Why can't we do this in hawaii,sugar based ethanol

[David D]

Be aware that the manufacturing requirements to produce ethanol in economical volumes would require massive investment, in the “billions of dollar” range. Another point is where is a huge manufacturing facility and its associated industrial infrastructure going to be located. No one wants one in “their” back yard. And then there are cultural issues that are way, way too complex to touch on.
Personally, I don’t think it will ever happen in Hawaii.

[Da Stef]

I don't think it's a billion dollar thing. You can produce ethanol in a still in your backyard. Granted you would need much larger equipment to supply to a whole state. But this is easily one of those things that you can start of small on, and as land is converted into sugar cane farms, you could scale.

Since many newer cars can use ethanol already, they could buy when there is and go to the wiki wiki when there isn't.

-stef

[olin137]

It's more smaller to intermediate sized plants in the long term. Right now the only way to completely utilized plant biomass is gasification; i.e., heating the plant matter enough to volatilize it to a gaseous form that can be burned. The obvious problem is it takes about as much energy to accomplish as you get out in the end - and it takes a significant site to to this. We'll still some years of research away from solving this, but it's coming. Another issue is transportation. You simply can't be shipping plant matter too far before the economics of transportation eat up your effort. Studies fairly consistently show that facilities to generate ethanol should be no more than 50 miles eway, and there should be enough plant metter (of whatever kind) to run the plant in that area. Now, if you're in much of the US this is going to be a problem - but if anyplace can fit that bill, it should hawaii - not much doubt about being able to grow lots of plant matter in the Islands. In the meantime, sugarcane is still the best bet - and if Hawaii can't work that out, it won't work anywhere in the US.

Olin

[Da Stef]

the more-energy-to-make-than-oil problem is based on ethanol from corn. that isn't the case with ethanol from sugar cane. that's what they use in Brazil.

so that solves that problem.

and nothing on the island is soo far that transporting ethanol from a plant to distribution centers should be a prob.

[Carey]

Stef, Have you looked into this in depth? Ethanol has two very large draw backs that have to be addressed before it can be used in large scale refineries here, due to the configurations of the Hawaii refineries.
1. Ethanol vaporizes much easier than pump gas. In order to maintain clean air & low green house gases, every step of the ethanol blending, delivery & use has to have vapor recovery measures (this is most critical at the consumer pumping areas, as this is where most gas vapor problems occur, due to consumer inattention -overfilling tanks & dripping pumps do overload the most advanced recovery systems). Adding vapor recovery systems and refomatting the refinery cracking will cost a lot of $$ & unless the public respects the equipment, will still allow greater green house gas emmisions.
2. Ethanol has a greater affinity to water. This precludes the blending operations used in the current Hawaii refinery configurations. Updating the refineries will cost $$. Stillwater recommendations were to utilize ethanol produced in Hawaii to export to California, where the refinery modifications have been made (tax payers & gas prices footed the bill)
3. Cane land on many of the islands has been turned into residential/small ag land. Many of the subdivisions in Puna, North & South Hilo are on old sugar plantations. Big sugar left these areas because of economics. Land values then + labor costs did not make it feasible to continue production. Most sugar is now produced in countries where land values & labor are much lower than in Hawaii.
So this is truly an economics & environmental issue. It is cheaper to grow & process sugar in other areas & it is cheaper to utilize ethanol in other areas that have the appropriate vapor recovery systems in place.
Aloha, Carey

[JerryCarr]

Wow, Carey, your research is thorough! The refinery processes are indeed a big hurdle, as are the land and labor issues here in Hawaii. If oil prices go high enough, long enough, some of the economics could change, but there will be no going back to farming a lot of land that has been converted to other use. I have a Mazda pickup that is engineered to run on a range of fuel blends of ethanol and gasoline, and I would love to try it on ethanol. We will have to wait and see if I ever get the chance.

Aloha, Jerry

[Carey]

Jerry, Going back the college has stoked my research neurons, so now I tend to research everything (even researching names for a stupid stray cat now is in the hours...Kitty Kat may still win....so much for our creative neurons!)
Aloha, Carey