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Ignoring the total net energy balance, here's another load of crap you can vent
on if you wish:
The EPA says 15% ethanol gasohol gets no worse mpg than 0% ethanol gasoline.
Anyone with a brain can look up the BTU/lb output of ethanol and quickly blow
that BS away (hint - when running a vehicle on pure alcohol, mpg is WAY WAY down
compared to gas. Horsepower can be much higher due to higher compression
allowed from the resistance to detonation, but you get roughly 60% of the mpg of
equivalent gasoline. There are ProStreet cars driven on the streets of LA,
where you can get methanol at some of the pumps, that get 2 mpg).
So making us use a "cleaner" gas will end up USING MORE GAS. Net might possibly
mean more pollutants, ignoring the summer smog we'll get from ethanol.
That being said, some notes below...
Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Tom Stangl writes:
>
> Snip
>
> > Or probably ADM.
> >
> > Boy, ADM's political contributions sure have paid off bigtime now!
>
> ADM, just about my least favorite corporation. I don't know what I hate
> worse, their welfareism, or their smarmy ads on the sunday talking head
> shows about their goshdarn good for the world ethanol.
>
> I would LOVE to have someone who has more time than I do and did better in
> Thermodynamics than I did do a total energy balance on ethanol production. I
> have a sneaking suspicion that it's a net energy loss! That is, that you put
> more energy into fertilizer, trucking in the seed corn, tilling, spraying
> for weeds and corn borers,
If the corn is specifically raised for gasoline ethanol use, you don't have to
be as heavy with the care.
> harvesting, taking it to the distillery,
These 2 don't take that much energy, really.
> heating it up, fermenting it,
Now, I don't know if they DO heat it to speed the process up, but once it is
mashed, you can literally use solar power to kick start it and let it run on
its' own from there (for max conversion/speed, though, I'm sure external heat is
needed).
> processing the silage left over,
You actually gain energy here - you just chop it up, pile it up, and let it heat
up. Nice cattle feed (nice smell too, if you hit it at the right point in
fermentation) and fertilizer.
> distilling the
> alcohol out, transporting it, etc etc (I probably missed about 15 steps),
> than is actually IN the alcohol. (all the energy in the alcohol came from
> the sun, of course)
Debatable, but the net energy gotten from it after all of the above may not be
worth it (to anyone except ADM - the farmers certainly aren't getting rich off
of it).
> Put it another way. My suspicion is that the cash subsidy ADM gets is
> actually there to cover up the negative energy balance, not because it's
> someday going to be a good idea to do this and we just haven't gotten to
> economies of scale.
What SUCKS is that most of the subsidy is going to ADM, not to the farmers. The
farmers aren't exactly getting bank on their crops.
> I could be wrong but I wouldn't be too surprised to be right.
>
> I bet you'd be farther ahead to convert the acreage currently used to grow
> ethanol corn into solar cell fields and use the electricity to synthesize
> ethanol that way!
>
> So ya, I hate ethanol. It is a prime example of the worst excesses that you
> get when government meddles in the market and corps, playing the game by the
> rules they lobbied for, work the program for all it is worth.
I dunno, I kind of like it, when added to the right mixers ;-)
> So don't hate ADM because they are good at being leeches. Hate the system
> that enabled them to set up the rules the way they did.
>
> (and I never mentioned Jack Booted Thugs(tm) either!)
>
> ++Lar
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the farmers - most of my relatives ARE
farmers. I just think a little too much lobbying just put the entire US at ADM
gunpoint unnecessarily.
--
Tom Stangl
***http://www.vfaq.com/
***DSM Visual FAQ home
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Gasohol?
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| Snip most of it (...) Me either. A number of relatives on my wife's side are farmers (corn in MI, dry wheat in Colorado, etc.) and I really really feel bad for the US farmer, he has been seriously messed with for 70+ years now. ++Lar (23 years ago, 19-Jun-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Gasohol?
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Tom Stangl writes: Snip (...) ADM, just about my least favorite corporation. I don't know what I hate worse, their welfareism, or their smarmy ads on the sunday talking head shows about their goshdarn good for the world (...) (23 years ago, 19-Jun-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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