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To: Sioux-san

Yes - we can and should be (if we’re going to mandate alcohol in fuel) making alcohol from stuff like switchgrass and other such weeds that don’t replace food crops or take up food crop growing space.

As for the Saturn - well, it may crap out soon, but that’s because it’s a Saturn, not because of the fuel. :)


60 posted on 07/18/2012 7:30:49 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Spktyr; Sioux-san
Yes - we can and should be (if we're going to mandate alcohol in fuel) making alcohol from stuff like switchgrass and other such weeds that don't replace food ...

Actually, the bigger issue is the confusion that the problems are due to ethanol being made from foodstuff (such as corn) where the real problem is that most biofuels require huge swaths of horizontal space/land and water resources which are then not available to planting "real" marketable cropa due to subsidized ethanol/biofuels/"renewables" mandates.

As the Nestlé's chairman explained that's the real source of the problem, not any particular "weed" that has potentially higher calorific content (it amounts to a miniscule fraction of true resource hogging for biofuels production).

Hence, that's why there is some interest in water-based algae-to-oil production, but that has been also not very successful so far, and the bigger problem is it's just not as scalable (for similar reasons - horizontal space requirements) as vertical oil/gas production methods (drilling) or the nuclear power which requires little space and generates very little waste - i.e., the "waste" product itself is reconsumable in the later generation nuclear plants, such as thorium or other fast breeder reactors.

61 posted on 07/19/2012 3:33:04 PM PDT by CutePuppy (If you don't ask the right questions you may not get the right answers)
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To: Spktyr

10 years - 172,000 miles - I am happy not to have a car payment


63 posted on 07/19/2012 6:10:18 PM PDT by Sioux-san
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