Ethanol-A Blessing in Disguise?

[drone]

Alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems!

Corn ethanol is a gift for the farmers, that's all. Carbon-wise, it's better than oil, but not completely neutral though, since harvesting and transportation of material are probably done with some petroleum.

Mandating a staple foodstuff to be used for fuel is insane. Not only will food prices jump (not just corn, but livestock that uses corn feed as well), but the potential for another economically-induced famine is encouraged.

[Xiahou]

Mandating a staple foodstuff to be used for fuel is insane. Not only will food prices jump (not just corn, but livestock that uses corn feed as well), but the potential for another economically-induced famine is encouraged.

Definitely.
Yet, we have an energy bill making it's way through Congress that does exactly that. I think this has the potential to be truly disastrous. As you mention, corn and corn related foods (including livestock) will skyrocket in price. Additionally, farmers that previously grew other foods may abandon them to a great extent in favor of growing more lucrative corn.

[Whacker]

Carbon-wise, it's better than oil, but not completely neutral though, since harvesting and transportation of material are probably done with some petroleum.

Incorrect good sir: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/st...emissions.html

That link does not have the actual unpublished report (which I beleive has been done so as of now). The information I have read in the past has indicated that ethanol is actually pollutes more than straight or combined gasoline, but not by a huge margin.

The other problem that many folks neglect is the amount of energy needed to actually get the ethanol from the corn. I'm talking about the power to supply the machinery and tools that facilitate the process from creation to distillation/purification are quite monsterous. Sorry I don't have any links to information supporting this at the time being.

[drone]

Incorrect good sir: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/st...emissions.html

Well, that link doesn't really go into the details. Out of the tailpipe, gas and ethanol emissions are close. When I say ethanol is almost "carbon-neutral", this means that the CO2 coming out of the tailpipe being added to the atmosphere is close to the amount that the plants took in through the photosynthesis process while growing. So in that sense, less CO2 is being added to the air when using ethanol. In a perfect world, this would be neutral. However, this does not include carbon added from harvesting, processing, and transportation. The crops act as a carbon sink, which is good, but the power efficiency of corn for ethanol is bad.

Pure politics, if we were really serious we would be using sugar cane, or better yet, bio-waste. The only good I see coming from this is a switch back to real sugar instead high-fructose corn syrup. I miss that in my Coca-Cola.

We're arguing on the same side here.

[Ironside]

Incorrect good sir: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/st...emissions.html

That link does not have the actual unpublished report (which I beleive has been done so as of now). The information I have read in the past has indicated that ethanol is actually pollutes more than straight or combined gasoline, but not by a huge margin.

People makes decisions on these kinds of reports?

Because if you're combusting something containing carbon you want as much CO2 as possible as everything else is an energy loss. The important stuff is were the coal itself comes from. So it basically says that the same amount of carbon is used/liter (or wehatever unit that the tail gases meassures in practice) with gasoline and ethanol.