The Great Essex Ethanol Validation

Brazil is now the economic 8 ball . . .you know what I mean?
They had this bru ah ah all over the world, they send the top food expert down here to see the sugar cane x food affair.
You think this guy don´t now what is going on?
You think this was necessary?
Yeah but he came here as saw what (they) he wanted to see and sent 9 billion dollars to Brazil to create infrastructure to get the crops out of where they are planted.
No roads there, miles and miles of plantation all going to waste, no bio diesel, no food out of it.
It is mostly under water now, no avail for that money.
Do you think food and farmaceutical industries have a plan going on?
Did you read all the problems with alchool in your car, here is these threads?
They are all real . . .
So is the fuel as alternative. Get your dinossaur to the museum and buy a modern car.
Now FIAT is coming, maybe you will have 4 flex after all . . .but wait . . .conspiracy again?
FIAT is owned by who? There you go, catholics trying to sneak back in! :D
How about GM (Govt Motors) eveybody wants the brazilian branch, it is the best selling part of Old GM
I hope they don´t shove the FIAT 147 down your throats just for revenge! :D
What a piece of caca!
Heron
 
Jonathan I have seen tha books, what I have not seen is working examples of what they are selling.

Besides, what ever it is, if the government cannot tax it or regulate it, you will not be able to develop it.
If you use it on your own farm, nobody cares...but as soon as you try to sell it or market it..then the trouble starts.

The whole hydrogen thing is great! but how much energy does it take to get the hydrogen out of the air or water or whatever.

Nicola Tesla proved he could transmit electrical power wirelessly over 100 years ago....
J.P. Morgan did not like the idea of "free" electricity and pulled Tesla's funding for projects.

Alternate fuels and energy do exist, but they will not be available until they can be controlled by big business or the government.

Same as right now, they already have cars that get 70+ mpg, but we are not allowed to have them imported here. wonder why......less fuel= less tax revenue per gallon.

Follow the money, corn - gas whatever,

I just looked into solar, even with the tax credits a 10kw system will be around $30K (about $70,000, normal, about $7 a watt)

So either way, I pay for solar panels, or pay the electric company, money still not going in MY pocket.
 
Cost of Ethanol

Cost of Ethanol

At $4.00 Corn ethanol is not feasible in most plants. Kansas is the grainbelt of the US with corn, wheat and hugh feed lots. I grew up on a farm and live in a farm community (with no manufacturing) totally dependent on Ag. Most of the grain produced in this area ship out of our town due to a key location on the railroad. My friends and family raise corn and I grew up in NW Kansas in an area that is irrigated with the highest yields in the nation often over 250 bussel/acre.

Remember corn will not grow just anywhere. And the input cost are very expensive and interrelated to natural gas and oil prices. We can not grow enough corn to run our transportation. If you put all the current corn & oil seed crops to energy, you would have no corn food products or livestock.

Wind generators run an average of 45% of the time in Kansas and we are a windy state. Each windmill generates the equivalent BTUs of a 20 bbl/day oil well. Thus you would need 14 million windmills to equate the BTUs of gasoline and diesel we use each day. This does not include home use. We have a wind farm near our town that generate 3.3 mkw per tower at a cost of 3.3 million each. That is a national $42,000,000,000,000 investment with 8 year payout excluding repairs and a 20 year life. We can't print that much money. Plus the fact the electric companies must maintain the ability to run full capacity and must charge customers for this capacity.

But you can not run trucks on electricity and Boone Picken's idea of running trucks on LNG is wild. There would be no sleepers on the trucks as you would need a very large LNG tank and larger engines. And remember Boone owns natural gas pipelines and reserves.

We are surrounded by ethanol and biodiesel plants. I have friends that work in Colwich Ks designing most of the ethanol plants across our nation.

Corn ethanol economics do not work with corn above $4.00. At that price only the plants that have been built years ago and are paid off can make a profit. Below is links to one of the few ethanol plants that make money. Their news letters are extremely informative in simple terms and should be read by those interested in the process.

Prairie Horizon Agri-Energy, LLC (PHAE) was founded in November of 2003
Learn how the plant runs via features in the newsletters.


I know the guy that built the plant below. He is from the oil industry. E3 proposed building a plant near out town with the same concept of making methane via a digestor from cattle waste. The digestor design failed and did not produce the amount of methane required to run or suppliment the plant. I believe he knew this from the beginning as he still owns natural gas pipelines.

E³ BioFuels
Dennis Langley, CEO

E3 Biofuels-Mead LLC filed for bankruptcy protection

However, farmers do need to come to grips with their dependency on the economy, says Swanson. “They need $4 corn to pay rents. They better have a plan B in place with some type of hedge if they're going to make it.”
Corn needs to be below $4.00 for ethanol plants to make a profit.

OFFICIALS AT E3 say that “decreased production levels due to mechanical/equipment failures coupled with the high cost of corn and low price of ethanol made for difficult economics at the plant and have taken a toll on our business.”
Beatrice Biodiesel, LLC announces its intent to construct a 50 million gallon biodiesel


The parent company of the 50 Mgy Beatrice Biodiesel plant in Beatrice filed for Chapter 7 (liquidation) bankruptcy.

Related Ethanol Bankruptcy Stories
• CarbonGreen acquires one of former VeraSun ethanol plants from AgStar; production restart in 30 daysIn Michigan, Carbon Green Bio Energy and AgStar Financial Services have entered into an agreement for Carbon Green to purchase the 40 Mgy Woodbury ethanol plant that was aquired by AgStar in the VeraS...
• Green Plains Renewable Energy to acquire two bankrupt VeraSun ethanol plants for $123.5 millionIn Nebraska, Green Plains Renewable Energy announced that it will acquire two of the bankrupt VeraSun Energy ethanol plants from a group of lenders led by AgStar Financial Services, for $123.5 million...
• One third of US biodiesel plants idled; Nebraska biorefinery fails to find a buyerIn Nebraska, the Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee for the idled 50 Mgy Beatrice Biodiesel plant in Beatrice said that he has not found a buyer for the biodiesel plant, despite seven months of searching. T...
• AgStar group buys six VeraSun plants for $324 million: creditor will resell, restart in 60 daysIn Minnesota, the AgStar lending group purchased six plants in the VeraSun bankruptcy for a credit bid of $324 million and will dispose of the plants to what it called numerous interested parties. ...
• Minnesota’s Otter Tail defaults on loans for Fergus Fall ethanol plant; restructuring debt, raising fresh equity, say ownersIn Minnesota, Otter Tail Ag Enterprises has defaulted on its $31 million master loan with Agstar Financial Services and is behind on payments for two other debts including a 19.2 million construction ...
• Northeast Biofuels aims to sell assets in April in bankruptcy moveIn New York, Northeast Biofuels has requested bankruptcy court to approve its plan to sell its facility to pay down debt. The $200 million Northeast Biofuels plant never reached full operating capacity...


If the point is ethanol is a good replacement for oil. Tell me how the economics can work, not how people feel it should work. I believe in conservation as do all my fellow geologist in Oil and Gas. We spend our whole life studing the Paleo-Ecology of the earth and looking from the molecule to the universe scales. 85% of the U.S. oil companies are small independents that have 2 geologist or less. There are 20,000 Petroleum Geologist. We explore for oil and gas, drill our ideas, and if we fail, we are out of a job and the company goes bankrupt. It is a risky business and not for the weak hearted as we put our jobs on the line each time we drill. The individual companies are not big business, and we have no control over price. We can only do our best and contribute to the supply side, the same as a wheat farmer. Currently we are not exploring and mostly drilling offshore as there are no dollars for investment. There will be much less drilling when we get with new taxes. This will bite us big time if the economy turns as illustrate by recent gas prices.

You can't grow enough energy. It can be supplimental at lower grain prices But you can make major changes with nuclear energy which is the basic source of energy to all the universe. Putting the cart before the horse, hammering the oil industry without developing nuclear, will destroy our economic strength, and spiral us into unemployment and a depression. At that point you need less energy.

Larry
 
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Same as right now, they already have cars that get 70+ mpg, but we are not allowed to have them imported here. wonder why......less fuel= less tax revenue per gallon.

This is mostly due to emission requirements and the type fuel (especially low vapor gasoline).

I had a friend with a 2004 3/4 ton Ford diesel pickup that was getting 23-24 mpg...that is until it was recalled and the chip changed out. Mileage went down to 16. The original chip can only be used in trucks exported to South America. He now has a 3rd party chip and programmer & gets around 21 mpg. My 97 dodge pickup get 21 with petro diesel and 23 if I blend 40% biodiesel. I have to carry 100% biodiesel on board and blend when I fill. B10 is the best you can get at a few stations.
 
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Makes me want to go and burn some tires and styrofoam cups, just to make up for all the clean air that has been coming out of my tailpipe!
 
It is a cultural thing!
Down here it is a fast pace changing environment, we try all paths and stick with those that prove worthy.
USA grew so big and became paquidermic, slow reaction (unless it is war) to most novelties (unlesss is gadgetry) to expensive to run or operate.
It will change and things will get better.
Just a side note: climate´s due deaths in the year 300 thou. :eek:
Heron
 
Here's a much more promising fuel source, that won't require using food for fuel!

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, California -- Fossil fuels that keep our planet running -- oil, natural gas and coal -- were created from the decomposition of plants, plankton and other organic material over millions of years.

A California lab has developed genetically altered bacteria that eat sugars and excrete a form of diesel oil.
Today, scientists all over the globe are working to create fuels with the same properties but without that pesky 100 million-year wait. And "renewable petroleum" is now a reality, on a small scale, in some laboratories.
The biotech company LS9 Inc. is using single-celled bacteria to create an oil equivalent. These petroleum "production facilities" are so small, you can see them only under a microscope.
"We started in my garage two years ago, and we're producing barrels today, so things are moving pretty quickly," said biochemist Stephen del Cardayre, LS9 vice president of research and development.
How does it work? A special type of genetically altered bacteria are fed plant material: basically, any type of sugar. They digest it and excrete the equivalent of diesel fuel.
Humans have used bacteria and yeast for centuries to do similar work, creating beer, moonshine and, more recently, ethanol. But scientists' recent strides in genetic engineering now allow them to control the end product. Watch the fuel-making process at work »
"So these are bacteria that have been engineered to produce oil," del Cardayre said. "They started off like regular lab bacteria that didn't produce oil, but we took genes from nature, we engineered them a bit [and] put them into this organism so that we can convert sugar to oil."

These new plants use the sun in large tubes to grow these things. 1st large scale plant just now being designed!
 
John, where are we going to get all the sugar to feed those critters? :)
 
John, where are we going to get all the sugar to feed those critters? :)
The main players are creating a symbiotic relationship where they use one bacterium that’s like a plant and uses photosynthesis and creates sugar as waste that feeds the genetically altered bacterium who waste is real diesel fuel.
 
brett,

Could you please show me the math or the formula that you used to come up with that assumption ?

Or is it some propaganda you heard from an oil industry sponsored shill that has been regurgitated since 1970 ?

Larry already spelled it out - $4.00/bushel corn, 2.5 gallons of ethanol per bushel, plus the cost to actually produce the ethanol & knowing you need far more of it for the same energy. You do the math & tell me how that's cheaper than gas...

How about some official state & federal government data?

http://www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/RENEW/Biomass/Cost.shtml

The cost of producing ethanol varies with the cost of the feedstock used and the scale of production. Approximately 85 percent of ethanol production capacity in the United States relies on corn feedstock. The cost of producing ethanol from corn is estimated to be about $1.10 per gallon. Although there is currently no commercial production of ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks such as agricultural wastes, grasses and wood, the estimated production cost using these feedstocks is $1.15 to $1.43 per gallon.

Because a gallon of ethanol contains less energy than a gallon of gasoline, the production cost of ethanol must be multiplied by a factor of 1.5 to make an energy-cost comparison with gasoline. This means that if ethanol costs $1.10 per gallon to produce, then the effective cost per gallon to equal the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline is $1.65. In contrast, the current wholesale price of gasoline is about 90 cents per gallon.

The federal motor fuel excise tax on gasohol, a blended fuel of 10-percent ethanol and 90-percent gasoline, is 5.4 cents less per gallon than the tax on straight gasoline. In other words, the federal subsidy is 54 cents per gallon of ethanol when the ethanol is blended with gasoline. The subsidy makes ethanol-blended fuel competitive in the marketplace and stimulates the growth of an ethanol production and distribution infrastructure.

Or here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/fuel/pdf/rmftbl1.pdf
 
The main players are creating a symbiotic relationship where they use one bacterium that’s like a plant and uses photosynthesis and creates sugar as waste that feeds the genetically altered bacterium who waste is real diesel fuel.


Sounds kind of like what happens here, The neighbors dog comes over and cleans out the cat box in the garage, then he poops in our yard.....only it really does not do us any good. :)
 
Sounds kind of like what happens here, The neighbors dog comes over and cleans out the cat box in the garage, then he poops in our yard.....only it really does not do us any good. :)

Not exactly Scott, in your example the dog poo would go in your fuel tank and be consumed as you drove.
 
No one has even mentioned the water cost yet. Its hard enough for farmers in many areas to get water as it is. Governments keep taking water from the farmers to give to the overpopulated cites. There are current estimates that CURRENT population in the US is ALREADY 20% OVER our countries sustainable clean water usage.

In other words, if population stayed exactly what it is today... clean water would run out. Lake Meade and other lakes across the US would continue dropping until there is nothing left but a trickle.

I am a bit of a pessimist but I believe all of the worlds troubles are SYMPTOMS... not the root cause. The cause is OVER population. It makes lots of people really squirm in their chair but Chinese style population controls are the only things that are going to ultimately put a stop to water food and energy shortages. Argue what you will but, anything short of that is nothing but a band aid on a wound that is still getting bigger.
 
Oh. Scott. Your name got added to thread to poke some fun your way while still acknowledging that more sites are starting to agree with your stance on ethanol.
 
No one has even mentioned the water cost yet. Its hard enough for farmers in many areas to get water as it is. Governments keep taking water from the farmers to give to the overpopulated cites. There are current estimates that CURRENT population in the US is ALREADY 20% OVER our countries sustainable clean water usage.

In other words, if population stayed exactly what it is today... clean water would run out. Lake Meade and other lakes across the US would continue dropping until there is nothing left but a trickle.

I am a bit of a pessimist but I believe all of the worlds troubles are SYMPTOMS... not the root cause. The cause is OVER population. It makes lots of people really squirm in their chair but Chinese style population controls are the only things that are going to ultimately put a stop to water food and energy shortages. Argue what you will but, anything short of that is nothing but a band aid on a wound that is still getting bigger.

All good points!

Let's all hope they have selected bacteria that lives in sea water?
 
Value of the dollar.

Value of the dollar.

Scott admitted it was doable on a small level, so at least if you can step back and see the big picture then it CAN be done on a large scale. I have not even told you how much more you could get out of just corn production !

You guys have no problem sending your neighbors kid to go and get killed in some backwater but GOD forbid if you do could even consider something that would create jobs at home and energy independence . Some patriots here !

The value of the dollar goes up and down and as long as the commodities markets are being manipulated and the dollar is being printed out of thin air what your argument is now, that because the currency is being artificially manipulated, its not that the process cannot be done, but that the costs are too high. Ethanol could run for a century and not even touch the costs incurred with the military budgets of the last 50 years.

Do you remember the cost of your first VCR ? or home computer ?

Initial costs may be higher but as soon as the system is able to mass produce it will be cheaper than you can imagine.

If speculators are allowed to manipulate the market then you will have the chaos you have seen.

You know deep down the answers are out there but you are too chicken to consider them.

Overpopulation is not the issue, another soundbite created by the propaganda ministers to backup their genocide against lesser peoples.

You could fit every man woman and child on the island of Iceland !

The rest of the planet would be empty !

The bottom line is that it costs money to grow corn but oil is free from the ground so that economic model will always bear a higher initial cost.

The main problem with the data you cite is that it is a straight shot, there is no reusing of the total product. In otherwords you are throwing away 95 % of product and only looking at that part. Then the costs are out of sight !


Well I guess its all chickens here and nothing to back it up.

J




Larry already spelled it out - $4.00/bushel corn, 2.5 gallons of ethanol per bushel, plus the cost to actually produce the ethanol & knowing you need far more of it for the same energy. You do the math & tell me how that's cheaper than gas...

How about some official state & federal government data?

http://www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/RENEW/Biomass/Cost.shtml



Or here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/fuel/pdf/rmftbl1.pdf
 
And of course only your opinion is correct & we can't believe anything anyone else says, right?

You ask for facts, but then don't want to believe them when they don't agree with your opinion.

I'm sure there are gray areas on both sides but the actual costs involved from start to finish aren't one of them. What corn is really selling for & what it costs to produce ethanol aren't opinions - and until that changes substantially corn for ethanol is plain stupid.
 
Jonathon- Has it ever occured to you for just a fleeting moment that you might earn more respect by not throwing back names like "chickens"....;idiots;......or the many other titles that you bestow on others when they dont agree with you?? Take it from this 'old man' and treat some of these fine intelligent people here with more respect. This stuff just knocks the integrity out of the good stuff that you do bring to the forum. Stan
 
Overpopulation is a fact. There are too many people vying for water resources either directly or indirectly. Lake Meade is dropping a few feet every year. Heck, even right here in NC, the city of Kannapolis, sitting in the Yadkin River water basin has exhausted all their options. Cities downstream have sued to keep them from withdrawing more than their share because their reservoir is all but dried up. Even with the rains we have had recently. Kannapolis is in court trying to pipe water over from the Catawba river basin.

Fuel prices will always go up from here, clean water will be scarcer and scarcer because even if an INCREDIBLE adoption rate of new technologies to ration water and energy are adopted in the next few years. It won't even come close to offsetting the additional need for resources created by the population growth.
 
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