Re: Forget Corn ...................the new word is cellulose !

Hayden et all,
Yes, ethanol burns 50% cleaner than gas. But it also has less energy per gallon so you get about 80% of the mpg in most vehicles when running E100. It's still better than imported oil.
If you have engines made to run on the higher octane of ethanol they get more of the energy out of it. A higher compression engine with a turbo charger or super charger gets the most out of a gallon of E85 or E100. Saab has a few designs based on this fact.
Even better than corn is sugar cane like Brazil uses. They used to import 80% of their oil and now actually export ethanol. In the US we can use sugar beats. Corn is one of the worst with a return of 1.2 for the energy you have to put into it.
Some worry making ethanol will reduce the food suply. If that were true why do we export corn becuase we have so much ? Why do we pay farmers not to grow corn ? Why do we make so much junk food and soda with high fructose sugar from corn ? Why do we make and consume so much alcahol ? Let's put that waste to work!
check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

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