The most impressive thing about search engines is that one can quickly find relative topics on subjects of interest within milliseconds. With 1000 "brain-stormers" in action on the weekend, I'm totally stunned there is not a mention of Ethanol apart from the fact that one Australian car manufacturer is working towards exporting cars that include ethanol powered hybrids. May I say that I'm disappointed that the following topics were not covered.
- Bio-Fuels
- Ethanol powered vehicles ( I thought this stuff emits 80% less CO2)
- Ethanol production in rural Australia with genetically modified drought resistant plants. ( A great future for fringe farmers)
As soon as we get the World's car manufacturers design out dependency of crude oil for internal combustion powered vehicles, the sooner our climate recovers from our (well maybe the USA) high energy needs by- product called Global Warming
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Total cost of ethanol?
Don't get too attached to ethanol, and don't get too upset that it wasn't top of mind at the summit. It turns out to be a tricky question whether or not the net benefit of ethanol is positive. The emission of CO2 at the engine is only a small part of the story. When you look at the fuel needed by the vast fleets of farm equipment tending the corn or whatever, and the significant energy needed to distill pure alcohol off the fermentation tanks, the overall efficiency of ethanol (as a converter of solar energy) can be disappointing.
Stephen Wilson