As long as we are talking about fuel, I'd like to ask a few questions
about ethanol. I am told that ethanol is already cheap enough to be
used instead of gasoline in some places (e.g. Brazil), even in these
days of low gasoline prices. Is that true, or not? Jay? Does
anyone have any figures I could use about ethanol?
The advantage of using ethanol produced from biomass is that the
growing of plants for biomass consumes carbon dioxide, so that even
if burning ethanol does release the carbon dioxide back into the
atmosphere, the net or effective output of carbon dioxide is zero.
If we used fast growing plants (we now call them weeds) to produce the
biomass, could we convert the world from gasoline to ethanol, or not?
Is there enough land available?
To use Jay Hanson's pet phrase, what is the "energy-cost" of producing
ethanol? Suppose we were to grow corn (maize, the British call it)
for food, and put all the non-edible parts of the plant in a digester
using yeast and/or other biological agents to create ethanol, with a
side-product of protein-rich yeast. That can all be done, and is
being done in some places. But it is economically feasible on a larger
scale? Is it feasible in terms of energy-cost?
I just don't know the answers to these questions. I'd like to have
some data to work on. I'm still working on a simulation of the global
economy, but I don't know where to find data for something like the
ethanol question. Jay? Can you help? Anyone else?
dpw
Douglas P. Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.island.net/~dpwilson/index.html
