Takes Fuel to Make Fuel
The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel ran an article Sunday that originally ran in the N.Y. Times on February 7. It’s headlined “It takes fuel to make fuel” and I am surprised that I haven’t seen it in any other NYT company papers considering the hype over ethanol and the Ames, IA dateline.
The article is all about how turning corn into ethanol requires natural gas and the research that is being done to make ethanol more cost-effective. Two potential solutions are offered to using less natural gas in the production of ethanol – using cow manure or corn stover.
The article talks about work being done at Frontline Bioenergy in Ames, which has as it’s mission statement “…to lead the nation in biomass gasification solutions for energy and products” and the cute little leaf logo you see on this post. It quotes Frontline’s research and development manager John Reardon on their gasification project, “It’s just a step. But our whole economy is based on fossil energy, and we have to make a step somewhere.”
That’s how it will all be done – a step at a time. Our dependence on fossil fuels may be an addiction, but it’s not one we can quit cold turkey. We have to cut down gradually, a step at a time, to wean ourselves like babies. But it can be done.
Thanks to Gary Dikkers for sending me the article.
3 Comments
JW
While we know it takes fuel to make ethanol, something that is never pointed out is that it also takes fuel to turn oil into petroleum. It takes energy to pump it out of the ground, often the crude has to be transported greater distances, and a lot of energy is used in the refining process. Oil proponents like to point out that bio-fuels require oil to be created, but the truth is bio-fuels require less oil to produce than oil itself.
Cindy
Darn good point. It also takes fuel to dig coal out of the earth to make methanol, if you want that for an alternative.
Gary Dikkers
You realize of course the problem with turning corn stover into ethanol: It only increases the amount of nitrogen fertilizer (made from natural gas) needed to achieve a large corn yield.
If you leave the stover in the field, it will decompose adding energy and nutrients back into the soil. If you take the stover out of the field, you deny the soil of those nutrients and have to add even more nitrogen fertilizer the next spring to replenish the soil and once again get a large yield out of that field.
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JW said, “While we know it takes fuel to make ethanol, something that is never pointed out is that it also takes fuel to turn oil into petroleum.”
JW,
I think most people are aware one must expend resources to make things — including gasoline and diesel fuel.
But there is a huge difference: Oil refineries can use their own product as the fuel to make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, bunker oil, et al. Ethanol plants and corn farmers can’t use ethanol as their source of energy to grow corn and make ethanol — they are dependent on burning fossil fuels. (Primarily natural gas and diesel. If the corn ethanol couldn’t use fossil fuels to power themselves, there would be no corn ethanol industry.)
Cindy,
Unlike corn-to-ethanol, a coal-to-methanol operation could also power itself and would be a true domestic fuel divorced of any reliance on imported fossil fuels.
By the way, did you happen to see “60 Minutes” Sunday? They had a major piece on Montana coal and their Governor’s vision for turning that into a clean burning fuel. (Made my day.)
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