Here's the link to the Car Talk web site with bulletin boards and email
stuff http://www.cartalk.com/menus/email.html

-----Original Message-----
From: postcarbonsf@yahoogroups.com [mailto:postcarbonsf@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of David Huck
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 3:25 PM
To: sfbayoil@yahoogroups.com; postcarbonsf@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [postcarbonsf] Re: [sfbayoil] "Car Talk" in today's print version
of the Chronicle

So are we going to reply to this? I can write the summary if people can fill

me in a bit more on the Brazil matter with a number and source. I have a
biofuel document from an ex-exxonmobil researcher who contacted me re: the
EBulletin story I wrote (and thus the class I'm teaching).

Thanks guys,

David

----Original Message Follows----
From: "reuben firmin" <peakoil@...>
Reply-To: sfbayoil@yahoogroups.com
To: sfbayoil@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [sfbayoil] "Car Talk" in today's print version of the Chronicle
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 07:25:15 -0800

The "Brazilian model" - i.e. Brazil's successful sugarcane ethanol industry
- is making the rounds in "ethanol can work for us" circles, and so IMO
should be preemptively mentioned whenever arguing the merits of ethanol.
Sugarcane produced ethanol has a significantly positive EROEI (I've heard
everywhere between 1.6 and 10(!)), and they've been doing it for 30 years,
which is why it works for them. (It unarguably *does* work - they now export
$2 billion+ of fuel alcohol per year.)

(See: http://www.tierramerica.net/2004/1030/iarticulo.shtml)

However, comparing Biomass Central (aka the Amazon Basin) with over produced
nitrogen depleted North Dakota arable land is not really a fair equation, so
we really can't draw the inference that "it should work for us".


On 3/5/06, David Huck <chocolatefro@...> wrote:
>
>
> 2) The only reason it may be cheaper now to ferment your own ethanol or
> even
> buy it (I don't know the price of E85) is because of huge subsidies from
> the
> government to the corn/agribusiness lobby. Like it or not, money doesn't
> actually make a processes energetically positive, in fact if Ethanol has
a
> lower than 1 EROEI (and thus is a net loss) the only way it is being
> manufactured for vehicle consumption is through subsidies from coal fired
> electricity, diesel tractors, NG fertilizer and all manner of hydrocarbon
> based herbi- pesti- cides.
>
>

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