Let me see if I understand this correctly. Governor Blunt of Missouri is still proposing to spend millions of our tax dollars on unproved ethanol production, while eliminating the free market to determine its demand. I hate "big oil" as much as anyone, but this ethanol scheme will cost us millions of tax dollars and simply will not be the answer to the big oil problem.

Take a few minutes to look at the 2008 Fuel Economy Guide ( www.fueleconomy.gov) available from any car dealer. In it we find that, "… Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFV) operating on E85 usually experience a 20 -30% drop in miles per gallon due to ethanol's lower energy content". Simple calculations will show that using E85 will cost the owner around a thousand dollars more per year to drive an FFV.

Let's look at Governor Blunt's plan for alternative fuel, keeping in mind that only Missouri, Minnesota, and Hawaii have state mandates to use ethanol as a fuel and that Matt's lobbyist brother Andy Blunt has ties to the ethanol industry. To quote the Springfield Business Journal, Matt Wagner - 11/13/2006"… the Associated Press reported that he [Andy] had invested in Central Missouri Biofuels LLC. The company had 10 percent ownership in Show Me Ethanol, which plans to build an ethanol plant in the northeast Missouri town of Carrolton. Show Me Ethanol has applied for a $48 million linked-deposit loan administered by the state treasurer's office, which has a conflict-of-interest policy that prohibits elected officials or their family members from participating in the program".

The Governor's plan proposes a $2 million tax incentive to help gas stations modify pumps so they can offer E85 (85% ethanol). This cost could range from $3,000 to $40,000 for the 4,312 service stations in Missouri. If each station averaged $15,000, that would amount to 64,680,000. Next is the income tax incentive to purchase an FFV in the amount of either $1,500 or 10 percent of the cost of the vehicle. The cost of this facet is totally unknown, since we have no idea how many vehicles will be purchased. Then comes the tax credits of 25 cents per gallon in year one; 20 cents per gallon in years two and three; and 15 cents per gallon in each subsequent year up to $500 per taxpayer per year. Again, total cost unknown. Remember, this is your tax dollars going into these incentives and into car buyer's pockets.

Now, let's see what is happening elsewhere concerning the use of food (corn) for fuel. Quoting in part, "The United Nations Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia, wrapped up on December 14. Like many experts and economists, conference participants showed little enthusiasm for biofuels produced from agriculture—primarily corn-based ethanol. Biofuels are hitting consumers at the pump, at the grocery store, and even at tax time. Without a doubt, the extremely high cost of biofuel production outweighs its supposed environmental benefits; biofuel production may actually harm the environment more than it helps. One survey presented at the Bali conference polled 1,000 respondents from 105 countries. Biofuels from agricultural crops finished dead last of 19 possible choices of answers to the world's energy needs." Washington D.C and Missouri Governor, Matt Blunt, have yet to get the message and continue to promote both corn and cellulosic ethanol through costly subsidies and support payments. The use of food or corn for fuel is simply morally wrong and socially irresponsible in my opinion.

Cellulosic ethanol can be distilled from virtually any plant matter including farm waste. The most often mentioned grass that might produce the cellulosic product for ethanol seems to be switchgrass ( Sorghastrum nutans). Switchgrass is even less dense than corn stubble and ethanol has yet to be produced from switchgrass except in the laboratory on a very small scale as far as I can determine. Those, including our government officials, who keep tossing the switchgrass/ethanol term around simply have not done their homework on the subject. There are only a comparatively few acres of this grass in a monoculture nationwide and the conversion of many more acres to it seems unlikely. Switchgrass grows when the soil temperature is warmer (warm-season) and can be harvested only once per growing season. Having done graduate research and studies in the establishment, growth, and management of switchgrass, I do not see how this warm-season grass will produce enough tonnage to meet even a tiny fraction of the demand. If we must waste money on cellulosic ethanol research, then why not test a common grass that certainly does produce a large tonnage of biomass? That grass is Johnson grass. Yes, old Sorghum halepense itself, the scourge of the country side; the arch enemy of the grain producer; the hated target of the cattleman at certain times of the year; the weed that drains budgets; the weed grass that humbles the best farm managers. Johnson grass is probably the world's most noxious weed. It is found worldwide and on about every soil type. We cannot rid the country of it, so why not turn it into something good – ethanol production! Cellulosic ethanol requires "anything with cell walls" and we know that Johnson grass can certainly produce cell walls in abundance. Compared to corn, the sorghums need about half as much water to mature. Some sorghum is grown for grain and silage, while sweet sorghums yield sugar-rich stalks, which are crushed, like sugarcane, to obtain a juice which can be fermented into ethanol. Surely, our old enemy Johnson grass can be researched to find if it has some redeeming qualities.

Cellulosic ethanol has many logistic problems associated with it. Just the collecting and storing of a million tons of corn stubble, which is more energy dense than switchgrass , each year for a single ethanol plant is mind-boggling to say the least. One three-year study showed that an 80-million-gallon ethanol plant would require corn stubble from 500,000 acres of corn within a 50-mile radius of the plant and 500 acres to store it after harvest. From what I can read, a million tons of corn stubble might produce 80 million gallons of ethanol. It would take 67,000 semitrailer loads to haul the baled stubble out of the field. That's 187 truckloads a day or one every eight minutes. The need for trucks, machinery, and manpower would come during harvest time which is already the busiest time of the year on the farm. These are not my figures and granted, they are open to debate depending on the many variables, but they seem reasonable to me.

To meet just current gasoline demands, we would need 2,500 of these ethanol production facilities to meet the U.S. needs, not including diesel, fuel oil, or jet fuel. We cannot ignore the energy required to supply these plants. How many gallons of fossil fuels would it take to run all of those semi-trailer trucks to take the stubble to the plant? How much diesel would it take for the trains to haul the ethanol to market? How much natural gas and electricity would be required to distill off the ethanol? What about the air and water pollution that is produced from each plant? What about the tremendous amount of water required for each plant? There are many more questions and very few answers concerning ethanol production from cellulose.

Petroleum is probably better than Biofuels from CO2 emissions and also is definitely better for food supply for the world. But it is NOT the greenest fuel. Electrification of road and public transport is the greenest and in an age of Global Warming, Sea Level Rise, Ocean Acidification and Peak Oil - electric light rail, electric buses and electric cars are essential.

Electric cars produce just 10% of the CO2 of internal combustion engine cars, because only 20% of the energy of the petrol turns the wheels, most of the energy of petrol is lost in heat and noise, whilst 95% of the electric energy of an electric car turns the wheels.

Electric cars, electric bicycles and electric trains are all a reality now. This is where all the tax incentives should be put.

As more power plants convert to solar, wind, geothermal and tidal power - the energy used in electric transport becomes ever greener and greener.

Oil is too precious to just burn up to get to and from the supermarket. We may need oil/petroleum for air transport, shipping, big mining and big agriculture machinery for centuries to come.

Don't waste it in an SUV!!

What has everyone forgotten about electicity, if the gov. would put more time and money we could improve on emissions free cars. hydro cars are still an option to. i was thinking of magnatism like the trains in europe...but one day were going to run out of oil and other natural gases and we are growing dependent of them...what would happen if say something like the dust bowl ever happened because of over producing crops just so we could drive our cars? if that happened again we would be screwed.

www.focusfusion.org

teslamotors.com

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html

There! All fixed. Power at $0.001 / kwh; 100% electric car; batteries that will give the car >2000 miles per charge; >3000 mpg equivalent. Quick (months and years, not decades) obsolescence of EVERY other power source, worldwide. Zero emissions, radioactivity, carbon footprint.

If biofuel is as bad as you say, we should petition.

My answer is more nuclear power plants. We have a rediculous number of nuclear bombs of which all have either uranium or plutonium and we can use those in nuclear power plants. We don't need thousands of nukes. A couple hundred would be way more than enough to destroy the entire Earth from blackout and radiation poisoning. The rest of the what...forty something hundred nukes could be used in nuclear power plants. They are effective, get rid of pointless danger (nuclear bombs), reduce costs to guard these nukes, produce zero CO2, and are safe as long as they are maintained properly (which they didn't do at Chernobyl and nearly didn't do at 3-mile island). With the better safety protocols we have now and those new sodium cooled nuclear reactors, it would be much safer.

Good article! Obviously, harvesting native plants (not just switch grass!) for use in production of cellulosic ethanol is the way to go.

Native plants growing on nonagricultural land require no cultivation, no fertilizer, and no irrigation. We used to call them weeds; undesirable, pernicious plants. Turns out they can be quite valuable if we are clever enough to extract their energy.

A undesirable weed was accidentally imported into the western US early on. It was the Russian thistle, commonly known as a tumbleweed. In thrived in the arid grasslands crowding out native plants and grasses. In the Fall, the main root breaks off and this great round ball of a plant rolls across the land spreading its seed. Then it piles up in dense masses against fences and other obstructions.

When I was a kid, I burned a lot of those tumbleweed piles and was amazed at the burning oil that I could see dripping out of the seemingly dry plants in the fire. The fires produced an oily black smoke too. There is a lot of energy in these plants and it would be cheap and easy to harvest.

I do agree with Crazy Stan. the Soviets (remember before the USSR collapsed) built Chernobyl with few safeguards, and as we should know no safeguards and pushing things beyond their limits is not a very good idea. Besides depleted U-235 and U-238 are actually far more radioactive. So I propose we strip the uranium and plutonium out of the warheads and use it. Then we have Biofuels, a useful thing but can we really use a worse fuel AND cause starvation in third world countries? Look at Haiti, it lost its leader to unrest caused by us (US, same thing). Do we really like the idea of a nuclear terrorism? (hopefully not)

I've developed some models to explain how my concepts for using the gravity from cars and trucks to power our cities and homes. Please view my concepts at jaso888n.deviantart.com
my name is Jason Kelso and i'm an engineering student at Metro State College of Denver.

Hi,

I agree with some of the comments above - and put simply, what's the point of replacing a fuel which is sitting under the ground with one that requires millions of acres of land to be either destroyed, or taken from the world's arable land bank?

We need to be using LESS FUEL, not just getting it from different sources.

For an alternative solution, look at these articles:

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Gary.