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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>

> Let's suppose that we took all the vegetable based oil produced in the 
> world
> in a year and converted it into biodiesel for motor fuel.  Last year all 
> the
> biological based oils produced from all sources in the world, land and 
> sea,
> was 135 million metric tons.  Less than a quarter of this is suitable for
> biodiesel.
>
***Can you back up this statement with some facts.  What plant oils aren't 
suitable for making biodiesel?  Plus, you don't have to use plant oils, 
animal oils can also be used.  Enough of those oils are going into landfill 
right now to power a few vehicles also.  30 million gallons of waste oil go 
into landfill now each year.  Seems to me that using it would be better than 
putting it in landfills.

>snip<
> Doing the math on ethanol and any of the other alternate motor fuels leads 
> to
> the same dismal conclusion.  If we used ALL the corn grown in the US to 
> make
> ethanol and used it exclusively as a motor fuel (and deducted the energy 
> it
> takes to grow and distill and refine it), our tanks go empty in the early
> evening of the first day.
>
***I'm not a big ethenol fan since it takes 98,000 BTUs to produce 78,000 
BTUs.  HOWEVER, I'd suggest you do some research because it doesn't take 
corn, or any other primary use plant to make ethenol.  You can use 
"throw-away" plant parts to make ethenol which is what Brazil does.  And, 
again, your math (tanks going empty in the early evening of the first day) 
is not based on fact but on your anti-ethenol rantings.

"President Bush has made a surprising call to eliminate a two decade long 
tariff on ethanol produced from sugarcane in Brazil.  Sugarcane produces 
eight times more energy per pound than corn, making U.S.  corn-based ethanol 
appear to be irrational and inefficient. But according to Monte Shaw, 
executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, a biofuel trade 
organization, competition in the global marketplace will only create demands 
for U.S. farmers to generate biofuels more efficiently.  A potential 
competitor to sugarcane ethanol is cellulosic ethanol, derived from switch 
grass and farm waste. "No threat. It's an opportunity," Shaw said. "We are in 
Iowa. All you see is cellulose."  Meanwhile, Archer Daniels Midland, one of 
the most powerful corporate agribusiness lobbyists in Washington, continues 
to successfully push Congress to approve subsidizing the less efficient 
corn-based ethanol with billions of dollars of taxpayer money. Some studies 
have estimated that in order to replace all U.S. oil imports with 
domestically produced corn ethanol, as much as five times the entire area 
currently farmed for all crops in the U.S. would be needed."

Lynda
>From Clansgian AT wmconnect.com  Sun Jun 11 00:04:11 2006
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From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
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Subject: Re: [Homestead] Biodiesel and Ethenol
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***Can you back up this statement with some facts.  What plant oils aren't
suitable for making biodiesel?

Turpintine, for example, coconut oil, pine resin, unrefined linseed oil, raw
corn oil, etc.  About a quarter of the vegetable oils produced in the world
are either suitable in their natural state or else are refined (such as fryer
oils) to the extent that they are suitable for direct use as biodiesel.

>   30 million gallons of waste oil go
> into landfill now each year.  Seems to me that using it would be better than
> putting it in landfills.
>

Are you, Lynda, by any chance a fan of the late Douglas Adams and his
Hitchhikers tales?  I would plug you into the motor fuel Total Perspective 
Vortex.
We use something on the order of 300 billion gallons of petroleum motor fuels 
a
year (21 million barrels a day, 42 gallons per barrel).  The 30 million
gallons a year is then 1/10,000th of the motor fuel consumed.

Better to use it than throw it into a landfill?  Of course.  But thinking
that in the scheme of things that it makes any difference is like taking out a
hankie and holding in front of you to shield you from being run over by a bus.





>  HOWEVER, I'd suggest you do some research because it doesn't take corn, or
> any other primary use plant to make ethenol.  You can use
> "throw-away" plant parts to make ethenol which is what Brazil does.

Don't propose to me to do my research.  I can quote you book, chapter, and
verse in six different versions.

In Brazil the per capita use of motor fuel is a tiny fraction of the use in
the US.  Moreover, Brazil's capacity to produce biomass compared to its
population is several times greater than the US.

In Brazil roughly one family in 23 owns a car.  The do not commute in those
cars 50 and 60 miles one way to work.    Of course they can be fuel self
sufficient with ethanol.

If Brazil consumed motor fuel at the same per capita rate as the US, they
would be out of fuel in a week.  If we consumed motor fuel at the per capita 
rate
of Brazil,  we could export oil.

If the world forgot about sugar cane and corn as sources of ethanol and used
cellulose, we would consume 10% of  ALL the vegetation of the world to supply
the current rate of motor fuel use.

You might want to note too that the figures for making cellulose based
ethanol from switchgrass and corn stover discount completely the cost in 
raising
those sources, assuming that they will be raised anyway.  Not so in a
pos-oil-culture world.

At any rate, as I raise a glass to the memory of Tvo,  I say it's all a waste
of perfectly good ethanol at any rate.

I have confidence in you, Lynda.  You CAN do the math.  There ARE no
alternatives to petrol-fuels.  If nothing else, calculate the carbon that is 
wretched
from the ground and spewed as CO2 in using cellulose as motor fuel.




 And,

> again, your math (tanks going empty in the early evening of the first day)
> is not based on fact but on your anti-ethenol rantings.
>
> "President Bush has made a surprising call to eliminate a two decade long
> tariff on ethanol produced from sugarcane in Brazil.  Sugarcane produces 
> eight
> times more energy per pound than corn, making U.S.  corn-based ethanol 
> appear
> to be irrational and inefficient. But according to Monte Shaw, executive
> director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, a biofuel trade 
> organization,
> competition in the global marketplace will only create demands for U.S.
> farmers to generate biofuels more efficiently.  A potential competitor to
> sugarcane ethanol is cellulosic ethanol, derived from switch grass and farm 
> waste.
> "No threat. It's an opportunity," Shaw said. "We are in Iowa. All you see is
> cellulose."  Meanwhile, Archer Daniels Midland, one of the most powerful
> corporate agribusiness lobbyists in Washington, continues to successfully 
> push
> Congress to approve subsidizing the less efficient corn-based ethanol with
> billions of dollars of taxpayer money. Some studies have estimated that i
> n order to replace all U.S. oil imports with domestically produced corn
> ethanol, as much as five times the entire area currently farmed for all 
> crops in
> the U.S. would be needed."
>
>