CA is not a big corn state. I have lived in the West too—CA, OR, ID. I know about irrigation. The big corn states are in the Midwest—Iowa, Neb, IL (annual rainfall about 50 inches this year)—and most of it is not irrigated. 400 gallons ETOH/acre with most infrastructure in place is clearly a viable piece of the energy pie and has been since the 70s. HOw many ETOH plants does CA have in place?
What is the alternative energy you refer to but don’t state? Where is the infrastructure for it? You make it all sound so easy. Agribusiness already has well over a trillion in infrastructure.
You’re missing the point. Ethanol does not travel well. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California do not have the water to grow corn or any other crop for ethanol. So that’s a very large part of the country where ethanol makes no sense at all from the get go.
Further, as Professor Pimentel at Cornell and other researchers have shown, ethanol produces very little net energy gain and does not help reduce ethanol pollution.
In response to having Pimentel and others expose the truth about ethanol our D of A has attacked them as Stalin attacked scientists in the U.S.S.R. who would not say what he wanted.
I repeat, stop helping the other side in this war; we can’t win it if instead of becoming energy independent we waste our time on expensive, subsidized boondoggles.
Further, why make a complex fuel that is so destructive and provides so little net energy gain when we can use a better formulated gasoline in our cars as is that would be far cheaper to make, burns cleanly, enormously increases mileage and because it burns stochiometically, enormously reduces engine wear where ethanol does engines great harm?
And how are you going to produce ethanol in the East, by taking back the suburbs you look down on?
We need to win the war, not engage in counter-productive boondoggling.