Apparantly switchgrass can provide 5 times the energy needed to grow it. That blows corn-based ethanol out of the water.

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But yields from a grass that only needs to be planted once would deliver an average of 13.1 megajoules of energy as ethanol for every megajoule of petroleum consumed—in the form of nitrogen fertilizers or diesel for tractors—growing them. "It's a prediction because right now there are no biorefineries built that handle cellulosic material" like that which switchgrass provides, Vogel notes. "We're pretty confident the ethanol yield is pretty close." This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies.

Other development in alternative energy (all of these happen to be solor based) include - Super Soaker Inventor Aims to Cut Solar Costs in Half

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Solar energy technology is enjoying its day in the sun with the advent of innovations from flexible photovoltaic (PV) materials to thermal power plants that concentrate the sun’s heat to drive turbines. But even the best system converts only about 30 percent of received solar energy into electricity—making solar more expensive than burning coal or oil. That will change if Lonnie Johnson’s invention works. The Atlanta-based independent inventor of the Super Soaker squirt gun (a true technological milestone) says he can achieve a conversion efficiency rate that tops 60 percent with a new solid-state heat engine. It represents a breakthrough new way to turn heat into power.

Johnson, a nuclear engineer who holds more than 100 patents, calls his invention the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion System, or JTEC for short. This is not PV technology, in which semiconducting silicon converts light into electricity. And unlike a Stirling engine, in which pistons are powered by the expansion and compression of a contained gas, there are no moving parts in the JTEC. It’s sort of like a fuel cell: JTEC circulates hydrogen between two membrane-electrode assemblies (MEA). Unlike a fuel cell, however, JTEC is a closed system. No external hydrogen source. No oxygen input. No wastewater output. Other than a jolt of electricity that acts like the ignition spark in an internal-combustion engine, the only input is heat.

Power from space? Pentagon likes the ideaNeat idea but will probably only be feasible for military power for a long time. And dare I say how easily this could be made into an awesome weapon?

Scientists Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2

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Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico have found a way of using sunlight to recycle carbon dioxide and produce fuels like methanol or gasoline.

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The prototype will be about the size and shape of a beer keg. It will contain 14 cobalt ferrite rings, each about one foot in diameter and turning at one revolution per minute. An 88-square meter solar furnace will blast sunlight into the unit, heating the rings to about 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, cobalt ferrite releases oxygen. When the rings cool to about 2,000 degrees, they're exposed to CO2.

Since the cobalt ferrite is now missing oxygen, it snatches some from the CO2, leaving behind just carbon monoxide -- a building block for making hydrocarbons -- that can then be used to make methanol or gasoline. And with the cobalt ferrite restored to its original state, the device is ready for another cycle.

Fuels like methanol and gasoline are combinations of hydrogen and carbon that are relatively easy to synthesize, Stechel said. Methanol is the easiest, and that's where they will start, but gasoline could also be made.

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The Sandia team originally developed the CR5 to generate hydrogen for use in fuel cells. If the device's rings are exposed to steam instead of carbon dioxide, they generate hydrogen. But the scientists switched to carbon monoxide, so the fuels they produce would be compatible with existing infrastructure.

Eric Esler wrote:Why does no one mention tobacco for ethanol? Research is showing it has great potential, and it can grow in large quantities almost anywhere.

Link please - that'd be great.


I've never heard of this "part throttle" before. Does it just bolt on?

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The Ethanol Fallacy
By James B. Meigs
Published in the February 2008 issue.
The idea is so appealing: We can reduce our dependence on oil—stop sending U.S. dollars to corrupt petro-dictators, stop spewing megatons of carbon into the atmos¬phere—by replacing it with clean, home-grown, all-American corn. It sounds too good to be true.

Sadly, it is.

Of course we need alternatives to oil. The world uses a cubic mile of petroleum each year, and demand keeps rising as the global economy booms. At first glance, corn seems like a heaven-sent substitute. American corn farmers are the most productive in the world, growing far more of the grain than we can possibly eat, and exporting mountains of the stuff to other countries. And the corn kernel is a marvel of energy storage. Converting that compact bundle of starches into alcohol is a relatively simple trick known to generations of moonshiners. So why not build corn liquor stills on an industrial scale and use the output to power our cars and trucks?

That’s exactly what this country has been doing for the past several years. Some 134 ethanol plants are now in operation, consuming close to 1.6 billion bushels of grain, about 15 percent of our total corn production. To feed the ethanol machine, farmers planted almost 93 million acres of corn in 2007, a 19 percent increase over the previous year, and the highest figure since 1944 (when yields per acre were far lower).

The result is that the country is now experiencing an ethanol glut. Prices are sagging—as are plans to build ethanol refineries from sea to shining sea. Yet many in Washington seem determined to force still more ethanol into the system. The just-passed Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which President Bush has said he will sign, mandates corn ethanol usage of 15 billion gal. a year (more than three times today’s consumption) by 2015. And presidential candidates have outdone each other with vows to flood the nation with ever-increasing rivers of ethanol for at least a generation.

It’s great that our politicians have discovered the need for new energy technologies. But it appears that Washington is determined to put its money—our money—on the wrong horse. Right now, researchers are studying a host of energy solutions, including hydrogen, high-mileage diesel, plug-in hybrids, radical reductions in vehicle weight and cellulosic ethanol (made from cornstalks, switchgrass or other nonfood crops). It is far too soon to say which of these holds the most promise. But, instead of promoting experimentation and competition to find the best solutions, politicians seem ready to declare ethanol the winner. As a result, our nation could wind up with the worst of both worlds: an “alternative” energy that is enormously expensive yet barely saves a gallon of oil.

Let’s start with the math. Corn doesn’t grow like a weed. Modern corn farming involves heavy inputs of nitrogen fertilizer (made with natural gas), applications of herbicides and other chemicals (made mostly from oil), heavy machinery (which runs on diesel) and transportation (diesel again). Converting the corn into fuel requires still more energy. The ratio of how much energy is used to make ethanol versus how much it delivers is known as the energy balance, and calculating it is surprisingly complex.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory states that, “Today, 1 Btu of fossil energy consumed in producing and delivering corn ethanol results in 1.3 Btu of usable energy in your fuel tank.” Even that modest payback may be overstated. Skeptics cite the research of Cornell Uni¬versity professor David Pimentel, who estimates that it takes approximately 1.3 gal. of oil to produce a single gallon of ethanol.

If the benefits are in doubt, the costs are not. It would take 450 pounds of corn to yield enough ethanol to fill the tank of an SUV. Producing enough ethanol to replace America’s imported oil alone would require putting nearly 900 million acres under cultivation—or roughly 95 percent of the active farmland in the country. Once we’ve turned our farms into filling stations, where will the food come from?

There’s a simple reason that ethanol is popular with politicians: money. Substituting corn ethanol for a large fraction of the gasoline we burn will mean sluicing gushers of cash from more populated states to politically powerful farm states. And a lot of that cash will wind up in the pockets of the big agribusinesses, like Archer Daniels Midland, that dominate ethanol processing—and whose fat checkbooks wield enormous influence in Washington.

In fact, governments generally have a bad track record when it comes to picking technologies. In the midst of an earlier oil crunch, President Jimmy Carter seized on “synfuels”—refined from oil shale deposits—as a panacea. Oops. Synfuels turned out to be woefully uneconomic, environmentally disastrous and feasible only with massive government subsidies. It took years to kill the program off—and the last of the multibillion-dollar tax credits just expired in 2007.

The corn ethanol boondoggle threatens to be far, far worse. If enacted, current proposals will amount to a huge hidden tax on consumers, with benefits flowing to the politically connected. Once set in motion, such a program would be all but impossible to stop—even if other alternatives, like cellulosic ethanol, turn out to be vastly superior. And every dollar spent on corn ethanol is a dollar not spent on those other, more promising approaches.

So what should the government do? First off: no harm. Instead of trying to mandate specific technologies—and risk locking us into using the wrong one—Washington should create incentives to help the market choose the best approaches. One step would be to reward consumers for conservation: There are vast opportunities to make our homes, businesses and vehicles more efficient, and to make our economy stronger in the process.

Perhaps someday corn ethanol will prove itself a viable part of our energy mix. But corn liquor is powerful stuff, and it can make people do strange things. Let’s keep it out of Washington’s hands.

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Power from space? Pentagon likes the idea Neat idea but will probably only be feasible for military power for a long time. And dare I say how easily this could be made into an awesome weapon?

When reading this article, it seems like the only objection is the expense of getting the stuff out to space. However, if you were to use the space elevator:

Space Elevator

I have been using ethanol for some time now as have many Iowans. I would bet that there is some money trading hands. I bet the outcome of this study as is the case with most is influenced by money. Think about what powerful wealthy special intrest group would like to see us not use 10% ethanol or say it this way 10% less petroleum.



FORGET GIRLS GONE WILD WE HAVE GOVERNMENT SPENDING GONE WILD!

All pump gas has been 10% ethanol in Minnesota for years.

We have ethanol plants where I live.... when the wind shifts... they can make a small town sell like a brewery.... because well.... that's what ethanol plants are.... but it doesn't make anyone sick...

Ethanol is actually corn alcohol.... that's it.... anyone ever seen a bottle of everclrear? they just call it ethanol because it's used as fuel.

You can drink ethanol in it's pure form but it's hard since its 200 proof..... you can't drink gasoline..... so why would the fumes from burning something you can drink make people sicker than something that's 100% poison like gas or oil.... it doesn't make sense...

I'm willing to bet that the oil companies either funded their research or at least had something to do with it.