OT: A product from my University

[Rob Brandt]

Depends on the crop used, and location.  In Brazil the ethanol is 
produced IIRC with a particular variety of sugar cane that won't grow up 
here.  Canada using wheat waste is a great idea, but how much is 
produced?  Ethanol was considered cheap to make here in the US too, 
until usage was mandated at a certain level.  It *was* cheap because 
they were using surplus corn to make the smaller quantities.  Now that 
it's mandated, a lot more is needed, there is no more surplus corn, food 
prices have skyrocketed because farm production has shifted towards corn 
for ethanol, there still isn't enough, and ethanol doesn't appear to be 
the bargain it once appeared to be.

Bottom line, it all depends on how much you need and if you have the 
farm capacity to to produce enough sugar in some sort of bio crop to 
meet your needs.  I don't know anything about Canada's ethanol 
consumption or wheat production relative to the US.  I'm surprised that 
wheat waste (chaff?) makes a good ethanol source because it's relatively 
low in sugar compared to sugar cane and corn.  If it does, and the US 
isn't doing it, it should.

Rob

CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote, On 5/29/2008 5:13 AM:
> Alain Stouder wrote:
>> This is great but with all new technology rising I heard concerns 
>> about ethanol costing more energy to produce in terms of CO2 (+ rising 
>> in small part the price of wheat ) than what it saves on using.
>>
>> It will take some years before of all these advanced projects one 
>> better solution emerges.
> 
> As my 15 year-old son, who just attended a week-long youth conference at 
> the University of Regina titled "Energy in the future: What opportunity? 
> What cost?", would tell you, that is not true, at least not in Canada. 
> Apparently, just from the plant waste from the Saskatchewan wheat crop, 
> which now just decomposes and is unused, we could produce enough ethanol 
> to power every car in Canada for a year. Why don't we? Our cars are not 
> designed to run on 100% ethanol but that will eventually change as 
> gasoline prices reach intolerable levels. When I was in Sao Paulo in the 
> mid-80s, most cars ran on domestically-produced ethanol and food was 
> dirt cheap.