At the present time, the United States of America spends approximately $408 million abroad every day to meet the fuel requirements of its automotive fleet. At $65 per barrel, this equates to $149 billion annually.
If that were not enough, every American taxpayer subsidizes a significant percentage of the true cost of gasoline through additional Federal expenditures. These hidden costs range from “Enhanced Oil Recovery Credits” to the significant military expenses incurred in an on-going effort to defend our stake in Middle Eastern oil. The average cost of these additional gasoline surcharges ranges from $101 billion to $253 billion annually.
Given this, I thought WHY NOT put together an initiative designed to recapture this lost American wealth and to reallocate Federal oil subsidies with the direct purpose of strengthening this Nation economically, politically, and socially. After some further contemplation, it dawned on me that this initiative would also serve to weaken the global fuel monopoly held by the OPEC Nations, it would promote a redistribution of global wealth, and it would strengthen our national security. The primary tool used to fuel this transition would be ethanol, an American-controlled, renewable fuel source derived from various agriculture products.
To make this work you have to think big and focus on many different but functionally connected areas of focus: The Time Frame (the shorter the better), The General Public (how to win them over and how do you address those under the poverty level), The Automobile Industry (which came first the chicken or the egg), Ethanol Production, Biomass Production (including the creation of World Biomass Production), The Fuel Industry: Retail, Production & Processing (which came first the egg or the chicken), plus several other factors: Fuel Costs – Gasoline and Ethanol, the Environmental Impact, and the impact on the U.S. Military.
I’ve given this matter a great deal of lot of thought, I’ve approached each area of focus from differing angles, and played with a few spreadsheets and in the end I really think that we can make this work. What do you think?
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At the present time the agricultural lobby is directing ethanol production from corn which costs more in energy input than it supplies in ethanol energy. It would be cheaper to import ethanol from Brazil where sugar cane gives a better return but politics is keeping Brazilian ethanol out. It's all politics and, as usual, scam in the name of greed.
Sand:
Thanks for the post. Corn is just one of many available resources and it’s not as inefficient as we’ve been led to believe, besides when did we Americans start worrying about fuel efficiency? Can you say 10 miles to the gallon????
As for Brazilian Ethanol/Sugar Cane, I agree, politically we need to grow-up, however, in the end, their ethanol production would be little more than a "Fast Food" solution to our problem. We need to produce the juice here in the US to take advantage of Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”. The economic power imbedded in our ability to move away from foreign purchased fuel is immense. Our mission, should we accept it, would be to embrace the need for change and then use American muscle and matter (grey-matter) to pave the way.
To solve this problem, turn the fuel question around and ask yourself: “If, like Saudi Arabia, U.S. soil held billions of gallons of automotive fuel how financially better off would the United Sates be? Now solve the problem … plant some seeds.
PS: Corn to Automobile fuel is more energy efficient than Oil to Gasoline. Switch Grass to Automobile fuel is Corn’s real competition and that’s where we need to focus until a high-tech solution comes along (Hydrogen???)
You misunderstood what sand said. Corn based ethanol production consumes more energy than it produces. We cannot support our nation based on corn ethanol, because we'd run out of fuel trying to MAKE fuel. Sugar beets produce far more fuel than is required to grow them.
Fuel efficiency is not a massive concern when one looks at the environmental benefits to ethanol. I'm a car guy, and I have high hopes for ethanol as well. Compared to gasoline, a properly tuned engine running ethanol will have a higher power output while experiencing slightly worse gas mileage. Turbocharging and supercharging also benefit from pure ethanol's very high octane rating (110-115).
Hydrogen requires a lot of electricity to produce, and it's hard to store. We depend on coal and coke, with only 30% of our nation's power supplied by nuclear plants. Until the number of nuclear power stations increases, we won't be seeing any alternative fuels that have the requirements that hydrogen does.
A recent discovery indicates a possibility of using blood components to generate hydrogen directly from water and sunlight which is better than merely using hydrogen to be an energy transfer from other energy systems such as atomic energy or coal. See http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_1-12-2006-11-4-23?newsid=3016
But all sorts of auxiliary systems are necessary to use hydrogen as a general fuel and these have yet to be put in place. Oil companies are not enthusiastic about alternate systems and have enough power to effectively frustrate them.
Tryhttp://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/asap/abs/ja0656806.html
Toastydeath:
Thanks for the follow-up to my post. I understood Sand’s comments and apologize for not addressing in more detail. Depending on who you listen too, big caveat, Corn to EtOH actually produces 1.34 to 1.36 btus for every btu of energy used to produce it (+34% to 36% energy gain). Gasoline, on the other hand, is 0.81 btus for every 1 btu (negative 19% energy loss), and Electricity (the energy hog that it is) is 0.45.
The debate that rages seems to stem from the research conducted by Pimentel and Patzek back in the late 90’s and follow-up research that refutes their finds and that has occurred by numerous researcher since (example: David Wang for the USDA 2005).
Given the vast costs of importing fossil fuels from abroad, wouldn’t you think it prudent for the United States to invest a few million resolving this debate once and for all? If we did my hunch is that corn-to-ethanol would come out ahead of oil-to-gasoline.
Here's the source.http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-basedethanol.hrs.html