Brainstorm Bits - Fred Krupp on Ethanol

'I'd rather be energy dependent on the midwest than the mideast'

Comments

[curmudgeonly troll]

I'm under the distinct impression that ethanol from corn farmed with US methods requires petroleum (fertilizer, tractors, irrigation pumps, pesticides) with 70% of the energy of the ethanol produced, and is only economical due to subsidies.

The case may be different with sugar grown using Brazilian methods.

[Ken Dyck]

How does he feel about the north? Most Americans don't know Canada is their biggest oil supplier

[Chris]

I think that other options besides gasoline would be nice, whether we could be totally energy independent or not, besides that, choices are always good. Interesting topic, one of my favorites to blog about (i.e. alternative energy).

[hey]

Fred, it's really annoying for someone with your background to be acting like this is a useful excercise. Ethanol tends be very energy inefficient and completely useless as a means of replacing fossil fuels.

The best alternative energy is Canadian oil sands, Rocky Mountain oil shale, and ANWR. Ethanol is barely positive on an energy budget perspective and has much lower utility, given its hydrophillic nature.

Pebble Bed nukes to melt oil sand, that's alternative energy of the future!

[Jamie]

Ethanol is a bit of a scam; government subsidies and pork spending hand over fist. Unfortunately, much of the r&d dollars are being funneled into corn, which is not a very good substitute but has a powerful lobby.

That’s not to say I am against ethanol, I’m not, I think it is an alternative and anything which gives the consumer more choice is a good thing. But, the markets need to determine what is good and isn’t good, not government subsidies, otherwise we end up in a worse position then we are in now.

I talked about this in my Skytrust proposal.

[Chris]

They use ethanol in Brazil extensively with flex cars made by companies such as GM and Ford. Not sure of the economics, but there was a great dateline story here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12676374/. OR, for a short summary http://www.biztechie.com/2006/05/can_ethanol_hel.html

[Erik Schwartz]

For the last 50 million years oil supplies have been increasing at a linear rate. For the last 150 years oil consumption has been increasing at an exponential rate. Look at the shape of those curves. Do the math. It is inevitable that we will run out, and it will be sooner rather than later.

Oil sands, oil shale and ANWR will only delay the inevitable for a small number of decades.

We need to be spending money on:

A) Standardizing nuclear power plants and building lots of them

B) High capacity, light weight battery systems that you can charge quickly without them melting them

C) The electrical power grid.

[jackson]

Great discussion, I learned quite a bit. Too bad Hey always has to be an insulting ass, he actually has a point buried beneath his jealous hatred.