E85 Bike...why not me!

[Dave8338]

The other story...

Here is another angle on the production or better stated...LACK of production, paid out to farmers, just in this state alone, for NOT producing grain crops. Most of this type of land is best suited for growing corn. :shock:

$83.00 per acre for NOT growing anything.... :?

http://www.farmlandminnesota.com/xSites/Agents/darrellhylen/Content/UploadedFiles/Bohlman%2008a%20CRP%20Contract.pdf

In 1999, the program had already been underway for 18 years. The 1999 figures show a total enrolement of 26.3 MILLION acres (after the 3.5 million acre number is subtracted).

http://www.smallgrains.org/springwh/mar99/shortcut.htm

Even using this outdated data, and an average of $83.00 per acre, on a one year cycle, we are looking at $2,182.900.00 PER YEAR, for the program. My calculator won't compute the number for 18 (years) x 2.183 billion.
3.9 TRILLION is close.

There is another side to the story that needs to be brought to light...

[gremlin]

here is a bit more info on ethanol and the new form of biofuel.
i have seen what 10% ethanol does to the carbs and tanks. 100% or any higher than 10% would be harmfull. your going to start seeing the older cars die a hard death.

take a look at the link for the hole story.

http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-01/beyond-ethanol

Like ethanol, butanol is a type of alcohol that's made by fermenting sugars with microbes, such as bacteria or yeast. Most ethanol is produced from corn, wheat and sugarcane; the butanol on tap in Britain is made in China, from corn.

For now, making butanol is far less efficient than making ethanol in large part because it's more toxic to the microbes that ferment it. As a result, every bushel of corn yields less than 2 percent butanol, versus about 12 percent for ethanol. To change that, BP has enlisted DuPont scientists to genetically engineer hardier microbes. According to John Ranieri, head of biofuels development for DuPont, this will drastically improve butanol's yield, clearing the way for what is potentially a much more useful fuel.

Butanol has a chemical structure that provides advantages over ethanol. For instance, unlike ethanol, which is difficult to store and can corrode pipelines, butanol could make use of existing infrastructure. It could also be blended into conventional gasoline at higher rates than ethanol because of its low vapor pressure, which decreases its volatility and reduces fumes. And its higher energy content means it would provide better fuel economy than today's biofuel of choice.

[Dave8338]

A great read...thanks for the link. Something needs to be done, I'm just not sure exactly what.

[gremlin]

if you keep your eyes open you can get a bunch of info on the net.