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I read today in the San Diego Union Tribune that it takes up to 2000 gal. of
water to produce 1 gal. of ethanol. The point of the editorial was that the
ethanol experiment is a failed one and that the quicker we admit it the
faster we can shift assets toward more productive endeavors. All in all,
the ROI is not good so far.
Jack.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Fritz" <fritz@xxxxxxxx>
To: <omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: RES: stock to buy- GPRE
>The Brazilian ethanol production is 8x more energy efficient than corn
>ethanol.
Interesting, I didn't know that. I wonder what's different about
growing and harvesting corn that makes sugar cane more economical?
I believe there are several factors:
* Growing sugar cane is a less energy-intensive process than growing corn.
* Sugar cane contains more sugar than corn. :-) The ethanol process
converts sugar into ethanol, so a high-sugar source is more efficient.
Corn
contains starches that must first be converted into sugars, and this cuts
the
efficiency by about 30%.
I observe, also, that the whole political push behind ethanol is
based on the idea of U.S. energy independence. We rely on the
middle east now for oil; switching to relying on Brazil for ethanol
doesn't really solve the dependency problem.
I don't think we could. Brazil consumes most of its ethanol production
and
still consumes 2,000,000bbl/day of oil. Even so, it exports about 1
billion
gallons (not barrels) of ethanol a year -- still a drop in the bucket
compared
to the US energy demand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil has more info,
including a
claim that Brazillian ethanol production has an energy balance of 8-10.
Not
sure how accurate the "up to 35x" claim is.
I suppose the U.S. could ramp up its sugar cane production, though it
would be at the expense of other crops.
I believe efficient cane production requires tropical or subtropical
conditions,
which are not well met in the US other than Hawaii and maybe Florida. We
can grow sugar beets but I suspect that suffers from the same expensive
growing process that corn does.
Gary
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