Re: [Amc-list] The Pickens Plan (not)

["Armand Eshleman" <aje1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just want to add my two cents worth to clear the air on this subject.......

I'm not sure who wrote this statement

"Ethanol production from corn
> " hasn't made food prices go up directly because "sweet corn" is
> " what humans eat, "field corn" is used for ethanol and livestock
> " feed."

 but it is a tiny bit misleading
To begin, to the best of my knowledge Corn Flakes (human food) are NOT made
from "sweet corn".
Corn Flakes are processed from "field corn" which is also livestock feed.
"Sweet corn is corn on the cob and canned corn or fresh frozen corn.
My brother in law prefers field corn on the cob over sweet corn on the cob,
but the field corn has to be at a certain age.
"Sweet Corn" is only grown in limited areas. Like the valley of the Jolly
Green Giant for example
(Blue Earth and Le Seuer, MN area) in any great concentrated quantities.
Sure there are other areas, of course,
that grow sweet corn and small producers sell it at the street corners,
but the majority of the fields in MN, IA, SD, IL, and the other corn belt
States
grow field corn for processing into so many different food products for
human and animal consumption
that I can't begin to list them. MASA Flour for tortillas is not sweet corn,
Fritos Corn Chips are made
from field corn. Yes, ethanol is made from field corn, as are some
plastics.. WHAT??? yup that's correct
the building block molecules of some plastics are begun using corn
derivatives. The use of corn to make ethanol is just another
load on the system and the consumer is loosing out in the form of higher
prices for his food.
Other biomass solutions are available, they just haven't been pursued here.
Sugar Cane is what Brazil makes ethanol from.

Ethanol is a burden to our system because it is also subsidized and it takes
almost as much energy to produce a gallon
of ethanol as the energy you derive from the gallon. The farmer doesn't burn
ethanol in his machinery to produce the corn crop. He burns diesel fuel.
Many if not all of the plants that produce ethanol are either coal fired,
natural gas fired, propane fired (whoops there goes my heating bill) or fuel
oil fired. Where's the savings in that??
If corn was used to make the ethanol and only corn I might say yeah it works
but to burn COAL to make ethanol??
There's a coal fired ethanol plant 18 miles from where I
live..........there's no coal closer to the plant than Eastern Wyoming, it
arrives here by train, train engines burn diesel fuel...........not ethanol.
Why not just make a coal gasification plant. Oh yeah, don't they do that in
Wyoming?? Or are those plants shut down now.
Didn't Germany make gasoline from coal during World War 2??  It's not new
science.
AMC content E85 capable AMC engines can produce a very substantial amount of
horsepower..........
and that folks is the only reason I think ethanol should be produced, so us
car guys can have a shitpot full of fun burning it
in our cars and leaving black tire marks everywhere......now let's see where
did I put that radar detector.....

Yeah Mark P. you're correct, I am full of myself......but ya gotta love it
don't ya?

God Bless all of you listers, without you guys and the guys who keep this
list in tip top condition I would never have progressed as far into the
wonderful hobby of AMC. I truly enjoy being the caretaker of a 1970 AMC
Javelin and thank my lucky stars that for whatever reason it was, I managed
to hang onto that car for the past 36 years.
Thanks for reading,

Armand





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