Ethanol

[wil]

Can someone help me to understand?

Is ethanol not something 'cooked' up by the power brokers to make more money?

Corn futures went thru the roof.

We've been paying farmers not to plant corn for decades.

The world is starving and we are using the grain to create corn mash...and ethanol.

Now we use diesel (oil) to create fertilizers, plant the corn, harvest corn, heat the corn to create ethanol...

And according to what I read this is at a negative energy loss, ie it would be more cost effective to burn the diesel in our cars!

Now if ethanol production was truly cost effective, once we've created the first batch we'd burn ethanol to create ethanol and sell the excess....but perpetual motion being what it is...

Oh, and ethanol doesn't burn as efficiently as gasoline...so for every mile traveled on ethanol means more greenhouse gases?

Am I just thoroughly confused?? How is this 'green'?

[flowperson]

Hi wil...I got into this stuff about thirty years ago when I helped a professor put together a "biomass to ethanol" proposal.

Your are right on in about every regard as to your comments regarding the use of corn to make ethanol. Sometime ago, lobbyists for grain processors, farm interests, and commodities brokerages came up with this thing. Yes, it makes food more expensive; yes, it often costs more in energy and resources to make it than what is saved through its usage; and yes, other sources of ethanol production raw materials make more ethical, economic, and energy resource sense. But hey... greed won again, surprised ?

For instance, Brazil produces the ethanol that it uses for fuel, about 80-90% of its national requirements now, from sugar cane. This plant yields two to five times as much enregy per pound of raw material than do eqvivalent volumes of grain. Even using scraps from lumber mills, or just from weeds cut alongside the highways would yield better in the production process. I'll bet hemp would be divine as a raw material.

But this is America by golly, and we'll always end up doing what is most economically and politically expedient for the powers that be in the short term.

flow....

[wil]

Namaste Flow,

Despite our Oligarchy obviously profiting from the deal...

Why and how do the greens embrace it?

If it takes fuel to make (increased greenhouse gases) and it is less efficient than gas (increased greenhouse gases) where is the savings when we aren't planting more fields to offset the increased carbon footprint?

If it were more economical to utilize other bio substances, what is stopping entrepreneurs or venture capitalists from capitalizing on that?

I just simply don't understand how substituting one problem for another is a benefit...and yes I ran that mix in my tank back in the 80's when they were experimenting....but I wasn't inclined to do the math then...

[flowperson]

Originally Posted by wil

Namaste Flow,

Despite our Oligarchy obviously profiting from the deal...

Why and how do the greens embrace it?

If it takes fuel to make (increased greenhouse gases) and it is less efficient than gas (increased greenhouse gases) where is the savings when we aren't planting more fields to offset the increased carbon footprint?

If it were more economical to utilize other bio substances, what is stopping entrepreneurs or venture capitalists from capitalizing on that?

I just simply don't understand how substituting one problem for another is a benefit...and yes I ran that mix in my tank back in the 80's when they were experimenting....but I wasn't inclined to do the math then...

Hi wil...The greens embrace it because it is not a "fossil fuel", and it is a step in the "right" direction after decades of stalling and stupidity. There is also a sub-rosa thingy going on here that has to do, IMHO, with the quantum nature of what living things take into their systems through breathing, water and food consumption, etc. Theoretically it is less damaging to living beings to take up carbon created as a byproduct of burning recently living materials as opposed to several hundred million year old dead materials. This conflict borders upon certain dynamics having to do with matters of living in the present as opposed to living in the way-distant past, if you get my drift.

Nothing is stopping other entrepeneurs from using the other stuff to create biofuels, and some are. But as you well know money and power get to the marketplace firstest with the mostest. And that's what we're watching right now. This whole situation signifies a massive paradigm shift in many ways, and the status quo people tend to do these sorts of things with baby steps. So for them, there is more short term economic benefit for them to develop ethanol from grain as opposed to the alternatives. After all, the entire D.C. lawmaking machine has always been well lubricated with ethanol products made from grain. There is a certain continuity in this...don'cha think ?

flow....

[flowperson]

Here's another article regarding why ethanol production based on grain crops may not be such a fine idea

flow....

http://www.livescience.com/environme...nol-water.html

[flowperson]

Hi...and then there was this article from the BBC. Looks like once again, American farm policy is headed towards the wrong goals. But what's new ?

flow....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7065061.stm