From: Don Bowen KI6DIU <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Morning musing
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:47:48 -0700
At 9/20/2007, you wrote:
Yet, what is the government doing?
Pushing ethanol. Alas, energy-wise it takes about a gallon of ethanol to
make a
gallon of ethanol. Biodiesel is a little better, but only a little.
You get about 1.3 units of energy for each unit of energy invested in
ethanol. You get about 2 units with biodiesel. If every patch of ground
were put in biofuel production we could supply about 17% of out total need
for motor fuels. That would leave no land for food production. Meanwhile
climate change is making some areas not quite as friendly to crop
production as they were.