On 1 Sep 2013 at 10:56, Dennis Haynes wrote:

>
>     Just curious about ethanol and it's base.   I have 'heard' that many
> other countries use beets or cane to make their ethanol and that those
> crops are a lot more effective than subsidized corn,   effective at getting
> the vehicles moved for the least cost ..Some have said it actually takes
> more than a gallon of fuel in the supply chain to produce a gallon of corn
> ethanol.at the 'gas' pump.  How about the sugar beet or sugar cane type
> ethanol?   Is that the case there, too?  Or is government-subsidized corn
> ethanol actually THE best way to make this stuff?
>

Many other countries do it in a sane way, producing it from anything except
corn with greater efficiency.  Sugar cane is much much better.

Yes, it takes more energy to produce a gallon of corn based ethanol fuel than
it contaiins, unless things have changed a lot recently.  Corn is the least
efficient base to use to produce ethanol.  It also requires huge amounts of
water which we can ill afford to pull from our aquifers.  Last I heard it took
100 gallons of water to produce a gallon of corn ethanol, and I don't know if
that included the water needed by the fermentation.

Just say no to corn based ethanol fuels, burning food is immoral.  And is
effectively a regressive tax, impacting the poor and their grocery bills while
the more affluent can feel they've helped the environment.  When they really
haven't.

And we're about to go from 10% to 20% in MN.  Thank you ADM and friends.

tom

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Tom Ring K0TAR EN34hx

Never attribute to engineers that into which politicians, lawyers,
accountants, and marketeers have poked their fingers.
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