Originally Posted by AzTeK

@TJefferson256: Ethanol is not naturally harmful to the environment, it's just the way it is produced now that is harmful to the environment. Not only is it very ineffective since a rather low amount can be gained from an acre of land, but also is extra nitrous oxide emitted due to fertilisers used to grow the corn and to top it all off, in as good as all ethanol producing plants, they use coal to generate the heat needed to make ethanol. That's why it's so bad for the environment.

Ethanol from cellulose has none of these problems. Cellulose is everything, from fallen leaves in the fall to wood waste gathered from forests to grass waste that comes around after mowing the lawn. Of course, on a large scale, you will need extra "cellulose plantations" to meet the demand which again brings the problem with the nitrous oxide, but atleast you don't need to heat it up to something around 100°C to get the ethanol - like Caltex said you can use bacteria to do it, and further you get a much larger amount of ethanol out of it per acre.

Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, has already been using some hydrogen powered buses for years now as a part of a European research program on Hydrogen, and eventhough they had problems in the start nowadays the buses work very well. Research - Environment - Hydrogen-powered buses in action

Originally Posted by Troianii

I've heard of some kind of grass that can be used for ethanol, which is grown in Canada. Maybe you've heard of it?

Originally Posted by Caltex

Switch grass. It is natural to all of North America and grows in abundance even without our intervention.

The Great Plains are pretty much full of it.

It's very easy to grow, can grow in land unsuitable for farming, doesn't need to be watered, and needs only be planted once.

Originally Posted by AzTeK

Exactly. The thing is, current crops used for making ethanol directly compete with crops used for food - corn being the most known one. Most of the land that you can grow corn on very well is already taken, so everytime a corn plantation is used to make corn for ethanol, you are sort of taking the corn away from the food supply. With switch grass this is not really the case, since as Caltex said it grows anywhere and does therefore only marginally compete for land with foodcrops. And it doesn't need any fertilisers either.

Originally Posted by Wheeldog

A basic truth of energy is there is no free lunch. Switch grass is subject to the same economic basics as any other source of energy; return on investment. What is the net energy gain in converting switch grass or any other alternative into a usable fuel? Until the last several decades conventional oil wells often returned 100 barrels of oil for the equivalent of each barrel of oil invested to extract it and convert it into a usable product. Today it is closer to 10-to-1. Switch grass may be easy to grow, but it still requires an investment of energy and technology to harvest, store, transport, refine and distribute. In the end the net energy gain is very small. This means that companies are reluctant to invest a lot of money into a process that has margnal profit return. There is also the issue of volume. It would take an enormous amount of switch grass to make a significant dent in our total consumption of liquid fuels.

Originally Posted by Wheeldog

A basic truth of energy is there is no free lunch. Switch grass is subject to the same economic basics as any other source of energy; return on investment. What is the net energy gain in converting switch grass or any other alternative into a usable fuel? Until the last several decades conventional oil wells often returned 100 barrels of oil for the equivalent of each barrel of oil invested to extract it and convert it into a usable product. Today it is closer to 10-to-1. Switch grass may be easy to grow, but it still requires an investment of energy and technology to harvest, store, transport, refine and distribute. In the end the net energy gain is very small. This means that companies are reluctant to invest a lot of money into a process that has margnal profit return. There is also the issue of volume. It would take an enormous amount of switch grass to make a significant dent in our total consumption of liquid fuels.

Originally Posted by AzTeK

The net energy gain of Ethanol from corn is essentially negative, and yet huge sums have been invested. Sure, the government subsidies have helped, but that's not going to change just because we turn to another fuel source. We need an alternative for oil that is economically, environmentally and ethically sound, and if the free market is not capable of making the switch on its own I don't see why the government shouldn't give it a little tap if it makes sense. Corn from ethanol however does not, unfortunately, so every cent the government invests here is in essence money thrown out of the window.

Originally Posted by AzTeK

The net energy gain of Ethanol from corn is essentially negative, and yet huge sums have been invested. Sure, the government subsidies have helped, but that's not going to change just because we turn to another fuel source. We need an alternative for oil that is economically, environmentally and ethically sound, and if the free market is not capable of making the switch on its own I don't see why the government shouldn't give it a little tap if it makes sense. Corn from ethanol however does not, unfortunately, so every cent the government invests here is in essence money thrown out of the window.

Originally Posted by Wheeldog

A basic truth of energy is there is no free lunch. Switch grass is subject to the same economic basics as any other source of energy; return on investment. What is the net energy gain in converting switch grass or any other alternative into a usable fuel? Until the last several decades conventional oil wells often returned 100 barrels of oil for the equivalent of each barrel of oil invested to extract it and convert it into a usable product. Today it is closer to 10-to-1. Switch grass may be easy to grow, but it still requires an investment of energy and technology to harvest, store, transport, refine and distribute. In the end the net energy gain is very small. This means that companies are reluctant to invest a lot of money into a process that has margnal profit return. There is also the issue of volume. It would take an enormous amount of switch grass to make a significant dent in our total consumption of liquid fuels.

Originally Posted by Troianii

So, what are your proposals?