When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?

[fourtytwo42]

Meanwhile individuals are heavily subsidized to put solar panels on there roofs with the income inflation proofed for 25 years and now just to add insult to injury we are all to receive smart meters that will do nothing for the consumer except further inflate there bills and you guessed it they are subsidized from the electricity cost! Of course they will further increase the utilities profits as they will not have to read meters anymore.

In the United States/California we had smart meters installed 10 years ago.  And aside from the folks wearing tin foil hats saying the radiation from the smart meters were going to kill all of and control our minds and give us cancer, (which hasn't happened so far), smart meters have turned out to be great for consumers.

First off a non-smartmeter consumers 3 watts of electricity.  Do the math on that one and figure out how much electricity collectively we are saving with mullions of customers.

Second - Smartmeters allow us to monitor or electricity usage in 15 increments.  We have time of use billing and electricity costs for the rate plan I am on rages from $0.12 to $0.49 kWhr.  That smartmeter along with Time of Use Billing has allowed me to save between $50 and $75 per month on my electricity bill.  Thank you power companies installing smartmeters.

Third - Smartmeter apps - There are a number of Smartmeter apps which allow me to monitor and control my electricity usage.  This month these apps are allowing me to save another $12-$20 per month and we are still in the winter months.

Fourth - Smartmeters and solar are a good thing here.  With out smartmeters we could only trade kWhrs with the power company.  Meaning when solar/wind/biofuels produced 1 extra kWhr we would loan it to the power company.  When we needed a kWhr the power company would give us that kWhr back.  BUT NOT ANY MORE. - Thank you smartsmart meters.  Now when I have one extra kWhr I can get to sell it to the power company at fair market value which can be as high as $0.87 kWhr for some rate plans.  (The one I am on I can only sell at $0.48.)  Now here's the great part.....  When I need that kWhr back I have to "BUY" it back at fair market rate.  Meaning I can buy that KwHr back from the power company at $0.12.  That's a 400% return.  YIPPIEEE! I get to screw the power company.

Fifth - Smartmeters allow me install less solar panels on my home.  Let's say I use 10,000 kWhr per year.  Without a smart meter I would need a solar system which would produce 10,000 kWhrs to offset 100% of my electricity usage.  Let's say 40 panels would produce that 10,000 kWhrs per year.  With a smartmeter, Time of Use Billing I can get 100% of my electricity from solar with only 20 panels or possibly with only 15 panels.  Remember with a smartmeter I can get to "sell" power to the power company at $0.48 and buy it back later in the day/month/year at $0.12.  So for every kWhr I sell to the power company for $0.48 I can buy 4 back at $0.12.  Can you name any other investment where I can get a 400% return on my investment every day of the year? 

Only possible with smartmeters.

Politics in your country with electricity may vary.  But all I have to say is thank you politicians for allowing this to happen here in California.

I have no objection to people installing gadgets in there house to further amuse themselves with while waiting for the supermarket checkout or indeed as a talking point at dinner parties BUT I do object to such gadgets being state sponsored meaning the rest of us have to pay for your pleasure! Increased energy costs reduces competitiveness and quality of life but subsidies in this country at least are still being thrown around like confetti

[george80]

It feels good to a poorly informed public. Its branded as a green product, and that's all you need to make lots of people feel good about using it.

Like most things that appeal to the greenwashed.

Call it green or environmentally friendly and they will buy it thinking they are saving the world and doing their Bit.
Like recycling paper to save trees.  Forget the trees are plantation grown

Like the people that buy hybrids that use more resources and energy in their production and have higher emissions from the materials that go into them than a regular vehicle and thin think they are doing something better than the guy who drives a regular IC vehicle

Another popular one right now is home storage batteries.  I put one on the house and am a hero saving the world. forget the fact they have materials that are highly toxic in their mining and refinement, forget they are completely un economical and forget most of they can't be recycled.

It's the flavour of the month at trendy cocktail parties and save the world protest so that's all that matters.

[george80]

By your reasoning you must be 14.

Yeah, If you are not a kid you have the mentality of one with a rebuttal like that.

 

Check your facts because a lot of what you write is pretty much outdated.

You claimed that before and then i showed that in fact YOUR information was demonstrably wrong. As well as completely green-washed.

If E10 was that bad it would have been banned.

What, by the same people who brought it in in the first place despite being shown it was a failure on other places and warned of the problems before it was FORCED on the public?
The same green washed appeasers whom have caused power shortages here by bllowing up coal power stations without having the green RE replacement generation in place and had to go out and buy up $60M worth of DIESEL fire generators?

These are the people that would ban it?
Yeah right!

 

You are just judging by a few data points which probably hint towards poor fuel quality from no-brand gas stations.

There we go! The predictable green denial. Never torn an engine down in your life have you but you claim to know better than those that have done dozens of them and seen them first hand and confirmed their findings with the owners of the vehicles.
I handed you that one on a plate. I purposefully made an incorrect point in what I said that anyone with some mechanical knowledge would pick up easily and you missed it completely. You are trying to debate something of which you have zero knowledge but just an agenda you want to push.

Of course. The predictable green washed excuses and denial. As reliable as sunrise.  Funny you claim my " data points" are in effect biased but refute none of them specifically.  Why not? Do the websites you parrot not give you real and actual knowledge and understanding of what you are talking about to actually discuss the things I said with any technical knowledge what so ever?
That would be about it wouldn't it?

No name gas stations?
We don't have those here and ALL the fuel sold is either Mobil, Caltex, shell or BP. Hardly no name brands and it is not altered from their refineries. It is sold by a handful of independent stations whom are all known brands in themselves but primarily Caltex and Mobil supply fuel to these stations. Very frequently can be sen delivering it in their trucks and the pumps all have writing specifying the source of the fuel as required by law here.
Again your claim is ignorant and completely flawed. Your excuse of poor fuel is basically impossible here.  Sorry bout that.

Yes, that is crap which I don't put in my car with or without ethanol. I always fill up with A-brand fuel (which usually can be found for the same price as the no-name brands).

A brand fuel ( whatever that is) is hardly the same as A quality fuel.... which ethanol is not and never will be.

If ethanol was top quality fuel, it would not need additives and it would be recommended for high performance vehicles instead of warned against and Voiding warranties.
That is fact and logic you can't rationally argue with no matter how inconvenient and undermining to the position you want to champion and shows your position to  yet again, for the umpteenth time, be flawed and without real world factual basis in logic or practice.

If you want to keep playing this game, could you at least try to lift it a bit?
The ease with which your baseless claims can be proven just wrong is getting boring. 
I like to have to think and learn something as I go in these discussions but what you say is so pathetic in it's inaccuracy it's a waste of time even trying to point out how flawed it is.

Please do some research on your future claims and rebuttals and try to incorporate SOME facts.  As a starting point. If you think my information is out of date, try providing links that prove that and can enlighten myself and others in the process so we can learn.

Until you can do that you are wasting your time and undermining your credibility trying to get anyone to see things your way.

[DougSpindler]

george80 and others nice job of using science, logic and critical thinking skills to put on the flaws in that guy’s beliefs and reality. He’s been asked many time to Ofer credaible evidencee and fails to do so.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Not true, 99% of nctnico's posts are spot on. He believes in (some sort of "recycled biomass") biofuels, so what?

[george80]

Not true, 99% of nctnico's posts are spot on. He believes in (some sort of "recycled biomass") biofuels, so what?

Are there 2 posters here with the same name?
Are you reading what the guy I have been addressing has been saying? You believe and agree with it?
The posts I am reading are clearly from someone whom has no clue about what they are saying but saying it anyway to push the cult religion they are indoctrinated to. And they say flawed and untrue things repeatedly.

The so what is why try to convince people of a load of bullchit?  Recycled biomass is NOT a viable solution to energy problems. Trying to convince people of a lie is both pointless and counter productive.  Unless the man has some vested financial interest like trying to peddle some  product or service, telling people the world is going to be saved by biofuel makes no rational or logical sense.

Would you say "So what" if I came on here trying to convince people I could get 500 Mpg out of a fully laden semi that went 100MPH up a mountain side because it's just as big a lie and pointless as trying to convince people all the transport energy needs can be solved with biofuels.

[NiHaoMike]

Like recycling paper to save trees.  Forget the trees are plantation grown

If it takes less resources to recycle paper than to make new paper, that's a win.

Like the people that buy hybrids that use more resources and energy in their production and have higher emissions from the materials that go into them than a regular vehicle and thin think they are doing something better than the guy who drives a regular IC vehicle

That has been disproven, as in the extra energy used at manufacture breaks even fairly early on. That said, there are conventional technology cars that can do 35MPG highway or better.

Another popular one right now is home storage batteries.  I put one on the house and am a hero saving the world. forget the fact they have materials that are highly toxic in their mining and refinement, forget they are completely un economical and forget most of they can't be recycled.

Not everyone lives where the grid is cheap and reliable. For some, it's prohibitively expensive. That said, I do want to see more thermal storage as a cheaper and longer lasting alternative to batteries for HVAC and hot water. I would also like to see home power batteries implemented as 250Wh or so modules that can be taken out to power portable electronics and tools.

[boffin]

How on earth has a discussion on electric cars being mainstream (which they are) fall into a thread where the idiot Scotty Kilmer's videos are posted.

Myth, an electric car is harsher on the environment (build + operation) than an ICE vehicle.  Initially yes, long term, not even close.

[nctnico]

Not true, 99% of nctnico's posts are spot on. He believes in (some sort of "recycled biomass") biofuels, so what?

Are there 2 posters here with the same name?
Are you reading what the guy I have been addressing has been saying? You believe and agree with it?
The posts I am reading are clearly from someone whom has no clue about what they are saying but saying it anyway to push the cult religion they are indoctrinated to. And they say flawed and untrue things repeatedly.

The so what is why try to convince people of a load of bullchit?  Recycled biomass is NOT a viable solution to energy problems. Trying to convince people of a lie is both pointless and counter productive.  Unless the man has some vested financial interest like trying to peddle some  product or service, telling people the world is going to be saved by biofuel makes no rational or logical sense.

You are clearly stuck in your own imagination. Let's look at what I posted earlier on:

Nowadays they can make ethanol from agricultural waste so no extra land is necessary. The so called 3rd generation bio-fuels. There are several factories in the US doing that on an industrial scale. And yes, there is enough agricultural wast to make a significant amount of bio-fuel. The beauty of it is that by using plant leftovers food gets cheaper because more parts of the plants are used. One of the companies is POET-DSM: poet-dsm.com A few pages back I posted a link to an article from around half 2018 with the industry wide status of these 3rd generation bio-fuels. I expect a larger scale roll-out of these factories in the next few years because it turns out to be a very profitable business with a quick return on investment. POET-DSM alone invested around 300 million dollars.

http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/15344/zero-to-10-million-in-5-years

And here is another interesting page from the US government about the start of POET-DSM's Liberty project: https://www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/poet-dsm-project-liberty But there are other similar projects as well. The reason I primarily follow POET-DSM is because the DSM part is a multi-billion euro chemical company from the Netherlands which in the past dealt with exploitation of the coal mines. They have a heritage in supplying energy as well and they are not some kind of garden shed operation.

First of all I backed my claims up with third party information. Secondly I never claimed that all fuel can be replaced by bio-fuel. I wrote 'a significant amount'. For sure that amount can increase when people start to drive more efficient cars (well in the >20km/liter ball park). You can buy cars with these efficiencies today and they aren't the tiny low fuel consumption clunkers from the 80's but you'd probably disagree with that as well.

So far you came up with taking a few random engines apart and decided ethanol is crap (probably over a beer). A scientific report would make your claims way more credible. You seem like a typical ranter. Everything new is bad and everything in the old days was so good. Well, when I was young we had a black & white TV with 2 channels and no phone. I happen to like new technology and the future of cars is what interests me so I follow a lot of the developments in that area. Diesel looked very good for a while because of the better efficiency. Nowadays it turns out you can't really get a diesel engine to work cheap, clean and reliable. Also diesels are being banned from many of my destinations. Fortunately I already saw the signs on the wall and bought a car on gas after driving around in diesels for 20 years or so.

You are free to disagree on bio-fuels but you have the facts stacked against you. It is true that the production of bio-fuels which use plants grown specifically for fuel production cannot be extended any further due to shortage of land and preservation of the rain forrest. So a new method had to be devised. Making 3rd generation bio-fuels has been kind of a holy-grail for about a century. However it turns out the problems have been solved by several companies based on the article I linked to above. If you do some conservative extrapolation on the yield per acre provided by POET-DSM it seems you can replace half the fuel consumption of the US with bio-fuel. Yes, POET-DSM's website isn't the easiests one to navigate but there actually is quite a lot of factual information hidden on it.

And now you might ask: why is bio-fuel so interesting? The thing is that in the end it is a low cost technology which doesn't require massive (costly!) changes to the infrastructure. In Brazil for example they already use 50% bio-fuel. Brazil is a poor country but they are way ahead of reducing the CO2 footprint for transport compared to the rest of the world. But the key thing to pick up here is cost of infrastructure. I think that will stop the adoption of EVs in a couple of years in Europe. The eastern and southern parts are relatively poor and have no EV infrastructure at all because the people can't afford EVs. This is a major concern of the car manufacturers. OTOH people in the richer countries will want a car they can drive across the border. Currently you can forget about taking an EV into Italy for example while it is a very popular holiday destination. In contrast: in the Netherlands they are talking about installing a total of 5 million to 8 million charging points while the Netherlands already has the best EV charging infrastructure compared to Europe. That is close to 1 charging point for each car in the country. Someone will want to milk these and once people figure out how much it is going to cost, most will not want to be the cow. At least I don't want to be the cow being milked for driving an EV. Back to the poorer countries: they don't need any investment to use bio-fuels so it is by far the cheapest way to reduce CO2 emissions from cars.

Are there other alternatives: yes. Much to my surprise it seems hydrogen has made some kind of a come-back. Last summer I noticed that a lot of German gas station suddenly had hydrogen filling stations. So I looked into it and it turns out the idea isn't so bad after all. Just like the electricity for EVs the hydrogen is mostly made from fossil fuels but at least it also allows to transition to non-fossil sources like wind, sun and nuclear in the long run. Also the adoption of hydrogen cars wil be much easier because filling can be quick (it should be) and the range is acceptable. Every article I've read which mentioned the opinion of consumers underlines that quick filling and range would make them consider a hydrogen car over an electric car. Installing a few hydrogen filling stations along the highways in the poorer countries will be a lot cheaper compared to installing fast chargers in every hotel. In the Netherlands where adoption isn't fast the 3rd hydrogen fuelling station will open in a couple of months. This time it is at a privately owned gas station. The reasoning of the owner is interesting: if I'm the first then the investment will be less worthwhile for my competitors. Also if EVs and/or hydrogen cars start driving around in significant numbers I will sell less fuel so I have to transition onto a new market if I want to keep the business going. The price also seem reasonable: 10 euro per kg which should give 100km of range. Given the fuel prices in the Netherlands that price is on par with driving an ICE car. At least it wouldn't deter me from buying a hydrogen car.

But this is what my analysis is pointing towards currently. It may change depending on how technology progresses.

[george80]

 The so called 3rd generation bio-fuels. There are several factories in the US doing that on an industrial scale. And yes, there is enough agricultural wast to make a significant amount of bio-fuel. The beauty of it is that by using plant leftovers food gets cheaper because more parts of the plants are used.

Simple question that requires only a simple ( numeric) answer.

For every litre of Ethanol produced and delivered to end user, How many liters of petro fuels are needed from beginning to end including all oil by products such as fertiliser etc ?

[DougSpindler]

Not true, 99% of nctnico's posts are spot on. He believes in (some sort of "recycled biomass") biofuels, so what?

Spot on what?  Yes he's made it clear he believes in biomass and biofuels.  But like religion when he tries to prove what he believes his proof is marketing hype.  When he's presented with the science (physics and chemistry) demonstrating what he believes is incorrect he says the science and experts are all wrong and what he believes is correct.

Can you provide any credible scientific evidence to show bio-fuels and hydrogen would be a better solution for society?  It's been clearly demonstrated over and over bio-fuels and hydrogen (with the technology we have today and in the future) have been proven to be abysmal failure for society.

[boffin]

Not true, 99% of nctnico's posts are spot on. He believes in (some sort of "recycled biomass") biofuels, so what?

Spot on what? 

Well, spot on if you're a flat-earther. 

This is the same guy that tried to convince us that the additional energy required to push an ICE car into a headwind was different than the energy to push an EV into headwind.

[george80]

When he's presented with the science (physics and chemistry) demonstrating what he believes is incorrect he says the science and experts are all wrong and what he believes is correct.

Teenagers 'eh?
Always know better than anyone else.

Unfortunately it is a trait of those trying to push green ideals on the rest of the heathen to exeggarate, twist and manipulate the truth and only tell half of the story, the half that suits them of course.

The problem is it turns people off as soon as they hear the mention of green and it detracts from finding real world solutions where green initiatives might be helpful... If the green motivated didn't want 100% solution's where there are none.

[DougSpindler]

I hope your education system in not as bad as ours is in the US. Not too long ago our politicians tired to get a law past which would prevent K-12 teachers form teaching students critical thinking skills.  And then on YouTune there’’s an award winning high school physic teaching who has a video on “free energy”.  He’s teaching studnets there is such s thing as “free energy” if it comes from the sun.  Remember he’s a physics instructor teaching students pyhsics concepts.  If the guy was teaching finance or business “free” would be acceptable.  But he’s not.  He’s teaching physics. 

Don’t you love this “anything is possible” generation? 

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

 The so called 3rd generation bio-fuels. There are several factories in the US doing that on an industrial scale. And yes, there is enough agricultural wast to make a significant amount of bio-fuel. The beauty of it is that by using plant leftovers food gets cheaper because more parts of the plants are used.

Simple question that requires only a simple ( numeric) answer.

For every litre of Ethanol produced and delivered to end user, How many liters of petro fuels are needed from beginning to end including all oil by products such as fertiliser etc ?

Zero fertilisers IIUC, because the input is leftovers:



1) 285e6(kg)/25e6(gallons)= 11.4 kg of corn waste-leftovers / gallon of ethanol, that's not too shabby!
2) What other chemicals/materials inputs are needed?
3) How much energy (input) per gallon? <- this data is vital.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

This is the same guy that tried to convince us that the additional energy required to push an ICE car into a headwind was different than the energy to push an EV into headwind.

Where? When? I don't believe he said that. You must have misunderstood.

[george80]

 And then on YouTune there’’s an award winning high school physic teaching who has a video on “free energy”.  He’s teaching studnets there is such s thing as “free energy” if it comes from the sun.

Fortunately for you, in my book, you also have one of the greatest teachers and most admirable men I have ever heard of.



This guy ought to be a role model and his achievements made known to every teacher in the world far as I'm concerned.  If just 2% of teachers had the passion this guy has, not only would schools be a better place, but truly the world would be.

Don't know if this guy should be a teacher or a world leader.
Guess he's both already.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

pointless as trying to convince people all the transport energy needs can be solved with biofuels.

I don't think he believes that "all the transport energy needs can be solved with biofuels". He's got a sort of faith or fixation with that poet-dsm thing, so what? Do you know for sure that transformation of agricultural leftovers into fuel can't ever work? Why?

I've never said a word about this because I just don't know.

But I do know that if a synthetic liquid fuel could be made without much energy loss (efficiently) from renewables, it would be a very good thing because li-ion batteries aren't good enough to replace liquid fuels.

[george80]

3) How much energy (input) per gallon? <- this data is vital.

Exactly!

So many of these green ideas heralded to be saving the planet are in fact adding to it's demise through using more energy and creating more emissions than they save over just using fossil fuel.
None of these schemes can or should be given any credit without through examination to determine they do in fact live up to their near never ending exaggeration of what they achieve. Their numbers also need to be looked at in context of the overall  situation as to what current methods achieve and their contribution to the scale of the problem .

In this case, my gut feeling based on the immense amount of land  that would be needed to grow replacement for fossil fuel , is this idea even if it does do what it says is going to make a small dent in the over all amount of liquid fuels needed.
That said, if it is energy efficent and returns more energy than is consumed in it's production looking at the whole picture, then it may well be worth while  to put a waste product to use. 

From past experience looking at these ideas of which there have been hundreds that turn out to be nothing more than methods to attract research and grant  investment and never have a hope in hell of a positive contribution, the energy inputs and total emissions add up real fast and the idea is not an easy nut to crack.

[george80]

Do you know for sure that transformation of agricultural leftovers into fuel can't ever work? Why?

The question is work to what end?

I see from their literature that the goal of this project is not to in fact create an energy positive product ( more energy out than in) but in fact to displace some oil imports. that's a BIG difference.
In effect they are trying to produce liquid fuels from solid mass but the actually energy input is not a consideration.  That's not at all save the world by running it on bio fuels solution as has been made out here.  It's a turn this into that with a heap of energy thrown in which ultimately means you would be better off using that energy more directly..... like in batteries. Not one bit different to cooking up hydrogen which is also incredibly energy negative when done by electrolysis.

Heres is an extract from their presentation:

Goal Statement
• Project Objectives
– Process 700 metric tonnes of biomass for the purpose of
manufacturing cellulosic ethanol in a co-located IBR model
– Implement a sustainable stover collection, storage and delivery system
– Demonstrate shared DOE/POET-DSM foresight for biomass investments
and technology for rapid deployment of commercial scale biorefineries
– Maximize alternative energy production and minimize traditional
energy usage (MYPP goal)
• As with BETO, POET-DSM goal is to develop commercially viable bioenergy
– To enable sustainable, nationwide production of biofuels
– Displace a share of petroleum-derived fuels to reduce U.S.
dependence on foreign oil
– Encourage the creation of a new domestic bioenergy and bioproduct
industry. (MYPP goal)
• Project LIBERTY is one of the first commercial scale cellulosic
biorefineries operating in the U.S
– DOE grant accelerated DMT construction and operations
– Successful DMT will help launch replication

In short, the project is aimed at making money not at making an energy efficent fuel source.  Just because something is sustainable does not mean it's energy efficient.

In any case, as usual, the term sustainable in this context is complete and utter bullshit. Take away the oil energy input factor and it hasn't got a hope in hell of sustaining itself.
From what I can see, there "Breakthrough" in the process is not in making the ethanol at all, it's standardizing a system to collect the corn waste for delivery to the  refinery whom use a very ordinary processing technique. It looks like the feed the bagese once it has been fermented and processed back into the boilers as fuel but our sugar mills have been doing that a decade here so nothing real breakthrough about that.

Further investigation into the project ( which seems to have all but stalled since 2017)  Shows the raw waste product has to be collected and transported from the refinery. This needs a fossil fuel input in the trucks and machinery.  It needs to be Crushed/ Pulverised and I'll bet washed.  Electrical energy input, water resource input.  It is then fermented, Energy input from yeast and it's production and then cooked.  going by the available info, there is still an electrical energy input there,  not the least of this would be feeding the mash into the fermentation tower, blowers for incinerator/ Furnace, ash filtration etc. 

The wort is then distilled, and then condensed.  Electrical input there.  It's pumped into storage tanks, more electrical input.

While some of this may seem small and insignifican't, all these inputs add up and they add up FAST.
In any case, I don't now see this even being a project that is trying to create energy as such, just change it's form with the addition of a lot of other energy in the conversion process. BFD! Nothing special or trick about that and the same thing has been  touted for other fuel sources and the problems in energy inefficency are exactly the same as with idea.

It's NOT sustainable, it's NOT an answer to providing energy to the vehicle fleet to get off oil.

Liquid fuels are a damn site easier to run a vehicle on that a lot vegetation material However, if you are looking for an alternate form of energy to make a significant contribution to the vehicle fleet consumption of the world,  a process that is absolutely, inextricably dependent on Fossil fuels for it's production and has a significant net energy deficit is NOT anywhere near a solution no matter how desperate and hopeful those looking for a miracle to look forward to clearly are.

At best it's a potential cash cow.

By their own figures, $175M had been sunk into this by early 2017.
I can't find anything to say what they HAVE produced as against what they PLAN to produce.  2 Very different things.

Looking at their completely barf worthy and over hyped facewank page, they are still to produce a drop of ethanol .
Also very clear this is first and foremost an investment initiative and the Environmental angle is merely the use of a nobel cause to get the bucks they want.

$1000 says this thing is moth balled inside of 2 years, $5000 says it's gone in 5 or less.
Dedicated advocates and no doubt outraged deciples of the scam....err, scheme can contact me so we can arrange deposit of funds in an escrow account.   

[nctnico]

 The so called 3rd generation bio-fuels. There are several factories in the US doing that on an industrial scale. And yes, there is enough agricultural wast to make a significant amount of bio-fuel. The beauty of it is that by using plant leftovers food gets cheaper because more parts of the plants are used.

Simple question that requires only a simple ( numeric) answer.

For every litre of Ethanol produced and delivered to end user, How many liters of petro fuels are needed from beginning to end including all oil by products such as fertiliser etc ?

The answer is in this article:
https://www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/poet-dsm-project-liberty
The portion of the corn stover (primarily lignin) that cannot be converted to biofuel is used to generate the thermal power needed by Project LIBERTY—and much of that power required by the adjacent corn ethanol plant.

But like any other non-fossil source (wind, solar, etc) fossil fuel input is unavoidable at this point. There has to be some kind of transition phase. Then again heat is likely the most energy intensive part of the plant and that seems to come from bio-mass.

Fertiliser is also a good point to bring up. At some point we'll also need to switch to non-fossil fuel fertiliser which are likely more expensive so this will make food more expensive. If we can use more of a plant (to make fuel) then the costs of the more expensive fertiliser are spread between food production and fuel production.

I don't quite understand how you get to the conclusion that nothing is being produced. It simply isn't true that no 3rd generation bio-fuel is being produced.
http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/15344/zero-to-10-million-in-5-years

With the medium lift from Edeniq’s Intellulose technology of 1.5 percent, multiplied by the total capacity of the six plants registered as of April, the monthly average production would be 550,000 gallons. Add to that QCCP’s monthly average of 250,000 gallons, based on EPA’s maximum production figure, and the estimated total for the corn kernel fiber-to-ethanol producers comes to a monthly average of 800,000 gallons. Subtracting that from the total of any given month gives a rough indication of how Poet DSM’s Project Liberty is progressing.

The production of POET-DSM is a bit of a riddle the author of the article has left to the reader.

Production numbers for 3rd generation bio-fuel from the EPA:


Also how do you get to POET-DSM only invented a new harvesting / baler system? Are you and DougSpindler the same person with two different accounts?

[NiHaoMike]

Fertiliser is also a good point to bring up. At some point we'll also need to switch to non-fossil fuel fertiliser which are likely more expensive so this will make food more expensive. If we can use more of a plant (to make fuel) then the costs of the more expensive fertiliser are spread between food production and fuel production.

What about use treated sewage if it's only for fuel?

[coppice]

Fertiliser is also a good point to bring up. At some point we'll also need to switch to non-fossil fuel fertiliser which are likely more expensive so this will make food more expensive. If we can use more of a plant (to make fuel) then the costs of the more expensive fertiliser are spread between food production and fuel production.

What about use treated sewage if it's only for fuel?

A lot of the treated sewage from areas with low levels of heavy metals is already used to treat the land. The treated sewage with a high heavy metals content is really hard to decontaminate, so that is typically incinerated, often to provide power for the treatment works.

[DougSpindler]

 And then on YouTune there’’s an award winning high school physic teaching who has a video on “free energy”.  He’s teaching studnets there is such s thing as “free energy” if it comes from the sun.

Fortunately for you, in my book, you also have one of the greatest teachers and most admirable men I have ever heard of.



This guy ought to be a role model and his achievements made known to every teacher in the world far as I'm concerned.  If just 2% of teachers had the passion this guy has, not only would schools be a better place, but truly the world would be.

Don't know if this guy should be a teacher or a world leader.
Guess he's both already.

@george80  Isn’t this guy a modern day Eva Peron or Robin Hood?  It’s so easy to feed people when other people are forced to give you free money (taxes), free land and free/volunteer labor isn’t it? 
What kind of role model is that?  In the history of the United States we tried something similar which resulted in the killing of over 100 million Native Americans as we stole their land. Then we “tricked” them into working for free for “us” for food other we just inslaved.

There is no mention at all of the people this guy is making homeless by taking their land.  Or the “honest” hard working farmers who make a living by selling the food they grow.  With this guy giving food away just think of all of the farmers he’s impacting. 

I notice this guy or any company isn’t converting any of the bio-waste he’s creating into biofuels.  With all of the free money and resources this guy is getting one would think if turning bio-waste into biofuels was worth it he would be doing it.  But he’s not.

In the United States we call what this guy is doing Communism.  This is something Americas faught against for decadess.  If you think communism is so great why aren’t you living in a communist country?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

In the history of the United States we tried something similar which resulted in the killing of over 100 million Native Americans as we stole their land.

Oh dear, oh dear, that BS again...