Ethanol Mandate for Iowa?

On 2005-09-28, Icebound wrote:
Since my post, I looked up those references to Brazil.

THEY think it is cost effective.

And have for years. I remember learning about Brazil's 'Proalcool' (I
think it was called) ethanol program in school geography lessons.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On 2005-09-27, Peter Duniho wrote:
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.

I've heard somewhere that the thermal depolymerization plant in
Carthage, MO. runs off its own output and generates 500bbl of light oil
per day off 200 tons of turkey offal from the nearby Butterball turkey
packaging factory.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Howdy!

In article ,
N93332 wrote:
"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:b3c_e.369489$x96.190155@attbi_s72...
Today Rep. Jim Nussle -- potentially the future governor of Iowa -- was
reported as proposing that all gasoline sold in Iowa be required to
contain 20% ethanol additive. Presumably, this legislation, if passed,
would make the sale of regular unleaded gasoline illegal in Iowa.

See the story he
http://press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.d...509270309/1079

I agree with you Jay.

His website states:
"Due to the large volume of messages I receive daily from every state and
across the world, I am only able to accept email from Iowans at the current
time. If you live outside of Iowa or if you need to contact me using another
communication method."

Being only 10 miles from Iowa, he doesn't want to hear from me via E-mail.
I'll send off a snail-mail. I forwarded your message to my Iowa friends.

That seems to be standard. They ask for a zip code and then decide if you are
worth listening to, even if the blather they were spewing affects people
(or inflicts on people) far from their legislative district.

Put in your real address but pick a ZIP code in his district. That trick
worked for me, and when the congresscritter tried to mail me a letter (that
showed that he didn't actually read what I had written), it got delivered
to me despite having a gross mismatch between the city and the ZIP.

yours,
Michael


--
Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
| White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
| http://www.radix.net/~herveus/wwap/

"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

"Sylvain" wrote in message
...
Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

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.

then could it still have a practical use as a means of storing
energy instead? I mean, producing ethanol using the output of
say nuclear plants (ok, replace that with wind mills or whatever
takes your fancy if 'nuclear' is against your religion); it was
my (probably mistaken) understanding that the output of a nuclear
plant could not easily be throttled up or down...

any recommendation about some good reading on the subject of
alternative fuel technologies?

--Sylvain

That is still not an efficient way to store energy. But how about this? We
get rid of the of some of the unneeded regulations around Nuclear plants and
move to a point where all electrical production is created with nuclear
power and only use petro based fuel where they are the most effecient form
of energy storage. i.e. cars, trucks, and airplanes.

Nuclear is feared because the first thing it was used for was blowing up two
cities in Japan. If the first use of electricity had been for the electric
chair we'd have people out there chanting "No more watts."

"Montblack" wrote in message
...
("Sylvain" wrote)
then could it still have a practical use as a means of storing
energy instead? I mean, producing ethanol using the output of
say nuclear plants (ok, replace that with wind mills or whatever
takes your fancy if 'nuclear' is against your religion); it was
my (probably mistaken) understanding that the output of a nuclear
plant could not easily be throttled up or down...


100% my idea also.

About NP being throttled up or down:
First: STOP trying to replace the Hoover Dam with each Nuclear Power plant
built! (Had to say that)

Each ethanol plant would have two small (tiny tiny tiny) McNuke Plants.
Tiny! If one is down, the other one chugs along.


I agree completely, almost. Use the McNukes for electrical generation on a
city by city basis. We have the ability to build very small, very efficient
reactors. We do it all the time and if you live near a Naval base there is
one or more floating out there in the harbor.

Stop using fossil fuels for electric power and all that oil in the ground IN
THE US will last many many lifetimes.

You absolutely MUST make the economic argument and NOT the "it'll be
too expensive for me to play with my toys" complaint.

Thanks, Blanche -- good point.

Flying farmers are a fairly big deal in this state -- and Rep. Nussle is
well aware of the financial impact of the airport.

Well, he's been told anyway. As a politician, he may conveniently "forget"
these things, from time to time.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Nuke plants have a finite life of about 25 years

Odd. How do we explain all the 1950s and '60s nuke plants that are still
merrily producing gigawatts of energy today?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I really think that there is a retrofit solution to every gasoline
engine....including aircraft.

I think this is the direction we need to push. Does anyone known where EAA
and AOPA are on this critical issue?

But even if there was not wouldn't you rather pay $1.00 per gal for all
your other fuel needs??

No. I don't believe ethanol is the answer, for reasons that have been
well-outlined in this thread.

I would strongly support a program to make our country more energy
independent by replacing all the dumb new natural-gas-fired power plants
with nuclear plants.

THEN maybe ethanol production would make sense -- but not until then.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" writes:

What the heck is in an aircraft engine/fuel system that can't be made
"ethanol safe" for more than a few bucks worth of rubber seals?

A pilot. Aviation is full of old farts who will latch on to some
anecdote about something being unsafe. They'll stop right there
instead of investigating to get good information. Even the thoughtful
pilots will often get shot down in their quest for good information.
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...14f6e1df76730c

My guess is that you'll have to wait for a new generation of pilots to
fully embrace ethanol.

--kyler