[Rhodes22-list] Corn - More Politics - real reply

[Steven Alm]

First, ummm, why not make it 100% ethanol so you could drink it too?  Even
if the price went over five dollars per gallon it'd still be a better deal
than the twenty dollars per liter that I pay for scotch!

Next is the food issue.   What we eat is sweet corn and not the feed corn
that's used to make ethanol.   Except feed corn is used to make corn
fructose which is the ingredient in most foods that only serves to make us
fat.  Soy beans and soy oil have surpassed corn as the primary grain in the
world food market and BTW Brazil has recently passed the USA as the world
leader in soy bean production.  The article Brad posted says if we produce
enough corn to make a dent in our gas use, it would mean producing too much
"co-product"  meaning  feed for bovine and swine, that it would cost
additional energy to dispose of it.   That just doesn't make sense to me.
If we have extra corn then you can make extra ethanol with  it.   I see no
reason why you'd have to dump extra corn.

Next is the math.  Good grief he shoots a lot of math at us.  Let's look at
one part:
The article states that we'd need 123 billion liters of ethanol to replace
15% of our gas use.
OK, they say that total gas use is 98.6 b liters per year and you need
20-30% more ethanol in gas mileage.  15% of 98.6 is 15 (rounding up).  Add a
third for the loss in mileage (again rounding WAY up) and you get 20 billion
liters.  That a 103 billion liter discrepancy.

I question the rest of his math but there's no way to check it without a ton
of research.

Slim

On 10/24/07, R22RumRunner at aol.com <R22RumRunner at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Brad,
> To the best of my knowledge, I am the only Rhodie that burns E-85 in his
> vehicle. In fact, I will go out of my way to find a station that sells it.
> The corn bi-products of making ethanol are completely recyclable as
> livestock feed. Burning ethanol does not put as much pollution into the
> air as
> gasoline when burned. Yes, there is still 15% gasoline in it, but that's
> only to
> prevent some redneck alcoholic from drinking something that is 100
> pure  ethanol.
> I would rather pay the farmers and the ethanol manufacturers a fair market
> price than to line the pockets of some Arab Sheik. Add the cost of wars
> and
> cleaning up oil pollution and I still say that ethanol is a bargain. We
> have a
> lot more land available that could be growing corn or any other plant that
> could  be used to make ethanol. Brazil is a good example. Even though they
> have
> oil  reserves and refineries, they burn almost exclusively, ethanol, made
> from
> sugar  cane.
>
> Rummy
>
>
>
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