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Another advantage of ethanol, but more in its fuel cell usage,
is that when used in fuel cells, it is cost effective
and efficient.
There is a research team based in the United States
and internationally that's been working on the use of ethanol
for extraction of hydrogen and use in fuel cells.
The wonderful thing about all fuel cells is their
only byproduct is water.
Of course, the corn, the wonderful thing for us is it
can be made here in the USA, and it can also be made, of course,
in other countries as well.
The biggest disadvantage of fuel cells right now, and probably
the reason why most of us aren't driving around in cars
with fuel cells, is storage capacity.
Pure hydrogen occupies 3,000 times the space
of traditional gasoline.
We would all either be driving gigantic cars or they are going
to have to come up with some new technology to store the hydrogen
in a compact area, as well as utilize the tightly compressed
or stored hydrogen to make it possible.
One of the problems it runs into is of course being hydrogen
it is somewhat unstable when condensed.
So it is going to be somewhat challenging to find a way
to utilize it as the fuel for the future.
Another dilemma that we face is there is no
hydrogen fuel station infrastructure right now.
In other words, even if you had a car that would run on hydrogen
by utilizing a fuel cell, where would you get gas?
A good thing that has come of ethanol is if ethanol can be
used to produce hydrogen for fuel cells, there's a lot of
places that corn can be grown and also moved to in order
to provide a source for the hydrogen fuel.
So, ethanol and fuel cells could be the perfect mix for the fuel
of the future.
Another potential con though, as I was mentioning before,
there is other renewable sources that are being looked into,
sugar cane.
In Illinois, we have prairie grass, which is being considered
as a great alternative.
One of the nice things about prairie grass and some
of the other grasses that could potentially be used to produce
hydrogen for fuel cells is that it puts nitrates
into the ground, which is good for the earth.
So, those are some of the pros and cons.
Thank you Brent.
I'm Paul Wikoff, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about
the issues with ethanol and the different sides involved.
For the fuel consumer, which is most people that drive and need
transportation, right now the gas prices have gotten fairly
high and are likely to go higher this summer and for the future.
It's very unlikely that we will return to a dollar,
a dollar fifty for gasoline.
So, the economic incentive is there to start finding these
alternative fuels.
Another aspect involved with the fuel consumer with ethanol
is the concern of lower fuel economy.
Ethanol has a lower amount of energy per unit than
gasoline has, so the consumer needs to know that that is going
to occur and also realize that the price of ethanol is usually
lower than the price of gasoline.
There are also tax incentives or tax rebates that can be used
to offset that.
Also, most cars can run on the E10 blend.
So, they would still be using 90% gasoline, but the 6 million
flex fuel vehicles like my wife and I have can run on
85% ethanol, greatly reducing the amount of petroleum
that is used and the pollution levels.
Another side is farmers and agro-businesses
in the ethanol bio refineries.
By using any kind of crop for making ethanol because many
crops can be used to make ethanol.
At some point, we will hopefully switch over from corn into--
well, in addition to corn probably--into the prairie
grasses and the miscanthus.
It supports the prices the farmers receive for their crops.
When farmers get paid more for their crops, there is more money
in the local economy.
It boosts the local economy.
Also, these bio refineries provide jobs, and each job that
is needed at the bio refinery needs people supporting it
with their jobs in the service community.
What it will also do is grain prices are worldwide so if
the grain price goes up in America, it also goes up
across the world.
So, impoverished nations and their farmers will benefit
from higher grain prices.
Another side to the ethanol issue is the oil industry.
Basically, ethanol is the direct competitor to petroleum.
So, it is up to these companies if they want to join in
and be part of the migration towards biofuels, which would be
similar to what we've seen with other technologies.
We start out with one technology and work your way
into another technology and you become a different business
with the same name.
Some oil companies are doing this.
BP has recently joined with DuPont to spend $500 million
at UC Berkely and the University of Illinois to do research
on ethanol and biofuels.
Marathon is joining with the Anderson's grain company
to build ethanol biorefineries.
I believe there are some others also that are starting to get
on board with that.
They are a great, obviously making hundreds of billions
of dollars, they are a great source of research dollars
to make this happen.
Another side is the fuel stations.
Right now, fuel stations actually make very little money.
Many of them lose money selling gasoline because it's the
oil companies that are receiving, and the refineries
that are receiving the $2.85 that you are spending
on gasoline.
Fuel stations mostly make their money by selling soda
and popcorn and chips and that kind of stuff.
One aspect with the fuel stations is that is expensive
for them to install their pumps.
So, if they are able to use a current pump with a gas tank
that can hold it, it usually costs a couple thousand dollars
for them to switch over.
There are tax incentives for them to decrease that cost.
But also, it can cost a couple hundred thousand dollars to dig
up the ground and put a tank in and put in a whole new pump.
There are tax incentives to help with that as well, tax rebates.
The environmentalist side of the ethanol issue is there are
positives and concerns about the ethanol issue.
Many of the positives have to do with the decreased use
of petroleum, the decreased carbon dioxide in the air
because it is a cyclical nature, it just keeps going through the
crops, and the decreased smog which helps people's health.
Many people die every year just from smog.
One of their fears is that if we pour too much into biofuels,
too much interest and too much money into it,
we won't be interested and spend money on other things such as
increase in fuel economy of vehicles.
There are a number of environmentalists that are
against ethanol, mostly because they want to support their own
different type of technology.
Then, the other side would be the United States soldiers.
Just about everybody, even people in the petroleum industry
have family members that are over fighting
in the Middle East.
Most people would agree that, although they may have all kinds
of reasons to be fighting over there, the government really
needs a constant flow of petroleum coming here.
The less dependent we are on foreign oil, the less costly
it is to provide the military and how do you fix a cost
to all the lost lives of the soldiers?
Present and future, this will wrap up our presentation.
Right now, there is a rapid expansion in the biofuels
industry, especially ethanol.
Last year, there was three billion gallons produced.
Right now, we can produce five billion gallons with all
the ethanol refineries coming online.
A year and a half from now, they will be able to do
8 to 12 billion gallons of ethanol.
So, it's very quickly growing.
But still that's only about 10% of our gasoline fuel supply that
we would replace with ethanol.