Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 2:03 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
shortonoil wrote:
Quote:
All biofuels schemes are forms of conspicuous consumption.
Someone went over the edge, bounced three times and landed on their head. Can we please keep a wee bit of sanity to this forum. Comments like this are embarrassing to every poster here. This has got to be the most inane blather ever presented! It sounds like something that came out of Hade Asberry after three bad acid trips!
What do you know about acid trips. I assumed your inebriants of choice were industrial solvents
But then WTF does this comment mean? You don't really see any good in this stuff do you? If so, then I had you pegged wrong. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2761 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 5:22 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
DuPont and Genencor Create World-Leading Cellulosic Ethanol Company
Quote:
DuPont (NYSE: DD) and Genencor, a division of Danisco A/S, today announced an agreement to form DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC, a 50/50 global joint venture to develop and commercialize the leading, low- cost technology solution for the production of cellulosic ethanol -- a next generation biofuel produced from non-food sources -- to address a $75 Billion Global Market Opportunity.
"With food and gas prices surging at double-digit rates, there is an imperative for sustainable biofuels technologies. This joint venture addresses this issue head on," said DuPont Chairman and CEO Charles O. Holliday, Jr. "By integrating our companies' strengths and expertise in this new venture, we are significantly increasing the potential to make cellulosic ethanol from multiple non-food sources an economic reality around the world."
"By combining the world-class capabilities of DuPont and Danisco, our joint venture will offer the technology standard for cellulosic ethanol production," said Danisco CEO Tom Knutzen. "This joint venture will be a powerhouse of discovery, development and engineering. It represents a major step forward in Danisco's new strategic intent to be a leading force in the field of industrial biotechnology."
Through the scientists and technologies of both companies, DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC will launch an accelerated effort to integrate the unique cellulosic processing capabilities of both companies to economically produce ethanol from non-food sources. The parent companies will license their combined existing intellectual property and patents related to cellulosic ethanol. The goal is to maximize efficiency and lower the overall system cost to produce a gallon of ethanol from cellulosic materials by optimizing the process steps into a single integrated technology solution.
In the United States, the joint venture will scale up an optimized technology package for corn cobs from integrating the proprietary DuPont pretreatment and ethanologen technologies with the innovative enzyme technology of Genencor, while DuPont continues to analyze the collection and storage of cellulosic feedstocks. The global joint venture expects its first pilot plant to be operational in the United States in 2009, and its first commercial-scale demonstration facility to be operational within the next three years. The joint venture will be headquartered in the United States and will be formed after receipt of required regulatory approvals.
earthtimes _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2761 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 11:53 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
How new US biofuel legislation will subsidize oil consumption
Quote:
Why new U.S. biofuel legislation is on track to waste billions of tax dollars, while subsidizing oil consumption. Harry de Gorter, like David Just a Cornell professor of applied economics and management, advises the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Bank on issues related to the impact of biofuels on food security and global warming. He is also involved in talks on biofuels in the Doha negotiations and in World Trade Organization trade disputes. Just studies the use of information and, more particularly, how differences in human capital and information availability affect decisions.
New U.S. energy legislation mandates the use of renewable fuel but calls for continuing current biofuel subsidies that will cost taxpayers billions of dollars. The subsidies -- tax credits -- by themselves encourage ethanol production as a replacement for oil-based gasoline consumption. Instead, the tax credits will play a major role in unintentionally subsidizing gasoline consumption. This contradicts the new energy bill's stated objectives of reducing dependency on oil, improving the environment and enhancing rural prosperity.
The unintended result caused by a tax credit becoming a gasoline subsidy in the presence of a government mandate is easily explained. By themselves, tax credits enable blenders of ethanol and gasoline to take advantage of the government subsidy by bidding up the price of ethanol until it is above the market price of gasoline by 57 cents a gallon.
Now consider the case where the ethanol price is determined by the binding mandate -- 36 billion gallons by 2022 -- and there is no tax credit. The consumer 'fuel' price is a weighted average of the ethanol and gasoline prices. Implicitly, consumers pay a higher price for gasoline to finance the same ethanol production as before, when only the tax credit was in place.
Now introduce a tax credit alongside the mandate: Because the ethanol price premium, due to the mandate, exceeds the tax credit, there is no incentive for blenders to bid up the price of ethanol as before. And market prices of ethanol cannot decline due to the mandate. Instead, blenders will offer a lower total fuel price -- ethanol plus gasoline -- to consumers to take advantage of the tax credit offered to them by the government. The lower price increases gasoline consumption and thus increases the market price of gasoline and oil.
environmental-expert _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2761 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 10:06 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Ethanol and the Energy Question
Quote:
Re “Rethinking Ethanol” (editorial, May 11):
Waiving the renewable fuel standard and killing ethanol tax credits would be similar to eating seed corn. With no seed, there is no crop. The renewable fuel standard and tax credits are the seed we need to stimulate the next generation of cellulosic biofuels.
It is unlikely that waiving the requirements of the renewable fuel standard would cause any reduction in corn prices, let alone food costs. Corn prices mainly affect consumer prices through livestock production, and the marginal price effects would take several months, even years, to work their way through to the consumer.
A good portion of the corn freed up by a waiver of the renewable fuel standard would very likely be snapped up by the export markets, and the price response would probably be limited to 10 to 20 cents per bushel.
The renewable fuel standard lowers our current gas prices by as much as 15 percent, saving consumers roughly 50 cents a gallon. The production of 6.5 billion gallons of ethanol in 2007 displaced the need for 228 million barrels of oil.
Experts never said ethanol would replace petroleum, but it is important. And it brings us one step closer to cellulosic biofuel, and that means greater energy independence.
Bob Stallman
President
American Farm Bureau Federation
Washington, May 12, 2008
nytimes _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 391 Location: Holland, Belgica Foederata (Republic of the Seven United Netherlands)
Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 4:52 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Quote:
It is unlikely that waiving the requirements of the renewable fuel standard would cause any reduction in corn prices ...
the price response would probably be limited to 10 to 20 cents per bushel.
I wonder if he even read what he wrote before it got published.
Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 1:25 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
eastbay wrote:
(...)
You could consider two more very important reasons... moral and ethical, which I'm sure have been addressed by many. Burning food's not only a Silly Humans Solution, it's poison, pure poison.
What about burning biological waste of food production?
...I don't think it will scale, but we may give some consideration to biofuels that are not food and use current arable land (no forrest cutting). _________________ @deviantART @wordpress @hi5
Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 5:13 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
zensui wrote:
What about burning biological waste of food production?
...I don't think it will scale, but we may give some consideration to biofuels that are not food and use current arable land (no forrest cutting).
It doesn't have to be food. Incinerating non-organic trash for electricity, and converting the organic stuff we have via BTL should provide for ~5% of our electricity and most if not all of our Ethanol production. _________________
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2761 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 4:43 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Ethanol: A Few Myths Debunked
Quote:
Since President Bush is in Brazil this week to talk about ethanol, I though it would be appropriate to present portions of a paper by Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist who was a internet pioneer and a founder of Sun Microsytems (SUNW). You can view a bio of him here. Kholsa is himself investing millions of his own dollars building ethanol plants. The paper here, is very long and detailed. I am going to present the most topically relevant items based on what the media usually presents.
Much has been said about the energy balance of ethanol.
Kholsa answers:
seekingalpha _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 8:36 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
While I don't have the confidence of pstarr to declare all potential biofuels worse than useless, only someone who is making money on them or has other reasons for massive self-delusion, denial or ignorance would deny that corn-ethanol and palm oil-based diesel have been enormous disasters.
As has been pointed out, scale is the main problem for any claim that biofuels could play a major role in supplying our current total demand. We already use 40% or so of all photosynthetic energy, directly or indirectly. How much more do we have a right to use?
The main problem for me about biofuels is that they give people the illusion that a massive downscaling of our enormously profligate wasting of the planet is not immediately necessary. We have to stop grasping at these straws and start facing reality.
But, as this discussion shows, we won't. Hence the doom.
Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 9:38 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
dohboi wrote:
We already use 40% or so of all photosynthetic energy, directly or indirectly. How much more do we have a right to use?
We only use a few percent of photosynthetic energy directly or indirectly. We appropriate the rest, and by appropriate, that includes block/destroy. Our problem isn't what we use, our problem is what we prevent from growing and flat out destroy. _________________
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2761 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 12:34 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Global biofuel output to soar in next decade: report
Quote:
Second generation biofuels, made from domestic and agricultural waste rather than food crops, were not expected to be produced on a commercial basis over the next decade.
Ethanol prices were seen exceeding $55 per hectolitre in 2009 as crude oil prices rose, but should fall back to levels around $52-53 per hectolitre later in the 2008-2017 period covered by the report, as production capacity expanded.
Ethanol has arrived at a crossroads, one that will decide which fuels keep the American economy running. Unless ethanol start-ups generate significant returns, the industry could struggle to continue developing a network of refineries and filling stations to effectively challenge a century-old petroleum culture. If there is one common element required for ethanol, hydrogen or electricity to replace oil, it is profitability.
The 151 refineries produce a total of 8.69 billion gallons of ethanol a year. That figure will reach 36 billion gallons by 2022, according to the mandates in the energy bill signed into law in December.
In order to lower food prices, Congress has entertained the possibility of eliminating a tax credit going to the oil companies and blenders responsible for mixing ethanol with gasoline, lifting the tariff on ethanol imports and easing the 9-billion-gallon ethanol quota this year.
''The big benefit, even though corn is more expensive, is that the money is going to people in the United States, rather than people overseas who wish to ultimately see our demise,'' said Keith Gibson, general manager of Iroquois Bio-Energy in Indiana. ''It costs a lot of money to keep a battle group in the Persian Gulf - way more than I spend in a year.''
Refiners such as Marquis refuse to see the industry as all ''gloom and doom,'' but he said the sudden reversal by many federal officials could scare others from making similar investments in future ethanol projects.
newspress _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 1:09 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Graeme wrote:
I just come across a new biofuel called furfural. Have you heard of that?
Furfural-etc – A Third Biofuel
Quote:
Furfural-etc is a third biofuel which is directly useable in diesel engines. Furfural and related materials have been commercially produced since 1922, initially by Quaker Oats. It is used as a solvent and for manufacture of speciality chemicals, largely used for plastics and binders. A recent price for furfural imports from China is $700/Mg, or about $2.24/USgal. Furfural-etc can be produced from agricultural residues, not the food quality materials such as are used in biodiesel and fuel ethanol. The “-etc” is associated with the name because there are several similar furan (an oxygenated five-membered aromatic ring) compounds which can be produced, many of which can be used as diesel fuel.
Well, here is an example why you should investigate issue with more detail, rather than just post it as solution.
Are you aware how many % of dry biomass of particular composition can be converted into furfural?
Well, it is about 3-10%, depending of starting stock.
Did you ever see bottle of furfural?
Well, I did and was working with it on number of occasions.
Are you aware, how unstable this chemical is?
Well, within about year of storage at 10-30*C about 10-20% polymerizes/decomposes forming black non volatile tars, what can be easily discovered upon distillation.
Not good for your engine... isn't it?
NB. It is much more stable if stored in the fridge.
If you really think about biofuels, better stay with ethanol/butanol.
Furfural is hopeless compared with these.
Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 1:31 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
shortonoil wrote:
I used furfural as a solvent at a synthetic stone manufacturing plant (DurRock) in West Pawlet, VT. It is just about the nastiest crap that you can image. It has a rather sweet smell that sticks to everything for weeks, including your body. About three whiffs of it and you are buzzed for the day. Use it as a fuel - it would eat every gasket in your car out in a week! Including the ones used to seal your doors, and it would take 3 bottles of aspirin to fill up your tank if you pumped your own!
No, I disagree with most of that.
As a synthetic organic chemist I have worked with thousands of organic chemicals in pharma, including furfural.
I would describe furfural as rather pleasant to work with.
I like it's almond like smell and it never caused me any nausea or similar side effects.
However I have noticed that it is not very stable upon storage and I can see some problems with that.
Another problem is that it cannot be obtained in sufficient quantities to make visible impact on our oil consumption.
You have one valid point though.
Furfural easily dissolves various rubber based materials and it could also serve well as a paint stripper.
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ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap 
