<div>What abouit the notion of using sugar beets for fuel? You can't grow them on the Palouse, of course, but you can all over southern Idaho and central Washington.</div> <div> </div> <div>Penny<BR><BR><B><I>Jim Meyer <m1e2y3e4@moscow.com></I></B> wrote:</div> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Ted and all,<BR>Cellulosic alcohol is great idea. Alan Greenspan thinks it is a good <BR>idea. I hadn't really known it had come of age before hearing Mr. <BR>Greenspan talking about it. The big idea with cellulosic alcohol is that <BR>it can be produced from plants that require very little oil based <BR>fertilizer input. As I recall, and I might be wrong, corn requires about <BR>300 pounds of nitrogen/acre. Even with the best legume crop rotation you <BR>could never produce corn without external fertilizer. Cellulose on the <BR>hand, can grow without external nitrogen sources. Furthermore, we do
<BR>have plenty of timber slash and marginal lands that can grow sturdy, low <BR>input cellulosic crops. So I second your suggestion even to the point of <BR>wanting to start my own plant, if that were even remotely possible. <BR>Secondly, I would produce cellulosic butanol, not ethanol. See <BR>http://www.butanol.com/. Supposedly it can replace gasoline directly <BR>without any engine modifications. What could be better? Currently, if <BR>you want to run an E85 vehicle, either you have to buy a vehicle so <BR>designed or you have to do considerable retrofitting. Without the <BR>necessity of retrofiting, butanol appears to have it all over ethanol, <BR>not to mention generally better fuel characteristics than ethanol.<BR><BR>Jim Meyer<BR><BR>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>><BR>> Message: 1<BR>> Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:00:14 -0700<BR>> From: "Ted Moffett" <STARBLISS@GMAIL.COM><BR>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020]
Inconvenient Truth -- What WE REALLY HAVE TO<BR>> DO: " Apollo Project"<BR>> To: "Chris Storhok" <CSTORHOK@CO.FAIRBANKS.AK.US>, "Vision 2020"<BR>> <VISION2020@MOSCOW.COM><BR>> Message-ID:<BR>> <D03F69E0608311200G1611636CL1B016E9D3DE8A33D@MAIL.GMAIL.COM><BR>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR>><BR>> Chris et. al.<BR>><BR>> Yes, that was Donovan's idea about high gas taxes, and of course many think<BR>> gas taxes should be raised, though some call it a "carbon tax" that could be<BR>> used to develop the infrastructure and technology to transition away from<BR>> fossil fuels. It's hard to see how addressing fossil fuel depletion and<BR>> global warming can be economically pain free... However, raising gas taxes a<BR>> lot is almost politically impossible.<BR>><BR>> Thanks for the detailed info on the biofuels project you are working on. I<BR>> agree there is good evidence that biofuels can be practical and
efficient<BR>> enough in some applications, as your discussion of the biofuels projects in<BR>> Alaska indicate. Wait for the final implementation, though. As they say,<BR>> the devil is in the details. Brazil, it appears, has a self supporting<BR>> biofuels program based on sugar cane, much better than corn for biofuels,<BR>> that supplies a lot of their fuel. From the analyses I have read, however,<BR>> biofuels are not a dominant solution to supplying the USA, not to mention<BR>> India and China, with the fuel we/they need, given current and expected<BR>> future consumption levels, at least not with internal combustion engines.<BR>><BR>> I would like to hear more about this wood based biofuels program in Alaska.<BR>> It must be based on what is called "cellulosic" biofuels. I posted to<BR>> Vision2020 the suggestion that the Moscow/Pullman area could have its own<BR>> biofuels plant to produce fuel locally from the
forest/agriculture biomass<BR>> resources available in our greater area. I did not get a single response to<BR>> this suggestion, but what the heck, it's only Vision2020.<BR>><BR>> I don't think Vision2020 readers should need a "Warning" about your<BR>> discussion of the biofuels projects in Alaska being boring. The same ideas<BR>> might be applied here for affordable renewable biofuels at a local biofuels<BR>> plant... If that's boring, I suppose Vision2020 readers will find 10 dollar<BR>> a gallon fossil fuel gas to be very exciting!<BR>><BR>> Ted Moffett<BR>> -------------- next part --------------<BR>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...<BR>> URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20060831/9182d490/attachment-0001.htm <BR>><BR>> ------------------------------<BR>> <BR><BR>=======================================================<BR>List services made available by First Step Internet, <BR>serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994. <BR>http://www.fsr.net <BR>mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>=======================================================<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><p> 
<hr size=1>Stay in the know. Pulse on the new Yahoo.com. <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=42974/*http://www.yahoo.com/preview"> Check it out.</a>