On Thu, 1 Jun 2006 16:01:37 -0500, "Dan Luke"
wrote:


"Newps" wrote:


Think about it logically. Besides, in order to be "energy independent"
with Ethanol alone, we would haqve to plant corn on every arcre of
farmland in this country.... forget growing any actual food.

Bah, we've got millions of acres here in Montana, any wheat producing state
will, that are not farmed right now because it won't support sweet corn.

There is a *lot* of field corn grown in Michigan and the Mid West. In
both Michigan and Wisconsin a lot of that is used to feed dairy
cattle. We also have large farms producing cattle for beef.

But it will grow the field corn that you use to produce ethanol quite
nicely.

And the only reason we're talking about ethanol from corn is the mighty U. S.
corn lobby. Other crops--sugar beets up North, sugar cane down South--can
give much higher ethanol yields/acre.

Well, we are limited to how many acres of sugar beets we can grow and
they bring a premium price compared to corn. As a SWAG I say we
might be able to come up with another 15% in acreage planted to beets
up here in the frozen north. We might get more alcohol and we might
not. I don't know what the net energy yield would be, but it most
likely would be more expensive than corn alcohol.

I don't know what the yield would be from Sorghum. Too bad, we as a
country, have such a fixation against growing commercial hemp. (not
the recreational kind)

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com