Frank ess wrote:

Alan Browne wrote:


Is there any truth to the rumor that the pollution created and energy
used in the manufacture of E85 offsets the savings?


Nope.
http://www.ilcorn.org/Ethanol/85__Et...__ethanol.html

Suggests a net 33% gain (and improving).


Way I heard it, there isn't sufficient production and infrastructure to
supply sufficient material to make a significant difference. The
liquid's nature is such that it isn't an appropriate subject for current
mass distribution methods: it must be _trucked_ to its destination.

Just like gasoline?

Again, insufficient capacity likely to be available in the forseeable
future.

See Illinois, Minnesota, Brazil, etc.

Illinois alone has 106 stations that sell about 685,000,000 gallons
annually. That's one hell of a good start ... and that't that many
gallons of gasoline that weren't needed.

(A 42 Gal barrel of oil yields about 19.5 gallons of gasoline [depending
on many factors], so Illinois alone saves enough gasoline in one year to
equal 1.17 days of oil imports for the whole country (accounting for
ethanol being 2/3 as energy yielding per volume)).

Too bad. I really like the idea of fuel from renewable biomass. We've
just made the wrong investments for too long. Sad.

We'll be forced to make new ones. But your point does reflect a further
inefficiency: over nearly a century all of the gasoline infrastructure
has evolved, and we're going to waste all that by wasting its product
too fast. (Of course from the typical "5 year plan" perspective of oil
companies, the ROI is long recovered and they continue to depreciate
their major cap investments over 20 - 40 years, tax gravy).

A rough calculation of proven world reserves puts it at 40 years at
_todays_ rate of consumption. Of course consumption is increasing, so
that 40 years is wildly optimistic.

(World proven reserves= 1181 billion barrels; world rate of consumtion =
81 M bbl / day). But that rate is growing... and proven reserves
include undrilled reserves such as the ANWR.

40 years is an eyeblink. But it's not even that with consumption
increasing in the US (though not needed to), India and China. And India
and China have a _lot_ more people than the US.

If the rate of consumption increases by a mere 5% every year, then that
40 year reserve becomes a 15 year reserve... at best.

On the other hand, reducing consumption overall by a mere 2% could
extend the current supply to 50 years...

The "proven reserves" increase by a pittance every year, but even if it
could magically go up 10 fold, it would only improve the outlook by a
few decades due to increasing demand.

People want a magic wand to find oil. Won't happen. OTOH, oil you
don't use is oil that's available for another day.

Cheers,
Alan
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