<DrumBeat: October 11, 2006 The Oil Drum DrumBeat: October 12, 2006>

167 comments on Report: Brazilian Ethanol is Sustainable

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Glenn on October 11, 2006 - 8:10am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Thanks RR. It's important to separate what is sustainable including being location specific. What works for Brazil is not generally applicable everywhere. I think the main issue is what you mentioned in your first post about Brazil's energy independence:

Oil consumption in Brazil is 4.2 barrels per person per year. In the U.S., oil consumption is 27 barrels per person per year, 6.4 times as much per person as Brazil's.However, we do produce much more oil per person than Brazil. Each year the U.S. produces 11 barrels per person, compared to 3.35 barrels per person for Brazil. In order to achieve energy independence, the gap between demand and production must be closed. Brazil has to close a gap of 0.85 barrels per person per year (4.2 - 3.35). They produce sufficient ethanol to close this gap, and therefore they are energy independent. The U.S., on the other hand, has to close a gap of 16 barrels per person per year. The U.S. gap in production/demand is almost 19 times greater than the production/demand gap in Brazil.

It's just shocking how much oil we use per person. That's where we need to start.

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Robert Rapier on October 11, 2006 - 9:18am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
A major take home message needs to be: We are not Brazil. Even if Americans were willing to cut their energy usage to Brazil's usage, we still don't have the correct crop to replicate what they have done. But the chances of us willingly cutting our consumption to Brazil's levels are nil anyway.
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Glenn on October 11, 2006 - 9:36am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Exactly. Each country - indeed each local area has many different circumstances that affect its sustainability. What works in Iowa probably won't work in New York. Indeed Upstate and downstate New York are dramatically different in many ways.

Everyone should focus on developing their strengths and understand their limitations and weaknesses to best overcome them.

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DelusionaL on October 11, 2006 - 11:50am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Robert, PG (or ?) - could we have a page on gasification?  I have read a little about it being a better alternative to corn based ethanol, using indigenuos grasses and trees. There is some old literature on the net from the 1940's.  It would be interesting to know the EROEI to this process.  Another page about that someone building a plant that coverts(cracks(?)) waste(turkey guts from a turkey proccesor + plus other stuff) into oil  with high heat and pressure.
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Robert Rapier on October 11, 2006 - 7:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Robert, PG (or ?) - could we have a page on gasification?

Actually, the next post I will do is going to be on gasification. It will be a post discussing Khosla's newest venture, which the media is calling cellulosic ethanol, but which is actually gasification.

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Syntec on October 12, 2006 - 11:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If cellulose is the feedstock and gasification the process by which you get your end product (in this case EtOH) then you have yourself cellulosic ethanol.
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Syntec on October 11, 2006 - 8:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Gasification -or thermo-chemical conversion of syngas->EtOH- is perhaps the best production path we could ever hope to achieve for producing ethanol (and higher order alcohols) from abundant waste and renewable carbonaceous materiel in quantity enough to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil which as you know, is a liquid transportation fuel crisis.

The problem, however, is that there are but a handful of research labs, groups and government entities dedicating the time and effort to this production path because said path is not easy in a world of limited funding, cheap oil and entrenched interest.

Every Drummer here knows full well that the current US administration is acutely aware of the dire ramifications that Peak Oil presents modern society -from Simmons and Woolsey to Bartlett and Hirsch (who works for SAIC of all companies)- everyone recognizes that we need to start developing alternatives like... yesterday.

That said, I've posted here time and again that in light of the above, should the United States government really want to come up with an alternative to gasoline usage, the full weight and might of America's fiscal, political and technical resource base would be given proper prioritization and motivation to remedy the crisis at hand.

www.defendscience.org

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167 comments on Report: Brazilian Ethanol is Sustainable

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