Homestead mailing list

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

Well, those arguments may or may not be accurate but to argue against 
ethenol, one should go with a reality check about ethenol.  Right off the 
top no one is saving anything.  Ethenol is susidized to the tune of a 
minimum 77 cents per gallon.  Second, ethenol is a absolute disaster as far 
as fuel economy goes.  There is no sense in producing a fuel which a) the 
consumer is subsidizing; b) paying more for, c) gets poor mpg's and d) add 
in your argument with feed costs, fossil fuel use, etc.

Bottomline is that there is only one plant that meets the needs and with the 
current lack of logic or basic intelligence of the American public, the 
ninnies that invented the war on drugs will stop a very efficient fuel --  
hemp.  Hemp has 4 times the biomas of other plants now being used -- corn, 
sugarcane, kenaf, trees, etc.  You can get 4 crops a year and grow it on 
marginal land.

What is it, somewhere around 5 - 10% of the ag land is now sitting fallow 
because farmers are paid not to grow on it?  That is all you'd need to 
produce enough hemp to produce both the biodiesel and the fuel to run the 
plants to make the biodiesel AND the methanol to make the biodiesel.

With Hemp you cut out ALL the arguments you've listed for folks not getting 
off their arses and producing an alternative fuel.  1)  You aren't using a 
human or animal food source and thus are NOT driving the cost of either up. 
2)  You aren't using a fossil fuel to produce the bio-fuel.  3)  Hemp oil 
can be used in the production of a good % ofl the things now using fossil 
foils -- paint, varnish, detergent, solvent, lubricating oils.

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>


> The biodiesel, methane, natural gas perspective of motor fuel leaves out 
> one
> important factor.  I suppose if a homesteader devoted a few acres to 
> dedicated
> oil production with rapeseed or sunflowers, processed the oil himself, and
> used it for his own motorfuel, my comment would be moot.  Maybe, anyway.
>
> But any alternative fuel that begins to get wider acceptance changes the
> dynamics like a giant Rubic's Cube and the very thing that made if 
> feasible often
> is moved out of the picture forever.
>
> A very small percent of our motorfuel comes from ethanol at present.  I 
> can't
> find the current figures so I will use old ones for way of illustration 
> and
> stand corrected if someone has more accurate ones.   Something on the 
> order of
> 3% of the motor fuel in the US was ethanol, most often blended in 
> gasoline.  A
> push has been underway for the past few years to increase that percentage 
> and
> what with corn, biomass, and ethanol fuel being subsidized and 
> popularized,
> we bid fair to make that rate 5% of all our motor fuel.
>
> And increasing the fuel supply by only 2%, what has been the effect?  Two
> years ago feed corn here abouts was $2.85 per 50#.  Now it's $6.15.   The 
> price
> of corn has caused economic hardships in Mexico where it is the most 
> important
> staple.  Wheat, cotton, soybeans, and rice are increasing in price as 
> acreage
> is being taken out of production to grow corn.    All that by just 
> shooting
> for an 2% increase in the share of ethanol in our motor fuel.
>
> How many times have you heard that the solution for transportation fuel is 
> to
> just stop by the fast food restaurants and get their used fryer oil. 
> Sure,
> people have cut their diesel fuel bill to almost nothing doing that.  The 
> first
> person in an area to do it, that is.  And maybe the first half dozen or 
> score
> of people depending on how populous the area.  But what if 5% of the 
> people
> wanted to power their vehicles on used fryer oil?  All available oil would 
> be
> gone in the first five minutes and the price would be higher than 
> gasoline.
>
> Likewise with (purchased) methane, propane, and natural gas.  As long as 
> it
> is the occasional oddball running his car on natural gas, there is some 
> savings
> to be realized.  But what if half, or only10% of the people switched to
> natrual gas vehicles? The price would suddenly exceed gasoline and the 
> price of
> cooking, heating, industrial gas would shoot up just as the price of corn 
> has.
> Also, since natural gas is used to make nitrogen fertilizer, the price of
> fertilizer would go up, the cost of raising corn would go up, the price of 
> ethanol
> would go up, and where has it all gotten you?
>
> Then there's this:  Do the math honestly.  Let's take the figure from the
> list that you could get 100 gallons of oil from an acre of soybeans. 
> Let's
> suppose you manage to get 20 miles per gallon and town is 20 miles away. 
> So, says
> you, I could grow an acre of soybeans, limit my travels to one trip to 
> town a
> week, and not worry about the price of gasoline!   Right.  But if you 
> limited
> yourself to one tip to town a week, why would you worry about the price of
> gasoline anyway?  If gas goes from its present $3 a gallon to a likely $5 
> a
> gallon, that's four more bucks for a trip to town.  $200 a year.  Is that 
> going to
> be a deal breaker?    So the trick is to limit the driving rather than 
> obtain
> an alternate fuel.  Anyone can do that already.
>
> Fuel and its price is dynamic.  It's not possible to identify an alternate
> fuel at its present cost and imagine that if everyone used it, the price 
> would
> stay the same.   </HTML>
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