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Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

This doesn't pertain to most backyard hobby growers but if you know any farmers who maintain some acreage....

Urea will be short for many blenders this spring. There is about 6 million acres of new corn going in this spring to support US Ethanol concerns for energy.

Expect synthetic fertilizer prices to climb sharply. Urea is up $80/ton just last week. It's not done rising.

1/29/2007 10:08:17 PM

western PA

thats correct Tremor. I am goin to purchase all my fetilizer for the fields now and store it all in one of the barns. A lot of labor now but will bet paying an arm and a leg later.

1/30/2007 7:37:37 AM

Indiana

We have several Ethanol plants opening here in indiana they are saying the corn crop is going to be larger than it has been in 60 years.Now if the old truck would burn ethanol.
Steve

1/30/2007 10:30:44 AM

Long Island,New York

Just curious...is ethanol expected to be cheaper than gasoline?

1/30/2007 4:24:20 PM

Auburn Maine, USA

Looks like stock in the fert field might be worth buying. The way the middle east is, looks like this might be just the beginning.

1/30/2007 5:56:21 PM

Mastic Beach, New York

Overall ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of petrol. ...doesnt sound like it G

1/30/2007 8:29:17 PM

Sheridan . NY

IM Sorry to blow Agro-k's horn again --but the 10 8 8 --it grows corn here just fine mix at a rate of 2oz to the gallon of water at planting--its makes 64 gallons for $7.50---craig

1/30/2007 8:32:31 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Craig, that 10-8-8 is made with urea so it will increase in cost at some level of distribution if it hasn't already.

Glenn, good point. The only reason for adding ethanol to pumpkin gasoline (30% target goal) is to reduce our reliance on the Arabian Peninsula. It has nothing to do with lowering the cost of pump gasoline. If ethanol was cheaper then the fuel traders would lower wholesale gasoline.

The energy traders will make money either way. Put or take...what's the difference to them?

1/30/2007 11:16:29 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Glenn, good point. The only reason for adding ethanol to **pumpkin** gasoline....LOL

Some habits die hard eh? That was supposed to say "pump gasoline" LOL

1/30/2007 11:17:53 PM

Eugene, OR

Steve, Ethanol has a much higher octane rating than gas so you're actually getting a pretty substantial octane boost, in addition to what you said about oil dependancy. The downside is that ethanol has a lower energy content than gas and requires a richer mixture so your mileage and power takes a hit, all else constant. Just some random info....:-)

1/30/2007 11:36:05 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Uh-huh. I'm not much of an ethanol advocate myself for that reason. The Feds have already made this "suggested mandate?" so I guess it'll happen whether we like it or not. The logic sited is that ethanol is a renewable resource & petroleum is not.

1/31/2007 7:27:39 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Back on topic - When urea or anhydrous increases in cost, all of the other Nitrogen sources increase as well. DAP (Phosphorus) also contains Nitrogen so it will also rise given the increase demands that will occur.

1/31/2007 7:30:29 AM

ExtremeVegetables.com

A few weeks ago I ordered a 50 lb bag of urea to help break down my compost piles a little faster. I was contacted by my supplier who informed me that the price of urea has risen dramatically. Th usual price was $12.70 per 50 pound bag and I was told it would be around $22. The item was on backorder and they wanted to know if I still wanted it at that price. I recieved the backorder yesterday, the cost for the urea was $15.63 for a 50lb. bag.
Drammatic Fish and Kelp has also risen in price from $32 per 2.5 gallon container to $35.40 but I doubt that has anything to do with the rise in cost of urea.

1/31/2007 4:30:37 PM

Bethlehem CT

Does anyone know how much petroleum it takes to produce a gallon of ethanol? This includes the petroleum to plow, plant, ferilize etc. I have a feeling that the amount of petroleum we will save isn't as much as people would like to believe. Maybe it's just a way to make us feel a little independent from big oil.

1/31/2007 6:38:42 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Thank you big moon! To save oil we burn oil to grow corn to make ethanol???? LOL

Greenhousin, $22 would be insane for 50 lbs of urea. I'm glad the backordered bag wasn't that high. The recent increases would yield about a $2.00 per bag increase on cost so their price increase on selling price is justified.

1/31/2007 8:31:54 PM

Eugene, OR

Good points on the ethanol part of this post. Having done a gas to E85 conversion myself, I could talk on the subject all day....but won't to keep from getting too far off topic here. Sorry!

1/31/2007 8:44:16 PM

Sheridan . NY

STEVE ---10 8 8 Is still $7.50---5 2 2 fish is still $7.50--also 9 18 9--2 12 12 and others---no raises here---still make's 128 gallons---in the feeding program----craig

1/31/2007 8:51:29 PM

Auburn Maine, USA

Regardless, ethanol is a step in the right direction. Id rather my money stay in america then supporting those that hate us on the other side of the world

1/31/2007 10:50:18 PM

Indiana

"Does anyone know how much petroleum it takes to produce a gallon of ethanol? This includes the petroleum to plow, plant, ferilize etc"
Many farmers are using biodiesel which is made from soybeans so they are using a renewable source. Oil will run out someday! It may not in our lifetimes but you have to think about the future, any your children and grandchildren

2/1/2007 10:59:29 AM

Boulder County Colorado USA planet Earth

My grandpa used to say, for every acre planted, disked, cultivated, harvested and plowed, took about a gallon per time. That's why no till planting saves money.
The farm dissel is red(national law) and can not be used in reg dissel vehicles. NO ROAD TAX

2/1/2007 12:12:32 PM

Boulder County Colorado USA planet Earth

If urea is going up, expect mushrooms to go up to. Urea is added to horse manure to break it down andadd nitrogen to help mushrooms grow.

2/1/2007 12:25:17 PM

Let's not forget the use of petro chemicals in fertilizer production, there is a huge part of the price escalation aside from the obvious transportation cost increase.

Ethanol will become a much more viable means of cutting oil dependancy when we quit fooling ourselves with 10-15% blends and automakers start rolling true ethanol vehicals off assembly lines. Google ethanol Brazil to get some real numbers.

Plain and simple math here, the farmers lobby doesn't carry the $$$ that the oil lobby does.......yet!!!

2/1/2007 2:11:31 PM

western PA

i think ethanol put out far less energy than gasoline. i could be wrong.

2/1/2007 2:30:25 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I had lunch today at a trade show with a woman who sells bio-diesel. Cool stuff & yes, a renewable resource.

Forget petroleum based ground transportation.

The internal combustion engine is on the outs.

Here is the General Motors HY~WIRE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry6w3mRm-FM&eurl=

The future is upon us.

2/1/2007 4:34:03 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

How much is 5 Million Quid anyway?

2/1/2007 4:34:23 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Your are correct Vader. Ethanol gets poor economy due to lower energy output. I think I read that we can expect up to a 30% reduction is MPG which is probably just as bad as burning straight petrol in the first place.

HY~WIRE 10-20 years from NOW....COOL.

2/1/2007 4:36:19 PM

Eugene, OR

OK, so I lied. The discussion has gone this way so I'll put in my .000000002 cents worth. :-) True, a gallon of ethanol does have a lower heating value than a gallon of gasoline but this doesn't mean power output has to suffer. Engines specifially designed to take advantage of the higher octane rating of ethanol will meet or actually exceed the performance of a gasoline engine.

The reason is very simple, efficiency. The typical four stroke internal combustion engine is modeled by what's known as the Otto cycle. Thermodynamics tells us that as you increase the compression ratio in an Otto cycle, the efficiency also increases. Typical pump gas ranges from 87 to 93 octane. Ethanol, on the other hand, has an octane rating of close to 130.

Running a higher octane fuel like ethanol in an engine designed to run on pump gas will naturally lower your power output. However, because of the higher octane rating of ethanol, you can increase the compression ratio susbtantially without having problems with audible knock(or preignition) to increase engine efficiency and power output.

The common misconception is that a higher octane rating means more power. This couldn't be further from the truth. The octane rating of any fuel is simply the fuels ability to resist autoignition....nothing more, nothing less. As the piston compresses the air/fuel mixture in your engine, the temperature increases exponentially. If you compress the mixture enough, you'll eventually reach the autoignition temp. of the fuel you're burning, causing knock.

In short, running any fuel with an octane greater than 87 in an engine specifically designed for 87 octane will do nothing more than make your wallet a lighter. Run a fuel with too low an octane rating in an engine designed for a higher octane fuel, knock becomes a big problem. You simply can't increase the CR of your engine to increase efficiency running on pump gas without knock.

2/1/2007 6:24:43 PM

Eugene, OR

However, and this is the big thing with using ethanol as a gasoline alternative, if you increase the compression ratio of your engine to take advantage of ethanol's higher octane rating(which is possible in a number of ways), you can actually meet or even exceed the power output of a similar gas engine.

So what does this mean? You don't have to take a loss in power when using ethanol as an alternative to gasoline. But, there's no way around the fact that because ethanol contains oxygen, more of it is required for proper combustion. Typical air/fuel ratios for gas engines are between 11 and 12:1 while ethanol engines require around 9:1.

I seem to remember reading some research suggesting that a 100 square mile lake/algae farm is all that's required to generate enough ethanol for all the vehicles on the road. Considering how much farm land is required to make ethanol from corn, this seems like a pretty darn good alternative to me.

2/1/2007 6:27:35 PM

Eugene, OR

Here's a link to just such an article. http://www.gs-cleantech.com/pdf/CO2_Data_Sheet.pdf

To quote, "While traditional corn derived ethanol produces up to 450 gallons of fuel per acre, GS CleanTech’s CO2
Bioreactor can produce more than 200,000 gallons of fuel per acre." Sounds like one heck of a viable alternative to oil to me.

2/1/2007 7:24:03 PM

Auburn Maine, USA

sounds good

2/1/2007 9:49:21 PM

western PA

NOBODY GO TO MEXICO, the tortilla riots are still goin on over the cost of corn down there.

2/2/2007 12:57:57 PM

Long Island,New York

The reason I ask is Im looking at a new truck and one engine option is a E85/gas engine. Now, at a 30% loss in power and gas mileage.....combined with high costs of ethanol.....and forget that the nearest ethanol to new your city is in Pennsylvania............

2/2/2007 4:51:31 PM

Long Island,New York

New York City

2/2/2007 4:51:59 PM

Eugene, OR

Had a few minutes to kill so I read about GM's new Hy-wire vehicle. Pretty cool concepts for sure. I wonder if/when the law preventing steer and brake by wire technology will be changed? We already have throttle by wire in a lot of the new cars/trucks but there's just something comforting about the thought that if the electrical system fails or the engine diea, at least I still have steering and brakes.

Fuels cells are an awesome technology but until science "cracks the nut" on how to extract hydrogen efficiently, it'll never make it. The problem with hydrogen as a fuel (or in a fuel cell) is that it currently takes more energy to extract the hydrogen than the hydrogen actually produces on its own.

Where does the energy for the hydrogen extraction process, aka electrolysis, come from? Our power plants. Where does the energy power plants use to generate electricity come from? In most cases it's coal, natural gas fired turbines, and an array of petroleum based fuels. They may be cleaning up the cars by going to electric vehicles or fuel cells but they're just displacing the problems to another industry.

Regardless, very cool concept. I like the fact that you can change the body to suit your mood!

2/13/2007 4:19:33 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Urea & Corn update:

When I started this thread Urea was selling for $220/ton
Today a barge in TN is around $365/ton

Ethanol producers will buy corn, stalks & leaves at $1400/acre.

Drive by wire laws should change. The aviation industry has a better safety record than the automotive industry & they drive by wire.

Electricity SHOULD be coming from non petrol sources soon. We don't have a choice. Nuclear is safe as long as fission plants are properly maintained. But a teenager recently built a fusion reactor in his parents basement so we're starting to look up. Chernobyl & Three Mile Island did more damage to the environment than the politicians & environmentalists ever knew. They stallled nuclear development & burned billions more gallons of crude for what? To sleep better?

2/13/2007 11:58:57 PM

Eugene, OR

I'm all for embedded control systems, optical and variable resistance encoders for feedback, motors and actuators, etc. but the bottom line is, electrical components fail too. How often have you heard of someone you know losing control of their vehicle because the mechanical link between the steering wheel and gear box failed? In contrast, how often have you heard of someone having to replace a sensor or some other electrical component, including the ECU that controls most of your engine and transmission management systems? Steer by wire is pretty common in aerospace but quality control in aerospace is usually a hell of a lot better than that of the automobile industry too LOL.

I would have no problem driving a steer by wire vehicle, provided the redundant systems have redundant systems. Having done PID tuning for embedded control systems myself, I have personally witnessed what can and does go wrong when implementing a feedback loop like a steer by wire system would require.

Regarding nuclear power, if nuclear power is going to take off again, it will be through the use of fusion reactors, not fission. Breaking atoms to release energy generates all sort of radiation and radioactive waste while fusion does not. It's my understanding that fusion reactors are being tested in the power generation industry right now so who knows.

McDonough and Braungart have some pretty cool ideas regarding the future of the world we live in. Sustainability and the use of sustainable resources is where we're headed but we sure have a long way to go!

Just my $.02 :-)

2/14/2007 5:14:45 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I believe that if electric controls were as over-engineered as mechanical steering linkages or hydraulic brake systems they would be equally reliable. The automotive circuits with which we are most familiar are usually designed to monitor systems rather regulate them. Regulatory systems (IE; fuel injectors, air handling, etc)of today are usually not essential to safety thus are engineered to fail within accepted maintenance intervals.

Yes, fission is the best bet for our future electric supply needs. But our current supply grid needs major attention too. The US is sorely lacking in a cohesive electrical supply plan. We need fission with vision. Right now it seems we have neither.

I think that MBDC would like the Hy-Wire concept. Invest in a solid ecological automotive platform that will last 20-30 years. When vanity overcomes sensibility, change the outward appearance with a recyclable cabin/exterior to fit modern tastes.

2/14/2007 10:44:56 PM

Eugene, OR

LOL on the engineering. We have a saying I've come to appreciate: "When in doubt, build it stout." The safety factor an engineer uses is always inversely proportional to how sure they are of their numbers. When there are lives on the line, it darn well better be over engineered. Who wants to deal with lawyers anyway?

I had to take a sustainability in engineering class as part of my grad. studies that I really wasn't looking forward to but it ended up being one of the better classes I've taken. As a result, I've read quite a few of McDonough and Braungart's publications and I've become a fan of their work. I don't agree with some of the idealized concepts they present but for the most part, I think their ideas are worth pursuing. If nothing else, they certainly get you thinking.

2/14/2007 11:58:57 PM