Ozark
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 4012
Loc: out in the woods
|
|
Quote:
old lodge skins said:
In fairness ethanol might be a little more viable if there is a profitable use for the DDG. Tell us about that part, Ozark, I bet you know a lot more about that than I do.
Apparently not. What's DDG?
And believe me, I think ethanol fuel is a wonderful idea if it's economically viable. Trouble is, the more I read about it the more it sounds like smoke and mirrors - a scam.
That's a great analogy about the Arkies buying for $1 and selling for $1, then deciding they need gov't help to get a bigger truck. It's like the guy just losing 50 cents on every item he sold - but he figured he'd make up for it on volume.
Lemme know about DDG.
|
Liberty
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 5796
|
|
More than 7 million tons of distillers dry grains are created in domestic dry grind ethanol production. For every bushel of corn made into ethanol, 18 pounds of DDGS are created and must maintain value to contribute to plant profitability.
The corn kernel is mostly starch at 61% of the wet weight, with protein, fiber, corn oil and water making up the remaining 39%. The dry grind ethanol process uses most of the starch present in the corn kernel during ethanol fermentation, leaving protein, fat, minerals and vitamins behind in a concentrated form. The forms of this ethanol co-product are Corn Distillers Dried Grains (DDG), Corn Condensed Distillers Solubles (CDS), Corn Distillers Dried Grains/ Solubles (DDGS), and Wet Distillers Grains with solubles (WDGS).
Dry grind ethanol production begins by grinding corn into a coarse flour and combining with water and enzymes. The enzymes begin the conversion process of starch to sugar creating a mash that is then cooked and sterilized. After cooling, yeast is mixed with the mash to ferment the sugars into ethanol, carbon dioxide and other metabolites. The fermented mash is then sent to distillation to extract the ethanol. The mash is now considered spent mash which then goes onto either a screen press or centrifuge, where as much liquid as possible is separated.
The liquid that is separated either goes back into the cooking system and is sold as livestock feed, or is partially dehydrated into syrup called condensed distillers solubles (CDS). The spent grains can also be sold as livestock feed as wet distillers grains or dried, in which case they are called distillers dried grains (DDG). If the syrup is added to the wet distillers grains and then dried, the resulting product is referred to as distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS).
|
Ozark
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 4012
Loc: out in the woods
|
|
Liberty - Thanks for the explanation of DDG's. The process you described is the same as in brewing beer, except for distilling of course. In brewing, the DDG's are called "spent grains" and they're good for compost, animal feed, etc. The liquid you describe would be the spent "sparge water" left after rinsing sugars out. I've never heard of a use for it - but if you had enough of it, I guess it could be animal feed. Makes sense.
I did some reading on "cellulosic ethanol" - which would be a big breakthrough if they could make it economically viable. I think that breakthrough is going to be necessary for ethanol to be practical. Fermenting food just isn't going to do it.
They're working on the cellulose problem, and maybe they'll solve it - who knows? I still say if they do they've solved "world hunger" as a side effect - so that's pretty significant.
Lots of the claims about "cellulosic ethanol" seem pretty phony though - they're claiming the process produces NO greenhouse gases because the growing plants absorb as much CO2 as is produced in making and burning ethanol. Hmmm - I guess they've never been around a fermenter?
"Cellulosic ethanol" is sounding like the proverbial "Mexican cat ranch" for producing fur coats. Next door they build a rat farm, and the cats eat the rats and the rats eat the skinned cats - and the whole thing is self-sustaining. Somehow I think there's some natural laws being violated in that proposition.
We'll see.
|
Hellbender
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 3416
Loc: Taney County
|
|
The by products are viable, which is why I pointed out that the Webster Co plant location might have been picked do more to its location within an animal food source area. One can't completely discount corn in the area either, because it is raised just to the west and north, but I admit I don't know the volume. I do know there's a chicken or turkey house, or two, in the area. A few cattle and hogs too. The sugar in corn doesn't have to be fermented to be extracted. I don't know the process, only that its often used in producing corn syrup.
As far as the amount of energy in Ethanol, where is gasoline, extraction, piping, shipping, refining, distribution?
The complaint from Ethanol supporters that the opposition is counting the phone call to order corn seed in the equation might be valid. 
--------------------
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.
Edited by Hellbender (10/10/07 06:55 PM)
|
Liberty
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 5796
|
|
Stanford did an air quality study, take it with a grain of corn
Ethanol likely reduces two carcinogens benzene and butadiene, but increase two others-formaldehyde and acetaldehyde
and contributes to increased ozone in some areas, i.e. smog
kind of a pick your poison, but I don't put much stock in studies until I know how it was done and who funded it.
|
Liberty
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 5796
|
|
in another study from Cornell so definitely take it with a grain or even a cobb of corn
"A Cornell University study that appeared in the journal Natural Resources Research in July 2005 found that producing ethanol from plants such as corn, sunflowers and soybeans uses more energy than the fuel generates.
In terms of energy output compared with the amount of energy required to produce ethanol, the study found:
* Corn requires 29 per cent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
* Switch grass requires 45 per cent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
* Wood biomass requires 57 per cent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
Critics of the Cornell study argue that the researchers used outdated data to come to their conclusions. One of the researchers - Prof. David Piementel - had looked at ethanol's energy efficiency in the past and concluded it wasn't worth the effort. However, there's also a long list of studies that have found that the production of ethanol results in a net gain in energy - between 34 and 75 per cent. "
|
Liberty
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 5796
|
|
and another prognosticator said this
" The social consequences are staggering. Since Ethanol fuels are inherently uneconomical. It costs (everything considered) $7.24 a gallon to produce and sells for roughly equal in price with gasoline as the $2.75 mark. The difference is made up by federal subsidies and the direct and indirect costs that farmers have to bear. The pressure for bringing the cost for inputs down is put on the shoulders of the poorest of the poor who are 'forced' into slave-labour type conditions for biomass production under which they are literally worked to death.
The end result is a fuel that costs more far more than gasoline, since far more energy is required to produce it than it gives back. But it also gives the user far less energy per gallon than gasoline does. The power that drives your car is produced by heat energy. In the combustion process air is rapidly heated that thereby expands and drives the mechanisms of your automobile engine. The produced power is the direct result of the heat energy generated by the fuel. A common measurement for heat energy is the "calorie" or in on the lager scale the kilocalorie. A kilocalorie is the amount of heat that is required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water (2.2 pounds) by one degree centigrade. By this measurement the burning of one kilogram of gasoline produces about 10,500 kilocalories. However, the burning of one kilogram of ethanol produces only 7,140 kilocalories, or about 68% the energy of gasoline, while it costs several times more to produce. In comparison, hydrogen fuel produces 34,200 kilocalories per kilogram. That's more than 3 times the energy content by weight of gasoline, and nearly 5 times that of ethanol and could be produced for a fraction of the cost of gasoline, utilizing nuclear power. Nuclear power produces 2 million times the heat energy of gasoline, per kilogram, or 3 million times that of coal or ethanol. As a fuel per ton, burning ethanol is roughly equal to burning a ton of coal."
Obviously, you need a few bushels of corn to accept all of what was being said here as there was a class warfare element to it, seriously damaging the credibility of the information provided
|
Hellbender
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 3416
Loc: Taney County
|
|
Quote:
" The social consequences are staggering. Since Ethanol fuels are inherently uneconomical. It costs (everything considered) $7.24 a gallon to produce and sells for roughly equal in price with gasoline as the $2.75 mark. The difference is made up by federal subsidies and the direct and indirect costs that farmers have to bear. The pressure for bringing the cost for inputs down is put on the shoulders of the poorest of the poor who are 'forced' into slave-labour type conditions for biomass production under which they are literally worked to death.
I don't know where you got that Lib, but its one of the dumbest anti Ethanol statements I've heard. The term Labour does smell, India maybe?
Quote:
Corn requires 29 per cent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.
Maybe they should burn Ethanol, or better yet Bio-Diesel. 
--------------------
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.
|
Hellbender
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 3416
Loc: Taney County
|
|
Some info;
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v33_3_00/ethanol.htm
Quote:
devoting even more of the crop to making ethanol means higher prices for corn-dependent products ranging from soft drinks to bacon. The price of tortillas in Mexico rose 14% last year, a significant hardship for those who depend on corn as their dietary staple. Not to mention the fact that increased corn production also comes at the expense of other crops:
Daumn! 
--------------------
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.
Edited by Hellbender (10/10/07 08:40 PM)
|
Hellbender
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 3416
Loc: Taney County
|
|
And then there's this, enough to warm the heart of any liberal, and make Hillary wet herself.
"Although powering our cars with corn is vastly more expensive than other alternatives, this choice seems to be tremendously popular with most Americans. If an economist were asked to justify this attitude, the argument would have to be that the market cost of imported oil vastly understates its true cost to us in terms of geopolitical implications of U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But if that is the underlying rationale, the preferred economic solution would not be a subsidy to corn producers, but rather a tax on oil imports. "
--------------------
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.
|
Liberty
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 5796
|
|
that last one I posted up came from some damn Canadian, as with all opinions they are to be questioned
|
Hellbender
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 3416
Loc: Taney County
|
|
More.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2007/db20070316_016207.htm
--------------------
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.
|
old lodge skins
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 381
Loc: Porche's Prairie, MO
|
|
Here goes the partially educated blue collar retiree again.
I thought about this issue a few times today while I was away from the 'puter doing chores and errands. As to what Mr Griffin mentioned up thread about the creation of good paying jobs being good for the local economy those good paying jobs could be very short lived. Local news is already talking about possible bankruptcies because the price of corn is up and the price of ethanol is down,
That lousy 1:1.34 energy in to energy out ratio doesn't factor in the cost of the purchasing the corn. So guess what, it just gets worse. Pick a number, if corn is worth $2.50, $3.00, $4.00, 8.00 a bushell the equation just gets worse.
I also forgot to mention that a gallon of gasoline is worth something like 1.5 the "go-power" of a gallon of ethanol.
I have no connection nor loyalty to the petroleum industry.
I think that what it has done to prices in the USA and worldwide over the past 30 to 35 years is CRIMINAL.
I would love to see America not to need a drop of oil from the middle east.
I just think that corn-ethanol, at least in its current incarnation, is not an answer, and that most of those who say that it is, are CRIMINALLY deceptive. Does anybody suppose that this energy in/energy out ratio wasn't previously computed?
If this was such a great investment opportunity do you think that it would have been made available to a bunch of local farmers?
Setting yourself up with a golden parachute when a company or facility goes belly up should be a capital offense,
especially if it was premeditated.
|
Hellbender
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 3416
Loc: Taney County
|
|
The problem is that while all this negative info is going on Casey's is still pushing E10 or 15, can't remember, and now Murphy's is selling it.
I think the fact that Murphy's is pushing it is significant because they are a big time Gulf of Mexico driller. If they can extend that supply, we are better off.
Course I know none of those Arabian Gulf monkeys would feed any negative info, nor would our good buddy Huego do any thing like that, or would they?
Quote:
Here goes the partially educated blue collar retiree again.
well I went college and got my master's and I'm now retired, actually I went to college two years and was a Master Electrician, worked in the dirt. 
At my age you'll have to excuse me if experience makes me just as suspicious of the anti Ethanol stuff as I am of all the solid "Man Causes Global Warming" crap.
--------------------
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.
|
old lodge skins
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 381
Loc: Porche's Prairie, MO
|
|
HB even though it seems that our beliefs on this ethanol issue are contradictory I respect your willingness to look fairly at the issue. If you average out what the 'pros' offer with what the 'cons' have to say, the economics still look pretty poor.
I dropped out of college with a mere 92 credit hours. I was an insulator/asbestos worker. I worked the most in coal fired power generation but quite a bit in other industries.
I think that ethanol is good as a gasoline additive at this point, but corn ethanol is not a viable substitute for gasoline.......yet. I am intrigued with the concept of Hydrogen as an internal combustion engine fuel, but I do not know enough about the subject to feel entitled to an opinion. I think that what Caseys is doing has more to do with making points with the Ag folks than anything else.
What I am familiar with is Caseys labeling gasohol as "Premium" yet selling it for the same or slightly less than regular unleaded. I have no reason to doubt the science of awarding the gasohol the extra two or three octane points. I do, however suspect that the average American driver still does not realize that he probably gets no benefit from a couple more octane points.
|
Liberty
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 5796
|
|
I'm against ethanol strictly because it increases the price of kettle corn, damn beetches
|
hillbilly
member
Reged: 12/27/05
Posts: 490
Loc: Cedar County
|
|
old - I think you pretty well summed it up. Griffin doesn't seem to realize that construction on the ethanol plant boom is already busting. As you said, they have nearly priced themselves out of a job already. The worst thing is not the temporary labor jobs associated with the plants going away, it is the farmers losing their collective asses surrounding these plants. We all know the farmers are what drives those local economies.
|
Ozark
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 4012
Loc: out in the woods
|
|
I know this much about fermentation. Yeast consumes simple sugar and changes it into an equal weight of ethanol and CO2 gas. The alcohol stays liquid, and the CO2 bubbles off into the atmosphere.
I'm going fishing today, but when I get back I'll figure something out. What's the weight of a gallon of ethanol? 7 or 8 lbs., I imagine. Whatever that weight is - how much volume does an equal weight of CO2 occupy?
I'll find out, but that's a big bunch of CO2 for every gallon of ethanol made - and that's not counting the additional CO2 that's released when ethanol burns.
You'd think the enviro-wackos would be throwing a fit about that.
|
Hellbender
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 3416
Loc: Taney County
|
|
Quote:
If you average out what the 'pros' offer with what the 'cons' have to say, the economics still look pretty poor.
But that only works if you assume equality in in whats true. You, nor anyone else can deny the enormous financial advantage that the fossil fuel side has. Whats the penalty for putting out false information?, Nothing.
Quote:
I am intrigued with the concept of Hydrogen as an internal combustion engine fuel
The Germans thought it was a great gas for Dirigibles, until the Hindenburg.
Quote:
I think that what Casey's is doing has more to do with making points with the Ag folks than anything else.
Well I believe originally it was to help farmers, the company was conceived and started by Iowa farmers, but the corn surplus has long since passed. As far as Premium goes, thats an industry standard, but I agree its not needed.
I do question why the anti's insist on basing their energy gain/loss on using fossil fuel to raise corn. Does that slant the figures compared to using bio fuels?
The per gallon "subsidy is in the form a tax not collected. Is a tax not collected bad, should we collect more taxes on items, if we don't tax soybean oil or bread as a production tax are we subsidizing them?
Ozark, the CO2 argument works until this question is asked, "How much CO2 is absorbed in extracting oil, compared to how much is absorbed by the corn grown to produce the Ethanol?" How does that balance out with the CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuel?
--------------------
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.
|
old lodge skins
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 381
Loc: Porche's Prairie, MO
|
|
At current pricing levels, I believe that the situation would look even worse if we figured the farmers using bio-fuels for planting, fertilizing, spraying, cultivating, and harvesting their corn.
The fact is, right now anyway, they ARE using fossil fuels.
I am not on the "fossil fuel side". I have always been in favor of developing alternative energy sources.
I am just in favor of truth and reality.
America should have been seriously working on all of these ideas since the mid seventies when suddenly a gallon of gasoline was no longer $.25.
The energy 'shocker' I will always remember is the first time I spent ten whole dollars to fill my gas tank.
Then we all got complacent and learned to live with it till this summer, on a couple of occasions, I filled up my truck and my two five gallon mower gas cans and was right at the $100 mark.
|
sptsman
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 6196
Loc: Missouri
|
|
Good Lord!!! I got a headache just reading a small portion of all this internet, genius banter.
Don't any of you folks just use the stink test or common sense when it comes to crap like bio-fuels and global warming and hot chicks that want you? For Pete's sake, this bio-fuel thing has been a farce for years. It is commonly regarded as the inside joke at the Dept. of Energy and the Dept. of Agriculture.
Here's a thought, why don't we take the single most important source of food in our system and use it for a inefficient fuel source? We can drive the price of food up and create a fuel source that can't possibly sustain itself , at the expense of our food supply... Brilliant!!
I think people just don't think anymore. Enough blah, blah, blah, blah and much of society will go along with blah, blah, blah, blah... This one is so simple it is embarrassing that there is even conversation about it...
Wake up you knuckleheads, this is a farce!!!!
--------------------
"Hunts are best measured by the endurance of the memories they produce..."
|
Hellbender
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 3416
Loc: Taney County
|
|
So most are in favor of sending big chunks of money to the big sand box in the east and to the new dictator to the south.
So how many of you have sons and grandsons to throw into confronting the byproduct of this? Ragheads that couldn't afford a firecracker now have enough money to fly around the world looking for a cause worthy of 72 virgins.
We're not fighting a war there to maintain oil supplies, but because of the toys that money has brought the region.
--------------------
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to this country so that they can see their own doctor.
|
griffin
administrator
Reged: 12/13/05
Posts: 9625
Loc: the most dangerous city in Ame...
|
|
I have a son who will fight when he comes of age.
griffin
--------------------
"The Irish are one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever." - Sigmund Freud
|
Liberty
member
Reged: 12/14/05
Posts: 5796
|
|
I'm in favor of oil exploration it is the best energy source
I'm also in favor of using our forest inventory for what it is good for in every way, that means lumber too, not just a place for huggers to go commune
I'm in favor of exploring alternative energy, but only if it can be a better source of energy. I like solar and wind and methane from waste for electric generation. I like more and more people being off the grid. But in the end, exploit the oil because it is what we have the infrastructure for and it is currently the best source. Bio-diesel ain't a bad proposition, I like the work done by that grad student last year that was turning logs into bio-fuel. I'm a huge fan of nuclear, would much rather we had more nuclear power plants than hydroelectric plants, but for irrigation needs I believe hydroelectric plants need to be combined, but if solely for hydroelectric, I would have to look at other possibilities. I like the geothermal ideas, don't know much about them, but they seem to work well for Iceland. Coal is something America has a lot of, so use it. Natural gas is something we have an abundance of as well.
But in the end, oil is king, we just need our own sources of it. Enough that we don't have to continue to fund the malcontents of the world.
|
griffin
administrator
Reged: 12/13/05
Posts: 9625
Loc: the most dangerous city in Ame...
|
|
Keep funding them.....it's easier to see them and kill them that way.
griffin
--------------------
"The Irish are one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever." - Sigmund Freud
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
