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kristm (99.71)

Alternative Fuel Algebra

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14

December 28, 2007 – Comments (18) | RELATED TICKERS: ADM , AVR , VSE

I was AWOL from the Caps blogs for about 10 days due to a busy work schedule and then holiday traveling. But now I'm snowed in and a bit bored in the Great White North so I've been catching up. The following was posted as a response to this blog post but since the original is a few days old and not likely to be read I decided to pull it out as its own entry.

If an energy source cannot run within a theoretical "closed loop" then it's non-viable. It doesn't add energy to the pool of available resources and costs as much (or more) than it makes for the producer.

Within that theoretical closed loop, the energy produced by a specific process (refining a carbon, a nuclear reaction, etc.) is enough to power the steps of energy production along with generating extra energy to sell to others or use for some other purpose.

Examples:

A nuclear power plant can run all its controls, lights, etc. off the energy it generates within itself plus make enough extra to sell to the public. An oil refinery could, if necessary, burn some of its own product to power its processes and still have enough fuel left over to sell to the general public. (Oil refineries generally don't burn gasoline directly to function because it's less efficient than using the existing electric infrastructure, but they could if they had to.) They could, in an extreme situation, even power every step of gasoline production with the resulting gasoline - everything from pumping crude from the wells to shipping it in to breaking it down and trucking it to gas stations, and there would still be a percentage of the overall total production left over to sell to the general public.

Since gasoline (or nuclear, or coal, or hydro, or even wind power) would function in that type of closed loop, they add energy to the total amount available. Taking a natural resource such as crude oil and producing a ready energy such as gasoline or kerosene without consuming as much or more energy as is produced. X+Y=Z. X < Z. The pool of available energy rises because the process (Y) added something to what was there before (X). So Y is a positive factor.

Hydrogen would function in a closed loop but not add anything to the pool. It requires as much (if not more) energy to break down water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen than the hydrogen is worth as an energy source. A hydrogen plant couldn't burn its own output and have anything left over to sell to the general public. They would basically break even, using as much energy as was produced. X+Y=Z. X=Z (meaning Y adds nothing, or Y=0). The pool stays the same depth because energy was moved around but really none was added to the overall amount available.

Ethanol uses energy at every level; petroleum converted into fertilizer, water pumps pulling up water for irrigation, tractors spreading seed, watering, weeding, harvesting. Trucks to move the corn, factories to refine the corn into ethanol. The overall process consumes more energy than it makes. X+Y=Z. X>Z (meaning Y is a negative factor). The pool gets more shallow because the process burns more than it adds.

That's why ethanol and hydrogen are non-viable for long-term production of sustainable energy supplies. People who fight against mandatory ethanol production or laws that force auto makers to develop hydrogen-fueled vehicles aren't against the environment, they're against stupidity and against putting resources into methods that accomplish nothing or even make the problem worse.

Ethanol production consumes more energy that it produces and causes inflation by causing price increases for fuel AND food. It's ecological nonsense and so is an investment into a company primarily producing hydrogen or ethanol for fuel purposes.

18 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On December 28, 2007 at 3:42 AM, StockSpreadsheet (63.49) wrote:

Hydrogen could eventually be a viable fuel, I believe.  Not sure if it truely adds energy to a closed-loop system, but it makes the energy easier to use, which is a good function.  The easiest way to make hydrogen that I know if is electrolysis of water.  Electricity could be generated from solar, hydro, wind or nuclear power, though I don't consider nuclear power to be renewable, so I would focus on the first three.  Electric cars have problems because of range and the time it takes to charge the battery.  Also, batteries can be expensive to produce, contain toxic substances, have limited capacity, long recharge times and are heavy.  A hydrogen-powered car would produce water as its byproduct, so would be clean burning.  You could potentially fill up with hydrogen at a gas station, (or where you fill up with propane).  This could potentially get you a faster refill time, a long range, and the byproduct is water, so no pollution.  Hydrogen could potentially power any motor, so that would meet your need for planes, trains, automobiles and ships.  For electric generation, (for heat or light), then you would use the original electricity of wind, solar, geothermal or hydro.   Put the nuclear plants where you don't have access to any of the previous four or as backups, (since solar, hydro and wind can vary substantially due to drought, calm days or night-time). 

Because of the motor applications, I think that hydrogen will be an important fuel in the future, especially as we start running out of fossil fuels, (or our need exceeds our production capacity in the future).   

Just my opinion.

Craig 

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#2) On December 28, 2007 at 5:21 AM, saunafool (97.43) wrote:

Craig,

Rent the documentary, "Who killed the electric car?" Hydrogen is a terrible solution for transportation. There is a guy at the end of the documentary who outlines 4 reasons why it will never work, and they are all pretty compelling reasons.

Conversely, electric cars may not be fun to drive, may not be what conumers want, and the technology for the original EV may have been a bit "early" but electric transport is a totally viable solution.

Like our fearless blogger Kristm, I think hydrogen and ethanol are lousy solutions. Positive energy balance from ethanol might be possible (and depending on which source you look at, it might already produce a slightly positive balance). With hydrogen, it just won't happen.

Fool On! 

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#3) On December 28, 2007 at 10:21 AM, kristm (99.71) wrote:

Craig-

Hydrogen may well be a solution to some problems concerning portability - obviously it's easier to carry a tank of water than a tank of coal dust or a pile of heavy batteries. And it doesn't generate pollution, at least not at the site of conversion. But I don't see it being a possible replacement for fossil fuels since making it requires so much processing. If you're generating hydrogen with electricity generated by a coal plant, you're adding to pollution. If you generate it with electricity generated by a natural gas plant, you're generating pollution and burning fossil fuels. It's just moving the problem around from the car end to the factory end.

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#4) On December 28, 2007 at 10:51 AM, martynanasi (99.38) wrote:

Hydrogen is a viable option...it hasn't come to commericalization due to the cost and a carry method for containing a hydrogen tank due to the pressure needed. Safety factor also comes in play as well. Hydrogen becomes somewhat a kid in the corner since it takes energy to create the hydrogen of which electrolysis is the best method. Since fuel cell cars use membranes to create the energy in re-creating water it is a good method and clean. Right now it is too expensive considering the membrane and viable hydrogen containment on a car. Once these are brought down we will see more fuel cell cars. Hydrogen is the most abundant source of energy in terms of material...a problem does lie in how to extract it efficently so that you are putting more power into creating it than the end purpose which will get resolved at some point using other methods of renewable energy teamed up to provide the "separation source". The reasons they will become viable is because at some point conviental fuel sources will tip the scale on costs and bring alternative energies in play. Not if but when...just in the last 5 years we have seen oil climb to 100/bbl....UR has climbed from $8/lb to $135/lb. The future these will also climb as production cannot meet needs or the actual resouce dwindles. This is economics and not about closed loops and they will be brought on mainstream as those factors become economic viabilities rather than which is more efficient.

I did see 'who killed the electric car' What it told me as most already know that there is so much money made in oil and energy that it is in their interest to keep things moving slowly using techniques that are 100 years old. Energy companies are too powerful in their lobby groups and the automotive groups would have too much pain in switching power souces. That is the reason they are mainstream already...we all know it but settle for it as well.

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#5) On December 28, 2007 at 2:24 PM, rd80 (99.26) wrote:

Hydrogen is best looked at as a method of storing and transporting energy, not as an alternative to fossil fuels.

It takes (and will always take) more energy to break water into hydrogen and oxygen than you can reclaim by burning the hydrogen or running it through a fuel cell. 

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#6) On December 28, 2007 at 4:31 PM, EScroogeJr (98.54) wrote:

Corn ethanol may be a joke, but if you use sugar cane, the picture becomes very different. They've been using sugar cane for decades, and there was an economic ratinale for it, otherwise they wouldn't do it. And as for hydrogen, this is entirely the question of the cost of solar power. Once it drops below 50% of the cost of grid power, you've arrived at the outcome: hydrogen wins because it's cheaper.

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#7) On December 28, 2007 at 10:25 PM, camistocks (80.01) wrote:

There is ethanol and ethanol, as escrooge points out. Even better than sugar cane are biofuels from sugar beet, grass, wood, garbage, used cooking oil, liquid manure, and the best efficiency comes with ethanol from whey!

The Swiss government published a study back in May, on which biofuel  was really beating oil in terms of ecobalance. I wrote a blog on it.

Unfortunately this "good" ethanol can only make up 2-3% of total energy consumption, so it's not really a solution. 

Also check this link. 

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#8) On December 29, 2007 at 9:42 PM, SavvyCaveman (99.66) wrote:

I like where you're coming from on this kristm. Any alternative energy needs to be able to produce more energy than it came from. While this sounds theoretically impossible, we can have this energy come from free sources like the sun or geothermal energies. Keep in mind, sun here includes farming, but major improvements and cuts need to be made in the corn ethanol system before it's a positive energy flow between planting to final usage. 

Possible solutions here:

Ethanol from sugar - Like EScroogeJr mentioned above, this seems to cut out some major drawbacks in the corn to ethanol system. Companies like VRNM are taking this to the next level.

Geothermal - UGTH.OB is screaming up, as is ORA. Who knows, it just might work...

Solar - Solar is a pretty cool long term pick. It's been around forever, just not at cost efficient levels until recently. Be very selective about which solar companies you pick. Make sure they don't use rare materials with limited supplies like tellurium. 

Who knows, hydrogen may be a great way to store energy from solar collectors for night time or car usage...

Keep an eye out for alternative energies. The price of oil is rising at the consumer's end from a whole different standpoint. It's getting to the point where alternative energies that weren't economically viable can be in the forefront. It's all relative. If you could get a solar heating system installed into your home for 1 or 2 year's worth of heating oil, would you do it?

Thanks for pointing out my blog Kristm. Grats on the recent score boost. Fool on man

-SavvyCaveman 

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#9) On December 30, 2007 at 1:45 AM, kristm (99.71) wrote:

One more thing...

Several posters have mentioned that even fuels that could not exist in a closed system would become viable or possible as oil prices rise. That's not necessarily the case. Especially for ethanol. If we assume that ethanol production will still involve tractors, fertilizer, and distribution then its costs for production will just keep going up as oil prices rise. And that still doesn't solve the problem of its production using more resources than it generates.

Other sources of energy to power the production, such as solar or wind power, would make hydrogen doable - but only for specific applications such as fueling vehicles or storage. Hydrogen itself would never be a solution to generating electricity for general use since its generation burns as much or more electricity than it could make if burned for electric generation.

Appreciate the civility on this thread, especially considering how controversial this topic can sometimes be. Also appreciate the kind comments and remarks in re: to my original post. I enjoy the community here, thanks for adding your thoughts and your literal $.02 to the pot. 

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#10) On December 30, 2007 at 2:42 PM, SavvyCaveman (99.66) wrote:

I agree kristm. The whole oil being used in tractors and stuff is my reasoning for shorting ethanol as a sector. No matter how much oil goes up, it won't give ethanol a competitive advantage. They'll just incur more costs. It just won't work yet until some major changes happen in the system. Assuming people in the industry are creative, down the road they may end up creating tractors and transportation that use alternative energy like the ethanol they produce rather than oil. Currently this would still use up way more resources than it's worth as well as incur extra cost to convert machinery. Thinking long term, there's an outside chance it can work down the road. Short to middle term, all you have to work with here is rumor and govt funding. That's not good enough.

Hydrogen probably won't be viable on its own as an energy source, but it's showing potential as a battery replacement. We'd have to instead look at fusion for an energy source through electrolysis, which has been achieved but still has a long way to go before it's viable.

Wind is... meh. It's supposed to be great for the environment, but it's extremely inefficient both on the cost and generation end. There may be a few minor breakthroughs here, but I don't see it as something with enough potential to warrant further research. After all, what can you do, design new propeller blades? Upgrade the generation engine at the crank? That will only bring you so far, compared to radical research on new materials and species to push ahead the other energy sources. 

Solar makes the most sense to the public, which has been reflected in its recent price breakout. It's not just the environmental fanatics anymore - a lot of people are looking into alternative energies. After all, check your car's gas mileage. I bet it's worse than it used to be. Oil quality is going down and extraction costs are going up because it's being extracted from hard to get to places where it's not the same consistency, like shael rock.

If you really wanna get creative with solar, you could imagine a global grid. Since collection happens during the day and peak usage happens at night, imagine both america and china stacking out a ton of solar collectors and shipping the energy over to the other country during its peak usage need. It's kinda outlandish and crazy, but with tricks like hydrogen fuel cells and satellite energy transmittal it might be more possible than you think. In the long run solar can be more cost efficient than oil. Once you've paid an up front cost for the solar panel, the solar panel won't be consumed through usage. The kind of stuff you gotta worry about is stuff landing on them and breaking them like hail/sleet, or atmospheric gasses and plane jets getting more concentrated - blocking sunlight. You also gotta worry about the fragile collection --> storage --> usage process that solar energy deals with. It's only efficient at collecting in certain areas of the world. Once it's collected, batteries need to store that energy until usage. 

I'm making a lot of assumptions that the people behind these technologies are smart, which may or may not be the case. But knowing where potential can lead us is the key to not dismissing possibly profitable technologies. Knowing the downfalls and limitations is a good way to stay out of the losers. 

This is some really interesting stuff. Keep it coming :) 

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#11) On December 30, 2007 at 3:03 PM, krowen84 (< 20) wrote:

Savvycaveman/Kristm

  What really gets me is how come this research wasnt around and big on the market after Katrina.  For more valuable resources for energy.  VRNM is a very valued company me and savvycaveman had came across last week as a great asset, but also looking into the company for energy with enzyms, the process is twice as fast as as producing Ethanol.  And then on the other hand the advancement behing using our very own ocean as an energy source and the ocean is constant energy whats going to stop the ocean from producing energy Solar is great but when you you have no sun theres a stop in producing energy somewhat. But im getting blank on words...

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#12) On December 30, 2007 at 3:11 PM, kristm (99.71) wrote:

Solar energy is workable, but only in certain places. I live in Georgia but I've been in northern Michigan for the last week - upper lower peninsula. It's been sunny two days out of the nine I've been here. Colder and darker environments require MORE electricity but solar cells there generate less.

There's also the factor of materials needed to make solar cells. It's some fancy element that is rarer than gold and a lot more costly. Not sure how well we could do with obtaining and distributing that stuff on a wide scale. Then factor in the costs of replacing cells (how long does one last?) and crackheads stealing them to fuel their habits the way they've been stealing transformers and wire the last few years.

This isn't to attack people who want to use alternative energy or their ideas, but more to illustrate why investments in companies that claim to specialize in such are more long-shot bets than investments in biotech companies. Also to defend people who have been attacked for saying these technologies aren't viable, because right now they're not.

What killed the electric car? Physics and capitalism. 

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#13) On December 31, 2007 at 2:23 AM, SavvyCaveman (99.66) wrote:

Today people need oil like they need air. If oil supplies are indeed dwindling, a replacement would mean big bucks. This is an important discussion.

Indeed, solar doesn't work everywhere. It's got quite a few drawbacks as you mention, plus several others that fly in caps pitches. I think the main drawback of solar is in its image. For a long time it's been only for tree huggers. It's not a conventional energy liquid like ethanol or oil. Also, the idea of scraping snow off of them, having them break, or generally wear out and reduce in effectiveness is pretty lame. If it was perfect we'd probably be using it already. People are generally fed up with gas prices.

However, solar is gaining in popularity. If it becomes the most cost effective energy producer, I can imagine a company like Peco Energy owning big fields of solar panels in the desert around a big storage facility, surrounded by razor wire fence to keep the crackheads out. It may or may not happen on an individual homes basis. I can definitely picture solar power being owned and rationed out by big corporations kind of like oil and electricity are now. Especially if rare material supplies need to get rationed, there may be legislation on how many panels can be produced per year, or it may be totally restricted to certain corporations.

I can see it happening long term. I'm confident in a few solar companies, but not all of them. It seems different companies have experimented with different materials, and only a few actually use the expensive and rare tellurium. 

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#14) On December 31, 2007 at 3:24 PM, Capsperson (99.74) wrote:

When you say "closed loop," I can't help but think of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that there will always be a loss of energy in the transfer.  I don't see hydrogen as the answer, but I honestly don't know what is the answer.  Solar will work in some areas of the country, but not in others.  I think we will do this is small incremental pieces.  Maybe beginning with clean coal.

Happy New Year !

 

 

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#15) On December 31, 2007 at 3:56 PM, kristm (99.71) wrote:

Sure there's a loss of energy in the transfer - I never meant to imply that there wasn't. But before you have that loss, you've got to have something left over to lose. With hydrogen you'd consume all the energy made just by making it, and ethanol wouldn't even work without assistance from outside the loop. Fossil fuels, particularly gasoline since that's what my thoughts were focused on, have losses in transfer but there's still enough to power the processes and have a lot left to sell to the public for a profit.

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#16) On December 31, 2007 at 9:21 PM, dwot (99.98) wrote:

We have Ballard's here in BC - hydrogen fuel cells -- and I know people who have worked there.  That's been a money pit for the years upon years of research and they talk about maybe in another 10-15 years they might be able to do something...

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#17) On January 15, 2008 at 4:49 PM, Montol (< 20) wrote:

Excellent written kristm and well debated by all.

Here's the breakdown: Agree on ethanol and hydrogen, they're puppets that are distracting the uninformed masses from a viable solution, which is unfortunate, but anything Dubya endorses is usually a pretty good contrarian indicator.

Solar: Extremely tough industry to call.  Indeed the world supply of tellurium dwindling would put a massive halt to any company producing solar cells.  However, the idea of solar is headed in the right direction: capture the energy we've just been using to get skin cancer otherwise.  The question is not will it work, it is how can it begin working more efficiently?  People are crazy about solar, and the buzz alone will help R&D to the point where it will become obvious either way if it is viable or not.

My bet, you ask?  Wind power largely...with worldwide development growing and the ability of newer power grids to accept an inconsistent source of power input, wind power has nowhere to go but up.  You can stick a generator in a field in Iowa, the ocean off of Ireland, a valley in Alaska...they've all got wind, and it cuts through the objections that solar has about efficiency in different locales.

Lots of different opinions, lots of different driving factors, but the goal is to cut the world's dependence on oil and to reduce emissions, and that is good enough for me to want to be a part of it

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#18) On September 20, 2008 at 11:17 AM, USNHR (97.55) wrote:

This Blog is fairly old, however I'm new to CAPs and just found Kristm's Blog.

 An Alternative fuel... how about Clean Coal Technology?

http://science.howstuffworks.com/clean-coal.htm

And Coal Gassification for Automobiles?

http://environmental-engineering.suite101.com/article.cfm/coal_gasification

I think there are real possibilities for both... especially when wind power and geothermal make money by government subsidies and not by a return on the investment. Ethanol has been well debated, and I agree that it is a zero sum (if not negative) game.

As Camistocks pointed out "Unfortunately this "good" ethanol can only make up 2-3% of total energy consumption, so it's not really a solution" Plus the fact that you are taking up valuable farmland to produce fuel increases the cost of other food commodities.

Who will profit from Clean Coal and Coal Gassification? BTU seems to be a major player.

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