Posted by bobhornet (anonymous) on March 3, 2008 at 4:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Way to go, Bill! Thanks for telling the truth about one of the biggest scams on the American public.

Posted by create (anonymous) on March 3, 2008 at 5:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Kudos, Bill Hartman. Scam is right, bobhornet, yet so many are chasing that rainbow, not thinking. What they believe to be a pot of gold is really a box of chaos because you can't do just one thing.

Posted by roger (anonymous) on March 3, 2008 at 5:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Bill, I don't know where you studied physics but the facts you quote don't support your argument. You are not getting something for nothing. The energy from corn comes from the sunlight , moisture and chemicals the corn plant uses to make corn. I would say that you get something from the corn when it is fermented and produces alcahol. No the alcahol is not equal to the sum of everything that went into the corn. So what? There are wastes in about any process. How efficient is a internal combustion engine? Not very efficient at all. You even have losses in an electric motor. Can ethanol plants be made more efficient? Yes, they are still in the infancy of their developement. Also the left over corn meal can still be fed to the cows you are worried about and I bet you could make corn chips and tortillos out of them. I always thought that a dog food plant would be a good companion plant for an ethanol plant. The process of making alcahol from the corn can be used for the preliminary steps for different products. No you still can't get something for nothing but that has nothing to do with your ethanol ideas. Do you own stock in some big oil companys?

Posted by emporian (anonymous) on March 3, 2008 at 6:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)

It costs more oil to produce ethanol than the oil we put into it. What is hard to understand about that? By the time you cultivate, plant, fertilize, herbicide, pesticide, harvest then truck it, we have negated any benefit ethanol might have had. At least ethanol made from corn...

Posted by jacksprat (anonymous) on March 3, 2008 at 10:32 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You say it costs more oil to produce ethanol than what we put into it? I have read a lot about ethanol but have not read any study that suggests that. Maybe I misunderstood what you said. By all peer reviewed accounts it seems the energy balance is somewhere between 30% and 200%. So, you can expect to get more energy out than you put in. Another important consideration is economics. For example, if I had a technology that would convert $2 worth of coal into $10 worth of gasoline, but my technology had a negative energy balance, wouldn't we all love to commercialize it in spite of that (assuming it didn't have other negative impacts)? Also, keep in mind that ethanol only uses the starch from the corn which has typically been a fairly low value commodity. The rest of the corn is still used for animal feed - nothing new.

Posted by Mypoint (anonymous) on March 4, 2008 at 8:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Well I thought this was an interesting opinion so I decided to follow the link that was provided to gain a better understanding on ethanol. When I opened the factsaboutethanol website the first line says that “Factsaboutethanol.org is a Project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to the principles of economic liberty and limited government.” So before I read what was on the website I thought I would check into the group behind the website, CEI.
On the CEI website they have numerous articles. One article talks about Al Gore and states that “Nearly every significant statement Gore makes regarding climate science and climate policy is either one sided, misleading, exaggerated, speculative or just plain wrong.” It went on to explain why global warming is just a myth and that it is not really happening. One of the articles that is featured is “Global Warming Gag Order-Senators to Exxon: Shut up, and pay up” This article talks about another article, that was in the Wall Street Journal, and says the Senators sent a letter to ExxonMobile telling the oil company to stop funding global warming deniers, of which CEI is proud to be a member of.
The articles themselves are rather boring and did not have a lot of substance to them except for the fact that CEI identifies themselves as one of the global warming deniers that ExxonMobil is funding.
Well at this point I decided to search other sites and try to find an unbiased source. Wikipedia.org had a page on CEI and it also said that ExxonMobil is a major contributor to CEI. It went on to say that the Koch Family Foundation, Texaco, and the Amoco Foundation are all contributors to CEI. With so many oil companies financially backing the website factsaboutethonal.org I don’t think it is any surprise when they say that ethanol is bad.
Unfortunately the internet is full of hundreds of sites and each site has its own hidden agenda so I was unable to decided for myself if ethanol is good or bad. But I would like to ask that everyone keeps an open mind and don’t just repeat facts that you find on the internet without doing some research on your own. As for me, I have decided that ethanol has a place in the energy market and will be around for a long time. But it will never be able to replace oil.

Posted by CarefullOne (anonymous) on March 4, 2008 at 8:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)

You really might want to check your source. factsaboutethanol.org was created by and run by the adfero group. They are a well funded lobbying firm with major oil industry ties. Hardly an independent source.

I agree Ethanol is not the answer to all of our energy problems but is a piece of the puzzle. Corn is also not the only source of Ethanol.

If you are going to criticize something at least come up with a viable alternative.

I for one am sick and tired of my fuel money finding it's way out of the country into God only knows who's hands. I would much rather that money stayed in the US - I do not care who's state gets the money just as long as the money stays here.

Posted by scrutinizer (anonymous) on March 4, 2008 at 9:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I'd like to pose some questions that relate not only to this discussion, but to all considerations of energy use:

1) How much energy of any kind can we save by conserving?
2) How would conservation promotion affect the development of energy sources of any kind, including ethanol?
3) Would ethanol be viable at all if corn production wasn't subsidized by the government?

The production of corn utilizes what I consider our most precious resource, the topsoil that was built over millions of years. Row cropping causes erosion of this resource and corn production is the worst culprit of all crops in causing erosion. It requires more nutrient for proper growth than about any other crop, too.

Because it is such a drain on topsoil and because, to our GREAT detriment, we have not adequately explored how to conserve our resources, we are running down what I consider dead-end paths in an effort to find the Holy Grail of energys. Ethanol ain't it.

Posted by emporian (anonymous) on March 4, 2008 at 12:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)

David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of farmland, the same space needed to grow a year's supply of food for seven people. Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion into ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.

Mr. Pimentel concluded that "abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuels amounts to unsustainable subsidized food burning".

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm

Posted by roger (anonymous) on March 4, 2008 at 6:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I don't know what kind of farming your Mr Pimental is an expert in but I don't know how you burn 140 gallons of fuel on one acre even counting fertilizer and chemicals. Maybe he sits with his tractor running making up tall tails to spin to people who aren't quite quick enough to do the math. Also I believe your topsoil losses are on nonterraced hills before the developement of no till farming. The sum of corn used in ethanol production is not just ethanol. Do all the math before you go spouting big oil lies.

Posted by emporian (anonymous) on March 4, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You you are set on ethanol use switchgrass instead of corn. Corn is not good for producing ethanol or the environment. CRP is getting taken out. Wetlands are being drained. Quit buying into the liberal media and govt's view that ethanol will save this country. It takes more oil to grow it from corn, than we save by growing it. Switchgrass you plant once and harvest it once every year (sometimes twice). It has a better biomass to energy ratio. It is better for the wildlife and the environment. You guys are really ethanol suckers arent you. Like buffalo following the leader right off a cliff.

Posted by create (anonymous) on March 5, 2008 at 10:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Something else to consider. Farmland jumping way up in price. Good story here that relates to all this.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...

Posted by roger (anonymous) on March 5, 2008 at 11:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Create, those poor people in that article are going broke and just don't know it if you listen to the posters before. I hope they are using the manure from their cattle for their corn. The secret to efficency is to use everything. Wow , 7000 dollars an acre, I wonder if I could find someone to buy my place for 560,000?!

Posted by create (anonymous) on March 5, 2008 at 11:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)

roger, yeah, I couldn't believe that $7 thousand an acre either. It's that kind of speculation that has driven real estate to ridiculous heights, and it won't stop.

I have made my home here in Kansas, but I'm not a native. The main reason why I have never returned to my home state of Hawaii is because of what has happened to real estate values. Just this past weekend, I saw a home improvement show that was offering a five hundred square foot house on the island of Maui for nearly a half million dollars. I was dumbfounded. The house itself was a wreck. The lot wasn't that large either. No lots in Hawaii are, really. You read right, 500 square feet. It was like a garage. For a half million!!! Problem is, the people looking at it decided to buy it!!!

This is what will happen to cropland as we see by the article on npr. Sad. But people will shell out the dollars and that is the problem.

I'm glad I shared this article on npr. Changes the perspective, doesn't it?

Posted by whartman (anonymous) on March 26, 2008 at 11:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Here is a solution for the one asking for it.

Convert natural gas electric plants to nuclear.

Then convert as much public transportation to compressed natural gas that is no longer needed by the converted plants.

This frees up gasoline. This is a very workable solution that can be done right now.

Want to see somewhere that solved their energy problems look to France. They used US design to standardize their nuclear plants and are now 95% energy independent.

With regard to ethanol the market will take care of how nutty this proposition is. They will simply go belly up like the one in Emporia. These plants are going down fast because they don't work. The feel good factor is becoming a feel bad deal all over the place. Even the nuts who think it works are looking for some other nutty deal.

The physics of the matter and the fact that they cannot make a profit will be comming out soon. Hopefully very soon before they screw up everything. This is unless ADM continues to bribe right people.