NavList:

I have my suspicions about ethanol. In present form, it could consume the entire
corn/grain supply of the arable land in the US before it replaced gasoline. Not
a good thing. In Brazil, where land is cheap and sugar cane the crop and few
care about deforestation or exhausting the soil...ethanol has a different
economy. There are some promising starts about making ethanol more economically
by fermenting waste (the process used now relies on huge quantities of fuel to
cook it off, in Brazil that is readily available sugar cane waste (bagasse) in
the US it is petrofuels or electricity) or having algae excrete it. But that's
not here and now--the synfuel programs are. Right now, what's on the shelf in
the US are synfuels, which can and will be delivered economically at $4-5 per
gallon street price. There's some great debate about whether the US ethanol
project isn't more feel-good deception, which before tax breaks and all may
actually cost more to produce than imported OPEC oil!


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---