"RHF" wrote in message
om...

YES - A Billion Dollars to One-Hundred Millionaires does NOT
create as many 'basic' "Service Sector" Jobs as that same
Billion Dollars could be distributed at $1000 per Month to
27,750 Welfare-to-Work Families. At an Annual Cost of
$36,000 per Families: About $24K for the Family and $12K
(50% Overhead) for the Government Bureaucracy; that in its
self would create another 7,500 Government Jobs Paying $50K
per Year with Benefits. That's a Total of 35,250 Jobs from
just one billion dollars.


The methanol people also think ethanol is a job loser:

"The energy bill that will be debated on the Senate
floor beginning tomorrow includes a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)
mandating a huge
increased in the use of ethanol in gasoline, which results in the loss
of over 1.1 million jobs."

http://www.methanol.org/pdf/RFSJobs_logo.pdf


Are not these Ethanol Plants 'fueled' by "Farm Waste" by Products ?


My first inclination is to say, "Of course not, they till the stalks and
leaves into the soil." But maybe they do toss the waste under the
still. Farm waste would make a poor fuel, maybe even an anti-fuel, if
you know what I mean. The biggest problems would come when it's not
completely dry. It would have the fuel value of wet grass. I suppose
it could be dried before burning in a fuel powered drier, but just
tossing the damn stuff into the fire would have about the same effect.

Consider the biggest inefficency of ethanol production from corn.
Assuming the mash has an alcohol content of 5%, that means only one out
of 20 gallons are ethanol and must be cooked out and seperated. That
also assumes that no ethanol is lost in the process. That takes alot of
fuel, and a few wet corn stalks won't make much difference one way or
the other. I wouldn't be surprised if trucking the farm waste to the
distiller uses more energy than the farm waste can provide. But if it's
good for PR, it's worth doing. PR is far more important than
therodynamic efficency in the strange world of the ethanol subsidy.


BUT - You Forget - We Are Saving the Planet.


Saving the planet from what -- common sense?


The gasohol subsidy has nothing to do with the environment.

NO - You are Wrong. Oxygen Enriched Fuels like Gasohol, help to
'reduce' Air Pollution and Gasohol is all about Saving the Planet.


OK, let's pretend, for a moment, that's true. If ethanol is so good,
why doesn't imported ethanol qulalify for the subsidy? Because the
gasohol subsidy has nothing to do with the environment.

If ethanol is saving the planet, why doesn't ethanol produced directly
from natural gas qualify for the ethanol subsidy? Because the gasohol
subsidy has nothing to do with the environment.

If oxygen enriched fuels could save the planet, why doesn't methanol get
a subsidy? Because the gasohol subsidy is fostered by politics and
greed, and not concern for the environment.

But it's easy to find people who don't think there's much environmental
value to ethanol:

David Pimentel says the ethanol subsidy harms the environment:

"Corn farming takes a terrible toll on the environment -- it causes more
soil erosion and requires more insecticides, herbicides and nitrogen
fertilizer than any other crop. And every gallon of ethanol produced
results in 13 gallons of effluent pollution." Said Pimentel, "I can't
call that renewable."

This is from:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicl...l-ethanol.html

Cecil Adams also knows:

"Though ethanol can reduce carbon monoxide emissions, the fuel may well
produce more of other air pollutants"

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031128.html


Not surprisingly, the methanol boosters claim ethanol, no matter what
the source, is the poorer choice:

"Use of ethanol fuels leads to increased levels of toxins called
aldehydes and peroxyacyl nitrates (PAN). Aldehydes are much more
reactive in the atmosphere than the alcohols they are made from. They
react with other chemicals in urban atmospheres to set off chemical
reactions leading to PAN. Argonne scientists have found that once
created, PAN can last for many days in the air if the conditions -
especially temperature - are right. When its cold, its lifetime is
longer. PAN is highly toxic to plants and is a powerful eye irritant. It
has been measured in many areas of the world, indicating that it can be
carried by winds throughout the globe."

And:

"Nor is gasohol environmentally friendly. It often leads to vapor lock
and is more explosive than gasoline. And while ethanol use might reduce
carbon-monoxide emissions, it increases hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide
output."

"it increases hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide output." That sounds like
MORE ozone alert days with gasohol.

These are from:

http://www.methanol.org/reformgas/fact/ethanol.cfm


However, both the backers of ethanol and methanol are ignoring both the
drivability and evaporation problems. In the real world, people will be
driving cars which misfire on alcohol fuels, even if those cars don't
find their way onto the dynomometers for the alcohol lobby's controlled
condition pollution tests. Also, the increased evaporation of alcohol
fuels can overwhelm the evaporative controls of vehicles and gas
stations. The overall reduced tailpipe emissions, as claimed by the
ethanol lobby, are likely either very slight or nonexistant. Misfiring
and evaporation will surely dump more reactive hydrocarbons into the air
in the real world.




YES - Including the nightly "News Hour" on PBS.


Yeah, the major TV networks don't much cover the antics of ADM, do they?

Repeating the quote from Dwayne Andreas, chairman of ADM:

"People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this is a
socialist country."

Well, I'm in the Midwest, and sometimes I get my news from the local
papers as well as the TV. The ADM of the local news tells of trials,
executives convicted of price fixing, huge campaign contributions and
lost jobs.

ADM's sugar subsidy has helped force jobs out of Chicago:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/will/cst-edt-geo12.html

Not to mention the periodic gas shortages around here. One contributing
factor is ethanol. We can't buy gasoline anymore, only gasohol. The
ethanol used to make gasohol out of gasoline must be trucked in or
brought in on train tanker cars. Ethanol isn't compatible with the
petroleum pipelines and pumping equipment, so we get shortages of gas
whenever there isn't enough trucking or train tanker capacity to bring
the mandatory ethanol in.

You'd think the TV media would find something to critisize ADM for.
ADM's big campaign contributions, price fixing, concentrating wealth
from the bottom to the top, high dollar misleading PR campaigns.

Wait a minute. High dollar misleading PR campaigns? Too bad for the
poor saps at Enron and Worldcom. Maybe they should have also tried for
the best national media money could buy.

Frank Dresser