Ethanol Mandate for Iowa?

"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?

--kyler