The energy efficiency numbers don't make a lot of sense. They make no sense if you apply them to energy provision on an integrated farm, or a cooperative of integrated farms, or to a community associated with such a cooperative or cooperatives.
To begin with the fossil-fuel inputs in raising the crop(s) can virtually vanish, and the "crop" might actually be just a by-product, or indeed crop wastes. No two farms would do it quite the same way, and no farm quite the same way two years running. And the closer you look, and the smaller the localities you choose, the greater become the feedstock options and the efficiencies available. People like David Morris and the ILSR, the Carbohydrate Economy Clearinghouse and Sustainable Minnesota do good work with these issues, but people don't want to listen. Carbohydrate Economy Clearinghouse http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/ http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/ceic/Search2/search.cfm Sustainable Minnesota's Biofuels Resources http://www.me3.org/issues/ethanol >This is a very interesting page with a lot of work behind it. Hadn't really >looked at it before except for a couple of biofuels things. I'm glad you like it. >What I've been meaning to say about biofuel and inventions and such: > >The big obstacle I've run into lately in arguing for biofuels or attempting to >do so, is the old "ethanol takes more BTU to make than it results >in" argument. >Even dismissing Pimentel's stuff, the more mainstream findings, including a >paper I tried to quote at DOE, seem to claim that ethanol requires nearly as >much energy to make as is put into it in fuel and such. > >Now, my view is that energy put in can be sustainably made (such as using >biodiesel in farm tractors while farming products which go into making >biodiesel) and that as we move forward, biofuels will be made more efficiently >so that the net energy argument will be less pertinent, even if it will always >be somewhat energy-expensive to farm for fuel. But I've been having a tough >time on this one sticking point recently, in discussion, and also I've noticed >that it's a big point when Senators and Congressmen reject ethanol, such as >Feinstein. They imply it's not sustainable and so therefore should not be >regarded as a progressive robust domestic energy resource as we >search for such >things. > >Further on into the future, I expect that sustainable methods for >making various >hydrocarbons and alcohols and I-don't-know-what-all will include >ways of taking >H2 derived from electrolysis and further processing it say with ambient CO2 to >make whatever. So what is important is not the bio-derivation, but the more >general goal of bringing these processes under the control of man and leaving >behind the non-sustainable process of harvesting nature's previous stored >bounty. > >In both cases, making present biofuel production more >sustainable-energy-efficient, and making fuels from other >sustainable processes, >these could qualify as somewhat world-beating advances in our >invention-discussion. They are still up against The Oil Companies' worldwide >monopoly on distribution of fuels and limitation of many vehicles to >not running >on most non-fossil fuels (at present). I'm not sure I'd publish or >bother with >an innovation I made in making a way to make fuel from thin air or >what-have-you. But it would be fun to hang out my shingle and start selling >fuel and wait for Exxon-Mobil to come by and shut me down, one way or another. >Sort of like the Simpsons famous "Tomacco" episode where they either >want to buy >him out or do whatever to him. Possible this is now beginning to happen with biofuels in the US. Fuel ethanol is still well under conmtrol, as you pointed out, and maybe the little guy is about to get shoved aside by Big Soy as they move in and take over. Best Keith ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/k6cvND/n97DAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
