At 08:06 PM 3 March 2002 -0500, Barbara and/or Bill Hooper wrote: >on 3 March 2002 5:14 PM, Louis JOURDAN at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > ... a bad process (I mean ethanol production) > >in reply to this comment in a previous message: > >> ... the energy cost of producing ethanol > >> exceeds the energy in the ethanol. > >Of course the energy is less. That's a natural consequence of the second law >of thermodynamics. That does not necessarily mean it is a bad process. >...
I did not post the whole article about ethanol production, because I was sure that it would generate a lot of off-topic discussion. Also, it is not available on-line unless you want to pay for it (investors.com, 28 March 2002 issue). >Surely we should be concerned about such a process in a world running low on >energy, but there are other aspects of energy use that are also important, >in addition to the amount of the energy alone. The world is most assuredly NOT running low on energy. We have more reserves of every fossil fuel we use today than we did 10, 20 or 50 years ago. For an excruciatingly detailed analysis, complete with hundreds of footnotes and references, read The Skeptical Environmentalist, by Bjorn Lomborg, available at Amazon.com or bn.com. Jim Elwell Electrical Engineer Industrial manufacturing manager Salt Lake City, Utah, USA www.qsicorp.com
