There are three stages of understanding ethanol as a fuel.

The first is the simplest, oh great "alternative fuel" awesome yay
it's great... this phase 1 group is helped along by industry
advertising and lobbying.

Then once you know something more about it, the production problems,
the lower energy density per mass, it goes from "yay" to "boo.. it
sucks, it's not all it's cracked up to be", and there is a little
backlash from the phase 1 on top of the new realization.

Then eventually if you keep paying attention and learning past the
second phase, you start to see some benefits again, some actual, some
potential.. like the better brake thermal efficiency of an engine set
up to take advantage of it(which bites into the energy density issues
greatly), the relatively easy adoption, the ease of introduction in
the context of the mass market(average consumer reluctance) vs other
alternatives.. and you say.. "ok, so it's isn't perfect, but it's
getting better faster than anything else as a viable alternative for
the mass market."

Just look at todays hybrids, great.. they're out... not perfect, not
great for long haul, but at least they're there... and people are
excited by the efficiency levels possible right now. By the same
token, there are some people excited about the fact that you can get
within 5%-8% of the same efficiency levels as hybrids with very little
ethanol if you know how, for a lot less coin per vehicle than a
hybrid. But it's a mere handful of people vs. those that think ethanol
can't live up to all the hype and hate it as a screen play for not
doing much about a serious problem.

It isn't a perfect alternative like the phase 1 bandwagon sounds off
to, but it also isn't nearly as bad as the phase 2 bandwagon beating
their drums back at the phase 1 people would have you believe. Things
are moving fast enough that you don't really need to care or ever
reach phase 3, there will be actual answers in the next 2-3 years
which'll be fun. By 2010 there might well be cellulosic ethanol that
you can read all about on your 360Mbps household connection.

Jim Akiba

On 1/25/08, Jake de Villiers <crescentbeachguitar@gmail.com> wrote:
> Exactly..........
>
> On Jan 25, 2008 2:36 PM, Pensioner <al_knoll@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > http://tinyurl.com/23jum7
> >
> > One opinion from Colorado.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jake
> 1984 Vanagon GL
> 1986 Westy Weekender "Dixie"
> Crescent Beach, BC
> www.crescentbeachguitar.com
> http://subyjake.googlepages.com/
>