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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum
GLD 399.01+0.1%Dec 19 4:00 PM EST

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To: Crabbe who wrote (4354)2/17/2006 4:06:39 PM
From: Seeker of Truth  Read Replies (1) of 218633
 
Hello Crabbe, I'm happy to be corrected, any time. I really am seeking the truth. Now it appears that Jerusalem artichoke is the best crop per acre but maybe it can't grow everywhere or what?
Anyway, sugar cane beats all the others, according to your sources. But the sugar cane of the US only seems to grow in Louisiana and Hawaii, evidently we need lots of heat (and light) to achieve those fine results. Surely they are not saying that US per acre production of sugar is as high as that of Brazil? Or are they?
I would like to be convinced that alcohol will solve the energy crisis. But, for example, the sucrose of sugar cane practically falls apart into glucose and its interconvertable isomer, fructose. On the other hand cellulose definitely needs a (bacterial) enzyme, such as live in a cow or horse's GI tract. Treatment with H2SO4 will make a lot of C-C bonds as well as break C-O bonds, so that in my eyes rules it out. On the other hand directed evolution of enzymes is beginning to appear in the lab so maybe your miscellaneous cellulose sources will eventually be quite practical. I don't know whether they really are now or not since as somebody has pointed out there is a cost in generating the cellulose. The cost must be paid by the sun, or else by consuming energy(e.g. some alcohol).
The vast experiment with ethanol(not methanol; hard to get that from plants.) has begun and we will find out 15-20 years in the future, whether it saves energy or not. Meanwhile I will invest in Brazil, in the perhaps monstrously erroneous thinking that Brazilian sun is one of the best sources of energy around.
Not only the American Midwest but also the Canadian plains are the bread baskets of the world. And so far increased demand has been matched by increased yield and the genes of wheat and corn have been steadily improved. Meanwhile the six billion global population is growing on and on.
Seeker of Truth
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