From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Wed Sep 06 2000 - 22:39:48 MDT
"Michael M. Butler" wrote:
> And you're not factoring in the cost in petrol to cultivate the corn...
On the contrary. When we first discussed the notion, I intentionally
assumed closed loop production: all energy needed to distill the corn
would come from the resulting ethanol, which reduces yield to about
38% of what it would be otherwise.
Nowthen, with these assumptions, I estimated that over 2 hectares
would be required to run my (admittedly large) detroit, but it seems
to be a trend these days to ever larger road-beasts. So now, there
are about 300 megapersons in the US, and Im guessing about 2/3
as many detroits charging about, so thats 200 megadetroits, each
devouring about 2 hectares of corn, so thats 400 megahectares of corn
or about 4 million square kilometers, or 4 square megameters. Right?
So, take out your US map and imagine a square 2 megameters on a
side. If that is difficult to imagine, think of 2.4 Alaskas. Or, if you
prefer the lower 48, the corn area would need to be an area equal
to the second thru the thirteenth ranked states by area, specifically:
Texas, Taxifornia, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada,
Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Utah, Minnesota, and Idaho.
To run our detroits as we do today on alcohol derived from
non-GM corn (so popular with the ELFs) we merely need to
tear out all the current infrastructure now hogging those big
western states, plow it all up and plant it in corn, make provisions
to slay the ravenous beasts that would otherwise devour our fuel-
producing grain, stop eating the durn stuff ourselves, distill the
results, and yeeehaw! lets cruise MAINSTREET, with totally
renewable resources.
Somebody check my math, see if I dropped a decimal place
somewhere. I sure hope I did.
> > Conclusion: petrol is your friend. spike
>
> Waaall, not sure I'd go so far as to call it my friend. Heroin is more
> potent than opium, but I'm not sure heroin is my friend... :)
I couldnt have said it better, Mike. We must get smarter in how we
use energy. This should be easy, as we probably could not get
much dumber. spike
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