Part 2 of 3: Alternative Fuels
This is part two of a three part series on alternative energy. Last time I talked about alternative sources of electricity. In this post I discuss the viable alternative fuel source options. In part three I will look at more exotic ideas for satisfying our appetite for energy.
It is clear to everyone that American dependence on crude isn’t just a burden – its slowly suffocating us. When the oil dries up, our economy will disappear with it unless we find alternative ways of generating energy. With that in mind, it’s about time we start exploring our options.
Last entry I discussed alternative sources of energy for urban and industrial purposes. Today I’m interested in transportation and how we can reduce our dependency on gas and reduce our pain at the pump.
Unlike electrical generation, all of the methods for powering vehicles available to us have problems in their current state. We can’t just start building alternative fuel refineries. There are technical limitations that must be overcome. I’ll attempt to explain these obstacles and suggest ways the government can help bring them to market sooner.
Electric Powered Cars
Electric powered vehicles work just as well as any gasoline powered vehicle on the market. I say again: Electric powered vehicles work just as well as any gasoline powered vehicle on the market.
Why don’t we use them? Well, a few reasons:
First of all, the maximum range of an electric vehicle is between 50 and 100 miles. The maximum range of the average gasoline powered car is over 300 miles. Fifty miles just isn’t enough to cover the urban sprawl of large American cities. Here in Houston, if I were to have a full charge and go to drive out to Katy (a suburb) to pick up my girlfriend, take her to a party over at a friend’s place in south Houston, and then took her back, I’d run out of power on the way back to my apartment. That’s assuming I didn’t drive the car to work and back that day, in which case I’d be lucky to get out of my driveway.
Secondly, to refuel the vehicle, you have to be someplace that will allow you to recharge your battery. If you’re at work or out and about and realize you’re running low on power, you’re screwed. And if you live at an apartment complex or a condo with public parking, there’s just no way.
In addition, electric vehicles are expensive. I mean really, really expensive. You can get a two-seater with a 40 mph top speed and a 40 mile range for $10,000, but production models from Toyota and GM started at $40,000 with more reasonable 80-90 mile ranges but they aren’t being built any more. Tesla’s new Roadster has 2/3rds the range of your average car, and it will only set you back $110,000. I bought my car for $3,000.
Lastly, that electric power has to come from somewhere, and with more than half of the country’s electricity generated by coal, there’s a better than even chance that your eco-friendly car is polluting more than the gas powered vehicle next to it. Still, I’m sure many of us would be able to overlook that, if it got us off of our oil dependency, and would reduce the cost per mile of driving by more than 2/3rds.
The biggest problem electric vehicles face is range. The speed problems have already been overcome. The government currently offers a prize for the development of a better battery to increase its range, and both state and national governments offer subsidies to help offset the retail cost. So what can the government do to speed along the development of an electric vehicle?
Sadly, not much. This one is in the hands of the private sector. The technology has to be developed to increase range and the production of them has be streamlined to reduce costs. While the government could, in theory, tap either NASA, the military, or research grants to fund the development of a better battery, the next big break in battery technology will likely come from the private sector. The problems with production are entirely out of the government’s hands.
My suggestion: Wait and see. We’re getting close to realizing electrically powered vehicles, but the obstacles between where we are and where we need to be are private sector problems. If we’re in a rush, we can fund government projects to help out with research, but I don’t think such funding would get the results we need to see. Still, if that kind of funding could be used to leverage a compromise bill to get us more nuclear plants built or drilling either offshore or in ANWR, I think it would be an acceptable deal.
Corn-based Ethanol
A lot of people think that ethanol is the ultimate solution to our oil problem. Many, if not most, vehicles can use it without modification, the distribution system is already in place, and the United States is far and away the largest producer of corn in the world.
Because I have encountered many people that don’t know exactly what ethanol is and how it works, I think I have to preface this by briefly explaining it. Ethanol is booze. Alcohol. Whiskey. You get ethanol by putting a corn mash into a tub along with some yeast, and letting them ferment for a while. When it’s done, you have something that resembles beer. When you distill that, you get whiskey. When you distill whiskey, you get corn-based E85 Ethanol. It’s the exact same process. You could drink (and get really f-ing smashed off of) ethanol, if the law didn’t require it to be rendered unfit for human consumption.
Corn goes in, fuel comes out. The United States produces almost half of the world’s corn. Sounds like a perfect solution. Unfortunately, it’s not, and the people who have bought into it are screwing us. Big time.
The first major problem with using corn to power our cars is that we also eat it. The laws of supply and demand are simple: if more people want something, it will cost more. As demand increases for corn to convert to ethanol, prices go up for the corn that we eat – and we eat a lot of it. High fructose corn syrup is in everything. Every commercially available meat is fed corn. Beef, pork, and chicken prices go up. Cornmeal, a critical ingredient in poorer nations, and used in alot goes up.
The second major problem with corn is it’s impact on the soils that grow it. Corn is hell on the soil. It requires vast amounts of fertilizers and smart crop rotation to ensure that the land that grows it today can grow it tomorrow. Fertilizers come from hydrocarbons and are frequently criticized as not being “green” but the simple fact is that we couldn’t grow it without them.
The distilling process of corn requires electricity, and lots of it. It is estimated if one used oil to distill biofuels, it would take a gallon of fossil fuels to make 1.3 gallons of ethanol. Even if the source of fuel is coal or nuclear, it takes energy to make energy.
Lastly, ethanol is expensive. The biggest problem with our addiction to oil is that as oil prices go up, it hurts our pocketbooks and wreaks havoc with the economy. While ethanol costs slightly more than gasoline, gas is taxed and ethanol is subsided. If we dropped the subsidy and taxes that alter the cost of fuel, gasoline costs almost a third of what ethanol costs.
Basically, our current energy policy spends billions of dollars of tax payer funds to allow us to pay more for both fuel and food. Ethanol isn’t even environmentally friendly at the end of the day and even the green nuts aren’t happy with it. What part of that makes sense?
Corn-based ethanol is overrated and not economically viable at present without government handouts, and it will never be viable with a larger market share. I’m in favor of killing all subsidies to food-based ethanol production and letting the market work. If we want to throw away billions of tax dollars to lower the price of fuel, let’s cut the gas tax.
Cellulose Ethanol
It’s not that ethanol isn’t a good fuel source; there are just too many problems with it. Its raw material is expensive and getting more expensive. It’s abusive to the land. It costs tax payers money.
What if there was a way to get ethanol from a cheaper source that didn’t have the environmental drawbacks of corn? Enter cellulose-based ethanol. Cellulose is plant fiber. Normally when farmers harvest crops, they take the food and leave the stalks, leaves, and roots fallow. This is done for a number of reasons such as erosion and fertilization, but the main reason they do this is because that plant matter is useless.
Currently, that matter can’t be metabolized by yeast into alcohol to make ethanol in mass quantities. Scientists are working on ways to change that, but there is no major source of cellulose ethanol at the moment.
My suggestion: I’ll compromise with the ethanol people on this one. If you stop subsidizing corn ethanol, I’ll agree to fund cellulose research with a portion of that money. If they come through with a commercially viable way to turn cellulose material into ethanol, we won’t need the subsidies and everybody wins.
Hydrogen
Pop quiz: What happens when a substance is put under extreme pressure in a canister and then that canister ruptures? If you said “it explodes” give yourself a gold star. You just figured out the first problem with hydrogen powered vehicles.
The other “minor” problem with hydrogen is that there are no vehicles that use it and no infrastructure to distribute it.
Safety and distribution aside (because I’m certain we can overcome such issues), why don’t we use hydrogen powered vehicles?
The real problem with hydrogen and the theme of this post is this: It has to come from somewhere. To get hydrogen for the use in vehicles, you have to get it from somewhere. There are no good chemical or physical methods of doing that. Pure hydrogen is usually made from hydrocarbons (the hydro- part means hydrogen).
Oil, if you don’t know, is a hydrocarbon. 30% of hydrogen produced comes from oil. Half of it comes from natural gas. Most of the rest comes from coal, with less than 5% coming from electrolysis (the process that takes it from water). Basically, to make hydrogen, you need oil. If you’re trying to break the stranglehold oil has on our society, this isn’t what you’re looking for. In addition to its source, it takes energy to process the raw material into actual hydrogen. It’s just not viable.
I honestly don’t think the government should get involved with hydrogen. While there are several good proof-of-concept groups out there, the challenges of bringing hydrogen to the marketplace are staggering. The government, while it could encourage hydrogen more, probably shouldn’t. I just don’t see it happening, and trying to make it happen will be a waste of tax dollars.
That’s it for alternative fuels. While I’m not totally in favor of them and they have problems, they’re options and they could be viable in the next few decades or so as oil prices skyrocket. There are, however, a few things we haven’t discussed yet. Stay tuned for part three of the series in which I talk about options that I hear brought up that have no hope of saving us from from light, sweet crude.
