who is making the ethanol we use here (solar, gas, buy)

[NJ Chutzpah]

who is making the ethanol we use here in the states?

Do the oil companies like BP, chevron just buy corn and do all the processing into ethanol themselves?

is it moonshiners in appalachia?

Are there any ethanol manufacturers located here in the states?

[d4g4m]

There are dozens of start up businesses in the mid west who got in on the heavily tax payer subsidized ethanol distilling business. But even with the subsidies, many are closing because it costs more to make per gallon than a gallon of gasoline.

[harry chickpea]

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) has been a player in the market. Pacific somethnarother was another hot stock during the craze.

[NJ Chutzpah]

it really cost more to make than a gallon of gasoline?

why should it though?

Isnt just brewing alcohol?

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by NJ Chutzpah

it really cost more to make than a gallon of gasoline?

why should it though?

Isnt just brewing alcohol?

Distilling alcohol is an inefficient, energy intensive process.

[recycled]

The problem with the US method of distilling corn based ethanol is that it consumes over 1 gallon of fossil fuel in the full production cycle to obtain 1 gallon of ethanol. Add up the amount of corn for 1 gallon of ethanol and calculate the fuel involved: plowing the field, planting, harvesting, hauling corn to grain elevator, hauling corn from grain elevator to distillery, squeezing corn into juice and boiling juice to create alcohol/ethanol. Then haul ethanol from distillery to gasoline refinery, mix with 15% gasoline to create E85 ethanol blend (for flex fuel cars) or mix with 90% gasoline to create fuel that any non flex fuel car can run on. Then haul that to gasoline station and finally sell to consumer to burn up.

Not very efficient. In order to obtain that gallon of ethanol, we consume over a gallon of fossil fuel and also corn (removing that from food supply use). It would have consumed less fuel to simply sell a gallon of fossil fuel gasoline to the consumer instead burning over a gallon of fossil fuel to make the ethanol and at the same time using up corn to produce the ethanol.

Brazil has a simpler method of making sugar cane ethanol (which they call alcool, alcohol in english). They distill sugar cane into alcohol in small distilleries (almost like moonshine stills) that are very close to the cane fields. This reduces hauling around the raw cane product. They burn the leftover "bagasse" or dried cane stalks to fuel the distilleries in order to boil the sugar cane juice and create sugar cane alcohol. The sugar cane alcohol has more BTU than corn ethanol, and flex fuel cars in Brazil can run on 100 percent sugar cane alcohol. You can pour the pure sugar cane alcohol right out of the distillery (still) into the fuel tank of a flex fuel car and drive off. No special processing or blending with gasoline required. Almost all new cars sold in Brazil are flex fuel, and about half the fuel sold in Brazil for cars is 100 percent sugar cane alcohol instead of gasoline. Since the weather is warm year round there, they don't have engine starting problems that many parts of the US would have using a pure mix of alcohol.

[NJ Chutzpah]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

Distilling alcohol is an inefficient, energy intensive process.

I still cannot believe that the overall cost is more than petroleum

I mean, you have to dig petroleum up from deep in the ground, then store it someplace safe, then transport it from Saudi Arabia, then refine it

Distilling alcohol is more complicated?

would it be possible for the ethanol distillers to get their energy from a alternative source instead of the local power plant?

what if they all had their own solar, or wind generators, would it be enough energy?

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by NJ Chutzpah

I still cannot believe that the overall cost is more than petroleum

I mean, you have to dig petroleum up from deep in the ground, then store it someplace safe, then transport it from Saudi Arabia, then refine it

Distilling alcohol is more complicated?

would it be possible for the ethanol distillers to get their energy from a alternative source instead of the local power plant?

what if they all had their own solar, or wind generators, would it be enough energy?

The big farms that grow the corn rely on petroleum based chemicals to get their high yields and use petroleum burning machinery.

[my54ford]

Originally Posted by NJ Chutzpah

I still cannot believe that the overall cost is more than petroleum
it is, especially when you consider the BTU content of ethanol is lower then Pet basedfuel resulting in higer consumption
I mean, you have to dig petroleum up from deep in the ground, then store it someplace safe, then transport it from Saudi Arabia, then refine it
and corn is produced from the ground transported to the refinery then transported the the station
Distilling alcohol is more complicated?
Ethanol production requires large amounts of natural gas and electricity during the refineing process let alone the corn production half
would it be possible for the ethanol distillers to get their energy from a alternative source instead of the local power plant?
As I have discussed in the past ethanol production (like anything else) requires an CONSTANT supply of energy not the intermittent energy one gets from other sources as you mentioned
what if they all had their own solar, or wind generators, would it be enough energy?
See the above

see the note in red

[Wyomiles]

Here is the next big player. Range Fuels - Biomass to Energy: Inventing the New Oil