F. George McDuffee wrote:

On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 21:54:06 GMT, "Dave Lyon"
wrote:



An interesting article. THere may well be a break even on the ethanol
production. But if this is truly the case, then why are the Distilling
plants STILL using natural gas and/or coal for their heating?

--
"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs

22:3

Because it's cheaper. We have been talking about the amount of energy
required to produce ethanol. Don't confuse that with the amount of money
that it requires.

If you really wanted to glean the most energy from corn, don't convert it to
ethanol, just burn it. If you do that, it's cheaper per btu than natural
gas.

====================
I understand that some people are burning shelled feed corn in
their wood pellet stoves with complete success/satisfaction. Any
information on this?

Also given the low temperature required for distilation, even
lower with vacuum, is solar power a large scale viable option?

Uncle George

it's low temp, but still a lot of BTU's to vaporise the ethanol.

--
"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3