{"id":832,"date":"2024-11-26T20:39:29","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T20:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/?p=832"},"modified":"2024-11-26T20:39:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T20:39:32","slug":"alcohol-is-more-efficient-than-sugar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/?p=832","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol is more efficient than sugar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Centuries ago, when bulk transportation was expensive and raw foods were at risk of loss to spoilage or pests, distant farmers might prefer to convert sugar-bearing grain and fruit into ethanol, distill it to concentrate it, and transport that concentrate to distant markets.  (This fact was a primary cause of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Whiskey_Rebellion\">the Whiskey Rebellion<\/a> in response to the imposition of a tax on distilled alcohol.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was surprised at how much more efficient ethanol is as a source of energy, even though energy is lost through fermentation!  The chemical equation for fermentation of sugar (glucose chosen here) is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">C\u2086H\u2081\u2082O\u2086 (glucose) \u2192 2C\u2082H\u2085OH (ethanol) + 2CO\u2082 (carbon dioxide) + Energy<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Considered by weight: For every kilo of glucose fermented, we get half a kilo of ethanol and 300 calories of heat (which is typically wasted).  But ethanol is more energy dense than sugar: Humans extract 3700 calories per kilo of glucose but 7000 calories per kilo of ethanol!  I.e., <strong>the metabolic energy available in a kilo of sugar is mostly preserved when converted to alcohol, but its weight is cut in half<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Centuries ago, when bulk transportation was expensive and raw foods were at risk of loss to spoilage or pests, distant&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-technology","post-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Illustration-of-grain-fermentation-and-distillation-process-showing-grain-as-input-and-concentrated-liquid-as-output.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":834,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions\/834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}