Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen — 6 December 2023
One of the absolutely nuttier ideas to come out of the climate change / anti-fossil fuels mania of modern times comes from the international airlines business. They are being pushed by governments and getting unending pressure to signal their virtue by visibly climbing aboard the “Stop Fossil Fuels Now” bandwagon. The hitch is, as we all know, is that airplanes need fuel to fly and currently, fossil fuels are the only choice.
But, thanks to the venerable Old Gray Lady, we are now informed, with interactive media, that:
“Airlines Race Toward a Future of Powering Their Jets with Corn”
The headline is simultaneously literal and tongue-in-cheek – the (I am fighting the urge to use the phrase “corny idea”) concept is to replace the more usual jet fuels with ethanol made from corn.
“Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH3CH2OH. It is an alcohol, with its formula also written as C2H5OH, C2H6O or EtOH, where Et stands for ethyl. Ethanol is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid with a characteristic wine-like odor and pungent taste. It is a psychoactive recreational drug, and the active ingredient in alcoholic drinks.” [ source The Wiki ]
Ethanol is “alcohol” of the same type one finds in their whiskey, vodka, gin, moonshine, beer and now fruit drinks.
Ethanol is a fairly simple hydrocarbon composed entirely of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. Products of its complete combustion are CO2 and H2O.
“Wait,” you say, “replacing fossil fuels with ethanol will still produce CO2?” Of course it will, they are both, jet fuels and ethanol, primarily hydrocarbons.
So why make the switch? Already, in the U.S.A., “Today, nearly 40 percent of America’s corn crop is turned into ethanol, up from around 10 percent in the mid-2000s. This was largely because of government mandates that began in 2005 requiring gasoline to be mixed with minimum amounts of renewable fuel.” [ NY Times, linked article – hereafter just NYT ]
How much ethanol are they talking about for automotive gasoline each year? “14 billion gallons”. “….the 135 billion gallons of finished motor gasoline consumed in the United States contained about 14 billion gallons of fuel ethanol.” [ source – US EIA ]
How much fossil fuel-based jet fuel is burned each year? In 2019 commercial 95 billion gallons of jet fuel were consumed. [ source ]. The Covid panic reduced that somewhat, but the total is expected to reach that again this year.
To replace all of the fossil-fuel-based jet fuel would require, if all things were equal (which they are not) another 95 billion gallons of ethanol.
The U.S. already uses up to 40% of its total corn crop to produce the measly 14 billion gallons of ethanol mixed into gasoline. It would take 250% of today’s total U.S. corn crop [ something wrong with my math here – a little help? – kh ] to produce the 95 billions gallons of ethanol to replace jet fuels – not even considering the number of additional ethanol plans that would be needed. Of course, the U.S. need not carry the whole ethanol load necessary to replace worldwide jet fuel use, but it gives us some idea of the magnitude of the suggestion.
In acreage of land planted in corn, that would be an increase from 100 million acres to 250 million acres. Much of that acreage would have to be irrigated and aquifers in the mid-west corn belt are famously overtaxed already.
Other sugar crops such as sugar cane and sugar beets can be used to make ethanol using the same processes as for corn. Ethanol can also be produced from almost any plant materials even cellulosic feedstocks, such as crop residues and wood—though this is not as common.
But wait, there’s more: ethanol does not contain the same amount of energy per gallon as jet fuel.
Jet Fuel contain approximately 135,000 BTUs per gallon. Ethanol contains only 76,330 Btu/gallon which is only 56% of the energy in jet fuel. Thus, many more gallons of ethanol will be needed – around 130 billion gallons of ethanol to replace the 95 billion gallons of jet fuel.
On the CO2 emissions side, burning 1 kg of jet fuel produces about 9.3 kg of CO2 whereas burning 1 kg of ethanol only produces 5.7 kg of CO2. That’s about 2/3s as much CO2 per kg….but, as above, ethanol doesn’t have as much energy per kg (or BTUs per gallon) as jet fuel – only about 2/3s as much, to the actual reduction in CO2 has to be calculated taking into account the extra ethanol that has to be burned or the same energy return.
Then there is the idea of burning food to power jet airplanes. Of the world’s current 8 billion humans, just under 10% do not get enough food to eat – do not get enough basic calories, not to mention vitamins, proteins, micro-nutrients – they just plain do not get enough food. Corn is good food. Land used to grow corn for jet fuel could grow other food or other basics grains which, if transported to areas of need, would help resolve that problem. Corn and other grains are also food for animals raised as food – chickens, pigs, cattle, sheep, rabbits and goats that provide high quality protein around the world.
Remember, because this idea touches on the topics of fossil fuels, the environment, agriculture, animals as food and fresh water use, there is and will be a great deal of controversy.
Bottom Lines:
1. It is my opinion that it is ill-advised, bordering on criminally negligent, to convert much needed food into fuels for cars or for airplanes, when so many people are in want of basic calories.
2. Whether or not any real world net reduction in CO2 would result from a shift from jet fuels to ethanol in air transportation is questionable.
3. Arable land is just too precious to be wasted in the misguided effort to grow corn in order to replace jet fuel with ethanol – given that arable land could be used to grow better food for the underfed peoples of the world.
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Author’s Comment:
In short, growing five times more corn so that it can be turned into ethanol is just a stinking rotten idea when there are plentiful fossil fuels.
Revisiting the idea if and when fossil fuels ‘run out’ might get my vote – but I doubt it.
If we must, for some as yet unknown reason, restrict emission from airplanes, then forbidding our governments from flying politicians around the world all the time would be my first suggestion. Junketing businessmen and women would be next on the list – let them have video conferences.
OK, in truth, whole books and journals full of research would be needed to cover this topic and do it justice. I’m just sticking with “Bad Idea”.
Thanks for reading.
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Only people who are severely mentally retarded think corn is a fuel source.
2hotel9 ==> Please don’t insult the intellectually-challenged by comparing them to the corn-to-fuel crowd.
How many nuclear reactors have you operated? It is 11 for me not counting the many more that I have worked on as an engineer.
Joined the navy to get out of the corn belt and see the world. Last week of boot camp, the drill Sargent asked who P____ was. I was the smartest guy by testing. The fact that he did not know my name indicated common sense. sometimes the idea is to lay low. Top guy in my class at nuke school too.
Anyhow the navy sent me to Purdue (corn belt U) to get an engineering degree. My senior project was drying corn with heat from a power plant because corn was rotting on the ground because of the energy crisis.
So when it comes to energy, I am a lot smarter than Kip Hansen. Processing out the energy from the protein in animal feed is a very cool and proven industry.
Corn to ethanol takes more energy than is produced by the ethanol.
Sorry Pat. To overly simplify, there is no way the farmer’s tractor uses more diesel fuel energy than the ethanol produces. Including the other FF consumers:
http://www.usda.gov:
I don’t have any links in front of me, but I think your source is outdated and refuted by newer studies. I’m sure you know there is more involved than just diesel or gas for tractors and combines. You have to transport the corn, store it, mill it, etc.
Regardless it’s bad policy at this time, IMO, to use farmland to produce fuels. It’s an experiment that’s failed. We expected to have economical cellulosic ethanol production by this time.
Drop the mandates. If it’s truly as cost-effective as you say then it won’t have any effect.
Well, later sources would have found that newer processes do even better than a 1.67 ratio.
And really, there is so much farmland that we pay farmers to NOT plant crops.
Of the total land area of or planet of 149 million sq. Km. only 11 million is cropland while 28 million is considered pasture/herd lands. Another 12 million is bush, 39 million is forest and jungle, about 1.5 million is within city limits, but some cities are less than half urban development. There is lots of space to grow corn should we need to. If it was net negative, Germany and South Africa wouldn’t have bothered using ethanol as a gasoline replacement. So, by all means, get some links in front of you.
And worldwide, slightly less than 10% of the 11 million Sq. Km. of cropland is planted to corn. And after the ethanol is produced…you still have food left over that is better than bugs…methanol, ethanol, and biodiesel are in line after petroleum products for cost. Palm oil is pretty good but much more geographically constrained.
Have ANY of your ‘sources’ calculated the amount of WATER required to produce this corn?
We pay farmers not to farm for soil conservation because we are rapidly depleting it from over-farming.
You are proposing to deplete the topsoil even faster. Are you an acolyte of the WEF and trying to reduce the human population by starvation?
USDA? The liars who lie continuously is your source of truth?
There continues to be debate over energy return of corn ethanol, most of which revolves around model assumptions of energy inputs. A fairly extensive 2011 review could not decide whether the corn ethanol output/input energy = 1.0 or not.
However, all the studies I’ve seen assume physical infrastructure. They discuss the fuels tractors need, for example, but assume the tractors.
From whence the energy to manufacture tractors? Or roads? Or the ethanol distilleries?
The distilleries themselves necessarily produce 95% ethanol. Were 100% ethanol needed, a second azeotropic distillation is required or a molecular sieve separation. I’ve not seen that step considered anywhere, though perhaps it is included unmentioned in the energy use estimates. Little or nothing is mentioned about the 95-100% conversion.
Nevertheless, were calculations of energy vertically integrated to include mining and manufacture, corn ethanol would be found a very large net energy sink.
If you take into account everything from the tractor manufacturing to usage, to farmer times, to fertilizer to pesticides and harvesting and other equipment, alcohol is a net loss in energy. To put it simply, thermodynamically the process has to be a loss. The alcohol has to be produced by a chemical process after harvest, which also has to be processed.
This is very different from petroleum processing, which also costs energy, but most of the processes are simple separations and catalytic cracking.
You are misinterpreting the study. Table 3 is what you should be using. That means about 72,000 BTU/gal for total ethanol. That means it’s about a wash. On the other hand, having grown working on farms I question the 4+ gal of diesel per acre. When you plow, disk, plant, spray/cultivate, combine, and transport the corn to storage that seems pretty low.
The real point is the equivalence of ethanol to fossil fuels. Kip’s essay didn’t really cover other issues. If the BTU ratio is 2:1, where do you put twice the volume of fuel in a plane? Does ethanol provide the lubrication that diesel provides in jet or diesel engines?
Lastly, if ethanol as a fuel was done away with, what would food prices do? Corn would certainly reduce in price affecting both food and spuring exports. Maybe the consumer savings would let more people afford EV’s.
They don’t have drill sergeants in the Navy. They have Company Commanders and you spelled sergeant wrong. Normally I don’t point spelling errors, but if you’re as smart as you claim to be, you’d make sure your spelling and facts are straight.
Of course there are no sergeants in the U.S. Navy period, drill or otherwise. Just petty officers third thru first class and chief petty officers. He’s an ignorant troll.
I have noticed, over time, that comments made about one’s superior intellect when posting… usually sounds about right for a troll.
Pat Frank’s short response is way more than enough to counter your BS.
Just tell us again, how smart are you?
When someone declares they are smarter than someone else, that is a tell that they are actually dumber. A smart person knows better than to say something like that.
Do you have a reference for that?
In the first post the term mentally retarded and got 28 likes. I responded by saying I am a smart guy which was not liked.
And you keep illustrating my point. Not to smart, or as Homer would spell it, smrt. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You preceded your claim about being smart by talking about a drill “sargent” in the Navy, which doesn’t make you look smart at all. In fact it makes it look like you’re making $#!+ up.
Thanks for so clearly illustrating my point. Good job, buddy.
As a refresher for those attending the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, wind and solar do different things than crude oil.
Renewables only generate occasional electricity but cannot manufacture anything.
Crude oil is virtually never used to generate electricity but when manufactured into petrochemicals, is the basis for virtually all the products in our materialistic society that did not exist before the 1800’s.
We’ve become a very materialistic society over the last 200 years, and the world has populated from 1 to 8 billion because of all the products and different fuels for jets, ships, trucks, cars, military, and the space program that did not exist before the 1800’s.
Until a crude oil replacement is identified, the world cannot do without crude oil that is the basis of our materialistic “products” society.
Who wants to learn the fine art of Stone Knapping?
Show of hands?
Thumbs UP for yes DOWN for no way Jose
Bryan ==> I actually would, but haven’t the patience. My sons have a friends that spent years training himself to knap arrowheads and even knives from local stone. Very interesting – gotta wonder how that skill was developed and passed down. One of my sons has an incredible eye for finding arrowheads among the stones along a local river — from arrows that probably were used to take sitting ducks that appear every fall.
“gotta wonder how that skill was developed and passed down”
You learn quick when the options are- 1) learn and eat 2) don’t learn it and starve or get whipped by those who do
Well, they missed Kit P.
I’ve tried to reproduce those Clovis points…but it’s hard…too hard.
It’s definitely an art to produce fine points and blades
Until a crude oil replacement is identified
____________________________________
Synthetic fuel from coal. South Africa has been doing it for years. The Germans did it in WWII and continued until the ’60s. Wikipedia says until 1955.
A trivial point for True Believers, but there is an itsy bitsy teeny weeny conversion factor needed here.
The energy content of ethanol is ‘slightly less’ than what you think
(This is the figure for gasoline, jet planes use kerosene with a figure of 35/litre vs 36/litre for gasoline)
using the kerosene figure (check me) I see 95 billion gallons kerosene turning into a requirement for 141 Billion gallons of ethanol
Peta ==> Thanks, I knew someone would come along and help with that conversion — I mention that ethanol contains less energy — but the numbers and units were too varied to make it easy for a mere journalist.
Thanks again.
There are multiple problems as you point out. A big one is the scale of the growing and processing that much corn. And oxygen in ethanol is basically dead weight and we know how airlines love to load as much weight onto their aircraft. /s
So that’s, what, more than 400% of corn use, 450%-ish if you include about the same amount of ethanol in US gasoline. And that’s just for ethanol production, not food as well.
Once the pollen from the Frankencorn has polluted the genome of the food corn, everything will be as toxic as the Jetcorn is right now.
Frankly, Stein can shove that jet fuel up his cornhole.
Kip,
Great article, but what of all the extra ethanol required to grown and harvest the corn and then transport it to the plants and provide the heat for distilling the corn to alcohol then transporting the end product by truck to the airports and also to make the tires the trucks run on and to make the trucks themselves and, and, and!
So, not knowing the actual numbers, I would figure, like losses for charging and discharging batteries, etc., their would be an “overhead” fuel cost of 20% or so.
And, of course, the numbers for current alcohol use for vehicle fuels don’t include the current “overhead” of fuel used to produce that ethanol NOW.
Like everything green, there are always hidden costs that make the “going green” process much more expensive that anyone realizes.
Finally, all the planting, harvesting, transporting and processing currently is powered by diesel fuel. Like the manufacture and installation of unreliable generators, ethanol production probably costs a large % of the energy that is in the output ethanol.
Just sayin.
Drake
The energy of corn-produced ethanol is net negative.
I don’t know where you read that Pat, but some calcs will change your mind. Sure it’s not highly positive but it isn’t negative….
Calculations all depend upon present infrastructure.
Biofuels are the sort of program associate with Nixon and Carter, both innumerate progressives.
Tom ==> But could we use peanut oil in place of diesel?
If they start using peanut oil, how will I be able to deep fry my turkey next Thanksgiving?
Have you priced peanut oil recently?
You actually can. Original diesel engines were designed and tested using peanut oil.
Kip:
Horrors! What about all the people with peanut allergies? They would choke and die breathing the exhaust!
How could you be so callous?
More evidence that most of these outlets are now just the equivalent of the high school newspaper. These are well known proposals that most intelligent researchers have already looked into and dismissed ages ago. The definition of insanity.
John ==> Far worse than that, it is the airlines themselves proposing the possible shift in fuels.
It seems that part of the allure is that oil prices are too variable whereas corn ethanol prices are more stable.
I hope they don’t have the same problems with their fuel systems as I do with my small gas engines. ( sarc, but possible at 30000 feet’s I don’t want water in my fuel)
Or worse yet at 1000 ft
that’s why I got an electric chainsaw- I never properly cleaned the saws at the end of the season and had trouble starting them- the electric chainsaw is perfect for light work
Love my battery powered for small jobs and limbing, etc.
Using ethanol free gas, I have no problem with my Stihl now that I have it properly adjusted for altitude. (8600 ft takes some adjustment) I do drain the fuel/oil mixture and run it dry at the end of the season.
My solution for the Wisconsin dairy farm and the north Georgia mountain cabin is simple. Find a local gas station with one pump carrying pure regular, no ethanol. Use only that gas for all the gas powered equipment. Chain saws, lawn mowers, rototillers…
Can one use the pure regular in chain saws?
Is the 2-cycle additive required in ‘regular’ (10% Ethanol) to “counteract” the Ethanol?
You CAN use “pure regular” (i.e. 10%) in chain saws and other small engines, but the manufacturers generally recommend against it, and in my experience those who use such machines regularly also avoid it.
The additive is for lubrication, as 2-cycle engines don’t typically have a separate lubrication system like 4-cycles do.
John,
As I understand it, the principle problem with ethanol mixtures in ICE engines is that any non-metallic hoses and fittings in the engine are designed not to dissolve in gasoline/diesel. Turns out that some will dissolve in Ethanol. That is not such a good thing.
I think carburetor icing may also be more of a problem with ethanol mixtures than with straight gasoline.
IMO small gasoline engines are a creation of the devil. Pretty much I can keep a car running. I even successfully rebuilt an automobile carburetor once. But I have no rapport whatsoever with small gasoline engines. I hate them. I’ve switched to battery powered lawnmower, chain saw, hedge trimmer, tiller. They’re far from perfect, but they almost always start when you push the start button even after long periods of disuse. Don’t plan ever again to own a small gas engine of any sort.
Funny! I have a really OOOLLLLLDDDD log splitter.
I bought it used for $150.00 about 15 years ago.
It will only split dry PINE of FIR, but I don’t have oak or other hard woods so that is fine.
It has the original 3 hp Briggs and Stratton motor on it, from the 60s.
The motor has no choke or throttle and an old recoil pull cord setup.
I have replaced the pull cord.
The gas tends to slowly leak so I only put what I need in the tank, and also there is always FRESH gas in the tank.
As long as I have the hydraulic valve set in the middle of the travel and remember to UNSHORT the spark plug it starts FIRST TIME EVERY TIME. And I can start splitting in less then 10 seconds with no problems.
It is so old the shutoff is the shorting of the spark plug. The only thing I have ever done is check the oil, replace the oil every 5 years or so. I have only replaced the spark plug one time, and that just because I bought a new plug, not because it really needed it.
And yes, only ethanol free gas.
You won’t. Before they put alcohol in fuel, you would sometimes get water in the tank because of condensation or a leak in the storage tank. To get rid of the water, you would buy a product at the auto part store that was nothing more than alcohol. As both water and gas are soluble in alcohol, the water would be carried out of the tank. Smart people would get their alcohol from the drug store as it was cheaper.
Water in the fuel tank is almost unheard of today because most fuel is about 10% alcohol unless you live in an oil producing state that offers undiluted fuel.
unless you live in an oil producing state that offers undiluted fuel.
NC is not an oil producing state and it’s not hard to find non-ethanol gasoline.
But it is ALWAYS more expensive then regular. This is due to hidden taxes because??? no ethanol!!!
But it is ALWAYS more expensive then regular.
True, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything I said or was responding to?
Yes, I just read that Delta with a fleet of 936 planes announced they will be “net zero” in 1930 something.
That to me suggests some phony “carbon credit” scheme since as you point out moving away from carbon based fuels is not realistic.
wow, what hubris of Delta- net zero? absurd!
Perhaps they’re going out of business.
1930? Shirley you mean 2030?
I hope they find enough rubber bands.
Yup, you caught me back in the last century 😉
Always use Delta when I wanna get my travel on
Story tip – Delusions about the sun, from the global warming fanatics – American Thinker
Yet, these same people tell us that they can keep temperatures, sea levels, and ice caps near current levels if we just hand the government trillions of dollars and give up gas cars, gas appliances, and consume less meat. They can also prevent droughts, floods, and storms. They cannot only control the number of hurricanes, but also the strength of thee hurricanes. Their skills are limitless in their mind.
They can’t tell the difference between a man and a woman, can’t control inflation, can’t control the border and can’t teach children to read or do math at grade level, but somehow they can control all aspects of the climate forever if we, the people, just give up our lifestyle and freedom. They can control the global temperature within one degree forever and somehow these geniuses have determined that today’s temperature is the optimum temperature no matter whether the temperature has gone up and down cyclically and naturally for billions of years. No one is supposed to ask questions or do research because we are told that the science is settled. After all, John Kerry says none of this green agenda is political or ideological. It is all just based on science.
They never mention what is the ideal temp and CO2 level….odd, no?
Senator Kennedy asks them those questions, they have no answer, just go on with their endless string of talking points.
Key words–if we the people give up our lifestyles and freedom. That is what the power elite want, nothing to do with climate at all.
One thing people forget is that ethanol is produced using fermentation, where the yeast produce one pound of CO2 per pound of alcohol.
BobBumala ==> Very good point – as with petroleum fuels production, the production of ethanol itself produces substantial CO2.
Thanks, I didn’t, but should have, included that in the essay.
CARB wanted afterburners on vent stacks of a Fleishmann’s Yeast plant, that time to deal with alcohol (the dread VOCs). I suppose they will also want Carbon capture as well.
The green point would be that the CO2 produced during fermentation came out of the air to start with so is a “renewable” fuel source. An additional feature is that the CO2 from the fermentation process is fairly highly concentrated in CO2 and easily collected from the fermentation vessels for sequestration purposes. So much more economical than say collecting cow flatulence…but still overall much more expensive than naturally occurring hydrocarbon deposits as fuel.
There is a strong effort to capture the CO2 from starch fermentation, but that was stymied by the cancellation of the Navigator pipeline project that was to connect many of these ethanol plants together. That will put a crimp in the effort to lower the Carbon Intensity of ethanol, for what that is worth.
Wouldn’t they be better off, burning Big Mac’s?
bobjones ==> Depends, I guess, with or without onions and pickles?
Don’t you think the aviation industry is in enough of a pickle 😀
Sad to say but “Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun”
Yes, the jingle stuck, even though I rarely went to MickeyDees at the time.
Hamburger Fans ==> I very seldom eat fast food hamburgers since all the kiddies have grown up, moved out, and now buy Big Mac for their own kids. Our family only ate fast food on vacations, while on long car trips.
Nowadays, if I am in a pinch on a long drive and fainting from hunger, I prefer 2 Whopper Jrs, no pickle (usually on sale).
Ditto to the hit MickeyDees on road trips thing. Sausage biscuit with egg if it is morning with iced coffee, and 2 cheeseburger meal in the evening, for those long days towing. Park the trailer and sleep overnight in a Walmart and there always seems to be a McD really close, often walkable close. I like Wendy’s value menu better but they are not always close.
Biscuit? Here in the UK McD’s do a sausage and egg McMuffin and they are very more-ish.
Yep! They have the McMuffins here, but I prefer the Biscuit. They are really pretty good biscuits.
Do y’all in the UK do biscuits?
Nope. Biscuits in the UK are the sweet variety you call ‘cookies’.
“Carriers want to replace jet fuel with ethanol to fight global warming. That would require lots of corn, and lots of water.”
I do not know how much the Oglalla Aquifer is being depleted by water extraction for ethanol production, but I am all for phasing out ethanol production for surface transportation and aviation for the reasons discussed in the head posting. Agriculture in the central plains appears to be playing a large role in the aquifer’s depletion.
Wikipedia article on the aquifer:
Ogallala Aquifer – Wikipedia
Just increase fossil fuel production to replace the lost ethanol production if and when ethanol is phased out. Corn and water are too important to be fuel production feedstocks. Food prices are high enough as it is without adding aviation fuel to the problem.
CD ==> I’m with you on all three points.
Here’s a win-win: convert fossil hydrocarbons to ethanol.
Everyone can claim to be burning climate-safe ethanol. Then save the Oglalla by ceasing to grow biofuel corn.
It’s all just smoke-and-mirrors anyway. Why not go all-in?
Pat ==> Cute!
Cue another ‘shortage’.
Kip, not to mention plane’s wings will to be larger to accommodate the increase fuel required or all trips will be shorter.
Once you Make planes larger and heavier you will probably need to redo airports.
Did I mention landing gear, tires, engines etc.
mkelly ==> There are certainly multiplying uncertainties and unintended consequences…..
they’ll just make EJs- problem solved /sarc
Airliner takeoff weight is around 1/4 fuel. The only way to carry twice the fuel is to carry no passengers or cargo.
The problem is bigger as the a I craft will have to carry more fuel due to the lower energy rating and as the extra fuel is heavier the aircraft will have to carry even more fuel. Are current tanks large enough to fly transatlantic using ethanol?
Chris Foskett ==> Don’t know, but some airlines have made test flights with ethanol supplied to one engine. Test flights of other bio-fuels as well.
wood chips? /sarc
Joseph ==> Wood chips can be made into ethanol….
put solar panels on the wings /sarc
Joseph ==> Reality has one-upped the dream — already done.
Elon will save us…he will skip this intermediate step and go to electric planes….everyone will fly Musk Air…..electricity in the air excites us, no?
antigtiff ==> There are already very short flight electric planes. 2 and 4 passenger stuff, mostly experimental. If only we had a way to stuff a huge amount of electricity into a small light container.
With the time required to recharge the batteries, you would probable need at least 2 times the current number of planes.
Also need way more space at airports to park the planes while recharging.
Also need to change planes for any flight of a longer distance as for from LA to NY since the planes would not be able to make the distance on batteries. No more non stop flights from coast to coast.
Also need more gates just to do the changing of passengers to other planes.
Also need to calculate the added “energy” used with all the added landings and takeoffs using more “energy’ then steady state flying at altitude.
Also added “energy” taxiing the planes to their charging stations then back to the gates since I don’t know of any major airport that has the space to keep double the planes at gates for any length of time.
Also need to run MASSIVE new “energy” transmission lines to the airports. Run underground of course, which is more expensive.
Also the wear and tear on the runways from the doubling of landings and departures, and probably for busy airports, the need for MORE runways. Don’t forget, the planes will be as heavy when they land as on takeoff, unlike FF aircraft so even more wear and tear!
But otherwise, I don’t see any drawbacks from this transition.
One airline already tried a small fleet of electric planes for commuter flights. It turned out to be a demonstration project for the fact that fast charging is hell on batteries. Their very expensive batteries had a life span measured in months. The electrics were retired in less than a year.
small nuclear engines.
There are a couple of spare ones up in the high Idaho desert
Where NuScale is no longer building their SMR plant.
why isn’t he making electric rockets? I’m so dissapointed– /sarc
But you must admit that the whole Space X business model was exceptional.
Land the primary booster vertically on a barge at sea, brilliant.
Only use 1 engine with 2 types, one for use in a vacuum, the other for in the atmosphere, Brilliant.
Build engines that will work 10 times or more. Brilliant.
Use cheap easy to load fuel, Brilliant.
To build a bigger lift booster, just add more engines, Brilliant.
In 2021, according to wiki, only 2 of 31 Falcon 9 launches used new boosters, Brilliant.
But, no battery rocket motors yet, what a failure! No wonder the whole of the US government, billionaire Brandon cronies and MSM are going after Musk.
with no battery rockets – he’ll need to get tons of carbon credits! 🙂
A recent Virgin Airlines flight from London to New York was the first to be powered by “Sustainable Aviation Fuel”, made up in this case of waste cooking oil, unused animal fat and a small amount of kerosene synthesized from ethanol. It was evidently meant as a demonstration in that no further such trips are scheduled.
general custer ==> Yes, just mentioned that to anti above.
It is not that bio-fuels cannot be made or used, hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons. But you need a lot of energy to propel a 787 through the air from New York to Paris. and the plane has to carry all that energy with it.
Apparently it works- but I be it won’t work economically- so it was a wasted exercise in virtue signaling.
Well its proof of concept and select people were on board.
Not sure if it was carrying any cargo – few people realise how much cargo is shipped around the world in scheduled flights. Heathrow, for example, is the UK’s largest ‘port’ by value with a network of 218 destinations worldwide. In 2022 83% of the cargo travelled in the belly hold of passenger aircraft.
Air Freight ==> If England or New York wants long-stemmed roses in January, they get them — air freighted from Chile or South Africa.
We are all to give up meat, so no more animal fat.
If airline executives are really ‘racing’ to power their jets with ethanol, their respective boards need to convene immediately to fire them.
I’m sure the actual story is the same for all of our corporate titans, i.e., how can they appease the Left so that it goes after someone else first. Someone should tell them that they can’t, and that they need to start standing up to this nonsense.
first they came for….
Two-thirds of Republicans under 30 support the “climate change” agenda and 42% of Republicans overall support finding new energy sources. About 61 percent of Americans support the “climate change” agenda in a recent Pew poll.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/
Opinion surveys are useless for the simple reason that peoples’ true preferences are only revealed by human action in a market setting, i.e., when they have to allocate their own limited resources among competing means to achieve their desired ends.
Do I want to save the world? – Yes.
Do I want to root in the ground for grubs with a sharp stick? – No.
Luckily for me, I’ve studied enough science (ChE and Geology) to know that climate alarmism is a crock of sh*t.
PS – Did you know that the financial basis for all things ‘Pew’ was Sun Oil Co? Maybe you should conduct a survey of the ‘carbon footprint’ of the founder’s living descendants and let us know how they’re doing before bothering the rest of us.
“Save the world” from what? IMO, you are correct about the “market setting”/preferences.
The ONLY real danger to the World is the Politicians.
The Germans ran their war machine in WW1 off of diesel made from wood.
The Fischer-Tropsch process, then during WW2 they used the same process
with coal. South Africa used it for their energy during the apartheid days. Ethenol
is never going to work. I think was one of the Bush’s that was behind the federal ethenol
program. Something about throwing a bone to the Big Ag group.
There was a bio project that came about back during the ’07 great recession was “Green Crude”
made from a bio modified algae that mimics crude oil. I think it was maybe Cargill that was
behind the bio-engineering.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/green_crude_the_quest_to__unlock_algaes_energy_potential
I followed it and thought it had some possibilities and they even flew a Boeing around the country
with it. It was defiantly part of a “disruptive innovation” play and fracking was the winner.
The thing I liked most about the Green Crude is that it uses waste water to fuel the algae that
is now just dumped into rivers and it would maybe help cleanup that mess. I think some
farmer bought the patent and it has gone no where.
Mr. Ed ==> The history of alternate fuels is fascinating. Lots can be done — not that much is sensible or economical under normal circumstances.
That said, recycling of readily converted hydrocarbons is a societal good.
From where I am sitting in the Northern Rockies in a 100 mile radius there is
enough insect killed trees that if processed via Fischer-Tropsch would produce
aprox 6 billion gallons of diesel. To do that it would be required under federal law
the approval of the Forest Products Industry Assn. The forest products industry refuses
to approve any bio fuel project. . Volvo the Swedish industrial
company makes a portable fischer tropsch plant that with a tank of lng can make
diesel at a forest landing at a rate of 70-80 gallons per ton of wood.
The benefit to the forest management to cleanup these
dead trees would be immense. The Greens/Dems will not allow this ever.
It will either decay
or be burned. With the excess fuel load currently on the ground there will not be any
regrowth for hundreds of years. How much CO2 will be released from just the controlled
burns on these lands? Orwell needs to become fiction again.
I’m a doubter on practicality and no one knows at this point if there is any real chance of it ever being economical, but some rather interesting things are being done in physics, chemistry, and bioengineering for synthetic fuels.
https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/76/12/32/2923592/Artificial-photosynthesis-A-pathway-to-solar
I should have included material science in addition to, or perhaps instead of, bioengineering.
The Germans produced diesel and AvGas by the F-T process from COAL, not wood. They had plenty of coal but not much oil in Germany, thus Romania was a prize target as they had a lot of oil. Just a litte too far away to defend successfully. Many Allied airstrikes were flown against the oil refineries in Poliesti, and many lives were lost in that effort. The Allies also target the synthetic fuel refineries in Germany as this was one way to keep the German airplanes on the ground. A lot of interesting history here.
The Germans lost both wars, coincidence?
Algae all been done on industrial scale for decades.
It’s called oil shale.
Estonia is the leader in this, with proper petroleum research labs so successful they export the stuff…
Sadly the EU have stuck their big oar in forcing the Estonians to convert heating systems to GAS, STATING STUPIDLY it produced too much pollution.
What could go wrong with that?
Esti Gas was owned mostly by Gazprom and had been designed to use Russian gas, then along came some midget who used to have his mates in the Stasi keep tabs on everyone and their pet dog.
That midget started a war around about 2014, and suddenly oil shale looks politically correct again.
Moral of the tale from Sarko to Pute don’t ever trust some short A. midget once they get their hands on the levers of power.
They are megalomaniacs with a strong penchant for wars and strong fasho tendencies.
Fauci?
“For every problem there is a solution that is simple, neat—and wrong.”
That truism takes various wordings and is attributed to many authors, but it is undeniable.
Most Progressives I know would say “Two out of three ain’t bad!”
George ==> Boy do these kooky plans sound neat, huh? Save the Oil! Burn Corn!
Off topic- but I think this is all coming to a head next year( Specifically I mean the entire ridiculous and corrupt ESG agenda .Behind the scenes there are serious people , engineers ,managers, in industry ,the military and yes government and politics( a few) that know we cannot go on this way. I should save that for an open thread. But the big upheaval I think is coming.
I do hope your suspicions prove to be correct. In the U.K. I can’t see it coming anytime soon
John ==> There are some of “us” fighting that fight.
Christopher Monckton among them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwdLXsCDevA
nearly 3 hours, but worth watching. Can be cut to 2 hours by settings/playback speed 1.5x, still legible at this speed.
Speaking of corny stuff..:
The BBC could cancel major shows, including Sir David Attenborough’s wildlife series, in a bid to cut costs after the government froze the licence fee for two years.
Concerns have been raised that popular big-budget series could be on the chopping block as part of the broadcaster’s plan to save £500million.
https://metro.co.uk/2023/12/06/sir-david-attenborough-series-axed-bbc-19933285/?ico=metro-posts_home_whats-trending-now
Some good news for a change
Maybe but not far enough. Scrap the licence fee altogether.
Labor could never allow that, just think of all the political propaganda the BBC provides them.
Heck, in Canada, before the last election, Trudope gave a sheepload of extra money to the CBC to ensure “good” coverage of the issues.
In the US, NPR and PBS will never cover any issue that reflects badly on Democrats.
And from postings from down under, ABC is much the same.
Time for all 4 countries to pull the plug on these “liberal full employment” tax (or mandatory fee) supported wastes of the airways.
What is the position of Phoebe Waller-Bridge on climate change?
Well general, who is Phoebe Waller-Bridge, (I really don’t care) and why would I know what her position on climate change is, but more specifically, what her position on CAGW is, since the A part is NEVER mentioned any more.
strat ==> Well done, BBC, axe the lying so-and-so.
Personally, I like a lot of the British cop shows . . .
And in liking them, you would either pay to watch them, or be willing to watch advertisements to watch them, without a forced license fee.
Here in the US, we (me) pay for multiple streaming services and a satellite service with the ability to record multiple programs so that we don’t need to watch commercials.
The streaming services, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV etc. have many of their own programs, some of which are very good, even if the quality of the “filming” can be poor at times. And yes, I use Amazon A LOT for products and the free shipping and A Prime gives the TV content, although they are now moving to provide shows with commercials FOR FREE! transitioning to a HIGHER fee to skip the commercials.
They are selling a product and are keeping expenses down. The BBC would NEVER use basic digital cameras and sub par lighting to film their shows, they have plenty of OPM to do it right!
I got the impression Amazon was/is a ‘bad guy’ re covid. Why support them?
Really amazingly simple solution to fix the shortage crisis.
Cut every salary, of every on of their liberal employees, across the board, top to bottom, by whatever % is required to reduce the expenditures to match the income.
BUT, the powers that be will never cut THEIR salaries. They will keep their piece of the pie while selectively terminating the employment of the least favored subordinates, least favored by the powers that be, not by the viewing audience.
In a system based of free money, as opposed to earned money, the “leadership” have no regard for the end user, just for their friends and collaborators in the hierarchy.
Net-Zero BBC by 2035! A mantra many can get behind.
I am less worried about Corn Oil based biofuels, as the rest of the corn can still be a food/feed IF they do it right. But making it into a gas derivative and mandating Ethanol is just robbing the poor of food. And I don’t trust it being done right if the cost easier to use it for gas.
The author states, “Whether or not any real world net reduction in CO2 would result from a shift from jet fuels to ethanol in air transportation is questionable”. No, it’s not. We’ve known for at least a decade that ethanol consumes more energy than it yields as transportation fuel if the evaluation boundary begins at the plowing, planting, fertilizing, spraying, cultivating, harvesting, transporting to the ethanol plant, instead of at the plant loading dock. A far better response by the airlines to their critics is the “Elon Answer”.
First of all, there are a number of mistakes and misconceptions in this article that need to be cleared up. Ethanol is not, REPEAT NOT, a jet fuel or jet fuel blend component itself. What is happening is ethanol is converted into a jet fuel blend component by dehydration to ethylene and oligomerization to a paraffinic hydrocarbon that is very similar to jet fuel and is an allowed blend component under ASTM D7566. This is a very important distinction between EtOH and Jet Fuel.
Second, Ethanol has a Lower Heating Value of 76,330 Btu/gal and synthetic jet fuel blend component, also known as SAF or Sustainable Aviation Fuel, has a LHV of 121,000 Btu/gal. SAF is defined under ASTM D7566 specifictations and is tightly controlled. This is comparable to conventional jet fuel so there is no loss in energy content when blending SAF with Jet A.
What is happening is the Ethanol industry is concerned that their market is shrinking if/when EV’s become prevalent. Thus, they seek a new and expanding market for ethanol by making SAF. The process takes 2 gallons of EtOH and makes 1 gallon of Jet fuel blend component (SAF). What is difficult to explain is that the cost of 1 gallon of EtOH and 1 gallon of are very close, so the economics don’t pan out without subsidies. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act gives credits for SAF production based on the Carbon Intensity (CI) of the specific fuel. Ethanol to jet fuel (also known as Alcohol-to-Jet or ATJ) gets a minimal credit as currently ethanol is not a very low CI feedstock.
There is a lot of issues here but the FAA and ASTM do not approve fuels for aircraft use until all safety considerations are considered, and then all turbine engine manufacturers and aircraft producers sign off on any new fuel.
This does not mean that any new fuel is worthwhile producing, only that if it is produced, as is currently the case with converting Soy Oil and the like into jet fuel, that the fuel is Fit For Purpose as Aviation Turbine Fuel.
And the whole process is net very-negative energy.
So what you’re saying is that our back-of-the-envelope-calculations are incorrect, that, if bio-ethanol aviation fuel was authorised and subsidised, it would take twice as much corn to make jet fuel? So about 8-9 times as much corn as is currently being produced in the USA?
‘…ethanol is converted into a jet fuel blend component by dehydration to ethylene and oligomerization to a paraffinic hydrocarbon that is very similar to jet fuel….’
Or, one could obtain the required paraffins directly by distilling crude oil. Sounds lucrative enough, where can I apply for a patent?
Look at LanzaJet, GEVO, UOP, and many other companies that have technology to convert EtOH to HC jet fuel. Not that they are profitable ventures, but there is a lot of investment in these projects that will not yield returns unless and until subsidies get higher than they are.
You are absolutely correct. I will add a few more details.
Ethanol cannot be used as jet fuel and never will be.
Ethanol to jet is the process described above. The dehydration process resuts in water being eliminated to produce ethylene which reduces the mass of etheylene to 63% of the starting ethanol mass.The oligomerisation step is well known and produces a range of hydrocarbon under Schulz Fleury distribution. The C12-C14 fraction is synthetic kerosine. This is not suitable as jet fuel without the addition aromatics components which are required for seal swelling and fuel pump lubricity.When you add up all the inputs this nonsense is highly EROEI negative.
The comment about cellulosic ethanol being an option is pure theoretical. To date, after more than 100 years of promises there is no large scale plant in existence. The process sucks even more than corn ethanol.
I have worked in oil, gas and petrochemicals for 45 years, and I spend my time on feedstocks and petrochemical processes.
Fear not! Virgin Atlantic – Head Boy of the asylum – operated a flight this week London to New York with a jet powered exclusively with… drum roll… re-processed waste cooking oil.
Maybe corn-fritters were on the meal trays.
Used Cooking Oil (UCO) is a typical feedstock for facilities that hydroprocess Fats, Oils, & Greases (FOG) into a paraffinic hydrocarbon that is compatible with jet fuel. This is called SAF or “Sustainable Aviation Fuels” and is being mandated by IATA (Int’l Air Transport Association) as airlines strive to meet GHG emissions reductions goals. For what that is worth. This is being pushed by the EU specifically and fostered in the US by incentives. The EU is mandating specific volumes of SAF increasing with time to well over 50% blends. The more troubling mandate is that E-Fuels, fuels produced from renewable electric power, replace all fossil fuels. This will require essentially all the power we currently produce just to reduce CO2 from its ground energy state back to that of the energy content of hydrocarbon fuels. A whopping amount of power. And at about 30% total energy efficiency. Not really a sustainable way to make transportation fuels.
KIp: Yet another nice article.
Not mentioned: Producing the 95% ethanol one would presumably burn in a jet engine requires a LOT of fossil fuel for fertilizer production, distillation, harvesting, moving stuff around, etc. There are numerous studies that agree on that although they don’t agree that well on how much. Here is one https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/files/pub55581.pdf such.
Most of the fossil fuel used is natural gas. Bottom line: Corn ethanol is largely a tool for cheaply converting natural gas to a more compact and convenient liquid form.
Nothing much wrong with that. But a magic solution to the (IMO imaginary) “climate crisis” ethanol is not.
BTW: American style corn production doesn’t work everywhere. In North America, very little corn is grown North of the Canadian border. Growing season is too short. And in the arid areas, it requires irrigation. Corn will purportedly grow in the tropics. And on paper, you’ll get multiple crops per yer. But Google tells me that actually getting the stuff to grow and produce healthy ears in tropical regions may not not always be that easy.
US certified aircraft are currently prohibited from using alcohol in the fuel since it is corrosive to aluminum. The fuel tanks, fuel lines and control valves are all aluminum.
So, a major rebuild of the fuel system would be required.
My Cessna can use auto fuel, but the placard states “No Alcohol Allowed ” , so those of us in California have to use 100LL avgas , since all of our gasoline has up to 10% ethanol.
________________________________________________________________
Yes, you are dealing with fact-free & math-free politics.
Facts are Racist. So is math!
And all of this corn is grown with fertilizer made from fossil fuels, so the ethanol is not that renewable to begin with.
I better ?
An A380 superjumbo just completed a flight powered by cooking oil
It’s huge, it’s wide, and it’s potentially a lot more sustainable. The Airbus A380, a behemoth of the skies, has completed a trial flight powered on cooking oil.
The test airplane completed a three-hour flight from Blagnac Airport in Toulouse – Airbus’ French headquarters – on 25 March. It was powered by Sustainable Aviation Fuel, or SAF – predominantly made of used cooking oil and waste fats – and operating on a single Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine.
Another problem with this is that jet fuel has a higher flash point and lower vapor pressure than gasoline or ethanol, so is safer. There is also a lubricity issue. Jet fuel running thru the system helps keep the pumping and injection systems lubricated. Ethanol will not provide that.
Guilty, guilty, guilty!
Kip H is guilty of confirmation bias with a bad case of liar, liar pants on fire.
First there is not a food shortage, American farmers have a market shortage.
Second, the protein part of feed corn is processed out when producing ethanol.
This is a value added process that created corn belt jobs at a time when we were sending manufacturing jobs to China.
I was in the navy and went to Purdue U during the 70s energy crisis. corn and energy was the subject my senior project. As a navy officer, I supervised the operation of nuke plants. After getting out I certified SRO and worked at nuke plants around the world.
That was until POTUS Clinton became president. My job at new reactors went away. I moved the family to work at a nuke plant and then that job went away because of cheap gas from Canada. NAFTA paid for grad school where I focused on biomass to energy.
So after 20 years of dealing with anti-nukes, I am thinking I will now be a good guy.
What I learned is if you have a job where your hands get dirty providing what families need, there will be some scum bag like Kip against it.
After 8 years of scum bad Clinton the US again had energy issues. The energy bill debate was halted till 2005 by the WOT. By 2006 I had a job back in new reactors.
For those who did not read the 2005 Energy Bill there is no mandate for corn ethanol. There was a small mandate for biomass in fuel which was easily demonstrated.
So what is the perspective of a sailor from the Midwest? OPEC and China go F___ yourself. You need our food but we do not need your energy. The USN is not going to bleed for you.
If you want to replace 95 billion gallons of jet fuel with the equivalent amount of BTU’s from ethanol you’ll need 161 billion gallons of ethanol not 135 billion.
95 billion gal x 135 thousand BTU/gal = 73300 BTU/gal x ? gallons
Chemman ==> My Hero! I knew someone would correct my math on that.
Thanks for that.
Also, how big will the aeroplanes’ tanks have to be to hold all the ethanol?? Quite a lot bigger I would guess.
Getting facts straight is important. Conventional jet fuel has Lower Heating Value (LHV) of ~123,000 btu/gal and a Higher Heating Value (HHV) of ~130,000 Btu/gal. Diesel is higher than jet fuel at 128,450 (LHV) and ~137,000 (HHV) due to the higher density and distillation end point for diesel vs jet fuel. Ethanol has a LHV of 76,330 Btu/gal and ~84,000 Btu/gal HHV. Different sources site different values but many are off, sometimes by a lot. I use verified sources when possible including DOE, Argonne NL, CARB, and my own extensive experience in this field (40+ years) so I take this seriously. But the trends are still the same. Just keep the facts straight.
Burning Ethanol also increase Ozone pollution large cities have problems with.
The EPA never actually approved Ethanol in gasoline. They grandfathered it in before emissions testing of fuels became the norm. Now, any new fuel source must pass stringent emissions testing both engine-out and exhaust out (after cats and traps). Ethanol has aldehyde emissions that would not pass current engine out requirements. The aftertreatment devises essentially make all fuels clean. So there is no meaningful benefit to oxygenated fuels over conventional fuels. In fact, EPA vehicle certification is done on ethanol-free fuel.
The amount of misinformation and misunderstanding about fuels, especially by the EPA, is astounding.
But the NGO’s do anything possible to make fuel more difficult to produce as in California where there are differences in fuel specs from county to county making refiners produce multiple grades of gasoline increasing the cost of production significantly. All to no avail as modern cars emit less pollution than exists in the atmosphere itself. In LA, a car actually cleans the atmosphere.
Kip,
I suggest your calculations are far off. Only the important people, and private jets, need to fly, so less fuel will be needed. Look at the specific restriction goals that the C40 cities plan for their inhabitants. The hoi poi can be better utilized hoeing the corn.
The hoi polloi can eat the corn and tell the elites to stuff it in the engine intake.
Very nice. The whole CAGW/net zero notion is insane we need to put an end to it.
Pretty sure that making 95 billion gallons of ethanol requires a lot of yeast that releases CO2 while fermenting the corn. It’s a great idea, manufacture CO2 to save the world from CO2.
A rapidly growing field of corn will deplete its food source – CO2 – if there is no breeze.
The Corn Belt’s wind turbines might need to reverse the electron flow and supplement the wind.
You can’t do just one thing.
I don’t remember the details but Obama tested the use of biofuels for our military jets.
I think they were paying something like $140 dollars a gallon.
(Don’t forget that Obama’s VP was Brandon. Creepy Joe is just staying the course Obama and the Dems set.)
We need to drop our ethanol mandates for gasoline. That’s a tough row to hoe, given Iowa’s spot as the first contest in the presidential primaries. Every body running for president wants a strong start in the early contest and everyone panders to the farm vote.
We waste too much food and farmland in making ethanol for fuel. There is no net gain in energy and consumers pay more for food. Big Ag is the big winner and everyone else is the loser.
Disagree. The original gasoline/ethanol mandate had two reasons:
The original 10% blendwall was set by LA premium summer gas. Elsewhere usually a less by season. Anything more than 10% is just farm lobby politics.
Second, speaking as a 40+ years dairy farm owner, there is NO impact on net food production volume or costs. All the corn grown on my farm is now sold for ethanol. We buy back the yeast protein enhanced residue ‘distillers grain’, an ideal ruminant feed supplement to alfalfa, better than the chopped fermented green corn (whole unripe stalk) silage we used to make/store in those big blue Harvestores. The ethanol feed conversion is (dry weight meaning less than 7% moisture) corn 42%/distillers grain 27%. Net net, we grow less alfalfa and more corn, have happier cows producing higher butterfat milk sold at a higher price to the local dairy plant (milk, butter, yogurt, ice cream—no cheese), don’t use the Harvestores so avoid the considerable annual maintenance costs to keep them hermetic, and I have a more profitable dairy farm.
Years ago I looked into the corn/ethanol/catfish process.
Ethanol to run the farm and drink, protein to feed the fish, used water to irrigate and help fertilize the fields. Fish sold for cashflow.
I am just too lazy to do all that work so no, I didn’t do that.
Rud ==> Nobody said it was bad for farmers…..
But to try to make another 135 billion gallons of ethanol is a big stretch and I don’t see any advantage,
They’re breaking ground on an ethanol jet fuel plant in South Dakota. Want to say it’s about a 60MW load. Some of that is served by hydro, but most is going to come from fossil fuels. None of that power is coming from wind or solar.
The U.S. already uses up to 40% of its total corn crop to produce the measly 14 billion gallons of ethanol mixed into gasoline. It would take 250% of today’s total U.S. corn crop [ something wrong with my math here – a little help? – kh ] to produce the 95 billions gallons of ethanol to replace jet fuels –
2.5*0.40=1.0 14B=0.40X X=2.5x14B=35B 95/35=2.71= 271% (I cheated and used the Windows calculator for the last step – percentages can be a pain, I never know what is meant when someone says “x is 200% more than y”, is it two times y or three times y?)
Hmmm. No more editing option? I immediately noticed I’d use “x” instead of “*” in the second equation, but couldn’t find any icon to edit.
Another problem with burning ethanol in jet turbines is lubrication. That’s one reason they burn what’s essentially more refined diesel fuel. Gasoline and alcohols are solvents. It’s hard enough keeping oil inside the engine bearings operating really close to very high temperatures. The jet fuel can get to the bearing seals and since it’s an oil if any gets past seals it has little, if any effect.
But run a turbine on a solvent fuel like gasoline or alcohol, if it get to the bearing seals it can get past them, thin out and break down the oil.
Jet turbine bearing sealing has improved over the years since their invention, but it’s best to not be burning a solvent for fuel.
Early jet engines didn’t bother with sealing the bearings near the super hot combustion chambers and power turbine. They ran total loss oil systems where the lubricating oil was pumped into the bearings and allowed to blow out the exhaust. Such engines could easily be identified by the sooty black trails left behind at higher throttle settings. The oil couldn’t all be burned before going out the exhaust. Thus when refueled the planes also got their engine oil topped up.
That oiling system is what led to the crash of a YB-49 flying wing prototype during testing to decide if the military would buy new bombers from Northrup or Convair. The fuel and oil tanks were filled the day before the demonstration but during flight the next day, the engines all ran out of oil. Someone had to have sneakily drained most of the oil out during the night. There could only be two obvious culprits, someone at Convair who wanted to secure the contract, or someone in the military who didn’t want to have that “weird” flying wing in the fleet.
Kip: This notion is not a credible one, and not at all what the SAF thrust is aiming for. (SAF = Sustainable Aviation Fuel) SAF is in fact NOT ethanol, ethanol will not work with any modern turbofan engine designs. SAF is a reformed fuel that is similar to the properties of actual Jet-A fuel, which is essentially kerosene with additives.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/sustainable-aviation-fuels
It is of course still a stupid idea, but not as delusional as using ethanol. And from the actual SAF gov web blurb above, you only need a billion tons of biomass to make 60 billion tons of SAF. Even that sounds like a perpetual motion machine… how do you increase the mass of this stuff by 60 times via heat and catalysis??? Magic beans?
And your figure on CO2 produced by burning Jet-A is completely mistaken.
Jet fuel is approximately C12 H26. And the formula of combustion is as follows:
2(C12 H26) + 37O2 > 24CO2 + 26H2O
where 1 mole of JetA is 170 g/mol; C=12 g/mol; H=2 g/mol; O=16 g/moll and CO2=44 g/mol.
Which means 340 grams of JetA + 1184 grams of O2 yields 1056 grams of CO2 + 468 grams of H2O,
So the ratio of CO2 to fuel by weight is 3.106 after combustion. So for every 100 grams of Jet fuel burned, produces 310.6 grams of CO2. It is not 9.3:1 as you incorrectly stated.
There can be no argument against molar chemistry and the conservation of mass therein.
Its would take 670% of current corn-ethanol production to make the 95 million gallons. However, this becomes 1340% when taking into account the lower energy content of ethanol. A non-starter. Dumber than one can imagine.
“Dumber than one can imagine.” So, based on past performance, the Biden regime will be pressing forward with this shortly.
How strange that our ancestors and previous generations have worked out the best fuels to use to get the best output and our politicians of today think they can change that??
It’s because our western political class have all been indoctrinated to believe that they know best and can do no wrong.
This would actually be kind of fun to watch. The FAA, even by comparison to the usual risk-averse government agencies, is notoriously risk-averse. And the FAA only governs operations of US airlines or aircraft operating in US airspace; there are multiple other national and supra-national agencies all invested with the power to regulate all things aviation-related, plus an extensive set of international treaties to impose some commonality to all this regulation.
The conversion of existing commercial aircraft to ethanol-based fuel would be a multi-decade undertaking before the first corn-fueled passenger flight could take off.
Heck, it’s probably a decade or more to develop, test and certify a new aircraft engine designed from the start to run on ethanol.
Forget the impact on food production, bourbon is at least 50% corn. What’s it going to do to bourbon production and prices?