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Ethanol is not a good solution. It's extremely inefficient to take solar radiation and turn it into corn, turn the corn into ethanol and then burn the ethanol f

Ethanol is not a good solution. It's extremely inefficient to take solar radiation and turn it into corn, turn the corn into ethanol and then burn the ethanol for mechanical power. Just turn the solar radiation into electricity and turn that into power. Solar and EVs are here now.

forinti 4y ago
You're right, but a tank of ethanol will take you farther than batteries.
- Retric 4y ago
  When EV’s are hitting 350+ mile ranges that’s becoming irrelevant.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    but we are yet far from it, so it is not irrelevant. cars that run on ethanol are also cheaper than EVs and are going to stay cheaper for a long time.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Cheaper upfront, the problem is how much ethanol and gasoline costs. It’s the same reason people put solar on their roof, sure it costs more on day 1 but for most people lowering the electric bill more than compensates.
      - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
        TCO is not so relevant if you don't have the upfront money. Reason why not many people buy new houses with lower TCO, they prefer to spend a bit more every month to heat/cool them, because they can squeeze the money out of their monthly budget, than spend 3x upfront. Solar panels are also heavily subsidized almost everywhere.
        Retric 4y ago
        Unless you’re paying cash for a house or car it’s the monthly payment that’s important more than the upfront cost. I don’t know what the Brazil mortgage market is like, but having a mortgage that’s larger and a keeping your other bills much smaller should be a net win without spending more out of pocket.
        peoplefromibiza 4y ago
        that's for sure and I agree Speaking of my country, if you ask for a mortgage you usually have to put at least 20% of the total upfront and the bank can deny it for lack of guarantees or it's too large for your pockets. So on average people prefer to spend less than spend more and amortizing the difference in the future. For that reason there's been a quite successful program of State incentives in .y country to install solar panels or increase energy efficiency of buildings so that it would cost people zero or close to zero to upgrade . Otherwise people would have wait for the prices to drop a lot more than they are right now.
  - fooker 4y ago
    These are EVs which cost ~3-5x the price of the average car though.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retric 4y ago
      Average new car in the US costs more than 40k so it’s not a 3x price premium. They aren’t cheap but that’s about what car companies are selling not the technology. People view 350 mile ranges as a luxury feature but they don’t require that much extra battery over a 250 mile range.
      - fooker 4y ago
        That is misleading because US car sales are heavily tilted towards trucks. What's the average for sedans and how does it compare to the Tesla Model S long range?
      - lvass 4y ago
        Average new car in brazil is 12~15k and that includes a ton of taxes, EVs are often 6~10x price premium as they're also heavily taxed. They're also used 30+ years which would mean like 6 battery replacements, the batteries alone would likely cost more than a whole car plus it's lifetime fuel in Brazil unless it's a heavily used vehicle like a shift-rented uber. I suspect the battery manufacturing would also be far worse than the lifetime of alcohol for the environment, but that depends a lot on how each is made.
        Retric 4y ago
        Batteries are lasting much longer as the pack sizes increase and chemistry improves. Unless you’re planning on driving 1 million miles you shouldn’t need to replace the battery on a long range EV. Meanwhile paying for 30 years of gas adds up, especially when fuel economy decreases with age.
        4y ago
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Let me know when I can buy a 350-mile EV for 750 quid. So far that's how much the most expensive car I have ever bought cost.
    - Retric 4y ago
      750 quid doesn’t exactly cover fuel.
      - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
        but it works and before you spent 40k on fuel EVs are going to be a lot cheaper.
      - Gordonjcp 4y ago
        It doesn't cover electricity either.
        Retric 4y ago
        Electricity is far cheaper per mile both economically and environmentally.
        Gordonjcp 4y ago
        Electricity is roughly half the price of petrol or diesel, and about the same price as propane. I spend about as much on fuel for my elderly 20,000-mile-per-year Range Rover as half a monthly payment for a new EV, and because it's dual-fuel it's actually cleaner than an electric vehicle.
Carioca 4y ago
This is sugarcane ethanol and it is way more efficient than corn ethanol
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Not enough more efficient to matter compared to all the other inefficiencies.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
ethanol can be easily stored in large quantities and transported where it is needed
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Electricity is much easier to transport than extremely heavy liquid fuel. Electricity is also easy to store despite what fossil fuel industry propaganda would have you believe.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > Electricity is also easy to store despite what fossil fuel industry propaganda would have you believe. no need to assume I believe something because someone fooled me. Electricity is not easy to transport at all. It needs infrastructure that might not exist yet in some areas or would require massive investments. If electricity was so easy to transport we would not buy gas from Russia, we would buy the electricity directly from them. Simply put: transporting the fuel is easier and cheaper. Storing it for time of need is also a no brainer. Not because fossil fuel industry told me, but because it is what it is. Brasil loses 16% of their power production during distribution. Don't get me wrong, I love solar energy, I installed solar panels at my house and thanks to State incentives I paid zero of the 35k euros it would have costed, but unfortunately we are not there yet. http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/ http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-...
  - mxschumacher 4y ago
    Completely false, if this were the case we wouldn't be in such trouble. Long duration electricity storage at a large scale and affordable price point is an unsolved problem, it's the holy grail of the renewable energy puzzle. Transportation of electricity over thousands of kilometers and through oceans is very hard as well. Routine with natural gas. Maybe best if you get the basics straight before jumping into the discussion.
danans 4y ago
> Ethanol is not a good solution. It's extremely inefficient to take solar radiation and turn it into corn, turn the corn into ethanol and then burn the ethanol for mechanical power. Brazil uses sugar cane, which has better energy yield than corn for ethanol, due to it's higher caloric content. But yes, it is less efficient than direct solar to batteries. > Just turn the solar radiation into electricity and turn that into power. Solar and EVs are here now. Yes, but large battery vehicles are still to expensive in developing and middle income countries - they are just now getting affordable to the masses in developed countries. A smaller battery could easily offset 50-80% of ethanol fueled miles because most daily drives are short, so a smaller affordable PHEV with a 20kWh battery could offset a lot of liquid fuel usage.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Sugar cane's advantage over corn is not enough to fix the underlying inefficiency of the entire chain.
  - danans 4y ago
    Which is why PHEVs could be a way to minimize dependency on that chain without requiring everyone to purchase an EV with an 80kWh+ battery.
speeder 4y ago
Brazillian Ethanol is made with Sugar Cane, not corn. And it is reasonably efficient, much better than corn ethanol that is just stupid. To make corn ethanol you get an energy loss actually, the energy usage to grow and process the corn, for example to power the tractors and so on, is bigger than the energy you can get burning it. US government solution for this is spetacularly boneheaded too. So USA has so much corn because it has corn subsidies. This is the reason for USA using the terrible for health corn syrup too instead of sugar from cane. Then USA government decided to give ethanol subsidies to incentive green fuels. Result is people make corn ethanol, get 2 subsidies, pollute a bit and cause a net energy loss. So USA government decided solution was give a even bigger subsidy to sugar cane ethanol. Result is Brazillians make sugar cane ethanol, sell to US companies, those companies collect the subsidy from it, buy corn ethanol that has 2 subsidies on that thus is extra cheap, sell back to Brazillians. So now you have USA government giving 3 subsidies that result in people making a ton of corn ethanol, causing energy loss, and shipping it to Brazil, while Brazillians ship cane ethanol back, the shipping in question being done with Diesel ships. Sometimes I wonder what the fuck is wrong with USA government to think that such decisions are good idea, wasting a ton of taxpayer money on energy losing production process and encouraging Diesel-based ocean shipping all in the name of "green". It is not MY tax money though (I am Brazillian) so it is not like I can do anything about it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Sugar cane ethanol still has incredible energy losses. Processing it into ethanol is an energy loss. Transporting it is a huge energy loss. And burning it is the worst. ICE engines are at best 28% efficient. That's a 70% loss.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    You're too focused on 'efficiency' here. The two processes are so wildly different that a 70% loss at certain stages isn't a big deal. A solar panel loses more than 70% of the power that hits it. But that doesn't disqualify it at all. And plants lose a ridiculous percent of energy right at the photosynthesis stage, but they'd still beat solar panels if solar panel prices went back a few decades.
chitowneats 4y ago
Please read TFA. Corn is not mentioned. Makes me wonder if your comment is literal copypasta, or merely figurative copypasta from US ecoactivism.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Corn vs sugar doesn't matter. It's all the other steps that make ethanol not worth it. I should have said sugar in my comment to be accurate to the article, but by far most ethanol is made from corn due to US corn subsidies which is why I mentioend corn.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    > Corn vs sugar doesn't matter. It really does. Corn ethanol takes a unit of fossil fuel to produce 1.3 units of ethanol, while sugar cane produces 9 units of ethanol for the same single unit of fossil fuel. I'm not sure what happened to switchgrass, but it's reportedly twice as efficient at producing ethanol as sugar cane, 20:1. Ethanol isn't a terrible idea, depending on its source (corn is bad, while sugar cane, sugar beets and switchgrass are good). The infrastructure is already in place, takes little cost or effort to convert a petrol vehicle to ethanol, and ethanol provides better performance in ICE vehicles than petroleum, though at the cost of slightly less milage. I think losing a little milage is a small price to pay for better performance, clean air, and no contribution to Climate Change.
    - chitowneats 4y ago
      It's hard to appreciate a good kludge. They can be very useful though in certain circumstances.
mxschumacher 4y ago
Importantly ethanol can be transported over vast distances and stored for long periods of time, both incredible and persistent challenges for electricity.

forinti 4y ago

You're right, but a tank of ethanol will take you farther than batteries.

Retric 4y ago
When EV’s are hitting 350+ mile ranges that’s becoming irrelevant.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  but we are yet far from it, so it is not irrelevant. cars that run on ethanol are also cheaper than EVs and are going to stay cheaper for a long time.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Cheaper upfront, the problem is how much ethanol and gasoline costs. It’s the same reason people put solar on their roof, sure it costs more on day 1 but for most people lowering the electric bill more than compensates.
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      TCO is not so relevant if you don't have the upfront money. Reason why not many people buy new houses with lower TCO, they prefer to spend a bit more every month to heat/cool them, because they can squeeze the money out of their monthly budget, than spend 3x upfront. Solar panels are also heavily subsidized almost everywhere.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Unless you’re paying cash for a house or car it’s the monthly payment that’s important more than the upfront cost. I don’t know what the Brazil mortgage market is like, but having a mortgage that’s larger and a keeping your other bills much smaller should be a net win without spending more out of pocket.
        peoplefromibiza 4y ago
        that's for sure and I agree Speaking of my country, if you ask for a mortgage you usually have to put at least 20% of the total upfront and the bank can deny it for lack of guarantees or it's too large for your pockets. So on average people prefer to spend less than spend more and amortizing the difference in the future. For that reason there's been a quite successful program of State incentives in .y country to install solar panels or increase energy efficiency of buildings so that it would cost people zero or close to zero to upgrade . Otherwise people would have wait for the prices to drop a lot more than they are right now.
- fooker 4y ago
  These are EVs which cost ~3-5x the price of the average car though.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 4y ago
    Average new car in the US costs more than 40k so it’s not a 3x price premium. They aren’t cheap but that’s about what car companies are selling not the technology. People view 350 mile ranges as a luxury feature but they don’t require that much extra battery over a 250 mile range.
    - fooker 4y ago
      That is misleading because US car sales are heavily tilted towards trucks. What's the average for sedans and how does it compare to the Tesla Model S long range?
    - lvass 4y ago
      Average new car in brazil is 12~15k and that includes a ton of taxes, EVs are often 6~10x price premium as they're also heavily taxed. They're also used 30+ years which would mean like 6 battery replacements, the batteries alone would likely cost more than a whole car plus it's lifetime fuel in Brazil unless it's a heavily used vehicle like a shift-rented uber. I suspect the battery manufacturing would also be far worse than the lifetime of alcohol for the environment, but that depends a lot on how each is made.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Batteries are lasting much longer as the pack sizes increase and chemistry improves. Unless you’re planning on driving 1 million miles you shouldn’t need to replace the battery on a long range EV. Meanwhile paying for 30 years of gas adds up, especially when fuel economy decreases with age.
        4y ago
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Let me know when I can buy a 350-mile EV for 750 quid. So far that's how much the most expensive car I have ever bought cost.
  - Retric 4y ago
    750 quid doesn’t exactly cover fuel.
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      but it works and before you spent 40k on fuel EVs are going to be a lot cheaper.
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      It doesn't cover electricity either.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Electricity is far cheaper per mile both economically and environmentally.
        Gordonjcp 4y ago
        Electricity is roughly half the price of petrol or diesel, and about the same price as propane. I spend about as much on fuel for my elderly 20,000-mile-per-year Range Rover as half a monthly payment for a new EV, and because it's dual-fuel it's actually cleaner than an electric vehicle.

Carioca 4y ago

This is sugarcane ethanol and it is way more efficient than corn ethanol

greenthrow 4y ago
Not enough more efficient to matter compared to all the other inefficiencies.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

ethanol can be easily stored in large quantities and transported where it is needed

greenthrow 4y ago
Electricity is much easier to transport than extremely heavy liquid fuel. Electricity is also easy to store despite what fossil fuel industry propaganda would have you believe.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > Electricity is also easy to store despite what fossil fuel industry propaganda would have you believe. no need to assume I believe something because someone fooled me. Electricity is not easy to transport at all. It needs infrastructure that might not exist yet in some areas or would require massive investments. If electricity was so easy to transport we would not buy gas from Russia, we would buy the electricity directly from them. Simply put: transporting the fuel is easier and cheaper. Storing it for time of need is also a no brainer. Not because fossil fuel industry told me, but because it is what it is. Brasil loses 16% of their power production during distribution. Don't get me wrong, I love solar energy, I installed solar panels at my house and thanks to State incentives I paid zero of the 35k euros it would have costed, but unfortunately we are not there yet. http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/ http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-...
- mxschumacher 4y ago
  Completely false, if this were the case we wouldn't be in such trouble. Long duration electricity storage at a large scale and affordable price point is an unsolved problem, it's the holy grail of the renewable energy puzzle. Transportation of electricity over thousands of kilometers and through oceans is very hard as well. Routine with natural gas. Maybe best if you get the basics straight before jumping into the discussion.

danans 4y ago

> Ethanol is not a good solution. It's extremely inefficient to take solar radiation and turn it into corn, turn the corn into ethanol and then burn the ethanol for mechanical power. Brazil uses sugar cane, which has better energy yield than corn for ethanol, due to it's higher caloric content. But yes, it is less efficient than direct solar to batteries. > Just turn the solar radiation into electricity and turn that into power. Solar and EVs are here now. Yes, but large battery vehicles are still to expensive in developing and middle income countries - they are just now getting affordable to the masses in developed countries. A smaller battery could easily offset 50-80% of ethanol fueled miles because most daily drives are short, so a smaller affordable PHEV with a 20kWh battery could offset a lot of liquid fuel usage.

greenthrow 4y ago
Sugar cane's advantage over corn is not enough to fix the underlying inefficiency of the entire chain.
- danans 4y ago
  Which is why PHEVs could be a way to minimize dependency on that chain without requiring everyone to purchase an EV with an 80kWh+ battery.

speeder 4y ago

Brazillian Ethanol is made with Sugar Cane, not corn. And it is reasonably efficient, much better than corn ethanol that is just stupid. To make corn ethanol you get an energy loss actually, the energy usage to grow and process the corn, for example to power the tractors and so on, is bigger than the energy you can get burning it. US government solution for this is spetacularly boneheaded too. So USA has so much corn because it has corn subsidies. This is the reason for USA using the terrible for health corn syrup too instead of sugar from cane. Then USA government decided to give ethanol subsidies to incentive green fuels. Result is people make corn ethanol, get 2 subsidies, pollute a bit and cause a net energy loss. So USA government decided solution was give a even bigger subsidy to sugar cane ethanol. Result is Brazillians make sugar cane ethanol, sell to US companies, those companies collect the subsidy from it, buy corn ethanol that has 2 subsidies on that thus is extra cheap, sell back to Brazillians. So now you have USA government giving 3 subsidies that result in people making a ton of corn ethanol, causing energy loss, and shipping it to Brazil, while Brazillians ship cane ethanol back, the shipping in question being done with Diesel ships. Sometimes I wonder what the fuck is wrong with USA government to think that such decisions are good idea, wasting a ton of taxpayer money on energy losing production process and encouraging Diesel-based ocean shipping all in the name of "green". It is not MY tax money though (I am Brazillian) so it is not like I can do anything about it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
greenthrow 4y ago
Sugar cane ethanol still has incredible energy losses. Processing it into ethanol is an energy loss. Transporting it is a huge energy loss. And burning it is the worst. ICE engines are at best 28% efficient. That's a 70% loss.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  You're too focused on 'efficiency' here. The two processes are so wildly different that a 70% loss at certain stages isn't a big deal. A solar panel loses more than 70% of the power that hits it. But that doesn't disqualify it at all. And plants lose a ridiculous percent of energy right at the photosynthesis stage, but they'd still beat solar panels if solar panel prices went back a few decades.

chitowneats 4y ago

Please read TFA. Corn is not mentioned. Makes me wonder if your comment is literal copypasta, or merely figurative copypasta from US ecoactivism.

greenthrow 4y ago
Corn vs sugar doesn't matter. It's all the other steps that make ethanol not worth it. I should have said sugar in my comment to be accurate to the article, but by far most ethanol is made from corn due to US corn subsidies which is why I mentioend corn.
- Maursault 4y ago
  > Corn vs sugar doesn't matter. It really does. Corn ethanol takes a unit of fossil fuel to produce 1.3 units of ethanol, while sugar cane produces 9 units of ethanol for the same single unit of fossil fuel. I'm not sure what happened to switchgrass, but it's reportedly twice as efficient at producing ethanol as sugar cane, 20:1. Ethanol isn't a terrible idea, depending on its source (corn is bad, while sugar cane, sugar beets and switchgrass are good). The infrastructure is already in place, takes little cost or effort to convert a petrol vehicle to ethanol, and ethanol provides better performance in ICE vehicles than petroleum, though at the cost of slightly less milage. I think losing a little milage is a small price to pay for better performance, clean air, and no contribution to Climate Change.
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    It's hard to appreciate a good kludge. They can be very useful though in certain circumstances.

mxschumacher 4y ago

Importantly ethanol can be transported over vast distances and stored for long periods of time, both incredible and persistent challenges for electricity.