"Kyler Laird" wrote in message
...
"Gig 601XL Builder" wr.giacona@coxDOTnet writes:

But you don't have to use petroleum to provide those BTUs; consequently,
it does reduce dependence on foreign oil, and it does pollute less than
petrol.

The problem is if you use a gallon of Ethanol to produce 0.99 gallons of
Ethanol all of the fuel produced will go into production and you are going
to have to add .01 petro just to break even.

Indeed. And if you're extremely short-sighted this is likely to be
an overwhelming argument against ethanol. There are, however, people
who believe that it's worthwhile to invest in technologies which can
replace petroleum as an energy source/transport. There are several
places where ethyl alcohol production can become much more efficient.
(low temperature fermentation, ethyl-specific corn hybrids, non-corn
crops, ...)

One of the big reasons for situating our local ethanol plant where it
is was that it had ready access to a large natural gas line. To me
that means that we're converting natural gas into something I can
readily burn in a more-or-less "normal" ICE airplane. Do you have a
better way of converting almost any heat source into airplane fuel
without _requiring_ petroleum?


When you can get a better than 1:1 TOTAL energy in to TOTAL energy out
because then it is self sustaining, I'll say, "Thank God we don't need
fossil fuel anymore" and that ought to be the goal.

But your local plant still needs to be attached to that natural gas line.
Why, becasue while the ethanol while is almost effecient enough, with
government subsidies, to be used as a storage system for energy it isn't
effecient enough to be used for source of energy.

Basicly, the only effecient source of energy we have now is fossil fuel. We
could have nuclear but past US governements have decided for social not
economic reasons that it isn't
a viable alternative and has regulated it out of use.