Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tbancroft who wrote (164642)	4/27/2006 7:35:40 AM
From: kech	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794011

The primary concern is I would have is with the energy required to create the ethanol. If it is to be truly beneficial, then no petroleum-based fuel should be needed to make the ethanol because you should be able to use the ethanol to fuel the process (maybe even the fuel needed for the tractor used in growing and harvesting the corn). This isn't necessarily a very good rule because it avoids the distinction between ethanol as a provider of energy in mobile situations and ethanol as a provider of energy. The whole point of fuel cells is to take electric energy (either nuclear or coal) and make it available for mobile uses such as cars. Ethanol does the same. The trend (as you can see in the articles I cited earlier) is to switch from use of natural gas in powering ethanol plants toward the use of coal as the cost of natural gas skyrockets. This is fine with me as it makes the ethanol much lower in cost to produce because the $/btu in coal is lower than for ng and for ethanol as well. But the ethanol produced is now available for use in cars.