Re: OT: Energy=Horsepower-Hours ???

Bill Sloman wrote:
Jim Thompson wrote:

I just realized that I, myself, have been succumbing to the
greenie bull***... ethanol IS a hydrocarbon ;-)

I don't accept it's greenie bull***, seems more like the
powerful farmer's lobby to me. As for me, I'm for nuclear
and electric or hybrid off-line-chargeable cars. I wish my
new Prius had an electric-outlet jack. Time for a retrofit.

Ethanol is C2H6O - two carbon, six hydrogen and one oxygen.
That single oxygen molecule means that it isn't a hydrocarbon,
but an alcohol.

My bet is, when normalized to unit energy, they're equivalent
greenhouse gas polluters.

As has been pointed out by Joerg, ethanol is produced from
green plants, which absorb their carbon from atmospheric CO2,
making ethanol carbon-neutral.

Furthermore, it contains a lttle more hydrogen than regular
hydrocarbons fuels - octane is C8H18 - so a bit more of the
energy you get from burning ethanol comes from turning hydrogen
into water, which isn't a greenhouse gas.

OK, Bill, thanks for the chemist's perspective. What about
the hydrocarbons burned in making the fertilizer and planting,
maintaining, harvesting and processing the corn crops into
ethanol? How does that sum play out?

.

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