[Wonder Warthog]

"Don't you get it Iron Jack? The study shows we have to use the same amount of arab oil even with ethanol production. Moreover, what they probably don't count is what productive crops those farmers could have made instead."

No, YOU misunderstood IronJack's meaning. Whether or not ethanol takes more energy to produce than it gives off as a fuel (kind of disproven by Bommer's posting), IF we use American coal as the source of fossil energy for the distillation process (the biggest "energy hit" during production), this displaces a large amount of foreign crude oil--far more than just the ethanol produced.

[SauronOfMordor]

IF we use American coal as the source of fossil energy for the distillation process (the biggest "energy hit" during production), this displaces a large amount of foreign crude oil--far more than just the ethanol produced.

If we use American coal (or better yet, nuke) to generate electricity, and convert a bunch of houses from using oil heat to using electric heating, we displace even more foreign oil

[FastCoyote]

"No, YOU misunderstood IronJack's meaning. Whether or not ethanol takes more energy to produce than it gives off as a fuel (kind of disproven by Bommer's posting), IF we use American coal as the source of fossil energy for the distillation process (the biggest "energy hit" during production), this displaces a large amount of foreign crude oil--far more than just the ethanol produced."

Then you both are a little dim, because you might as well crack the coal to begin with instead of creating a massive farm welfare state. Unless that's the goal, in which case we might as well go back to burning wood in steam engines because that would certainly create more work.

And if you are going to all this trouble, why not just go nuclear in the first place. I think you guys are just Rube Goldberg wannabees.