E85 is Bullshit
Published: December 31st, 2007
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Ward's Auto reports Panda Ethanol Inc. is planning to build a new plant in Muleshoe, Texas. They plan to process 38m bushels of feedstock-grade corn per year, producing an estimated 115m gallons of ethanol. What makes this plant different from other ethanol plants? Yup. The energy source used to generate the steam in the refining process ain't gonna be electricity or natural gas. The Muleshoe plant will use gassified manure– a projected one billion pounds of cow shit per year, to be exact. The company estimates the b.s. will save the plant a thousand barrels of oil per day. If Panda (Panda?) could find a way to transport bullshit directly from Washington D.C. to Muleshoe, they could more than double production.
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Given our government's affinity with acronyms, The E85 generation process is hereby known by its new name: Corn Revenue Acquisition Program You do the math...:)
I saw a train derailment on TV in which a tank car containing ethanol was afire -- The "ADM" logo was painted on the side. I'm reasonably sure that the tank car used to carry corn oil, or corn syrup. This is really going the wrong way...
Go, Vento! Is anyone using sugar? Seems to me we have lots of sugar acreage around here that hasn't been planted in over a decade.
Why not skip the ethanol plant and put the manure-derived methane straight into the natural gas lines, then build CNG terminals to fuel cars? Land that shouldn't be used to produce irrigated corn won't be used that way and the animal manure, human waste, garbage, etc., will be utilized rather than flushed into rivers or buried.