I don't see how ethanol production from corn is energetically favorable. A mass and energy balance invariably is deficient. It is only by government subsidies that the concept remains alive. I am not swayed by creative balance sheets that include credits for cattle feed, etc. We all had been hoping for development of a bacteria that could produce EtOH in better yield than yeast. So far, I don't know that this has happened. In any event, hydrolysis of the cellulose to sugar would be a necessary first step.
What might be feasible is a concept I developed years ago (and got a little backing). I wanted to use geothermal energy in the Imperial Valley (California) to distill EtOH produced by fermentation of sugar beets. Sugar beets grow well in the valley and no "superbugs" would be needed to increase the yield of alcohol. The geothermal energy wouldn't be free, since an infrastructure would be needed to obtain it, but it would be far less costly than using a fossil fuel. -- Jay L. Stern [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
