<calderhome@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:2a90db01-ab0f-4ee8-a2b8-3a725de62433@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Why ethanol from cellulose is a hoax!
>
> The biofuel zealots falsely claim that our current disastrous use of
> corn for ethanol production is only tem****ary, and is somehow a
> building block or stepping stone for future ethanol production from
> switchgrass, crop waste, wood chips, and other sources of cellulose.
> The problem is that the equipment (manufacturing plants) used to make
> corn vodka (ethanol) are of no use in making ethanol from cellulose,
> which is a complex and expensive two stage process requiring new plant
> construction and costing millions upon millions of dollars. The
> current cost of making ethanol from cellulose is the same as making
> gasoline from crude oil that costs $305. a barrel. As ethanol has 30%
> less energy than gasoline and thus delivers poor gas mileage, this
> product is currently economically dead. If we can improve our methods
> and cut the cost in half, that still brings us to an oil equivalent
> price of gasoline made from crude oil at about $150 a barrel, plus we
> still have the 30% loss in energy per gallon compared to gasoline.
> Even if they got the cost down to an oil equivalent of $100. a barrel,
> it is still not a good deal because of the 30% energy loss inherent to
> ethanol, which cannot be changed unless you make another fuel product
> altogether.
>
> As expected, many money hungry companies are making big claims about
> having bacteria that can make ethanol from cellulose work, but ask
> yourself how and at what price? If they had a bacteria that could do
> the job instantly it would be the ultimate anti-human life weapon,
> because if it got loose it would eat up the earth's biosphere and we
> would have nothing left but bacteria. Obviously, you can make ethanol
> from lots of substances given enough time and money, and "time is
> money." It takes time and specific conditions (usually higher
> temperatures) to make these bugs work, and the time it takes to rot or
> dissolve wood chips and switchgrass into something that can then be
> fermented into alcohol is a complex, time consuming, and expensive
> process.
>
> A new study from three agricultural economists at Iowa State
> University with insider information on the latest biofuel technology
> says ethanol made from cellulose will likely NEVER be affordable The
> Federal tax credits for ethanol made from cellulose would have to be
> raised from the current $.51 to $1.55 per gallon, which will be
> unacceptable to Congress and the American public. Switchgrass, crop
> waste, and wood chip biofuel schemes are too expensive to ever work!
>
> The newspaper article can be found here -
> http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/3/125745/7746
>
> The full study can be found here - pdf 180kb at:
> http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/DBS/PDFFiles/08wp460.pdf
>
> Coming soon after the Princeton study published in SCIENCE showing
> that all biofuels are far worse for the environment and global warming
> than gasoline leaves the biofuel zealots little cover to hide behind.
> SEE - http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861
>
> Another problem with our current corn vodka infrastructure is that it
> is located in the wrong areas, and not near the "marginal" prairie
> lands" that Bush wants to grow switchgrass on. So the idea that corn
> ethanol is a stepping stone to anything but more corn ethanol is a BIG
> LIE!
>
> Quoted from my web page.
>
> "The outlook for biofuels is dismal - Growing massive amounts of
> switchgrass to produce ethanol from lignocellulose has most of the
> same drawbacks as making ethanol from corn. We will use land, water,
> fertilizer, farm equipment, and labor to grow switchgrass that will be
> diverted from food production, with soaring food prices a result. If
> we grow switchgrass on land currently used to graze cattle, we will
> reduce beef and milk production. If we grow switchgrass on unused
> "marginal" prairie lands, we will soon turn those marginal lands into
> a new dust bowl, which they may turn into anyway due to global
> warming. Computer models for the progression of global warming show
> the America Midwest and Southwest getting hotter and dryer, with much
> of our farm and grazing land turning into desert. We know that
> biofuel production will speed up global warming, so why are we pinning
> so much hope on an environmental battle plan that any fool can see
> will blow up in our face over time? We won't be able to produce
> enough biofuels to run our cars, or enough food to fill our
> bellies.
>
> The very process of making ethanol from lignocellulose has not
> been proven to be economically viable (cellulosic ethanol not
> affordable, pdf 180kb), and the Bush energy bill assumes new
> scientific breakthroughs that have not occurred. Some new biofuel
> crops are toxic weeds which will have a destructive impact on wildlife
> and biodiversity around the world. In practical terms, there is not
> enough usable land area to grow a sufficient quantity of biofuel
> plants to meet the world's energy demands. Even if the USA dedicated
> 100% of our corn and soybean production to biofuels, we would only
> satisfy 12% of gasoline demand and 6% of diesel demand. To quote
> Stuart Staniford, "The biofuel potential of the entire human food
> supply is quite a small amount of energy compared to the global oil
> supply - somewhere between 15 to 20% on a volumetric basis, so 10 to
> 15% on an energy basis." Every year the human race burns up the
> equivalent of 400 years worth of planetary vegetation in the condensed
> form of fossil fuels. How are we going to replace all that
> concentrated energy by growing biofuel crops on our desperately
> overpopulated, pure water starved little planet?
>
> Growing algae to make biodiesel is being touted as a cure-all for
> all our biofuel problems, but we are still stuck with the fact that
> algae need solar energy to turn carbon dioxide into fuel. To make
> biodiesel, algae are used as organic solar panels which output oil
> instead of electricity. Research re****ts brag that algae can produce
> 15 times more fuel per acre of land than growing corn for ethanol, but
> that still means we would need approximately 30 million acres of
> concrete or plastic lined algae ponds to meet 100% of projected US
> automotive fuel usage by the year 2022. Those algae schemes that use
> less land invariably call for feeding algae sugar. Sugar must be made
> from corn, beets, or other crop, so you are simply trading ethanol
> potential to make oil instead of vodka. If you grow genetically
> engineered super-algae in open-air ponds, the genetically modified
> algae will be immediately carried to lakes, reservoirs, and oceans all
> over the world in the feathers of migrating birds, with unknown and
> possibly catastrophic consequences. Using agricultural waste water
> for algae production is a good idea, but algae may be more logically
> used for making modest amounts of animal feed, as algae is very costly
> to turn into fuel.
>
> Using agricultural "waste" to make biofuels has its own
> problems. Removing unused ****tions of plants that are normally plowed
> under increases the need for nitrogen fertilizers, which release the
> most potent greenhouse gas of all; nitrous oxide. Much of the
> residual crop biomass must be returned to the soil to maintain topsoil
> integrity, otherwise the rate of topsoil erosion will increase
> dramatically. If we mine our topsoil for energy, we will end up
> committing slow agricultural suicide like the Mayan Empire. Without
> topsoil, the world starves! Using wood chips to make ethanol sounds
> like a good idea until you remember that we currently use wood to make
> pellet fuel for stoves, paper, particle board, and a thousand and one
> building products. Every part of the trees we cut down for lumber are
> used for something, including the bark which is used for garden
> mulch. The idea of sending teams of manual laborers into forests to
> salvage underbrush for fuel would be prohibitively expensive. Our
> forests are already stressed just producing lumber without tasking
> them with producing liquid biofuels for automobiles, a scheme which
> will inevitably drive up the price of everything made from wood,
> creating yet another resource crisis."
>
> ------
> Please visit my page on biofuels, "The biofuel hoax is causing a world
> food crisis!" at:
> http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html
>
> You can find the latest biofuel disaster news at -
> http://home.att.net/~meditation/biofuel-news.html
>
> Christopher Calder
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