Reply #6: Actually [View All]

[Squeech]

it's kinda stoopid. We'd be taking something that's already useful food and, through a capital-intensive and not terribly energy-efficient process, turning it into something we can stuff in a gas tank and burn, somewhat less efficiently than the gasoline the engine was built for.

And yeah, I know, peak oil etc. But if we're gonna go the agricultural renewable energy route, we shouldn't use the edible corn as the feedstock, we should use the cornstalks, the part we can't eat. The rinds and stalks and roots of agricultural products. Lumber mill waste. Old newspapers, since paper recycling hasn't really taken off. Any form of useless cellulose.

As best as I can figure it, the process of turning cellulose into ethanol is pretty much the same as for corn, except you need one more step at the beginning, to break up the cellulose-- which like starch is a polysaccharide, but with stronger bonds that are harder to break. But there are people who've been brewing bugs that specialize in exactly that sort of digestion-- they can apparently support themselves on just that reaction, much as yeast can live off the conversion of sugars into ethanol. And I understand there are pilot plants out there today.