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December 2010, Week 2

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Subject:
Re: biomass, corn stover, and the new wave of synthetic biology
From:
Ed Woolsey <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Iowa Discussion, Alerts and Announcements
Date:
Fri, 10 Dec 2010 12:07:55 -0800
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (36 lines)
Assuming we're all correct here.
Sierra knocking ethanol at least elevates the current nonsustainability 
discussions.  If that reduces or eliminates the incentives going into 
ethanol...so be it.  We've incented cheap, nonsustainable ethanol and that is 
what we have gotten.  But remember that world wide... fossils get over 10X 
the subsidies as renewables.

Using hydrous ethanol to firm up our real food production system makes a lot 
of sense to me. (tillage,harvest)  Using ethanol to blend into gasoline...at any 
ratio...does not make any sense, expecially when the ethanol comes from 
nonsustainable #2 yellow corn.  I'm not optimistic that our Country/World has 
the ability to gradually reverse the coming train wreck.  Like the adaptation 
strategies that we need to be implimenting right now related to Climate 
Change, providing for some "real food security" might turn out to be a very 
very wise investment.  btw last I new the worlds ppl were short on protein and 
not starch...ethanol production uses starch and concentrates protein 3Xs and 
should make it cheaper to move protein into human food streams.

Our side should just understand that ethanol can be produced sustainably and 
that it can be used ....even in internal combustion engines...pretty cleanly.  If 
we don't understand this issue fairly well, we lose credibility in biomass 
energy debates, and more importantly we lose a major component for a clean 
energy future.  I always try to be open to any other ideas and new info so feel 
free to disagree with anything I write, I won't be offended.

"Leakage" is a very important concept (fact) but using this as an argument 
against all biomass energy production seems counterproductive...letting the 
perfect be the enemy of the good. 

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