Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Look, this is a no-brainer. Ethanol is a net energy loss to anyone producing 
it. This is public knowledge. It will never produce more energy than it takes 
to make it, and the price of gasoline can't change the ratio.  Got that?  
Hydroelectric plants don't have to pay for the sun's heat, the clouds, the 
wind, the rain. So they don't have to factor in any cost from the natural 
climate when they calculate the cost of hydro and how much it has to sell for 
to make a profit.  That aimless sarcasm is not helpful on this list.

I'm interested in using land to feed the people, not to substitute another 
addiction for oil. That's what this list is about, not about manufacturing 
fuel. Try that on ROE2.

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------
The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not 
television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only 
those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it.
   - Aldo Leopold in  Round River, 1933
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 4/28/2006 at 10:27 PM Scott Berkey wrote:

>This ethanol stuff is way off topic, but I just can't let it go.
>
>A net energy loss to what?  The earth?  Your back yard?  The United States?
>
>Hydro power must really burn you up.  You take the heat from the sun and
>vaporize water to form clouds.  Then you use wind (from solar energy) to
>blow those clouds thousands of miles until the conditions are just right
>for
>it to rain (good bye latent heat!).  The rain is collected in huge
>reservoirs and used to run turbines to make the electricity that I then use
>to heat up water for my coffee.  What a tremendous waste!  It must take ten
>times as much solar energy to make that electricity than it would if I just
>heated the water up by burning some gasoline!
>
>Gasoline prices will always rise.  Eventually there is a price point where
>ethanol (regardless of its net energy loss) will beat gasoline.  Is that
>$4,
>$12, or $25 a gallon?  I don't know, but you can bet that ethanol producers
>do.
>
>Scott
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: livingontheland-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
>[mailto:livingontheland-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of
>TradingPostPaul
>Sent: Friday, April 28, 2006 8:13 PM
>To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
>Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Ethanol a net energy loss
>
>
>Close but no cigar.  Gasoline is not a net energy loss.  That's the
>problem.
>It's not, and sources like ethanol and hydrogen are. Anytime it takes more
>energy to produce than you get out of it, it's a no-starter. Nobody's going
>to make a product when it costs more to make it than they can sell it for.
>That's why we've been using oil like there's no tomorrow, instead of
>ethanol.
>
>paul, tradingpost@riseup.net