Well, it looks like Steve Moyer is gonna have me on his radio show in
Burlington, VT on thursday afternoon (thats when the taping is, at
least, not sure if its live). The show is Election 2000, and it turns
out Steve is running as an independent against Senator Jeffords for the
US Senate, and he host other politicians and pundits on his show. We've
been talking over email about ethanol technology, education, health
care, and other issues. One thing that interested him was the idea I had
suggested that since many grain silos around the country tend to wind up
with grain just rotting because the market price is too low, that
installing small 'microbrew' type ethanol distilleries at grain silos to
supply local demand for fuel while helping to stabilize the grain market
at the same time by eliminating any surpluses of unsalable grain might
be a good market solution to the need for lower cost fuels and eliminate
the need for subsidy. I'm aware that using standard
fermentation/distillation sytems probably has significant losses. Spike,
didn't you do some calculations on conversion of grain to ethanol a
short while back? What conversion efficiency were you talking about and
what technology were you basing that on? Are you aware of any
technologies that would be more efficient than yeast based fermentation?
-- TANSTAAFLMike Lorrey
"In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free." --- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
"A person who wants a society that is both safe and free, wants what never has been, and what never will be." --- Thomas Jefferson
"It's a Republic, if you can keep it..." --- Benjamin Franklin
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