Hello all, I'm about to do a paper on ethanol and whether or not it's a viable alternative to using fossil fuels in any kind of way, and was wondering if you guys had any good information sources that you think would be valuable (either pro or con ethanol).

I'm going to use google and other resources quite a bit but wondered if anyone here knew of good resources?

I don't have exactly what you're looking for, but you may want to include a section of you paper on biodiesel (which requires some quantity of alcohol).

Here's one source for that aspect: http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Not sure how much better for the enviroment it is but if it isn't now it will soon be cheaper.

Ethanol is just alcohol production, and alcohol can be made from most any sugar.
There are many sources of sugar, and when evaluating a source it is neccessary to look at growing conditions, climate, energy used to produce(ie. tractors, fertalizers, transport, production[usually alcohol requires some kind of heating of the mash during production]).
Some sources
-sugar beets
-cane
-corn
-barely
-There is also wood alcohol I don't know much about it, but it's actually methanol, not alcohol.
-Molasses, which is just a refined sugar( which was commonly used until a giant vat of hot molasses took out and entire town)
-I have heard of some methods using catalysts, but don't remember.

Stay tuned I'll see if I can dig some stuff up later.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

Ethanol from switchgrass: per ton of harvested material we can get about 80 gallons of ethanol. And crop yields are like 4 tons per acre per year. (I'm choosing switchgrass because I think it has lower irrigation, fertilization and pest control requirements than corn.)

U.S. per capita gasoline use was 465 gallons in 2004

current population 295,740,000

137,519,100,000 total gallons per year

Lets be optimistic and say that ethanol yields 23MJ/kg (that's MegaJoules, a unit of energy)
Gasoline should yield at least 42MJ/kg
This gives us a conversion factor of 1.83 gallons of ethanol to get the same heat (kick) as a gallon of gas.

137,519,100,000 gallons of gas to be replaced by 251,659,953,000 gallons of ethanol.

An acre of switchgrass might yield 320 gallons of ethanol in a year.


So we need 786,487,353 acres of switchgrass or 1,228,803 square miles.


Texas 268,820 square miles+
Oklahoma 70,000 square miles+
Kansas 82,000 square miles+
Nebraska 77,420 square miles+
South dakota 77,000 square miles+
North Dakota 70,700 square miles= 645,948 square miles

All added together these would satisfy about half of that amount.

If we could also plant all of Alaska (660,000sq.mi.) we'd just barely make it.

Corn can yield 106 gallons of ethanol per ton, and we'll be nice and say that it can grow 150 bushels (3.5tons)per acre. (Side note: some organic farmers claim they can get 100 bushels per acre per year)
http:/ /www.agry. purdue.edu /ext/corn/ news/artic les.03/Cor nYldTrend2 003.html

So to make our 251,659,953,000 gallons of ethanol we'd need to have 678,328,714 acres of corn. That's 1,060,000 square miles.

India is 1.2 million square miles.

We currently plant about 80million acres of corn in the U.S.

Economical to produce? Yes, especially if gasoline is over $3 a gallon. Can we live the way we do now without gasoline by simply switching to ethanol? Not even close.

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Originally posted by M.C._Pee_Panties:
[URL=http: //www.from thewildern ess.com/fr ee/ww3/100 303_eating _oil.html] http://www .fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html[/URL]

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LOL from the wilderness! The most reliable website evar!!!1

Cornell ecologist's study finds that producing ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other crops is not worth the energy

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark_Magneto:
Cornell ecologist's study finds that producing ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other crops is not worth the energy

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You're actually a dumbass.

Buttthrax are you intolerant to all religions or just the doom cults?

Ethanol? How about methaol!
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/jws-boa031506.php

quote:

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
You're actually a dumbass.

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You're so quick to put others done but it's rare you actually refute the information they give.

In other words, shut your mouth unless you have something important to say.

Woah wait...
Molasses took out a town?!

Termite guts can save the planet