[Gasification] Re: [Bioenergy] Ethanol

[Thomas Reed]

Dear John and All:

There is NO route from natural gas to Ethanol.  Most Methanol is 
currently made from natural gas, but could be made from coal or biomass 
or MSW as well when we get serious about energy.

TOM REED         BEF. 

John Bailey wrote:

> Bioenergy-netters-
> It seems that I post this link every six months or so whenever this 
> issue pops up. Here you go, fyi.
>
> The Energetics of Ethanol:  An Introduction and Links to Studies
> http://www.newrules.org/agri/netenergy.html
>
> jb
>
>
> MMBTUPR at aol.com wrote:
>
>>                  to          Bioenergy List                    from  
>> Lewis L Smith
>>
>> My brother sent me a press release about the Pimental report, which 
>> has already been commented on in one or more of our lists. Following 
>> is a copy of my reply to him ---
>> ———————————————————————
>> I had to go to Google Advanced Search to open the URL included in 
>> this news item.
>>
>> No methodology. Just more assertions. For information, one is 
>> supposed to e-mail somebody else. No place to download Pimental's 
>> report, unless my eyes are playing tricks on me.
>>
>> My experience with biomass energy is that the economics and the 
>> energy balances are both very sensitive to factors of location and 
>> process. And since ethanol can be obtained a lot of different ways, 
>> including from natural gas [!] assertions that "ethanol is" or 
>> "ethanol isn't" therefore raise suspicions that the author has "an ax 
>> to grind", or doesn't know what he or she is talking about. In my 
>> experience, "it depends" would be a better, more prudent answer, 
>> especially if one is in a position to answer the question, "depends 
>> on what ?"
>> [For example, different soils require different amounts and types of 
>> fertilizer and present different degrees of runoff problems. The 
>> scale of process operations is also an important determinant of cost. 
>> And so on.]
>>
>> Apparently Pimental is referring to ethanol made as a byproduct of 
>> wet corn milling.
>> Like making ethanol from either cane bagasse or cane juice [the two 
>> intermediate products of cane milling] making ethanol from corn 
>> involves some important elements of energy input and monetary cost 
>> which are both variable and common to more than one of the final 
>> products of the process under consideration. This means that any 
>> allocations of energy or cost among these products, while maybe fine 
>> for the auditor or the IRS, are in terms of economics, arbitrary and 
>> easily upset by even minor changes in the price or volume of any one 
>> of the final products.
>>
>> Refineries, petrochemical plants and slaughterhouses are good 
>> examples of operations where joint variable costs dominate 
>> product-specific costs. As any employ with only a high-school 
>> education can tell  you, the pricing rules that  people learn in 
>> accounting 101 or that other rule which people learn in 
>> microeconomics 101 [and business people never use] don't apply in 
>> these kinds of enterprises. In fact, anyone who sells hamburger at 
>> its incremental cost per pound, or gasoline at its incremental cost 
>> per gallon, will go broke in three months.  Indeed most of the people 
>> who will be happy to tell you this, never took accounting 101 or 
>> microeconomics 101. [I know by experience !]
>>
>> So I am inclined to wait until I see Pimentel's report before I come 
>> down hard on somebody, if at all.
>>
>> Since ethanol is the "new boy on the block", a logical way to 
>> evaluate it would be to take the given process without any ethanol 
>> output, compared it with the same process with ethanol in the output 
>> mix and then see what are the incremental energy and cost effects of 
>> adding ethanol to the product mix.  Then I would do the same for some 
>> other processes, and only when got through, express a professional 
>> opinion.
>>
>> However, don't plan on a big expansion of ethanol from corn, if you 
>> cant sell increased output of the other products too. With 
>> multi-product output, one usually cant afford to have much waste. In 
>> fact, it is always good to keep in mind that old slaughterhouse 
>> slogan --- Sell everything but the squeal !
>>
>> Making ethanol is definitely not like making textiles or making the 
>> products of the needlework industries, such as blouses, brassieres, 
>> dresses, girdles and sox. And I know something about those lines of 
>> business too !
>>
>> —————————————————————
>> Cordially. End of message.
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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>
>