Crop Background

Barley is a hardy cover crop that requires little care. They require little to no irrigation
and are capable of withstanding most pests, funguses, and diseases due to alkaloids they produce
(Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, 2012). The most energy intensive process in
producing barley appears to be harvesting.
Potatoes are a more energy intensive crop. According to the Washington State Potato
Commission (n.d.), they definitely do require fertilization and irrigation. Also, because they are
tubers, they require special processing prior to planting. Seed potatoes need to be cut into
uniform pieces in order to grow a uniform crop. They also need to be treated with fungicides and
bactericides to prevent infection.

Airlock Research
For our airlock, we had two designs that we wanted to do. Our first design was a piece of
tubing that would seal up the opening of the bottle. This tubing would then lead to a tupperware
container filled with water. Our second design was a check valve from a coffee maker; we would
cut out a hole to fit the check valve to fit in and then seal the check valve in with hot glue. We
designed our first idea by ourselves, while our second design came about because one of our
team mates recalled a video they watched that explained how coffee makers only let water flow
in one direction(Hammack B. & Zeich N., 2010). We decided to use our second design because
it ultimately formed a tighter seal, and we were concerned that the first design wouldnt be able
to exhale the same volume of gas.

Final Conclusion
While our method of producing ethanol, with an EROI of about 0.74, is not viable,
ethanol as a biofuel is still potentially possible. Our system had quite a few flaws in retrospect,
so we cant really use our system as a baseline to judge the viability of ethanol. We had way too
much water in our feedstock, and we did not choose a good feedstock for starch production.
Other ethanols systems that are much more efficient than ours do exist. For instance,
algae-ethanol systems have the potential to produce both ethanol and oil. These systems are also
fairly closed; the cake left after pressing algae for oil can be used for fermentation, and the
carbon dioxide produced by fermentation can be used to grow algae (Oilgae, 2016). Sugar cane
ethanol systems are also promising. Most of the carbohydrates in sugar cane can be extracted
after pressing, and the bagasse left after pressing can be used to power the distillation units later
on down the line. This process gives a theoretical EROI of 2.0-4.0 (Krochta J., 1980).
We can draw from this that ethanol is a potential viable fuel source, but not as a
wholesale replacement of fossil fuels.

Reference List
Hammack B., Zeich N. [engineerguy]. (2010). Coffee Maker: Pumping water with no moving
parts. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j4Q_YBRJEI
Krochta, J. (1980). Energy analysis for ethanol. California Agriculture, 34(6), 9-11.
Oilgae. (2016). Ethanol from Algae. Retrieved from
http://www.oilgae.com/algae/pro/eth/eth.html
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (2012). Barley. In Managing Cover Crops
Profitably (3ed.). Retrieved from
http://www.sare.org/content/download/29733/413984/Managing_Cover_Crops_Profitabl
y.pdf?inlinedownload=1
Washington State Potato Commission (n.d.). How We Grow. Retrieved from
http://www.potatoes.com/our-commission