"Jay Masino" wrote in message
...

Despite the fact that mandating ethanol blends would be bad for you, it's
really better for the country in general. Using ethanol, along with
biodiesel, can go along way towards making our country less dependant on
foreign oil.

If and when an ethanol producer can run his entire operation on ethanol and
still have enough left over to sell to someone else, then we'll be
*approaching* proof that ethanol is a net win. (See Mike's post about all
the other infrastructure not supported by ethanol for where the remaining
ambiguity will lie).

Likewise for biodiesel.

I'm all for alternative energy sources, especially when they are easily
renewed. But they need to NET energy. If they can't be fully
self-supporting, using only their own energy for production (*), then they
obviously are net energy consumers, and simply shifting the distribution
network (and adding a middleman...maybe good for the economy, but not so
good for energy conservation).

IMHO, biodiesel shows a lot of promise, but I've yet to hear of a biodiesel
production facility that generates 100% of their own energy with biodiesel.

Pete

(*) it would certainly be great if the initial investment could be
self-supporting too, but as long as the production itself is a net positive
(after all factors are considered, including on-going maintenance of
production equipment), in the long run we still come out ahead.