...by BP. Hmmm.

Whiskerfish

Groode and Heywood now view the three ethanol sources [corn starch, corn stover, and switchgrass] as a continuum.

From a technical point of view, this is a provably false position.  Each material requires different processes and different technologies to convert to ethanol, with different challenges, different economics, and different expectations of yield.  To suggest that making ethanol from fermented corn only differs from making it from enzyme-digested cellulose  by a matter of degree is to completely ignore the technical realities.  It's much more of a step-function than a continuum.

I would have expected better of MIT.

It is not only a specious and careless argument (on the part of MIT) but you can't perform an uncertainty analysis using Monte Carlo and decision tree logic without knowing the technical stuff, such as what GreenEngineer pointed out.

As one really sick-puppy expert pointed out to me, "making a case for ethanol is like eating your grandmother so as to save the family."

Sorry, that was gross but a direct quote, not mine.

Onward through the fog

www.grist.org

It's much more of a step-function than a continuum.

I didn't get the impression she was talking about those three being stepping stones among themselves, but among the consuming public, in terms of changing over all of the infrastructure that's built around just petroleum (3-grades plus diesel, plus two basic engine types, gas and diesel). That seems to me to be a different problem from the technology conversions needed to make the fuel, since those are relatively concentrated compared with the consumer side, which is relatively diverse and distributed.

I was unfair even myself and went back and re-read the media release about Tiffany's work.  It's not too darned bad.  It is an honor to conduct any university research under any grant, and she deserves credit for that.  Funds are as scarce as chicken's teeth these days and the current federal budget sure isn't turning loose very much research money tomorrow.  We're talking major cut in science programs from the US government.  Let's give Tiffany a big round of applause, please, even though ethanol sucks.

I can check around Austin if you want some of those cool old bumper stickers.  /Sammie

Onward through the fog

(which I guess could be called aviivory, with a Latin etymology, though that is hardly euphonic; mammophagy, with a Greek etymology, is a bit better): no, this idea does not sound at all appetizing.

And yet, the Wolf, in the Brothers Grimm story, does not mind eating up Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother, does he.  And in Stephen Sondheim's re-telling of the story in "Into the Woods," the Wolf sings with joyful anticipation:
<<
Grandmother first, then Miss Plump...
What a delectable couple
Utter perfection
One brittle, one supple -
>>

And then, of course, turning to an anthropophagous genius from a different story-telling tradition, we can be confident that Dr. Hannibal Lecter would have some interesting menu suggestions.

Anyway, I am afraid I do not quite see how "making a case for ethanol is like eating your grandmother to save your family."  Presumably, the premiss is that the production of ethanol would necessarily involve the removal or destruction of some essential life-bringing resource.  But if so -- and I acknowledge at once that I could be misreading this -- , then the simile does not quite work, because grandmothers are not strictly essential in securing the succession of human lineages.  (Sorry, SMLowry.)  Anthropologists have observed that grandmothers are highly valuable members of their societies, in a number of ways, ranging from baby-sitting to the conveying of traditional wisdom.  But as the modern Anglo-American model of the nuclear family makes clear, their presence is not absolutely required.

(But do not worry, SMLowry, I doubt anyone is going to eat you, any time soon.  If anybody is going to get et first, it is second-class citizens like me ... )

On similes, and analogies: What a nasty blow it is to me, in my declining years, as I behold the decay of our civilization, bit by sorry bit, to hear that the SAT people have removed the analogies section!  And not only that, but that their decision evoked celebrations and choruses of Hallelujah!, throughout the land, from young and old alike.  But that was my favorite section; those questions were always so much fun ...

Anyway, back to eating Grandmother: Bruno Bettelheim, examining fairy stories through a psychoanalytic lens, gave a thought-provoking interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood's Wolf, to this effect: "So, who, really, is this gray-haired, long-toothed, dangerous, frightening man-eater, whom the innocent young girl finds lying beneath the covers of the bed of her Grandmother?  Why, of course, he is none other than Grandfather."

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

I dunno about you folks, but no-one in Brazil told me about being the least bit skeptical about filling up with ethanol fuel when I was there recently. I think biodiversivist is right - people will use whatever is cheaper and more convenient.

For the folks at MIT to rightfully claim that they are making a worthwhile contribution to anything by providing a 'stepping stone' for the public, they must show us compellingly that such a stepping stone is in fact needed. I don't think it is.

Cheers

Whiskerfish in a beautiful African afternoon

That isn't even the proper discipline to do this analysis.  Is that because no one in the biochemistry department would take the cash to produce propaganda?  

MIT invented the A123 battery, which is now going to be manufactuired in China.

Taxpayers support MIT, MIT sells the publicly funded reseach (corporations chime in with some cash for their own purposes as is the case with this ethanol propaganda, but the main funding is from taxpayers)results to a private company.  That private company outsources the manufacturing and jobs.  What is wrong with this scenario?

Taxpayers can't pay taxes without jobs.  It's a vicious cycle of degradation that will eventually result in research that only benefits corporate monopoly  power, any search for knowledge and innovation be damned.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog