Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 12:33 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Graeme wrote:
.....
My posts in this area, Cube, are an attempt to bring the latest research or ideas on this important topic (and for that matter other topics). I am not an "expert" in ethanol. In order to cover this issue adequately, full-time research is required. I don't have the time or opportunity to do so.
no offense *seriously* no offense
GRAEME there is a website called www.google.com
What exactly is it that you are providing us that we can't find ourselves???
I came onto this site so I can read what people have to say using their own words....not some copy and paste link to some other news article. I want to pick your brains. Brain Slurp
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 1:06 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Cube, Yes, I do use google. Do you have time to search it every day? Most of my working time at the moment is spent in front of a computer with Internet access. If I can bring some news articles (it doesn't take me long to do this) not only from google but other web sites to members here, it will save them some time. I'm trying to make my news posts interesting and hopefully not too controversial.
Now if I had access to a University library and their journals, then I could do research into just about any energy-related topic especially if I was paid to do so. But I can't do this. In any case, I also do make quite a lot of impromtu comments after my posts. If you want my opinion about biofuels including ethanol, then I would say that they have the potential to be extremely useful in the short term (offsetting decline in oil, reduce carbon emissions and price of crude oil - and they don't have to completely replace oil) while other forms of transportation are being developed. Do you think they are useful?
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.
chron _________________ 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: Mon May 12, 2008 1:19 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
pstarr wrote:
All the arable land in the United States would only supply us with 19% of our gasoline
Oh great biofool, we can't get gasoline from arable land.
cube wrote:
GRAEME there is a website called www.google.com
What exactly is it that you are providing us that we can't find ourselves???
I think you should stop visiting the forum cube, because as someone who may already knows what everyone else has found, there really isn't any point in you being here.
cube wrote:
I came onto this site so I can read what people have to say using their own words....not some copy and paste link to some other news article.
That people wrote using their own words... _________________
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 1:26 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
yesplease wrote:
pstarr wrote:
All the arable land in the United States would only supply us with 19% of our gasoline
Oh great biofool, we can't get gasoline from arable land.
So what is the point? Because we can convert our food to fuel, we should? Do you really believe it is a good thing to impoverish ourselves to feed our automobile addiction? Is driving that important to you? _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 6:19 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
I haven't done an extensive search but I've found this 2000 reference:
Quote:
Malignant and benign tumours have been observed in rats and mice following oral exposure to 60 and 50 mg/kg body weight, respectively, for 103 weeks. 2-Furaldehyde is clearly genotoxic in vitro in mammalian cells; although no firm conclusions can be drawn on the genotoxic potential of 2-furaldehyde in vivo, the possibility that genotoxicity could contribute to the carcinogenic process cannot be discounted. These factors prevent the reliable determination of a NOAEL for 2-furaldehyde.
There is more information in this article about the sources in the environment including food of this chemical, which interested readers can find for themselves.
I would like to return to biofuels for a moment too, and post a story related to the topic of the thread.
EU May Tighten Rules on Biofuels
Quote:
As opposition to biofuels among international institutions, economists and NGOs grows, the European Union is under great pressure to develop a set of sustainability rules governing the controversial alternative fuel source, but EU member states disagree on what constitutes 'sustainable'.
In recent months, biofuels have moved from climate saviour to climate villain, as concerns have arisen that biofuels contribute to food price rises and in some cases release scarcely fewer greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels.
There are three options on the table arising from the working group that are under consideration by EU diplomats.
The first, and most stringent, would require that countries exporting biofuels would have to be signatories to a minimum of ten out of twelve various international conventions on social and environmental standards.
The second would require that biofuel-exporting countries had passed sufficient domestic environmental legislation, particularly with regard to soil and water standards.
The third option would require some sort of reporting standards on environmental and social conditions be established, either by the country or the company involved.
businessweek _________________ 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: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3665 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 12:19 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
PeakOiler wrote:
Graeme wrote:
I just come across a new biofuel called furfural. Have you heard of that?
Furfural (furaldehyde) is a suspected carcinogen. It's one of the aldehydes I have analyzed at work.
By the same token a whole suite of the chemicals in Gasoline, Kerosene and Diesel are carcinogenic as well. If they were invented today they would never be allowed due to those factors for anything but large industrial users, and maybe not even there. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 4:15 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
pstarr wrote:
yesplease wrote:
pstarr wrote:
All the arable land in the United States would only supply us with 19% of our gasoline
Oh great biofool, we can't get gasoline from arable land.
So what is the point? Because we can convert our food to fuel, we should? Do you really believe it is a good thing to impoverish ourselves to feed our automobile addiction? Is driving that important to you?
My point, oh great biofuel, is that as someone who doesn't seen to understand the difference between ethanol and gasoline, I wonder about any debunking of anything you've supposedly done. Especially in light of your distaste for "wading through academia". That being said, no I don't think it's a good idea to spend wastefully on any form of conspicuous consumption, regardless of sector, and personal transportation is important to me, although I'm not sure if all of it would qualify as driving. _________________
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
yesplease wrote:
pstarr wrote:
yesplease wrote:
pstarr wrote:
All the arable land in the United States would only supply us with 19% of our gasoline
Oh great biofool, we can't get gasoline from arable land.
So what is the point? Because we can convert our food to fuel, we should? Do you really believe it is a good thing to impoverish ourselves to feed our automobile addiction? Is driving that important to you?
My point, oh great biofuel, is that as someone who doesn't seen to understand the difference between ethanol and gasoline, I wonder about any debunking of anything you've supposedly done. Especially in light of your distaste for "wading through academia".
I am fully aware of the issues surrounding biofuels. There is no reasonable academic, financial, social, or environmental reason to continue any biofuel project. All of them, including sugar, starch, and cellulosic ethanols, all the lipid fuels (nut, seed, and algae), biomass, and biogas suffer from the same problems--preposterous scale, minimal or nonexistent net energy returns, and negative environmental 'externalities'. I would be willing to debate each and every one of these issues.
yesplease wrote:
That being said, no I don't think it's a good idea to spend wastefully on any form of conspicuous consumption, regardless of sector, and personal transportation is important to me, although I'm not sure if all of it would qualify as driving.
All biofuels schemes are forms of conspicuous consumption. Vain hopes that biofuell tinkering and investment gimmicks will help is at best a distraction that delays a timely response to PO. At worst this is a criminal for its continuing degradation and plunder of our only planetary support system. It's policy and thermodynamic madness to believe that a byproduct of this our failing petrolchemical industrial agriculture system can power itself, much less drive mom and the kids the mall. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
pstarr wrote:
I am fully aware of the issues surrounding biofuels. There is no reasonable academic, financial, social, or environmental reason to continue any biofuel project.
Well, at the very least you claim you are fully aware of all the issues surrounding biofuels. What you state however, seems to imply otherwise. I doubt anyone who understands the issue would confuse ethanol with gasoline, or complain about wading through the academia. But, it could just be that you made a mistake, and are lazy... So, if you really are fully aware of the issues, then I don't see why you would have a problem debating them, and not complaining about wading through academia and whatnot.
pstarr wrote:
All of them, including sugar, starch, and cellulosic ethanols, all the lipid fuels (nut, seed, and algae), biomass, and biogas suffer from the same problems--preposterous scale, minimal or nonexistent net energy returns, and negative environmental 'externalities'. I would be willing to debate each and every one of these issues.
You may be willing to debate them, but there are times in the past when you haven't' been. For instance, you didn't seem to want to wade through Pimental's stuff wrt what other researchers at MIT and Berkley had to say. The only thing preposterous about the scale of biofuels, from whatever method, is the idea that we would use them for personal transportation in it's current Americanized version, the most inefficient energy use on the planet, by orders of magnitude compared to others, even those within the realm of personal transportation. If you are willing to debate biofuel production, lets start with the plant that opened recently in Germany. Please present your figures and conclusions in a logical manner.
pstarr wrote:
yesplease wrote:
That being said, no I don't think it's a good idea to spend wastefully on any form of conspicuous consumption, regardless of sector, and personal transportation is important to me, although I'm not sure if all of it would qualify as driving.
All biofuels schemes are forms of conspicuous consumption. Vain hopes that biofuell tinkering and investment gimmicks will help is at best a distraction that delays a timely response to PO.
So, what, eating is conspicuous consumption? Heating with wood? C'mon. We have available energy streams, and can use them for different things. Deliberately inefficient use for the sake of profit is conspicuous, but biofuels do not have to be used as such. They can be, but in that case the problem is conspicuous consumption.only
pstarr wrote:
At worst this is a criminal for its continuing degradation and plunder of our only planetary support system. It's policy and thermodynamic madness to believe that a byproduct of this our failing petrolchemical industrial agriculture system can power itself, much less drive mom and the kids the mall.
OMGz, could you be any more of a drama queen? Plz girl, all you need is a set of pink pumps and you would be fab-u-lous. _________________
Professor Membrane wrote:
Not now son! I'm making...TOAST!
Last edited by yesplease on Mon May 12, 2008 10:17 pm; edited 2 times in total
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Quote:
Furfural (furaldehyde) is a suspected carcinogen. It's one of the aldehydes I have analyzed at work.
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!
Graeme, do a little research once in a while and use a little discretion on what you post.
This type of stupidity is not good for ones reputation!
“If the price of oil keeps escalating some day we will be able to afford the cost of mining the methane oceans of Titan.”
Perhaps the ability to hold absurdities is innate to man kind?
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
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!
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 10:44 pm Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
shortonoil wrote:
Quote:
Furfural (furaldehyde) is a suspected carcinogen. It's one of the aldehydes I have analyzed at work.
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!
Graeme, do a little research once in a while and use a little discretion on what you post.
This type of stupidity is not good for ones reputation!
That's exactly the kind of post I was looking for - someone who has had experience using this stuff. But if you look at the original Chron article, there are two companies seriously thinking of producing furfural.
PStarr, I also have something for you. In the interests of fairness and transparency, I found this article, which supports your viewpoint. However, I want to continue to see how this industry develops though because I suspect that there will be major changes in the way biofuels are produced and sold.
The Insanity of Biofuels
Quote:
What biofuels conveniently mean for America and Europe is that they can carry on driving and flying, thinking they have a clean conscience over climate change. Such is their appeal that last year the US Congress mandated a fivefold increase in their use. Europe, too, is committed to raising the share of biofuels in transport from current levels of around 2% to at least 10% by 2020.
The only problem for those who support biofuels is that despite this rush, never a week goes past without further evidence of their harmful effects. These range from rainforest destruction to being partly to blame for rising food costs.
Last week, Ban Ki-Moon went further, saying that the UN was setting up a special task-force to address the food shortages, which was designed to avert “social unrest on an unprecedented scale”. Ban said “The first and immediate priority, that we all agree, is that we must feed the hungry”.
A second priority should be to ban biofuels that could be used for food crops. The inescapable fact is that biofuels are partly to blame for the rising food costs. The International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington argues that biofuel production accounts for a quarter to a third of the recent increase in global commodity prices. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations comes up with a slightly smaller figure of biofuels being responsible for between 10 to 15 percent rise in food.
ukwatch _________________ 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: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 12:31 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
Sweet sorghum promoted as "smart" biofuel
Quote:
A corn-like plant that can grow as high as an elephant's eye on some of Earth's driest farmland shows promise as a "smart" biofuel that won't cut into world food supplies, an agriculture expert said on Monday.
Sweet sorghum, used in the United States mostly as animal feed, offers a 10-foot (3 meter) stalk that can be turned into ethanol without damaging the food grain that grows at its top, Mark Winslow said in an interview.
The research institute has teamed up with the Tata conglomerate in India for a distillery that produces more than 10,000 gallons (40 kilolitres) of ethanol daily from locally grown sweet sorghum.
The farmers who grow it can still use the grain to feed themselves, turning it into traditional porridge and flatbread, and their livestock, while selling the fuel-producing sugary liquid contained in the stalks to the distillery.
The crop can survive without irrigation, but also tolerate flooding and even some salinity, Winslow said. Because it grows in arid areas, it does not threaten sensitive rainforest as palm oil biofuel does in Southeast Asia and sugarcane biofuel can in Brazil, Winslow said.
Like other biofuels, ethanol made from sweet sorghum does not produce the emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide that fossil fuels do.
Sweet sorghum differs from the so-called grain sorghum grown on some 100 million acres of agricultural land worldwide, the institute said in a statement. Sweet sorghum could be grown on about half of this land.
reuters _________________ 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: 2646 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 12:41 am Post subject: Re: Rethinking Ethanol
ANALYSIS-Brazil battling back against biofuel critics
Quote:
One of Brazil's preeminent scientific scholars on the environment, Jose Goldemberg, said that the "current attack on biofuels is ... based on four myths."
He said it was not true that Brazilian ethanol: contributes to deforestation, causes famine, does not reduce greenhouse gas emission and is only suitable for niche markets.
Big oil companies who are worried about losing market share to biofuels, U.S. soy producers concerned about losing farmland to corn and "ill-informed environmentalists" were the interests behind these myths, Goldemberg added.
At a time when international oil prices continue to hit daily high-water marks, Brazil is strategically positioned as the world's largest ethanol exporter but the biofuel has not fully come into its own as a world commodity yet.
reuters _________________ 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.
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ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap 
