"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
George Z. Bush wrote:

"D. Strang" wrote in message

Ethanol is a welfare program. It has nothing to do with future
energy.

You don't know what you're talking about. When you pour a gallon of
it into
your gas tank, that's one less gallon of gasoline that you're going to
need,
because it's supposed to burn just about as good as gasoline does.
That has
to
do with reducing gasoline consumption, the way I see it.
Unfortunately, for
some reason, it never caught on with consumers.

I like ethanol. My car does that is. Seems to run a little smoother
when I'm cruising across Iowa where "gasohol" can be found in
abundance.

But from an energy conservation point of view, it really isn't very
good sense. How much energy does it take to create ethanol from
corn? How much energy do you get back from burning it with gas?

It's a net energy loss IIRC.

Maybe it's because I don't fully understand how it works, but if, as you
say, it
runs as smoothly in your car as does gasoline and if the stuff is made of
surplus corn not otherwise needed to nourish human beings, why doesn't its
manufacture in far larger quantities than presently help to extend the
life of
our oil reserves? For every gallon of ethanol-containing gasohol that is
burned
(made of stuff that otherwise would likely rot and be of no value to
anyone),
would that not represent at least a portion of a gallon of gasoline that
won't
be burned in its place, therefore extending the life of our petroleum
reserves?
How can that be an energy loss?

If the amount of fossil based fuel required to create and process the
ethanol is greater than the quantity/energy value of the ethanol that is
yielded. At least one source claims that the use of corn as the biomass for
the process yields a net gain in terms of energy yielded, but without
providing any specifics of how that conclusion was reached. Other sources
indicate ethanol production is still a net energy loser.


Is the fact that there might not be as much profit in a gallon of gasohol
as
there is in a gallon of gasoline what inhibits an expansion of the amount
of
ethanol manufactured?

See above. And:

"...most ethanol is currently made from corn and the process involved has
matured to the point that further significant declines in production costs
seem unlikely. Ethanol's economic viability as a gasoline blending component
also depends in part on Federal and States subsidies, and the Federal
subsidy (54 cents per gallon) is slated for slow reduction over the next few
years and expiration at the end of 2007."

www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/plugs/plbioeth.html


If so, should our national energy policy be based on the profitability of
the
fuel used by our nation's consumers, or should that factor have any
influence at
all?

Got any idea how much CO2 is generated by the ethanol manufacturing process?
A lot, which is unrecovered. That is a "greenhouse gas"--a good Al Gore man
like yourself ought to be upset over that. Ironically, one of the big
drivers of the use of ethanol as a fuel additive is as an oxygenating agent
to improve air quality in metropolitan areas with poor air quality, ignoring
the CO2 issue.

Brooks