- Thread starter Greg K
- Start date
Why isn't it being made in Hawaii, where the sugar industry has abandoned lots of fields of sugar cane? Oil & gasoline has to be shipped into the state, why can't we set up the proper manufacturing facilities, get the technology from Brazil and return the empty tankers back to the mainland full of sugar cane alcohol? (My $0.02 worth. (jal-SD)
Well, the ethanol industry was founded by Midwestern farmers in corn growing states...
Sweet corn is harder to grow and produces less yield. Plus, The sugar content would be much reduced if you left it in the field to dry like field corn.
Now, While we're on the subject, and I'm no expert, I've been wondering why we aren't using grain sorghum. My understanding is that production costs are lower than corn, it grows under drought conditions better, and has similar yield.
By the way, I've got an 06 Chevy Silverado that has 65,000 miles on it, almost every mile has been burning e-85. No problems, and you should see how clean the exhaust pipe is! And the sweet smell of that e-85 burning on a winter's morning- nice!
Just my $.02- Andy
Sweet corn is harder to grow and produces less yield. Plus, The sugar content would be much reduced if you left it in the field to dry like field corn.
Now, While we're on the subject, and I'm no expert, I've been wondering why we aren't using grain sorghum. My understanding is that production costs are lower than corn, it grows under drought conditions better, and has similar yield.
By the way, I've got an 06 Chevy Silverado that has 65,000 miles on it, almost every mile has been burning e-85. No problems, and you should see how clean the exhaust pipe is! And the sweet smell of that e-85 burning on a winter's morning- nice!
Just my $.02- Andy
omahagreg
Well-known Member
I just got an 05 half ton Silverado which is set up for E85. They say to expect a 28% decrease in miles per gallon. I drive heavy, in town, all the time, so my mileage is poor. At my mpg currently, minus 28%, E85 has to be $1.25 cheaper then E10, and it is not, so have not tried it!
Sam Drucker
New User
Cannot comment on the exhaust smell from e85 but if you're riding your motorcycle behind a vehicle burning gasoline with 10% alcohol (all we have around here)and they mash on the go pedal really hard the fumes are enough to gag a maggot.
gene bender
Well-known Member
The by products from the corn after removing the ethanol is unreal they even export the DDGs getting almost 3gal per bushel.
$2 corn for all the farmers sounds like a good deal. Then throw in the government payments because the price is so low. For you guys with the E85 ready trucks, if you don't like your mileage burning it, try some E30 or 15 in it if you can get it. My Dodge gets better mileage with it than running E10.
My 06 runs 14-15 MPG in the summer and 12-14 MPG winter. Z-71 Package truck (4wd, trailer tow package, etc.) And 3.43 gears. It got 18 mpg on one of the very few tanks of gas it has ever burned- I think I figured it out to be $.40 cheaper to break even for me- But I burn it just because I want to. Dad works at the local Ethanol plant. It does burn so much cleaner! -Andy
Ethanol in the US has always been more about capturing some income from a cycling corn market than it has been about defying the laws of thermodynamics.
The energy cycle on it doesn't work. Period. There is however... a good deal of money to be made in the deal. It's generally brought a good deal of prosperity back to farming in corn growing areas so ethanol is not entirely a bad thing...
As far as sweet corn goes... it simply doesn't have the starch yield that field corn has. That's why it's not used.
Rod
The energy cycle on it doesn't work. Period. There is however... a good deal of money to be made in the deal. It's generally brought a good deal of prosperity back to farming in corn growing areas so ethanol is not entirely a bad thing...
As far as sweet corn goes... it simply doesn't have the starch yield that field corn has. That's why it's not used.
Rod
We grow a lot of corn around here.
There are also 3 sweet corn processors in the greater area, so a lot of sweet corn (and peas) are grown around here.
And one of the first ethanol plants was built here - I can see the steam from my farm on a calm day.
So......
Sweet corn is a very finicky crop, much much more insect pressure, it flops over in any little wind, and it yields much less bushels that field corn does.
All together, it costs much more to grow per acre, and it yields much less bushels per acre.
While you get more sugar per bu, you get far less sugar per acre. So in the end it would be less efficient, not more. Field corn yields more sugar (as starch) per acre more efficiently with less fertilizer and far less pesticide use than sweet corn would.
But ignoring all that, there is a bigger problem. Sweet corn does -not- store well. It is wet and gooey. It would be awful to have to dry that down enough to store. Cost a lot more to do than it takes for field corn.
As to the rest of the comments you got, well, there are folks in the big oil states that are trying very very very hard to get rid of ethanol so they can monopolize fuel profits again, and you are hearing the parrot talk of the big oil companies. Ethanol helps use lower octane gasoline, is cheaper than gasoline, and returns a Net positive energy return of 30% or so, not great, but it all helps. It mostly was developed to make cleaner air, gasoline burns pretty dirty without an oxygen additive in it, alternatives like mtbe create worse Eco problems than they solve. But you didnt ask about that stuff, so I won't bore you with it all, they are just preaching from the Big Oil handbook.
Paul
There are also 3 sweet corn processors in the greater area, so a lot of sweet corn (and peas) are grown around here.
And one of the first ethanol plants was built here - I can see the steam from my farm on a calm day.
So......
Sweet corn is a very finicky crop, much much more insect pressure, it flops over in any little wind, and it yields much less bushels that field corn does.
All together, it costs much more to grow per acre, and it yields much less bushels per acre.
While you get more sugar per bu, you get far less sugar per acre. So in the end it would be less efficient, not more. Field corn yields more sugar (as starch) per acre more efficiently with less fertilizer and far less pesticide use than sweet corn would.
But ignoring all that, there is a bigger problem. Sweet corn does -not- store well. It is wet and gooey. It would be awful to have to dry that down enough to store. Cost a lot more to do than it takes for field corn.
As to the rest of the comments you got, well, there are folks in the big oil states that are trying very very very hard to get rid of ethanol so they can monopolize fuel profits again, and you are hearing the parrot talk of the big oil companies. Ethanol helps use lower octane gasoline, is cheaper than gasoline, and returns a Net positive energy return of 30% or so, not great, but it all helps. It mostly was developed to make cleaner air, gasoline burns pretty dirty without an oxygen additive in it, alternatives like mtbe create worse Eco problems than they solve. But you didnt ask about that stuff, so I won't bore you with it all, they are just preaching from the Big Oil handbook.
Paul
Actually, last year the USA exported a fair amount of corn ethanol to Brazil.
They ran out, and sugar was more valuable than corn, so brazil did not want to use their own sugarcane.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=5270
Here is a link showing ethanol exports from USA to brazil, started in 2010, dropped off again but continued well into 2013.
Corn ethanol has no tax subsidies for a couple years now, so exports have to stand on their own. So, clearly corn ethanol is a pretty ecconomical fuel when Brazil imports it..... Despite what Big Oil tries to say.
Paul
They ran out, and sugar was more valuable than corn, so brazil did not want to use their own sugarcane.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=5270
Here is a link showing ethanol exports from USA to brazil, started in 2010, dropped off again but continued well into 2013.
Corn ethanol has no tax subsidies for a couple years now, so exports have to stand on their own. So, clearly corn ethanol is a pretty ecconomical fuel when Brazil imports it..... Despite what Big Oil tries to say.
Paul
"... they are just preaching from the Big Oil handbook." As opposed to preaching from the Big Corn handbook. Every time this topic comes up both side keep repeating the same old line nothing new just the same old. Why don't you guys, both sides, just burn what you want and let it go at that.
Yes.
I think perhaps a disaster safety net is a good idea, but something that just kicks in every 10 years when things are dire, not just automatic. And I guess such stuff keeps blowing up into what we get now.....
Agriculture has already been pared back quite a bit in the last 5 years, it would be nice if other segments also were cut too, like Big Oil, and all the rest.
It would be nice of we all could have a dream, rather than just living on the govt printed money.......
Paul
I think perhaps a disaster safety net is a good idea, but something that just kicks in every 10 years when things are dire, not just automatic. And I guess such stuff keeps blowing up into what we get now.....
Agriculture has already been pared back quite a bit in the last 5 years, it would be nice if other segments also were cut too, like Big Oil, and all the rest.
It would be nice of we all could have a dream, rather than just living on the govt printed money.......
Paul
MarkB_MI
Well-known Member
- Location
- Motown USA
The short answer is that when corn ripens, the sugar converts to starch. The starch is converted back to sugar, then alcohol, during the fermentation process. So the more starch you have the more alcohol.
But there has never been any requirement that anything make sense in the fuel ethanol business, certainly not from an economic standpoint. If you want to use sweet corn, go for it.
But there has never been any requirement that anything make sense in the fuel ethanol business, certainly not from an economic standpoint. If you want to use sweet corn, go for it.
Actually... some of us believe that there is a significant negative energy balance in the ethanol equation... and thus a negative energy balance creates a larger demand for petroleum to produce the ethanol... so it's hard to suggest that it would be good for big oil to get rid of ethanol.
I do agree that ethanol probably has a place at lower percentages in a mixture as an octane booster... but not as a stand alone fuel.
Rod
I do agree that ethanol probably has a place at lower percentages in a mixture as an octane booster... but not as a stand alone fuel.
Rod
Creating bulk ethanol takes a very large volume of corn, turns the starch into ethanol, turns the oil into a food grade oil, co2 gas, and high-protein livestock feed.
All these items have value, and are part of the economics of ethanol.
You need several thousand bu of corn every day. We are all familiar with corn handling, corn storage, here in the Midwest. We typically produce more corn than needed, and sell it at a loss to other countries as exports. Shipping the corn from the Midwest over to Europe or china is expensive, and results in low prices for USA corn farmers - typically.
So we started using that excess corn for fuel, and more so to improve the ecological footprint of gasoline.
Now the last couple years the economy got all messed up, and China and Europe have oodles of money, while the USA dollar has fallen in a pit, worthless on the world market. So the last couple years, corn appears very high priced to those of us in the USA, while it appears cheap to other countries.
This is not because of ethanol, and only a little bit because of the 2012 drought. Mostly is is because we have devalued our dollar in an effort to preserve our banking and insurance and investment industries.
To buy cornflakes, you are not competing with fuel for your car - you are competing with China and Europe. They have dollars to spend, we have deflated dollars here.....
As to using a different crop to make ethanol, what should we use? Corn grows well in much of the USA, we have huge infrastructure to haul, store, and process it, it grows a great deal of starch as well as the other products we can get from it. Sorghum has higher sugar, but it needs a drier climate to grow, and doesn't store as well. Elevators would need a new set of bins to store it, and it would be less valuable for other uses. Taking land out of corn production and putting it into lower-valued sorghum would be silly.
Sugar cane, only a very few acres in Florida and Hawaii are suited for that crop in the USA, and storage of cane would be very difficult. It works well in brazil, where that crop grows better than corn. Here in the USA, it would be a disaster to try more than a few small plants in the few areas cane grows.
Sugar beets likewise are very difficult to store, and only grow in certain soils. They are very expensive to grow, take a lot out of the soil.
I'm all for ethanol plants in areas these crops work to use these crops, but they end up being snmall, regional setups, we just can not manage these crops in our country to produce ethanol year around.
You guys do realize there are ethanol plants in the USA that do use sorghum? In the climates that works, I'm all for it! As most farmers are.
http://www.sseassociation.org/
Again in Brazil, totally different climate, they struggle to make corn grow in the rainforest, takes a lot of sprays, while sugar cane loves the climate there, grows exceptionally well.
We use mostly what is easiest to store and grow here in the USA - corn.
You have good questions.
I hope my answers help a little bit understand where we are at.
In the future, hopefully the cellulosic ethanol works out - several plants are being built, but unlocking the sugar from the stems of plants has proved to be more difficult than expected, and they are not nearly as efficient as they need to be....
Creating diesel from oilseed crops is actually more efficient than corn, however oilseed crops are so valuable that is it not as economically easy to make biodiesel as it is to make ethanol. A rendering plant near me (dead cows and pigs) is making biodiesel from the dead critters - a lot of difficulty getting going, but a wonderful use of a waste product.
In the past 20 years corn ethanol plants have evolved a great deal,going form using 6 gallons of water to only 2 to make a gallon of ethanol, as well as making nearly 3 gallons of ethanol per bu, compared to 2.3 in the beginning. They added in the oil seperator to sell off that higher value food product, and so on. They ave always made about 17 lbs of high-protien livestock feed for every bu of corn used so it is bot like we lose out the feed, either. onlt the starch is used for ethanol. This is why the ethanol subsidy could end a couple years ago, the corn ethanol industry has matured and can stand on its own.
We are in an odd ecconomic period where the USA dollar is struggling, as well as the drought of last year. And even still, with all that, corn ethanol is cheaper than the gasoline it replaces.
Many cars would run the best on a 25-30% blend, the ethanol at that level burns with more power, more efficiently, so even tho ethanol has less btu per gallon, the better efficiency gives a person much better ecconomy. If only it were cheaper to put in 'blender pumps' that allows you to choose the level of ethanol you want. Many folk with open minds would find their best deal would be a 30% blend in cars built since 2000. Mpg would be a bit lower, but the cost per gallon would make it a best deal.
In the future, we will find other processes, other ways of improving ethanol, and new crops to use.
All that will be a slow process, for now in the USA corn is the easiest to grow in enough volume, easiest to handle and store, easiest to process into ethanol and other valuable food and feed components, all at a positive energy and ecconomic return.
Paul
All these items have value, and are part of the economics of ethanol.
You need several thousand bu of corn every day. We are all familiar with corn handling, corn storage, here in the Midwest. We typically produce more corn than needed, and sell it at a loss to other countries as exports. Shipping the corn from the Midwest over to Europe or china is expensive, and results in low prices for USA corn farmers - typically.
So we started using that excess corn for fuel, and more so to improve the ecological footprint of gasoline.
Now the last couple years the economy got all messed up, and China and Europe have oodles of money, while the USA dollar has fallen in a pit, worthless on the world market. So the last couple years, corn appears very high priced to those of us in the USA, while it appears cheap to other countries.
This is not because of ethanol, and only a little bit because of the 2012 drought. Mostly is is because we have devalued our dollar in an effort to preserve our banking and insurance and investment industries.
To buy cornflakes, you are not competing with fuel for your car - you are competing with China and Europe. They have dollars to spend, we have deflated dollars here.....
As to using a different crop to make ethanol, what should we use? Corn grows well in much of the USA, we have huge infrastructure to haul, store, and process it, it grows a great deal of starch as well as the other products we can get from it. Sorghum has higher sugar, but it needs a drier climate to grow, and doesn't store as well. Elevators would need a new set of bins to store it, and it would be less valuable for other uses. Taking land out of corn production and putting it into lower-valued sorghum would be silly.
Sugar cane, only a very few acres in Florida and Hawaii are suited for that crop in the USA, and storage of cane would be very difficult. It works well in brazil, where that crop grows better than corn. Here in the USA, it would be a disaster to try more than a few small plants in the few areas cane grows.
Sugar beets likewise are very difficult to store, and only grow in certain soils. They are very expensive to grow, take a lot out of the soil.
I'm all for ethanol plants in areas these crops work to use these crops, but they end up being snmall, regional setups, we just can not manage these crops in our country to produce ethanol year around.
You guys do realize there are ethanol plants in the USA that do use sorghum? In the climates that works, I'm all for it! As most farmers are.
http://www.sseassociation.org/
Again in Brazil, totally different climate, they struggle to make corn grow in the rainforest, takes a lot of sprays, while sugar cane loves the climate there, grows exceptionally well.
We use mostly what is easiest to store and grow here in the USA - corn.
You have good questions.
I hope my answers help a little bit understand where we are at.
In the future, hopefully the cellulosic ethanol works out - several plants are being built, but unlocking the sugar from the stems of plants has proved to be more difficult than expected, and they are not nearly as efficient as they need to be....
Creating diesel from oilseed crops is actually more efficient than corn, however oilseed crops are so valuable that is it not as economically easy to make biodiesel as it is to make ethanol. A rendering plant near me (dead cows and pigs) is making biodiesel from the dead critters - a lot of difficulty getting going, but a wonderful use of a waste product.
In the past 20 years corn ethanol plants have evolved a great deal,going form using 6 gallons of water to only 2 to make a gallon of ethanol, as well as making nearly 3 gallons of ethanol per bu, compared to 2.3 in the beginning. They added in the oil seperator to sell off that higher value food product, and so on. They ave always made about 17 lbs of high-protien livestock feed for every bu of corn used so it is bot like we lose out the feed, either. onlt the starch is used for ethanol. This is why the ethanol subsidy could end a couple years ago, the corn ethanol industry has matured and can stand on its own.
We are in an odd ecconomic period where the USA dollar is struggling, as well as the drought of last year. And even still, with all that, corn ethanol is cheaper than the gasoline it replaces.
Many cars would run the best on a 25-30% blend, the ethanol at that level burns with more power, more efficiently, so even tho ethanol has less btu per gallon, the better efficiency gives a person much better ecconomy. If only it were cheaper to put in 'blender pumps' that allows you to choose the level of ethanol you want. Many folk with open minds would find their best deal would be a 30% blend in cars built since 2000. Mpg would be a bit lower, but the cost per gallon would make it a best deal.
In the future, we will find other processes, other ways of improving ethanol, and new crops to use.
All that will be a slow process, for now in the USA corn is the easiest to grow in enough volume, easiest to handle and store, easiest to process into ethanol and other valuable food and feed components, all at a positive energy and ecconomic return.
Paul
Many studies have been done, with modern ethanol plants using 2.7 to 3 gallons produced per bu of corn, with the 17 lbs of high protein feed created, with the small amount of corn oil produced, accounting for everything from seed, fertilizer, harvest, processing, we return about 30% more energy than is consumed.
While that is not an earth shattering wow number, it is a positive net gain.
If we use 10% ethanol for our fuel, we are creating about 3% more energy than without ethanol.
My understanding is that lower value, 85 octane gasoline is being blended with ethanol, this lower octane gas is cheaper to make, you get a little more per barrel of crude, so ethanol 'gains' you a little bit more that way as well?
There was one old study heavily promoted by Big Oil, where they used a 2.3 conversion rate, and subtracted the energy the sunshine gave to the corn, and they assumed the left over protein was land filled and had no value as livestock feed. Well, yes, -that- study concluded there was a net loss in energy.
Hmmm.
I think if you look into the issue, you will find there actually is a small, but useful net energy gain by using ethanol.
I would welcome looking into it deeper, but this becomes one of those hot potato issues and I don't want to run down that path too far. Could be worth looking into, if you wish to tho.
Open minds.
Sometime in the future, we will find other fuels to move us around, whether some battery breakthrough, or some way of changing lp/natural gas into a stable cheap fuel, or we develop transporter technology, I do not think ethanol is the answer to out transportation.
I do believe it is a useful, small portion of getting us from here to there, and does provide us consumers energy, economic, and air quality benefits. Perhaps all on the small scale, but still and all we get 3 benefits from ethanol today.
Paul
While that is not an earth shattering wow number, it is a positive net gain.
If we use 10% ethanol for our fuel, we are creating about 3% more energy than without ethanol.
My understanding is that lower value, 85 octane gasoline is being blended with ethanol, this lower octane gas is cheaper to make, you get a little more per barrel of crude, so ethanol 'gains' you a little bit more that way as well?
There was one old study heavily promoted by Big Oil, where they used a 2.3 conversion rate, and subtracted the energy the sunshine gave to the corn, and they assumed the left over protein was land filled and had no value as livestock feed. Well, yes, -that- study concluded there was a net loss in energy.
Hmmm.
I think if you look into the issue, you will find there actually is a small, but useful net energy gain by using ethanol.
I would welcome looking into it deeper, but this becomes one of those hot potato issues and I don't want to run down that path too far. Could be worth looking into, if you wish to tho.
Open minds.
Sometime in the future, we will find other fuels to move us around, whether some battery breakthrough, or some way of changing lp/natural gas into a stable cheap fuel, or we develop transporter technology, I do not think ethanol is the answer to out transportation.
I do believe it is a useful, small portion of getting us from here to there, and does provide us consumers energy, economic, and air quality benefits. Perhaps all on the small scale, but still and all we get 3 benefits from ethanol today.
Paul
John M
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nunyafn business
Ive been "playing" with E85 since getting my 13 in Feb. I dont really notice much difference, doesnt get good mileage either way, MAYBE 17 on the highway if I can keep it from down shifting every 2 minutes on the slightest hill. Thats really the only thing I dont like about this truck. Shouldve kept my diesel, I could squeeze 22 out of it running 75, and it hardly ever downshifted unless I had a load on it.
No, I don't have an EGT gauge on that truck. And I've never had the emissions checked, Michigan doesn't require that. My statement is based off of my observation. The exhaust pipe is totally clean on that truck. No soot buildup or even a discoloration of any kind. I haven't seen another vehicle with such a clean exhaust pipe. The engine oil is cleaner, too. Again, only a visible analysis, but the oil is still a nice golden brown color after 3-5 thousand miles. No other engine I've ever been around has left the oil so clean looking after that mileage. -Andy
I can agree with some of that, we don't want to be China and have no regulations, but things have gotten too carried away, would be nice of we could find a less intrusive and down-beating medium on all that.
An ethanol plant in Lamberton, MN needs to haul 4000 gallons of water a day 70 miles to run through a storm water treatment plant. No town closer wanted to deal with it, and the plant can't run unless they find someplace the State approves of to treat the water. Other plants can treat that same type of water on site. Now I don't want bad water just run on the ground or otherwise - but seems there could be a more reasonable solution that trucking fairly clean water 70 miles to make it a tad more clean.....
So ethanol operations deal with the same regulatory stuff.
Paul
An ethanol plant in Lamberton, MN needs to haul 4000 gallons of water a day 70 miles to run through a storm water treatment plant. No town closer wanted to deal with it, and the plant can't run unless they find someplace the State approves of to treat the water. Other plants can treat that same type of water on site. Now I don't want bad water just run on the ground or otherwise - but seems there could be a more reasonable solution that trucking fairly clean water 70 miles to make it a tad more clean.....
So ethanol operations deal with the same regulatory stuff.
Paul
2badlybent
Member
Dean, I bet you will be the first person to call for the govt. to do something when the Arabs shut off our oil again and you are waiting in a gas station line for hours for your ration for the month.
Ethanol is the biggest waste of energy, water and our money with all the subsidies for it. Now with their mandate requiring more of the junk in our gas, killing cars and voiding warranties, from car companies owned by the very government that has mandated the cause in the first place... That's our ignorant government for ya. I wonder if our gas mileage will drop with more sub standard fuel...
I honestly, genuinely believe corn ethanol in the USA returns 4 benefits to us.
1. A tad net energy increase.
2. A tad cheaper fuel.
3. A tad less pollution.
4. A tad better ecconomy, keeping fuel dollars within the USA instead of going to Middleeast, Canada, or Mexico.
Now, its not like earth shattering huge improvements, but even baby steps in any of those is a good thing.
I believe some day we will need to move on to the next type of fuel, as we moved from whale oil, to coal oil, to distillate, to gasoline and diesel. I believe ethanol is a transition fuel, certainly not the whole answer, but a step. It is good to take a step now and then.
You really haven't offered anything but negative comments on this topic over time. What is your solution to all this? If you are so negative on ethanol, do you believe the oil companies are indeed looking out for your best interest? Do you believe they have solutions for us?
What is your answer, if you don't like the one that appears to be progressive and answering so e of the questions in some small ways?
Thank you.
Paul
1. A tad net energy increase.
2. A tad cheaper fuel.
3. A tad less pollution.
4. A tad better ecconomy, keeping fuel dollars within the USA instead of going to Middleeast, Canada, or Mexico.
Now, its not like earth shattering huge improvements, but even baby steps in any of those is a good thing.
I believe some day we will need to move on to the next type of fuel, as we moved from whale oil, to coal oil, to distillate, to gasoline and diesel. I believe ethanol is a transition fuel, certainly not the whole answer, but a step. It is good to take a step now and then.
You really haven't offered anything but negative comments on this topic over time. What is your solution to all this? If you are so negative on ethanol, do you believe the oil companies are indeed looking out for your best interest? Do you believe they have solutions for us?
What is your answer, if you don't like the one that appears to be progressive and answering so e of the questions in some small ways?
Thank you.
Paul
fixerupper
Well-known Member
Yep, you stirred the coals again. It's almost like comparing religions. Too bad we can't grow sugar cane in more parts of the world than just the tropics because it's by far the most efficient alcohol producer. Jim
The problem I see with ethanol is that the need for fuel will far outstrip the demand for DDG's and when it does, the equation becomes very negative, very quickly.
I look at it in a very simplistic manner overall... in that you can't take a production system that's based on petroleum and expect more out of the system than you put into it... I know you capture energy from the sun... but the losses in the energy equation are also large.
I'm not entirely against ethanol because of the economic benefits that have come with it. Ag has generally been a lot more profitable the last few years for those who were positioned to capitalise on that... I just have an issue with ethanol being touted as some new great energy savior..
Rod
I look at it in a very simplistic manner overall... in that you can't take a production system that's based on petroleum and expect more out of the system than you put into it... I know you capture energy from the sun... but the losses in the energy equation are also large.
I'm not entirely against ethanol because of the economic benefits that have come with it. Ag has generally been a lot more profitable the last few years for those who were positioned to capitalise on that... I just have an issue with ethanol being touted as some new great energy savior..
Rod
I was thinking the same thing, when wife and I went to Kauai a few years ago- sugar fields largely abandoned, many acres available. Went back last winter, and most of the space now being used by- wait for it- corn breeding! Pioneer and Synerga (sp) both have big operations there- they can breed 3 crops per year, so research goes 3 times as fast.
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