[grabby]

We dont want to know how much oil we are burning every second, nor do we care ho rich Bill gates is.
Also, don't make the biofuels people upset, that is a good Idea.
Also don't post things people don't like

so, if there is a mod out there, ust remove this whole thred ok?

thanks.

[grabby]

And there is no way to make 3.6 billion dollars of ethanol an hour.

uh uh.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('a smart man', '
') An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel's analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.

o The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline. o Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. "Put another way," Pimentel says, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU."

o Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. "That helps explain why fossil fuels -- not ethanol -- are used to produce ethanol," [they are cheaper] Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn't afford it, either, if it weren't for government subsidies to artificially lower the price."

o Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. "Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol."

[BURNING THE STALKS TO FUEL THE PLANT INSTEAD OF PLOWING IT UNDER WILL MASSIVELY SPEED UP SOIL DESTRUCTION]

o The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: "In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace."

[Well, this is good for the farmers, what we should do is tax the food 100 % coming in from NAFTA countries]

Nickels and dimes aside, some drivers still would rather see their cars fueled by farms in the Midwest than by oil wells in the Middle East, Pimentel acknowledges, so he calculated the amount of corn needed to power an automobile:

o The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix) would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans.

o If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.

But it could only be grown once a year . not continuously.

And the TONS OF WATER the size of the Horseshoe falls would be needed continously and that water all has to be raised to boiling temperatures would take the equivalent heat of 18 million barrels of oil a day just to distill it.,

Ethanol is not a good religion, it won't save you.

[basil_hayden]

Oooo -

Looks like grabby ditched the napkin and whipped out the calculator! WooooHoooo! Too many zeroes for that napkin!

So when I go on the TV show "Millionaire", I shouldn't ask for the million dollars, but I should ask for one second of world oil use? What's the tax rate on that? Do I need another napkin?

Why do certain people on this forum (and I'm sure you know who you are, if not I can make a list for you) insist on starting a new topic re-hashing the same ole same ole at least daily? What gives?

I'm sorry but there just isn't that much new under the sun.

Get a grip and fit your ramblings into a related post or something. It's just the same post with the same point of view over and over and over again, kind of like lorenzo's biofuel posts, and Zardoz's environmental posts. None of the above are educational, or entertaining, just aggravating.

At least invite Holmes in for a nice rant or something regarding Ponzi schemes - I can appreciate those.

Your only point here to me is Bill Gates ain't as rich as he seems,and I think we all already already knew that we used a lot of oil. Duh. Thanks for pointing out the painfully obvious.

[mekrob]

Ok, a million dollars a sec. For a minute, that's $60 mil. For an hour, that's only $3.6 billion. I thought Gates had something like $40-50 billion...

Bill did say he doesn't like having so much money.

[grabby]

I thought it was interesting but then maybe it isn't so I fixed the original post, sorry.

And who cares if people think biofuels will work, they will go down with the rest of us anyway believers or not.

[grabby]

Who cares if we reached peak or not.