straykozel's Comments

BlueFire Ethanol: A Solution to the Food vs. Fuel Problem

Mon, 05 May 2008 17:33:24 -0400

In response to Tom:

1) Researchers at Cornell University and the University of California-Berkeley say it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces. For switch grass, a warm weather perennial grass found in the Great Plains and eastern North America United States, it takes 45 percent more energy and for wood, 57 percent.

It takes 27 percent more energy to turn soybeans into biodiesel fuel and more than double the energy produced is needed to do the same to sunflower plants, the study found.

2) Intelligent people act:

www.freerepublic.com/t...

Buffett's Advice to the Berkshire Faithful: Buy Index Funds

Mon, 05 May 2008 08:39:37 -0400

The fact is that "the masses" are following their employer's IRA advisor's "safe" recommendations and have their money in mutual funds, very often in the expensive Alphabet ones, plus in their company stock.

IMHO, for "the masses" the most profitable future is in Vanguard-type mutual funds, with the more informed individuals hopefully pushing for Index ETFs to be included in their employer's IRA portfolio "offerings".

Based on my experience from IBM (I am retired) many companies would save great amounts of manpower hours from being wasted on the Web if they (the companies) would provide their employees with top notch, coherent IRA-related guidance and choice of selections.

Is there already portfolio-like Mutual Fund or a dynamic ETF made of ETFs? If not, there surely will be one soon.

I am already more than 80% in ETFs and CEFs, with Zero money in Mutual funds; took me a quite few years to get here....

Brazil: Let the Feeding Frenzy Begin

Mon, 05 May 2008 08:15:15 -0400

Not fully trusting South Americans (see latest Argentine problems) I invest in Brazil via EEB.

BlueFire Ethanol: A Solution to the Food vs. Fuel Problem

Mon, 05 May 2008 08:08:31 -0400

<<...the Farm Bill, DOE heavily investing into multiple projects (40mil grant for BFRE) so unless you don't care about the global environment, then keep your XOM stock, your nay-saying and your old ways...>>

You sound like an extreme dogmatist. Also the "tax break" means we have to pay for it. This Ethanol stuff reminds me of Potemkin's willages.

BlueFire Ethanol: A Solution to the Food vs. Fuel Problem

Sun, 04 May 2008 18:34:01 -0400

SpencerN: The text below is from General Moptors Web Page (gm = General motors)

From gm.com: <>

The steam has to be made and to reuse it it hast to be re-heated again.

Yeast - we breed show dogs; yeast used in the commercial dog food is terrible stuff causing serious skin problems. We simply do not use it and feed raw meat.

For production of ethanol, sulfuric acid is made, not collected in the environment.

To burn solids from processed garbage you need expensive scrubbers.

Waste of time to discuss this to depth; Just buy something like Sasol and you will do much better than with this garbage crap.

Brazil: Let the Feeding Frenzy Begin

Sun, 04 May 2008 12:37:16 -0400

The Russians seem to be taking Brasil seriously: signed with Brasil partnership to develop a 5th generation advanced military jet fighter (Russia scrapped this project few years ago for lack of money) and space launch vehicles.
The fighter should be something like Su-30MKI or even the Sukhoi PAK-FA

BlueFire Ethanol: A Solution to the Food vs. Fuel Problem

Sun, 04 May 2008 12:05:53 -0400

The issue is not that corn is being used to make ethanol; instead, the fact that arable acreage is being used to grow something like Switch grass instead of edible products. Same for wood chips; are we ready to pay $5 per roll of a toilet paper?

Producing Ethanol could be from garbage could be OK, but not very economical. More practical would be using the gases in situ as is being done already in some locations.

In 24 hours of production 500 tons of garbage needs to be processed with 20 tons of sulfuric acid; then you need 4 tons of lime, 4000KW electricity and 2,880,000 gallons of steam!

The output will be 42,000 gallons of ethanol, 133 tons of Carbon Dioxide, 402 ton of ligning (solids), 33 ons of Gypsum, ons of yeast and assorted addiional waste.

Garbage contains many heavy metals; we outlawed leaded gasoline and now we will start burning in our car engines something with even more dangerous "additives"? Also , the "economically produced" form of Sulfuric Acid is produced in vessels mads from lead; in addition, this acid is very corrosive (oxidising) when heated - the steam is used to heat the mixture.... I rest my case.

Overall, I am strongly against use of ethanol in engines. Too costly and environmentally unfriendly to produce. Why nobody published data showing ethanol's impact on gasoline engines - is here difference in life expectancy?

Why we do not get serious about making fuels from coal and about using nuclear energy?

From gm.com: <>