Sunday, April 13, 2008
compromise? I don't know about that one...
For my Energy and Society Final Project, I want to study the Amazon Jungle in Brazil. This jungle is undergoing major physical changes in order to provide more ethanol energy. While this is a great step in the alternative energy direction, what will ultimately be the price of this change? I'm hoping this is topic (which is similar to Caroline's "2.5 Million" post) can sustain a full class period and still be compelling and interesting at the end of the 40 minutes. So if anyone can post similar situations or ideas, please let me know!
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3 comments:
Lindsay's post really attractes my interest on ethanol energy. The use of ethannol energy can really save a large amount of fuel enrgy. I think Brazil is the most benifited nation in the world which got green energy instead of these unreneable energy. From my research on Wiki, I learn that Brazil’s 29-year-old ethanol fuel program uses cheap sugar cane, mainly bagasse (cane-waste) for process heat and power, and modern equipment, and provides a ~22% ethanol blend used nationwide, plus 100% anhydrous ethanol for four million cars. The Brazilian ethanol program provided nearly 700,000 jobs in 2003, and cut 1975–2002 oil imports by a cumulative undiscounted total of US$50 billion. Today, Brazil gets more than 30% of its automobile fuels from sugar cane-based ethanol. Americans burn through 27 barrels of oil annually per capita, six times and change more than the Brazilians' 4.2 barrels. The U.S. produces more oil per capita, too -- 11 barrels to Brazil's 3.35 barrels. And the gap between production and consumption in the U.S. is a gaping 16 barrels per person per year, while Brazil's gap amounts to just 0.85 barrels. That's pretty huge! The strength of clean energy can obviously make great difference and certainly get used to the tough situation of lack of fuel enrgy. In China, as many drivers,my family's car was filled the comabination of both ethanol and fuel. However, could anybody tell me why the ethanol oil can't be efficient as the #91 pure oil(gallon per mile)?
For some reason, most of the sources I have encountered thus far seem to view ethanol energy as useless and inefficient. I have heard that it requires a much larger energy input than output, and is thus a futile energy investment. The resource seemed so promising at first; the U.S. had so much extra corn, and the ethanol industry really picked up at no real expense to the nation. I don't really understand why so many people view this form of energy so negatively, as as Jiang Wei has stated, it works just fine in other countries. If other nations have found a way to incorporate ethanol energy into their renewable programs, and seem to be increasingly interested in it as a sustainable form of energy, why is it downplayed so much in the U.S.?
I agree with what Jensen says; most of what I hear is negative. I found and article and an editorial on this issue. The main article, published in The Sunday Independent based of a Science Magazine article (I could not find it for free), does not really talk about the lack of energy efficient and the energy lost due to the use of ethanol, but rather focuses on its environmental damages. If you have not done so I think you should address that as well in your presentation/final.
Article:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=143&art_id=vn20080210085730876C308900
MoneyBlog (from msn):
http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2008/02/10/ethanol-myth-blasted-in-new-science-mag.aspx
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