[Rhodes22-list] The Hydrogen Economy

Sat Jan 8 05:10:21 EST 2005

Roger,

Hopefully you've patented your process, you're on to
something.  The demise of easy oil has been predicted
since Col. Drake's first well and Rockefeller's
monopoly but this time it looks for real.  Hubbert was
dead on the money about when US oil production would
peak and it looks like his turn-of-the-century
prediction for world peak production is true as well. 
I download the Association for the Study of Peak Oil
and Gas newsletter each month and the outlook isn't
pretty.  If crude had stayed at $55/barrel we would
have seen more biodiesel plants coming on line and
more people trading their Surburbans for diesel VW's. 
When oil gets to $100/barrel, and it will, the market
will move in that direction without anyone from the
government telling consumers to do so.  The Europeans
currently drive about 40% diesels, many of which are
fueled by rapeseed based diesel.  The one area we
can't replace with biofuels is Jet Fuel.  With our
current technology we need crude.  I burn over 10,000
gallons of the stuff every day at work and that's a
lot of trips to the grocery in the SUV.  We've got
lots of coal.  If we can figure out how to burn it
clean or convert it at a lesser energy and
enviromental cost, we're in business.  I stick with my
original prediction, NUKES is the way to go.  The
French produce 70% of their electricity this way and
we'll have to join with them sooner or later.

Brad Haslett
"CoraShen"

--- Roger Pihlaja <cen09402 at centurytel.net> wrote:

> Brad,
> 
> For ethanol, the efficiency depends upon which crop
> feedstock and which
> process you use.  For corn feedstock, using "smart"
> water & ag-chem farming
> strategies, the dry milling process, molecular
> sieves for the final water
> removal, and waste heat recovery, a current
> state-of-the-art ethanol process
> is about 1.7 to 1 efficient.  That means you get
> about 1.7 btu of energy out
> in the form of fuel ethanol for every btu put into
> running the farm,
> transporting the harvested corn, and operating the
> ethanol plant.  Add my
> process for energy recovery from the byproduct
> distiller's dry grain (DDG)
> and the efficiency number jumps to around 3.2 to 1. 
> Plus, my process gets
> rid of the byproduct DDG in an environmentally
> acceptable way.  Remember,
> the corn-to-ethanol process generates about 1 lb of
> byproduct DDG for every
> lb of ethanol produced.  DDG is currently sold as
> animal feed; but, it's
> high in protein and fat content.  You can only feed
> about 20%wt DDG in the
> diet of a plant eating animal like a cow or a sheep
> before they start to get
> sick from it.  So, as we ramp up ethanol capacity,
> there aren't enough
> critters on the planet to feed the byproduct DDG to.
>  So, you've got to do
> something with the byproduct DDG or we'll be buried
> in it!  By the way, DDG
> doesn't store very well & the smell when it starts
> to rot is almost
> indescribable.
> 
> Anyone for a nice Soilent Corn milkshake? :)
> 
> Rummy, for you we can leave the 6%wt ethanol in the
> sludge as it comes from
> the fermenter.  Soilent beer!
> 
> Long term, it would be better to use cellulosic
> crops like switchgrass and
> fast growing woody plants as an ethanol feedstock
> because they require less
> energy input at the farm in the forms of water,
> ag-chemicals, and are easier
> to harvest than row crops like corn.
> 
> Hey, it all depends upon whether you believe the
> energy crisis is "real"
> this time around.  Personally, this time, I think it
> is "real" because it's
> not being driven by the US economy.  This time, the
> demand for oil is being
> driven by 3rd world economies, primarily China and
> India.  With their GDP
> growth rates, we'll have to push real hard using the
> sorts of strategies I
> outlined in my US Energy Czar strategy just to keep
> US fossil fuel demand in
> balance with global supplies.
> 
> The whole point about the hydrogen economy is that,
> with limited resources
> and time, we need to be working on strategies that
> can be made to work right
> now.  Global fossil fuel supply and demand is going
> to be tight for the
> foreseeable future.  Hydrogen has only a minor
> contribution to make to this
> scenario and it's a waste of limited resources to be
> working on it at this
> point.
> 
> Roger Pihlaja
> S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "brad haslett" <flybrad at yahoo.com>
> To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list"
> <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 7:24 PM
> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] The Hydrogen Economy
> 
> 
> > Roger,
> >
> > Correct me where I'm wrong.  Ethanol is about 1.1
> to 1
> > efficient.  However, it's a great replacemtnt to
> MBTE.
> >  Biodiesel is about 3 to 1 efficient. The
> University
> > of Tennessee in conjunction with the Oak Ridge Lab
> did
> > a study on a Switchgrass/Willows/Poplar
> permaculture
> > biomass program that vastly improved on those
> formulas
> > but it would require a major overhaul of our
> current
> > crop subsidy programs to be eonomically
> profitable.
> > The driver in the current consumption market for
> > hydocarbons is China.  We will be in direct
> conflict
> > with China until we wean ourselves from the cheap
> and
> > easy oil from the Middle East.  Well, lets just
> say
> > its easy, the price is going up.
> >
> > Brad
> >
> > --- Roger Pihlaja <cen09402 at centurytel.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Brad,
> > >
> > > If I were the energy czar of the United States,
> > > here's what I would do:
> > >
> > > I would start building ethanol & biodiesel
> plants as
> > > quickly as possible.
> > > As the ethanol production capacity is ramped up,
> the
> > > %wt ethanol blend in
> > > gasoline would be gradually increased.  This
> would
> > > be completely transparent
> > > to the average consumer.  The final optimum %wt
> > > ethanol in motor fuel will
> > > be driven by market factors other than the
> > > transportation market.  You have
> > > to understand that crude oil is a complex
> mixture of
> > > thousands of different
> > > compounds.  The minimum amount of crude oil
> consumed
> > > in the United States is
> > > probably limited by the market requirements for
> the
> > > heavy components like
> > > asphalt and tar plus chemical feedstocks for
> other
> > > petrochemicals like
> > > plastics and lubricating oils.  The heavy
> components
> > > in crude oil are used
> > > for things like asphalt paving and roofing and
> would
> > > be expensive to replace
> > > with other feed stocks like coal tar.  At the
> > > moment, we use much more crude
> > > oil than we would need to provide these heavy
> > > components.  At present, the
> > > excess heavy components are either burned as low
> > > grade fuels (bunker C) or
> > > catalytically cracked to increase the yield of
> > > lighter components like
> > > gasoline and fuel oil.  In the biomass economy,
> > > there would be just enough
> > > heavy components.  The excess gasoline and
> diesel
> > > fuel components would be
> > > catalytically cracked to produce important
> chemical
> > > raw materials like
> > > ethylene, propylene, vinyl, etc.  I haven't done
> the
> > > global mass balance;
> > > but, I would estimate the %wt ethanol "sweet
> spot"
> > > will be in the range of
> > > 70-90%wt ethanol.  As a spark ignited motor
> fuel,
> > > you don't want 100%wt
> > > ethanol anyway.  You would blend in 10-30%wt
> light
> > > gasoline components in
> > > order to have good winter running
> characteristics.
> > > Also, in case of a fire,
> > > you don't want 100%wt ethanol because the flame
> is
> > > invisible.  Blending in a
> > > little gasoline will make the flame burn yellow,
> > > smoky, and visible.
> > >
> > > There is no shortage of corn and other crops. 
> In
> > > 2002, US farmers grew
> > > about 9E9 bushels of corn of which about 900E6
> > > bushels were used to make
> 
=== message truncated ===

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