Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 09:21:14 -0500
Reply-To: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Subject: Re: Ethanol..Corn only?
In-Reply-To: <BAY136-W1455EE430A1C43C9157EB3A5BD0@phx.gbl>
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This idea of using corn for fuel is "a fool's errand". The numbers
simply don't support it, and there are non-number things that come into
play as well - have a single bad growing season and the ethanol
processors, Oil companies, and "We the People" will be sh*t out of luck!
One season!!! Think about that. Drought, corn pestilence which comes in
many forms like insects, rusts, and other fungi. A heavy rainy season
can reduce corn crops if the rains come at the wrong time. To place our
bets on something in which nature has more control than we, it just
plain stupid. Add to that the destruction of the land to produce that
corn - depletion of the soils plus th clearing of more land for growing
corn - the stupidity of the whole thing becomes mindboggling .
But for many it is not mind boggling - it is boon doggling. At first
there wasn't much interest, then when Big Money figured out that they
could get Congress to subsidize the whole thing, they really got moving
with their lobbyists in Washington to get this new Farm Bill passed.
There are better ways by far. We have incredible natural gas reserves in
North America, way more that we have oil even, And Alaska is just
incredible loaded, and it could be liquefied and used as a much cleaner
burning fuel than most anything else, much better for the
environment.This whole business of clearing more and more land to
produce something else that is not natural there, is, in the end, going
to get us. Every tree cut, is like killing and plugging an alveoli in
out lungs. The forests are the lungs of the planet. Don't take care of
your lungs, like abuse them with smoking, and you will eventually begin
to suffer, and eventually because of the damage - suffocate and die Same
with forests.
This whole "corn for fuel" thing is rotten to the kernel - er - core.
Carter tried to get us off of energy dependency on other countries, and
he saw major problems coming with our getting so much oil from the
middle east, but his efforts and policies were completely negated by the
following succession of Presidents and Congresses, and the influence of
Corporate America on the two.
IMHO.
John Rodgers
88 GL Driver
Bob Stevens wrote:
> "This talk about Ethanol mixed into pump gas. Can one only make Ethanol fromCorn, or does any fermenting plant produce it? Did I imagine readingsomewhere that our Gov. decreed corn to be *the* designated bio-source forethanol over other plants that might be more productive when turned into'go-juice'? Like sugar cane, sugar beets, etc? Seems like using only cornis a waste, since corn is also a pretty widely eaten food source for humans"
>
>
> If 100% of the corn we now use for various purposes (most is used for animal feed products, along with soy) was used to make ethanol, it would still only make 20% of the fuel we need today.
>
> Soy is likely much more economical to use for ethanol. Carbohydrate that is now being researched by C5-6 Technologies, using enzymes to convert soy and cellulosic materials into biofuels. So, the "waste" part of our current uses of soy is what is being converted into fuel. The return is 3.7 energy units to 1 invested, vs .88 to 1 for petroleum, and 1.3 to 1 for corn. It seems that the biggest loser is the land. It is overused now and adding production of ethanol, whether via corn, sugar cane, beets or soy, the land becomes that much more overused. Fuel is not the answer. Change is ... changing to other modes of ambulation down the roadway ... the roadway produced from petroleum prodects! We've painted ourselves into a corner big time.
>
> Van content .... I got the rear tire mount "jewelry" from Gary Lee today. Can hardly wait to apply it tomorrow. He is truly an artist. Even his packaging for shipment is flawless and effective ... to give no credit to FedEx :)
>
> Bob Stevens
> '87 Syncro Westy
>
>
>
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