Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Greg and April" <gregandapril@earthlink.net>]

Only if your willing to believe in misdirection, half truths, and junk 
science.

Some time with a full MSDS for ethanol and gasoline, will show major 
problems with claims that the article makes.

For example:

Half truth and junk science - Alcohol's hydrogen bonds are weaker than those 
of water or even gasoline,
making alcohol more likely to evaporate.
Full truth - Gasoline will evaporate more than 3 times faster than ethanol, 
and 10 times faster than water.
( This can be found on a good MSDS )

It is only with the addition of various additives, that the 'volatility of 
gasoline can be brought down, but, in reality, these additives are normally 
used in the hottest parts of the year, and the requirement for them can be 
waived in times of emergency when gasoline stocks are low.

( Let's not forget that for every molecule of gasoline that burns, on 
average, between 5 and 12 carbon atoms are released into the atmosphere, 
while, when ethanol burns only 2 carbons atoms are released into the 
atmosphere.    That means gasoline will produce on average 2 - 4 times the 
amount of CO2 that ethanol will.)

Half truth and misdirection - Subsidizing ethanol in myriad ways creates 
incentives for farmers to plant far more corn than can be consumed by humans 
and cattle. This encourages farmers to rely solely on one crop -- corn.
Full truth #1- Millions of dollars have been spent each year to find ways to 
make ethanol from cellulose ( waste wood and plant material ), and the first 
commercial plant opened up in 2004.
Full truth #2 - Switchgrass has been shown to produce much greater ethanol 
yields, than corn, in trials ( up to 100 gal. per metric ton ), and can be a 
part of crop rotation.    Farmers already use Switchgrass as a livestock 
forage and ground cover.    Unlike corn, it can be grown in average to wet 
soils and in full sun to part shade and is very drought resistant.    On 
test plots, it can achieve  10 tons pre acre per year, with 6-8 more likely 
to be the norm on average land.    Switchgrass has a huge, permanent root 
system that can penetrate over 10 feet into the soil, and weighs as much 
(6-8 tons/acres) as the above-ground growth from one year. It also has many 
fine, temporary roots, which improve the soil by adding organic matter, and 
by increasing soil water infiltration and nutrient-holding capacity.

A bacterium recently discovered in commercial chicken litter, has been found 
to produce ethanol from a mix of hydrogen, CO and CO2 ( Synthesis gas ) 
which can be produced from waste biomass.    A pilot plant to use this 
method has been built in Arkansas.


Greg H.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 22:01
Subject: [Livingontheland] Ethanol's Dirty Little Secrets ---


> This ends all the ethanol misinformation once and for all.
>
>
> Ethanol's Dirty Little Secrets ---
> http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=071206E
> By Tim Carney --- The TCS Daily
> Technology Commerce Society
>
>
> Today's politicians try to justify ethanol's upward pressure on gasoline
> prices by touting it as a "clean fuel," but that claim is dubious. In 
> fact,
> ethanol was on the verge of being outlawed by clean air laws in October,
> 1992, when President George Bush called for exempting ethanol from the
> Clean Air Act.
>
> In the summer of 1991 an eclectic group from the petroleum industry, the
> ethanol industry, government agencies, and environmental groups all sat
> down to hammer out new regulations required by the 1990 amendments to the
> Clean Air Act, setting stricter standards for automobile emissions of
> Carbon Monoxide and two types of emissions that cause smog: nitrogen oxide
> (NOx) and hydrocarbons. When the EPA implemented it in April of 1992, the
> ethanol industry, which had signed on to the agreement, immediately raised
> a cry -- the clean air rules might outlaw ethanol.
>
> It turns out that, despite all the claims that ethanol is good for the
> environment, ethanol may be a net polluter in many ways. Ethanol does
> reduce carbon monoxide emissions because it is an "oxygenate," which means
> it adds oxygen to the fuel, converting the CO into CO2, carbon dioxide.
> (Seeing how CO is not greenhouse gas, our ethanol policies result in 
> making
> more CO2; what would Al Gore say?) But on the question of hydrocarbons,
> ethanol appears to make things worse.
>
> Alcohol's hydrogen bonds are weaker than those of water or even gasoline,
> making alcohol more likely to evaporate, both under high heat, and under
> normal temperatures. In scientific terms, this means ethanol and other
> alcohols have greater "volatility" than gasoline.
>
> More volatile fuels send more hydrocarbons into the air, because less of
> the hydrocarbons will be burnt up in combustion, and more will simply
> evaporate and float into the air. Adding 10 percent of ethanol to a fuel
> mixture increases the volatility, sending more smog-causing hydrocarbons
> into the air.
>
> The 1991 rules had a strict cap on volatility, and ethanol didn't meet the
> cap. This sent ethanol's supporters into a frenzy. As President Bush 
> sagged
> in the polls, including in the corn-belt, he knew he had to act. In 
> August,
> Bush went to the Illinois State Fair ready to propose an increase in the
> already generous subsidy for ethanol. The Republican Governor, Jim Edgar,
> convinced him that would not go far enough, and so the president ripped
> that proposal out of his speech until he could craft a more appealing
> promise.[i]
>
> Earlier that year, Dwayne Andreas, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland (the
> country's top ethanol producer), had co-chaired a fundraiser for the
> Republican Party, himself contributing $400,000 to the cause of reelecting
> George Bush.[ii] On October 1st, Bush announced that he would grant the
> special exemption the ethanol industry hoped for: ethanol would be held to
> lower pollution standards than gasoline.
>
> After Bush lost reelection, his proposed exemption entered limbo. A less
> skilled businessman than Dwayne Andreas might have been left out in the
> cold. But two months after the election, Andreas was at President 
> Clinton's
> inauguration. Andreas contributed heavily to the inauguration, but he told
> reporters that although his business was directly affected by the
> government in many ways, his contributions or his closeness to the 
> Clintons
> had nothing to do with ADM. "I'm here because I was invited," he told one
> reporter. "It has nothing to do with business. My business isn't
> affected."[iii]
>
> But his business was affected. Clinton ended up not following Bush's
> proposal to exempt ethanol from volatility standards, but instead, in the
> name of reducing carbon monoxide, mandated increased use of ethanol rather
> than other oxygenate fuels. Clinton issued this rule not long after 
> Andreas
> made a $100,000 contribution to the Democratic Party. A federal court 
> later
> ruled that mandate was improper.[iv]
>
> The ethanol subsidies may harm the ground as well as the air. Subsidizing
> ethanol in myriad ways creates incentives for farmers to plant far more
> corn than can be consumed by humans and cattle. This encourages farmers to
> rely solely on one crop -- corn, because the government is propping up its
> demand and supporting its price.
>
> Farmers have long known that rotating crops -- planting something 
> different
> in a given field from year to year -- is crucial to maintaining the health
> of soils. Planting corn year after year exacerbates erosion and depletes
> soil nutrients. David Pimentel, the Cornell scientist, maintains that corn
> is particularly destructive to soil health when it is planted exclusively.
>
> If cars burning gasohol pollute the air, and farms growing only corn ruin
> the soil, it is only fitting that the middle stage -- converting the corn
> into ethanol -- would damage the environment, as well.
>
> It turns out that ethanol distilleries can be criminal polluters. In 2002,
> 12 ethanol plants entered into a settlement with the Department of 
> Justice,
> the Environmental Protection Agency, and the State of Minnesota. The 
> plants
> lacked pollution controls mandated by the Clean Air Act, and so had to pay
> small civil penalties and install the controls immediately.[v] Two days
> earlier, the Sierra Club had sued two Midwestern ethanol plants for
> emitting illegal amounts of hydrocarbons.[vi]
>
> While some scientists find that making ethanol uses more energy than it
> yields, scientist Marcelo Dias de Oliveira, disagrees. But looking at the
> full "ecological footprint," taking into account cropland used, water
> consumed, and other secondary factors to the ethanol process, Oliveira
> found that ethanol is a net drag on the planet. "The use of ethanol as a
> substitute for gasoline proved to be neither a sustainable nor an
> environmentally friendly option," he wrote "considering ecological
> footprint values, and both net energy and CO2 offset considerations seemed
> relatively unimportant compared to the ecological footprint."[vii]
>
> On all these scores -- its contribution to smog and soil erosion, and its
> "ecological footprint" -- ethanol is almost as costly to the environment 
> as
> it is to American drivers and taxpayers.
>
> Tim Carney is the author of The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big
> Government Steal Your Money, from John J. Wiley & Sons, from which this is
> excerpted. He is also the Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow at the
> Competitive Enterprise Institute.
>
>
>
>
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