Veritatum17 asked:
One of the biggest complaints about ethanol is that there 's little, if any, net increase in energy. Does the state of science is advanced enough to allow solar energy to be the primary energy supply?
One of the biggest complaints about ethanol is that there 's little, if any, net increase in energy. Does the state of science is advanced enough to allow solar energy to be the primary energy supply?
Tags: Corn Products, Ethanol, Primary Energy Supply, solar energy, Solar Power, Solar System
Yes.
Solar power charging a battery system could produce enough energy to run an ethanol still for a reasonable production. The trick is you can’t rely completely on solar power, on cloudy days you get less power from it, at night there is no power gain. So entirley on solar energy? Probably not. You’d have some days where you’d need to tap into the power grid.
If you want heat that is available from solar power i.e. solar cooker etc. If you want light then solar lights are available . By photo cells electric energy is available from solar system . Consult non conventional uses department .
Yes, but the yield isn’t as high when comparing the amount of energy required to extract the product to gasoline. At the same time it takes approx. 125% more ethanol to perform the same amount of work that gasoline can perform.
Not feasible…
There is no guarantee for the solar energy to sustain continous power supply to produce even “break even production” of ethanol
Not yet financially feasible. You’ll need a very large space & a lot of solar panels to produce Ethanol. Solar panels are expensive.
It is possible. But according to the second law of thermodynamics, the heat necessary to heat up the corn and make it to pop put cannot be sufficiently supplied by a solar heater. It needs the enthalpy to be more at a given time. However it is possible if you neglect the heat losses.
I would like to say yes but at this point I would have to say no. I worked at an ethanol pilot plant and anyone in the industry can tell you to break down starch in the corn you need what they call a jet cooker. This uses high pressure steam at appx 400-600F. There is no way in hell solar panels could heat water to this temperature effeciently and consistently. Plus a lot of ethanol plants run 24 hours a day and that right there pretty much shoots that plan in the ***. A good thought though. Ethanol will become more effecient once the enzyme industry catches up and can CHEAPLY use switchgrass as a fuel source.