AutoblogGreen

So here's a question: Which is more efficient, coal gasefication or ethanol production? If we're going to use coal to power ethanol plants, why not just convert the coal straight to gasoline?

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I'm sorry, I meant to say coal liquification.

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Political Correctness at work! Political Correctness makes lousy economics, lousy science, and doesn't do much for cleaning the environment, either.

So why doesn't (bio)diesel get the same kind of breaks?

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Derek, you don't *need* coal for ethanol, some just want to be cheap and dirty.

The exact emissions in question come from drying the wet distillers grain. The E3 BioFuels "closed loop" method cleverly skips that step by co-locating with livestock and using the wet grain directly as feed. Biomass fueled ethanol production should start next month at E3 BioFuels Mead, Neb. "closed-loop" 20mgpy ethanol plant. To be fair, they will use some natural gas to supplement the biogas digesters, but that is 25% or less.

Of course, the regulators should be encouraging green innovation rather than enabling "cheap and dirty" production. The NRDC has called for environmental performance standards for the biofuels industry, which I think is the right path.

It is possible to make ethanol very cleanly even using "conventional" technology.. a modern natural gas fired plant buying corn from a conservation tillage farm produces ethanol that represents a 60% green house gas reduction over petroleum fuel. The technology is commercially viable but will face stiff competition if the "cheap and dirty" producers are poorly regulated. In that regard, the ethanol industry is like every other industry :)

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I read about this in the Kansas City paper, thanks to a link from the oil drum. Just another example of our President's administration at work: let's subsidize them and weaken standards for emissions!

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Everybody must be worried about this topic. Ethanol IS NOT a sustainable solution. EPA can open the doors but mother natura soon will extend an expensive bill, not only for ethanol businessmen, for all of us.

Fernando Marquez

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We begun one year ago in Bogotá, Colombia, a judicial demand against the Colombian government, in head of ministries of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development, of Mines and Energy, Social Protection in which are also involved the DAMA (Administrative Department of Environment), entity in charge of the environmental surveillance in Bogotá, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and ECOPETROL, as entities linked to the Colombian government that have had active participation in the imposition of the biofuels use in Colombia.

The demand is based in diverse studies carried out in Colombia and other countries, included the United States and Brazil, country that has been presented as the best exponent in the success of these fuels; these studies has beeen demonstrated that biofuels have adverse effects on engines, food´s price, water quality and cultivation lands, and, what is specially serious, an important increase in the emission of substances like ozone, nitrogen oxides, CO2, widely mentioned in reference to greenhouse effect, production of acetaldehide, recognized internationally as causing agent of cancer and inductor of genetic alterations, produced exclusively from the ethanol combustion.

The demand in mention is currently in probatory stage, important results are expected, which will help us to understand in all its dimensions the effect of biofuels, since witness and experts from diverse origins, journalists, industrials ethanol and biodiesel producers, jurists and investigators in environmental areas, toxicology and of public health will act.

From the other hand, the presence of local and international observers will contribute to get objectivity in the adopted decisions about this topic, which will constitute an excellent reference point for our countries, now in the “boom of green fuels” whose consequences of all kinds are still unclear.

For interested people, the text of the above mentioned demand can be downloaded from our website http://www.sca.com.co/actividades.php (spanish only)



Cordially,

C. Fernando Márquez M.
Sociedad Colombiana de Automovilistas
C. E. O.
www.sca.com.co fernando.marquez@sca.com.co

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