Originally Posted By: Byrd_Huntr
Originally Posted By: Susan
Actually, that may be a good thing.

The only reason we make ethanol from corn is because we grow so much of it. Corn isn't really a good source of ethanol ....

Sue


So true.


Switchgrass is a robust native North American prairie grass.

Monster grain companies step aside; we are already building new switchgrass (and woodchip) ethanol plants........ I use ethanol on my long distance trips in my Chevy Impala in temperatures from +105F to -20F and I am very happy with it's power and mileage performance. In farm country it costs 90 per gallon less than gasoline and pollutes less.

For those who worship at the altar of the man-made global warming religion, switchgrass roots bind up 94% of the carbon it produces, and "delivers 540% of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25% energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies" ...Scientific American mag


Even if subsidies dry up, I will buy ethanol, and my fuel money will stay in North America. When, in the future, I can identify cellulosic ethanol I will buy that instead of corn ethanol. Seeing mile after mile of waving perennial prairie grasses has got to be a good thing for almost everyone.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-corn


You left out the really important quote from that article:
But yields from a grass that only needs to be planted once would deliver an average of 13.1 megajoules of energy as ethanol for every megajoule of petroleum consumed—in the form of nitrogen fertilizers or diesel for tractors—growing them. "It's a prediction because right now there are no biorefineries built that handle cellulosic material" like that which switchgrass provides, Vogel notes. "We're pretty confident the ethanol yield is pretty close." This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies.

That switchgrass article itself states it's calculations are all theoretical.Yeast can't break cellulose down into alcohol. The cellulose must first be broken down into it's component sugars, which is something mankind has yet to master.
-Blast

p.s. FYI, when the trick of breaking cellulose down into yeast-friendly sugars is discovered you won't have to worry trying to find cellulose-based ethanol over corn-based ethanol. It will ALL be cellulose-based.
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