Let's Ditch Ethanol

[w8tlftr]

Perhaps the greatest folly, in time lost and dollars wasted, has been the push for ethanol to replace gasoline. In the United States, almost all ethanol comes from corn. When you tote up the carbon emissions caused by clearing land to grow corn, fertilizing it and transporting it, corn ethanol leaves twice the carbon footprint as gasoline.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/130628

[Hedgehog]

Perhaps the greatest folly, in time lost and dollars wasted, has been the push for ethanol to replace gasoline. In the United States, almost all ethanol comes from corn. When you tote up the carbon emissions caused by clearing land to grow corn, fertilizing it and transporting it, corn ethanol leaves twice the carbon footprint as gasoline.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/130628

Transporting it using what?

Train, trucks or what?

I've seen numbers on CO2 emission from trains being next to nothing. So I gotta ask you about this one.

[Camel Jockey]

They've got to find other ways to distill ethanol. Like from shrubs, mulch and other useless stuff.

[w8tlftr]

Transporting it using what?

Train, trucks or what?

I've seen numbers on CO2 emission from trains being next to nothing. So I gotta ask you about this one.

I'd have to verify, Zack, but I believe that trucks are primarily used to transport ethanol.

[Benny B]

I'm inclined to agree. It's unfortunate, because it would wean us off of our dependence on foreign oil. However, the corn-based ethanol we produce in the U.S. creates too many other problems that are just as bad.

Brazil is blessed to be a tropical country. They have become an ethanol producing powerhouse, but their production comes from the use of sugarcane to produce it. Using sugarcane does not increase food prices and all the other issues that come from our use of corn. The U.S. can't use sugarcane because the climate isn't conducive for its growth.

[w8tlftr]

US secretary concedes biofuels may spur food price rises

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080428163555.uzi9tokz&show_article=1

Setting aside farmland to produce biofuels like ethanol may be partly to blame for driving up world food prices, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday.

"There has been apparently some effect, unintended consequence from the alternative fuels effort," Rice told a meeting in Washington when asked for the US government's view on skyrocketing food prices.

"Although we believe that while biofuels continue to be an extremely important piece of the alternative energy picture, obviously we want to make sure that it is not having an adverse affect," she said.

"We think that it is not a large part of the problem, but it in fact may be a part of the problem, the ethanol debate," Rice told a gathering of the Peace Corps.

She said other factors fueling high prices are problems of distributing food in conflict areas like Sudan as well as export caps imposed by countries like China which are trying to meet rising demand from more affluent citizens.

Biofuels are touted as a way to limit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, held responsible for global warming, but since they are grown on land that would otherwise be used for food production, they have been increasingly blamed for soaring food prices.

Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi told a conference in Rome last week that agricultural prices were not only being driven by rising demand but also by increased cultivation of biofuels, "creating strong tensions in a number of countries."

WTF are these people smoking?! 

[gcb]

I don't understand - isn't this really a no brainer? Sooner or later the oil is going to run out - we have to start looking at alternatives. Ethanol may not be the answer now but with research it could be a viable alternative.

[240 is Back]

I don't understand - isn't this really a no brainer? Sooner or later the oil is going to run out - we have to start looking at alternatives. Ethanol may not be the answer now but with research it could be a viable alternative.

they are looking at alternatives.  It's going to be the oil compnaies that run alternative fuels.  It's why food is tight - they used all the fields for ethanol growth (bush gave em $ to grow it for fuel research).

it'll happen when it's time - in ten to 15 years.

before then, we're going to use what's in the middle east, and then probably sell US oil when everyone else runs low.  Or it'll be a co-energy thing perhaps... cars run on gas, big transport units (trucks, trains) run on somethign else.

I don't worry at all about the energy.  They'll do it when it's time.  Right now, they're getting rich.  That $ will be available for R&D or that rough transition time.