we just acclimate that to the salt levels in the ocean, start growing that in the ocean, and collect it, and through bacteria digestion, convert it to sugar- then ethanol.

It all boils down to solar energy when you think about it, this would grow at a phemnomenal rate, and we would have to collect it and capture it to keep it from taking over spawning in the ocean.

Or, heres an even better idea, genetically modify it so it produces flammable grease. The genes for this already exist in a shrub which is a common cause of forest fires. This grease is extremely flammable and could be used as a fuel.

The plant wouldn't evolve to get rid of the grease, because the grease would act as a deterrant for things trying to eat the plant, so the plant would evolve to produce large amounts of the grease to keep animals at bay.

We would then just collect the plant, refine it, and burn it for fuel.

Farming the ocean, we're already depleting it of fish, so why not compete for sunlight?

If your worried about algae production, the way to counter that is to dump large quantities of iron in the ocean. Iron acts like a fertilizer to algae, and is one of the limiting factors in algae production. According to one study, they poured a very, very minute amount of iron over an area of water, and it doubled the algae production. This is also a concern with heavy metal waste runoff(which probably contains small amounts of iron) into the oceans and ponds, as it causes algae bloom, you can look that up too.

So the algae production can be saved, and at the same time we can farm the ocean to produce cheap gasoline, without depleting the soil. And after we refine the grease and ethanol out, we could time the compounds that were left, and dump them back into the ocean, preventing depletion(it would be in our best interest, because if we didn't remove them, the salt would rust out the car engines when they used the fuel).