Comments jimurl has made

IF the people lead, the leaders will follow?

So, we three of us so far agree: Ethanol is a scam.  It is energy in-efficient to produce.  It requires just about as much energy ( generally in the form of petro fuel) as we can obtain from it.  Corn is a heavily subsidized mono-culture, not very good for the lands that are paved ove with its production.  The fact that ehtahanol is so well supported in the tax code, legislatively, etc. must be a testament to how poorly our government has been working.  Farm industry lobbyists ( ADM, Cargill ) have been effective in Washington, although the science does not support it. Both sides of the aisle have been complicit: Obama is an ethanol supporter.

Maybe cellulosic ethanol will be better.  But its still a fuel of the future.

I support biodiesel as an alternative fuel. I get "500 miles per acre" in my SVO-converted truck.  By that I mean, an acre of a typical oi-seed crop (canola) produces enough fuel for me to drive 500 miles.  Granted, there is not enough cropland to grow enough to transport the whole country around, but biofuel algea seems a promising solution to this. ( Then I would get about 160,000 miles per acre!)

But here is my real question: Why, since we all peasants/ energy-and-fuel geeks can recognize that ethanol is not the way forward, is it so well promoted, compared to biodiesel?  Auto manufacturers can make Flex fuel cars ( which require  extensive re-engiineering), but can't figure bring themselves to support using any more than B5 in their engines?  (New Holland and Case IH being the exceptions- they recommend B20). Even this Grist series of articles seems to fail to call bull$&!t on ehtanol.

If the people can see that the emperor has no clotes, why can't the leaders? Even the leaders of of the left-leaning media?
On Find out which cars can run on ethanol and biodiesel posted 2 years, 12 months ago 13 Responses