Regarding the article Harry Watkins recently posted on this list - As an engineer in the ethanol industry (not ADM) this sort of propaganda just baits and irritates me. Walter Williams disappoints me with the way he takes some half-truths out of context and builds an entire misleading position. Ethanol is not nirvana, it is not a silver bullet, and it is not a single replacement for our entire current supply of fossil fuel. But an ethanol infrastructure is one good building block toward ensuring our energy future. The plants I have been involved with could be converted to make some other form of alcohol (methanol, butanol etc) from some other form of feedstock (cellulose or starch). When the current plants hit the drawings boards, corn was in abundance, corn prices were below the cost of production and the government was paying farmers NOT to grow corn. If now, the market, or some government leader, decides we should not use corn to make fuel, we at least have capital assets in place that can be used to make some form of bio-fuel. And if petroleum products are the only fuels that are good enough, then be prepared to pay dearly in both $$ and military lives for a relatively short term supply of it.
Other specifics: 1. Brazilian ethanol contains water because their cars are designed to tolerate it. In the US and Europe, there is only trace water in fuel ethanol, typically less than 0.3%. (Look up how much water is typically in gasoline.) 2. Ethanol is not less thermally efficient than gasoline. But it contains 20% to 30% less heating value per gallon than gasoline. Interestingly, gasoline contains 20% to 30% less heating value than diesel, and that does not seem to bother anyone. It would probably all make more sense if fuel was priced according to energy content, not just volume. 3. Each gallon of ethanol does not consume more than one gallon of fossil fuel to make it. This enduring misconception is based on a study that assumed efficiencies of early 20th century farming and whiskey making technologies. Recent USDA studies show that modern farming, fermentation and distillation technologies require much less energy input than ethanol puts out. I am fascinated that no one seems concerned about how many gallons of petroleum it takes to make a gallon of fossil fuel. 4. Ethanol plants use about 8 to 10 gallons of water to make a gallon of ethanol (not 1700). Many of our modern plants are increasingly better than that. Most of the water goes to evaporative cooling. If you are talking about the water it takes to grow corn, I'm out of that discussion. For the majority of corn, grown without irrigation, you'll have to stop the rain from falling to eliminate that water from the cycle. 5. Brazil can make ethanol very efficiently from sugar cane. Why would someone rather turn our energy future over to this different foreign country? I could go on. But that is enough soap box time, Ned Kleinhenz '95 E300D _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/ For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
