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Ongoing Thoughts Nine:
By William E. Steinman:
Ethanol:
It is a crime against humanity. If ever there was such a
thing as a sin, this massive conversion of food to fuel must be at the top of
the list. Let us get clear on what ethanol really is. It is booze. Here is the
description from Microsoft’s Bookshelf:
ethanol (èth´e-nôl´) or ethyl
alcohol (CH3CH2OH), a colorless liquid with characteristic odor and taste,
commonly called grain alcohol or, simply, alcohol. Ordinary ethanol is about
95% pure, the remaining 5% being water, which can only be removed with difficulty
to give pure or absolute ethanol. Ethanol is the alcohol in beer, wine, and
liquor and can be made by the fermentation of sugar or starch. Denatured
alcohol, for industrial use, is ethanol with toxic additives. Ethanol is used
as a solvent in the manufacture of varnishes and perfumes; as a preservative;
in medicines; as a disinfectant; and as a fuel and fuel additive (see gasohol).
Ethanol is a soporific; if its presence in the blood exceeds about 5%, death
usually occurs. Behavioral changes, impairment of vision, or unconsciousness
occur at lower concentrations. See alcoholism.
Okay, so this is the stuff made by ridge-runners and stump
jumpers in the backwoods. It is sometimes called white lightning or corn
squeezens. It is the stuff that revenuers are supposed to prevent. Now we find
them subsidizing its production while the fools of
Let us consider the facts. We have food riots in third world
countries. People do not have
enough rice or corn or any other food basics. It is getting tight in
Even so, someone speaking on ABC said if we stopped selling
ethanol, gas prices would go up even more. That is typical of the thoughtless
top of the head bull that comes out of politicians and media people. Ethanol,
in spite of its huge impact on our grocery bill, comprises a very tiny fraction
of the fuel we burn. The difference in the fuel supply would not be noticeable.
Only the greedy profiteers would notice the loss of income.
The good news is the federal government is finally starting
to back off on subsidizing this crap. They have not done a complete turn around
yet. They just reduced the ethanol subsidy and increased the food production
subsidy. I expect to see a complete turn around by year’s end. Of course,
they will sneak up on it. They will never admit they made a terrible blunder in
the first place and caused a great deal of evil in the entire world. The
history of our government reveals a total failure to admit blunders, even when
it becomes obvious to the rest of the world.
What will happen to all of that conversion hardware? We now
have an enormous number of very expensive stills in
Cow-pow is power.
Some farmers are using manure to produce electricity. How?
They trap the gas from fermenting cow-pow, which happens to be methane and use
it to drive a generator that produces electrical energy. Methane is a very
clean burning gas. Here is Microsoft’s description:
Methane (mèth´ân´) (CH4),
colorless, odorless, gaseous hydrocarbon formed by the decay of plant and
animal matter. It occurs naturally as the chief component of natural gas, as
the firedamp of coal mines, and as the marsh gas released in swamps and
marshes. Methane can also be made synthetically by various means. It is
combustible and can form explosive mixtures with air. Used for fuel in the form
of natural gas, methane is also an important starting material for making
solvents and certain Freons.
So, the whole cycle is simple. Instead of converting corn to
ethanol, they let the cows eat it to produce milk and cow-pow. Then the cow-pow
is converted to energy and soil conditioner fertilizer. The conversion
equipment is called a digester. Nothing is wasted and the process is
continuous. It’s a win for everyone. I can only suggest they could have
picked a better name, I don’t even want to think about what digester
implies. The result is what counts. In this result, we get more, not less food.
The dairy farmers get rid of their waste by converting it to useful products
and they also get free electricity.
The remaining question is can we use this process to convert
large quantities of chicken-crap, hog-pow, and or rotting garbage or other
forms of organic waste to energy. We know, for example, that the hog farmers in
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