Ethanol: Not All It Seems To Be

1
EthanolNot All It Seems To Be

• Team 128
• Tom Jackson
• Kelly Roache
• Afanasiy Yermakov
• Jason Zukus

2
Problem Overview

• The issue of energy independence
• Rising demand for gasoline
• Price instability
• Fossil fuel reserve depletion
• Ethanol as an alternative fuel
• Influence on the price of corn
• Feasibility

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10 Gasoline Replacement

• Assumptions
• Alternative energy usage remains minimal
• Linear model is appropriate for the short-term
• 144 billion gallons of gasoline

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10 Gasoline Replacement

• Ethanol to gasoline efficiency
• Ethanol production requires gasoline
• Equation
• Convergence
• 21.6 billion gallons of ethanol
• Testing the model

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GHGsAssumptions

• Nearly all of gasoline required for ethanol
  production used in farming, harvesting stages
• CO2 only accounts for a portion of greenhouse
  gases, and to accurately assess environmental
  impact, need emissions as a whole

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GHGs Methodology

• Initial GHG contribution for 2008 gasoline
  consumption
• Harvesting, refinement, burning
• Energy to gallon
• Final GHG contribution with 10 ethanol
  replacement
• Land use change, growing, refining, burning

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GHGs Calculations

• ?GHG GHGf GHGi
• GHGf (galgas08 galethanol08)GHG/galgas08
  galethanol08GHG/galethanol
• GHGi(galgas08GHG/galgas08)
• ?GHG 74,760,000,000 kg

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Cost Efficiency of Ethanol

• Price to produce gas vs.
• price to produce Ethanol
• based on units of energy
• cost of gasoline production depends on price of
  oil

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Cost Efficiency of EthanolCalculations

• 1.94110-4/MJ (barrel price) 0.0014559/MJ
• H P NR /(MJ ETOH)
• Harvest Cost/MJ Production Cost/MJ Cost of
  New Refineries/MJ Cost of a MJ of ethanol
• .04684/MJ
• Cost of MJ of ethanol Cost of MJ of gasoline
• 0.04684/MJ 1.94110-4/MJ (barrel price)
  0.0014559/MJ
• Barrel price 233.82

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Impact on Developing NationsAssumptions

• Price changes best modeled by corn
• Other grains could interfere with model
• All ethanol considered is corn-derived
• Tariffs and other international trade regulations
  play a minor role

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Impact on Developing NationsSummary of Model

• Initial attempt
• Model of supply versus demand
• No discernible relationship found
• Ethanol a recent addition to corn consumption
• Consumption of ethanol small

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Impact on Developing NationsSummary of Model

• Historical parallel
• Corn exports would quickly drop to almost nothing
• Another commodity shortage the Oil Crises of
  1973
• Commodity availability dropped to almost nothing
• Acts as a good indicator of price trend

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Impact on Developing NationsCalculations

• Best fit plot for oil prices was used

C(t) (10.72)1.1681t

• R-value .928 R-squared .861

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Impact on Developing NationsCalculations

• Replacing the initial value of oil (10.72) with
  corn (5.11) the model is

C(t) (5.11)1.1681t

• Price doubles in 5 years

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Impact on Developing NationsTesting the Model

• Collect data on corn supply versus demand and
  compare it to model
• Look at other historical shortages and compare
  them to the oil shortage

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Ethanol and Other Energy Alternatives

• Is ethanol the best way for the US to achieve
  national energy independence?
• Possibilities

Fuel Land usage GHG emissions cost reliability
Ethanol high medium high medium
Coal low high low high
Nuclear low none low high
Natural gas low medium medium high
Solar/wind medium none high low
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Usability of Nuclear
-More cost effective than ethanol -Can power up
electrical cars, or hydrogen fuel cells. -Better
land use than ethanol