On Feb 23, 2006, at 9:27 PM, John Rodgers wrote:

> Robert,
>
> I'm with you. Where is all the water going to come from?

New Orleans. Sorry I just had to say it. But think about it, who else
has so much fresh water and chemical infrastructure?

Jim

> That is going
> to be a seriously limiting factor on any volume of alcohol production.
>
> John Rodgers
> 88 GL Driver
>
> Robert Fisher wrote:
>
>> The thrust of that article was that some company had engineered an
>> enzyme
>> that would efficiently break down cellulose and extract the sugars (if
>> I'm
>> remembering this correctly) out of almost whatever plant matter in
>> which it
>> happened to be- the idea being that you didn't have to use the corn,
>> you
>> could use the stalk and the husks. Taken to its logical conclusion
>> this
>> means that the millions or whatever tons of waste plant matter
>> discarded
>> each year could be turned toward ethanol production without tapping
>> the food
>> supply itself. Basically the idea is you build the processing plant
>> near
>> farms or food processing facilities so you don't have to truck the
>> waste
>> plant mass very far, and then the fuel is distributed outward from the
>> plant. You would have several smaller distillery/refineries all over
>> instead
>> of massive centralized refineries like we have now with oil. This
>> would also
>> help with problems with supply like those that happened with the
>> hurricanes.
>> IIRC, the enzyme was also more effective in getting sugars out of high
>> sugar-yield crops; if you could expect to get X amount out of your
>> corn,
>> sugar cane or sugar beets, then you would get X+ out of them with the
>> enzyme.
>> They also reported that they have done small area trials with this and
>> the
>> model has worked as expected in those trials.
>> Part of the article was about current and near-future engines that are
>> supposed to be ethanol compatible, which led to my original question
>> about
>> the WBX. My other question was, where is the water supposed to come
>> from?
>>
>> Cya,
>> Robert
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Wesley Pegden" <wes@CS.UCHICAGO.EDU>
>> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 6:03 PM
>> Subject: Re: Ethanol is the fuel of the future?
>>
>>
>>> Sorry to revive this old thread, but here's more food for thought.
>>> They
>>> say that a pound of food requires a pound a oil to produce.  Unless
>>> that
>>> ratio is much better for ethanol, we're no better off.  From the
>>> linked
>>> article, this sounds promising: getting ethanol from switch grass
>>> almost
>>> sounds like getting it for free.  But every time I see one of those
>>> "go
>>> green" GM commercials with SUV's and cornfields, I'm overcome with
>>> skepticism.  Call my crazy, but I have a feeling that every
>>> ineffective
>>> way of reducing oil dependence will be pushed as hard as possible
>>> before
>>> we actually move onto to the effective ones.
>>>
>>> -Wes
>>>
>>> Evan Mac Donald wrote:
>>>
>>>>     <snip>
>>>>
>>>>   I seem to recall a thread on this a few months ago- what needs to
>>>> be
>>>> done to a WBX to burn ethanol properly? Higher compression...?
>>>> This brought to mind the Zetec conversion, among others- what are
>>>> the
>>>> current conversion options that will handle ethanol readily?
>>>>
>>>> <snip>
>>>>
>>>>   In general, an alcohol-fueled engine runs slightly cooler and gets
>>>> poorer milage than a gasoline-fueled one. This is mostly because of
>>>> two
>>>> related factors. Alcohol burns cooler than gasoline, and does not
>>>> have
>>>> the same energy density. You need to burn more than a gallon of
>>>> alcohol
>>>> to get the same amount of enegy that you get from a gallon of
>>>> gasoline.
>>>> But, as was mentioned in the article, the emissions from burning
>>>> that
>>>> more-than-a-gallon are far less. And that is before you consider
>>>> some of
>>>> the other factors involved in gasoline production. Tranport efforts,
>>>> production problems, the list is long. There are lots of costs, and
>>>> not
>>>> all are monetary.
>>>>   Personally, I liked the part for Brazil about NOT sending all that
>>>> money out of country, and being able to keep in at home. That looked
>>>> good
>>>> for their economy. Any country that sends lots of money away is
>>>> asking
>>>> for trouble.
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>