Bill is indeed investing $84 million dollars in production and ownership of 27% of Pacific Ethanol; Bill isn't dumb.

Well said though. There is a lot of dis-information on this topic. Reading anti-ethanol propaganda (much of which is based on outdated 60s and 70s era research) from the fossil fuel industry is not real research.

People often forget that many forms of waste bio-mass can potentially be refined to produced ethanol. Including crop stalks, grain, sawdust (I saw a PBS special on this and we make a LOT of this in the US and Canada!), woodchips, pine needles, bark and of some interest lately due to it's resistance to pests (v. few chemicals needed) and hardiness in bad soils, draught and flood conditions (once it get's past the seedling stage where it's only real enemy is competiton from weeds):

Here's one link to info on switchgrass.

http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/mis...s-profile.html

Funding for mor research needs to be made available - if we ever get a govt. (I'm not being partisan - Democrat or Republican, both need to step up big time instead of paying lip-service like they've done so far) that really wants to see this country ween itself of foreign oil and coal. Then advances in organic chemistry, crop science and genetic engineering will be the tools used to make ethanol truly mainstream.

Like any new ideas, ethanol production processes will take time to refine and tweak so they become more efficient; and different techniques are needed for different sources of bio-matter. Alternatives are called alternatives because that's what they are. They're NOT replacements. I think fossil fuel will (unfortunately) stick with us for the imaginable future, but reducing our dependence signifcantly with real alternatives is a great thing.

So yeah - count me in for an E85 capable muscle car. I don't see how you can loose when you can also run straight gas or E10 too. Where's the problem? Don't belive in E85, then don't use it. Easy.

 

I've been thinking about this a LOT over the past year. New ethanol plants are coming online weekly. Check out this site on a day to day basis, and you'll get daily news on ethanol.

http://www.ethanolmarketplace.com/ has a great daily feed.

Production volume is breaking records each month. The mandate by the federal government to produce 8 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012 will probably be met by the end of 2008 - four years ahead of the mandate.

Investors are stepping over each other to sink money into ethanol - and this has been happening long before Bush's SOTU reference to biofuels.

I have been wondering where all the venture capital money has been coming from - we're talking in the hundreds of billions now.

 

greg and evil i agree with both of you on this topic. Whats really good is that its starting to get mentioned and discussed more and more.

The way I look at it, it can only help things. Farmers for one would benefit from it and with the way GM and Ford are pushing this tech, imagine what it would do for their image and business if this stuff takes off and becomes the fuel of the future

 

Okay, I'll take my new Camaro with flexfuel made here in the states, please!

 

My only reservation on E85 is the milage hit you take for being more "environmentally friendly". I save (or not hurt as much) the environment by burning MORE fuel? Obviously, with the milage hit, you'd have to fill up more often (better hope its cheaper than gasoline) and cannot go as far on a tank of fuel.

Anyways, saying "I subsidize a middle eastern missle toting terrorist" sounds way more interesting than "I subsidize farmers named Billy Bob in Nebraska." j/k

 

It's only 15% gasoline compared to regular gasoline. Even if you had to fill up twice as often when using E85 you still wouldn't be burning close to the same amount of poultants, or I assume.

A full tank of E85 will not last as long requiring you to fill up more often, but seeing as it's got significantly less gas in the mix you'd probably have to burn 3-4 times more E85 to equal the same amount of gas.

 

Am I wrong but doesn't Ethanol give you more horspower than regular gasoline? I thought it was a higher octane? I wouldn't mind more fill ups for about 10-15 more horses over normal! I just thought I remembered some Chevy truck that made a few more ponies with the E-85, might be wrong.

 

Even if it is decreased milage between fill ups, I'm seriously guessing you wouldn't pay nearly as much as you would for petrol. Being that Ethanol is produced from such readily avaiable/renewable resources(in the sense that some of the resources used to make ethanol can be replinished at a very small costs; grow more crops, etc.) we probably won't have to pay as much for ethanol as we do for gasoline right now. Though we might be screwed if there is a crop catastrophe, but then we could always switch to wood chips.

 

Right now E85 is more than a gallon of gas in some places. Additionally, burning ethanol gives you pollutants as well.

 

Doesn't how much pollution you get depend on what the oxygenates are based off of as well as how much ethanol is used? How much worse is it than gasoline as far as pollution, anyone know?

 

I think ethonal generates more of certain polutants and less of others.

yes there is an efficiency hit since Ethanol contains about 10% less energy by volume, but as was said ethanol is like 106 octane, so some of the losses could be offset by more agressive timing and mixture tuning. with 15% gas in the mix, I think with proper tuning you can come close to cancelling out the MPG and HP hits ethanol hands out.

The biggest thing to me is to move to a domestically generated fuel source....enough with the global oil spikes every time Iran hiccups, etc. These middle eastern dictatorships would have no leverage whatsoever if not for oil, nor would they have any money to start nuke programs.

I was one of the haters that cited old studies that ethanol was an energy loser, but things seem to be changing. As for the farm subsidies.....I'd rather subsidze them to make something (ethanol) than to subsidize them to do nothing, which is what most farm subsidies now do. Heck with mass ethanol production I imagine the agriculture industry would enter a renaissance.

 

I agree Chris. I think as w/ any new technology(this isnt' too incredibly new though) it can be refined to eliminate pollutants or lessen their effect on the enviorment in any number of ways. This will just take time, but it's a winner in all other aspects.

 

The problem is that in order to get the same MPG as gasoline, you will have to have a more efficient motor than the one burning gasoline.

 

But if the supply is totally limitless, totally renewable, and eventually cheaper due to economies of scale, who cares if MPG is down some?

If you're not pumping in liquid gold every fillup I think the obsession with MPG will subside.

Right now ethanol isn't terribly cheap but look how tiny the infrastructre is vs. petroleum. Get 27 million barrels of day of ethanol production and I bet the price per gal drops dramatically.

 

Whatever the case as the demand for ethanol increases(as it hopefully will) the price will decrease(law of demand), but a larger infrastructure must be in place before hand. I also think that once they get more familiarized w/ how ethanol runs they'll better be able to work around whatever inefficencies that may be associated w/ it.