All the subsidies in the world cannot turn a bad business idea into a good one -- "To turn wood chips into ethanol fuel, George W. Bush's Department of Energy in February 2007 announced a $76 million grant to Range Fuels for a cutting-edge refinery. A few months later, the refinery opened in the piney woods of Treutlen County, Ga., as the taxpayers of Georgia piled on another $6 million. In 2008, the ethanol plant was the first beneficiary of the Biorefinery Assistance Program, pocketing a loan for $80 million guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayers," writes the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney. "Last month, the refinery closed down, having failed to squeeze even a drop of ethanol out of its pine chips."Yesterday a train full of ethanol derailed and blew up in Ohio. The stuff is notoriously difficult to transport (it can't be sent more than about 400 miles from its source without risk of it breaking down), and as food crops are transferred into ethanol production food prices rise without the ethanol making a significant dent in our energy needs. It's time to stop.
Monday, February 07, 2011
The Ethanol Folly
The Daily Caller has one example of throwing good money after a bad idea:
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It is important to note that no information given concerning the power input required to produce a unit of power from the final product. The normal output from wood chips is methanol, so something is needed to tie in more hydrogen...think energy.
It is curious that the ethanol cannot be transported long distances. This tells me that the process does not produce the more stable ethanol made from corn or other hydrocarbons. I suspect this process will become another 'flash in the pan'.
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