Rob Mida

BlueFire Ethanol Fuels: Converting Garbage Into Profits

If you want a list of possible problems, I suggest the site below
energyjustice.net.

Tom,

using a blend of E30 would not translate into a 30% reduction in crude oil imports.
1) The controversial reduction in miles per gallon with alcohol.
2) For corn ethanol you still use diesel on farm equipment, tremendous amounts of water and fertilizer. Nitrogen is derived from (increasingly and up to half imported) natural gas sources. As well as oil.
3)With cellulosic, nobody has yet to make it cost effective - don't listen to engineers blaming public policy, especially when BP, Chevron, and others are MAJOR investors in agro-fuels as it delays the day we stop using fuels and inefficient internal combustion engines.

And this isn't to say our public policies on energy (or financing) are sound. They are near-sighted and foolish at best. If we had had good policy we wouldn't have the crisis we are in now. Large corporations and special interests write the laws and hand them to their insider politicians that they pay off and that's how we've gotten these policies. Any 'solutions' published in the main stream are only market-friendly, feel good, green wash programs, like agrofuels and take away from the real solutions out there.

Also, we hardly have "unlimited" sources for cellulose. It might seem that way, but using all our natural forests for fuel and replacing them with GE monoculture tree plantations will hardly help our situation. Soil degradation is a problem too and contributes much more to climate change than is realized.

I could go on, e-mail me if you are interested in a discussion or would like to know more about why these things are flawed OR the solutions that would actually work.

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