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To: Slagle who wrote (67089)	8/7/2005 2:02:05 PM
From: Moominoid	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

I figured the Brazilian advantage in sugar->ethanol was the tropical climate and cheap labor, so low energy, labor intensive production maybe would have an edge over the highly energy intensive US system of producing crops. I discussed this with Duane Chapman (Cornell) and he told me that when he was at the World Bank he did an investigation of this issue and decided that it was an energy sink even in Brazil, or at least had a very low EROI all told. The bottom line is that plants only convert about 1-2% of the sunlight falling on them into energy stored in sugar. And when you spend fossil fuels to grow them the net gain is very low. Photovoltaics get 15% perhaps +/-. Making them also requires a lot of energy and other resources at present. So it is hard to beat fossil fuels at this point. Hydro and wind maybe where nature funnels the energy through particular points. Chapman was very skeptical of wind though too. There is a reason why we switched from biomass energy to fossil fuels in the industrial revolution.

To: Slagle who wrote (67089)	8/8/2005 12:01:15 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

On Ethanol: Has peace of mind a price? Lets oil invisible subsidies that makes it THE source of energy at the back of the envelope calculation. US spend USD400bn in "defense", it needs aircraft carriers and jet fighers, satellites, and bureaucrats in uniform a.k.a military man. All that is not factored in the price of oil. But we know a big % of "defense" goes into protecting sea lanes, intimidate oil rich states, be ready to seize resources if things go out of hand... Then there are all the policies that are devised having oil in mind: For exanple: Iran today (and all that happened since 1953) are result of oil politics. Can the Iran - US dilemma costs be factored into oil price? But the invisibles are costs that once factored in makes ethanol a good proposition. s for your reasoning on beans it is very correct. Perhaps Brazil could consider smashing the grains and export oil for diesel engines rather than whole grains.