Ethanol Mandate for Iowa?

"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.



I'm a big Jay Honeck fan.......but, Jay on this one you are wrong, wrong,
wrong!

Please research what Brazil has done since the 70's to become energy
independent.

I personally have a car, truck, motorhome, a motorcycle
for myself and one for my wife and a Cessna 172. I burn a LOT more fuel in
everything else than I do in the airplane (and I put over 100 hours on it in
the last year).

I am not wealthy by a long shot, but if we can have ethanol powered vehicles
for less than $1.00 per gallon, I'll gladly pay 3.00 or 4.00 per gallon for
av fuel. I have an autogas STC and mostly burn unleaded car gas, but for the
good of the country we need to develop alternate
fuels.

Ethanol would also be a boon to the farmers in middle America.

As Ross Richardson (a fellow Sherman Texonite) mentioned, they have, in
Brazil, adapted most everything to run on ethanol (they call it alcohol).

Most of my information was gleaned from a retired AA Capt. who flew the
South America route until '98. His son is flying it now for American, and
stated that as of about 2 weeks ago ethanol (alcohol) was about (converted)
95 cents per gallon in Sao Paulo.

So......my not so valuable opinion is that we should encourage all our
legislators to pass legislation requiring us to be energy independent within
a few years. Ethanol is a large part of that.

I really think that there is a retrofit solution to every gasoline
engine....including aircraft. But even if there was not wouldn't you rather
pay $1.00 per gal for all your other fuel needs??

Just my opinion.......yours is probably different, as evidenced by most of
the elections of the last 20 years G.

Dan

"Dan Engleman" wrote in message
...

"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. ...snip...


As Ross Richardson (a fellow Sherman Texonite) mentioned, they have, in
Brazil, adapted most everything to run on ethanol (they call it alcohol).



Here is an interesting slide-show of Brazil's numbers, presented at a
conference in 2004. (in pdf format)


http://www.renewables2004.de/ppt/Presentation4-SessionIVB(11-12.30h)-LaRovere.pdf

Bottom line:

At that time, oil over 30 dollars made the ethanol program profitable for
them.
And in spite of the historic "low" oil prices, estimated savings of
1.8Billion USD over the 22 year period of the program.

Think of it now, in terms of today's price of oil. And their infrastructure
is up and running.... We are apt to be replacing foreign oil with foreign
ethanol. is to laugh.

"Icebound" wrote in message ...
snip
Bottom line:

At that time, oil over 30 dollars made the ethanol program profitable for them.
And in spite of the historic "low" oil prices, estimated savings of 1.8Billion USD over the 22 year period of the
program.

Think of it now, in terms of today's price of oil. And their infrastructure is up and running.... We are apt to be
replacing foreign oil with foreign ethanol. is to laugh.

I read a recent article about this (I believe it was in a trade journal). It may be that the key is in using sugar
cane instead of corn. The article stated that Brazil can produce a barrel of ethanol for $25.



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JJS wrote:

I read a recent article about this (I believe it was in a trade journal). It may be that the key is in using sugar
cane instead of corn.

The key may also be lower labor costs, reduced fertilization, and minimal
mechanization on the farms.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

"JJS" jschneider@remove socks cebridge.net writes:

I read a recent article about this (I believe it was in a trade journal). It may be that the key is in using sugar
cane instead of corn.

Yeah, it always catches my attention how corn stacks up so poorly against
other crops when we talk about energy production.

On a good note, I might be able to legally grow something better here
someday!
http://www.votehemp.com/PR/6-27-05_federal_bill.html
Ah...to be free of Monsanto and...hmmm...that's not gonna happen, is it?

--kyler

Sugar ethanol is another political boondoggle. The sugar growers are
planning ahead to when they will be jumping from the sugar price
protection wagon to the ethanol subsidy wagon. One of these days the US
Government will stop protecting US sugar growers and the price of sugar
will drop dramatically.

"JJS" jschneider@remove socks cebridge.net wrote in message

I read a recent article about this (I believe it was in a trade
journal). It may be that the key is in using sugar cane instead of
corn. The article stated that Brazil can produce a barrel of ethanol
for $25.

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"

On 2005-09-28, Jay Honeck wrote:
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.

You can't really replace natural gas plants with nuclear plants. Nuclear
plants provide base load power (they can't easily be throttled) for the
continuous supply you always need.

Natural gas plants can be stopped and started in very short order - the
one that's a few miles from where I work essentially is based on the
guts of a couple of Rolls-Royce Trent jet engines coupled to generators.
They can be brought online and shut down as quickly as a Boeing 777 can
be spooled up and shut down. So when demand suddenly starts ramping up,
you can crank up your gas station, and shut it down as soon as the
demand goes away. You can't do that with a nuclear station.

--
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"

Natural gas fires both steam turbine plants and jet engine turbines.

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
On 2005-09-28, Jay Honeck wrote:
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.

You can't really replace natural gas plants with nuclear plants.
Nuclear
plants provide base load power (they can't easily be throttled) for
the
continuous supply you always need.

Natural gas plants can be stopped and started in very short order -
the
one that's a few miles from where I work essentially is based on the
guts of a couple of Rolls-Royce Trent jet engines coupled to
generators.
They can be brought online and shut down as quickly as a Boeing 777
can
be spooled up and shut down. So when demand suddenly starts ramping
up,
you can crank up your gas station, and shut it down as soon as the
demand goes away. You can't do that with a nuclear station.

--
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 Thu, 29 Sep 2005 13:50:45 +0000, Dylan Smith wrote:

You can't really replace natural gas plants with nuclear plants. Nuclear
plants provide base load power (they can't easily be throttled) for the
continuous supply you always need.

Traditional nuclear plants are "throttled" by controlling the reaction.
As demand goes down, the reaction is slowed, which produces less heat,
creates less steam, and lowers the net energy production. In most nuclear
reactors, this is done via the "control rods". By throttling the nuclear
reaction, they also save fuel and reduce wear-n-tear on the associated
turbines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_control_rod
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power3.htm


Greg