Ethanol for beginners – or

Corn, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Ethanol has less energy per gallon than gasoline. About 30% less. So if your car gets 20 mpg on gas, you’ll get about 14 mpg on ethanol.

Corn is one of the worst crops for ethanol production. Corn to ethanol means much effort for very little output. Doesn’t seem terribly bright to expend massive amounts of petroleum products (used in farm production) when the potential output of the end creation more or less equals the input. Kind of like deciding to make your own lead scuba weights. By the time you gather lead, melt and form it, you’ve spent a lot of time and polluted your own environment for no gain – the weights from the store are just as good or better and cost about the same.

Alas, corn is the most chemically intensive grain crop. Which means lots of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and petroleum products are used to make it grow. The more corn we grow, the more nasty runoff makes its way to the ocean (think dead zones) and into ground water (think bathing a baby in water laden with pesticides – then shiver in horror at that idea.)

In Brazil, ethanol is made from sugar cane, which is one of the best crops for the purpose. Creating ethanol from sugarcane is about a third as intensive as corn. Brazil might even be willing to send some our way, but is prevented from doing so by a 54¢ per gallon tariff.

What an odd situation. And simply not logical. Lobbying in Washington rarely is, and obviously some powerful folks are working to keep this silly situation intact.

Truly, deeply, grossly silly situations can continue for years unchecked. In this case, the market may intervene to help straighten things out. It seemed like a good idea at the time (doesn’t it always) to use corn for fuel rather than food. But here’s the rub: Corn is deeply intertwined with the American food system. So when corn is diverted from a food source to a fuel source, the inevitable result is higher prices for everything we eat.

How’s that been going over lately? The average middle class American has had the value of their home plummet, seen their purchasing power decrease, watched as their SUV has become an unsalable lump of metal and now gets hit extra hard on every trip to the grocery store.

Which means the ethanol from corn idea has not been a big success – due to the fundamental flaws mentioned above. The good news is that the world changes constantly. The other good news is that ethanol in and of itself is not a bad idea.

Here are a few things to think about. To grow corn, the farmer is always out there tilling, planting, coating with chemicals (pesticides, fertilizer.) But how about ethanol made from things like yard clippings, saw dust, switch grass, wood chips, crop leftovers and other organic waste? This is stuff that is either left over and would have to be disposed of anyway, or grows on its own with no input from a farmer. Ethanol made from this stuff is called Cellulosic ethanol, and the only bad news is that the process to make it is not quite ready for prime time. Trust us, it will be – and fairly soon. Huge amounts of money may be made from the process, which means the glory of the capitalist system will come into play. Someone will crack the case.

Just something to think about. Hope this helps.

xo

The Queen

Surge protectors and lightning

Most people think surge protectors will help shield a computer from damage in the event of a lightning strike. Ooops! Not so. I certainly thought this was true till I took a computer in for repair a few years back. The tech told me two capacitors had been exploded by lightning strikes. “What!?” I said “But I have five, count ‘em FIVE surge protectors!” “Well” he said “You do live in Florida.”

Point taken. I’m pretty sure Florida is the lightning capital of the world. Oh well.

So, what do surge protectors actually do? They guard against smaller surges. I know - I always thought electricity came in a perfectly smooth stream. Don’t know why I thought that… it’s pretty silly to think anything created in a big stinky coal fired plant and shoved through miles of wires would come into my house in a perfectly smooth form. It’s not smooth. The voltage varies, everything varies. Hey – nothing is perfect! You want some really crummy quality power? Use a cheap generator (more on that later.) But I digress. We were discussing surge protectors.

The only way to protect anything – like your computer – from a lightning strike is to completely remove the plug from the outlet. Not something one is likely to do every day, but a good idea if you are heading out for a few days…

… and live in the lightning capital of the world.

Green Factoids

The geeks guide to going green

Some fun, some surprising, some downright scary.

Geothermal energy from the earth is nothing if not abundant. If we could utilize just 5% of the geothermal “wealth” we have here in the US, we could supply the electricity needs for 260 million Americans. Hmmm… That’s most of us (America’s population at the moment is right around 300 million.)

If Laundromats in the US switched to front loading machines, we could save a whole lot of water. If just one load of wash per day was washed by a front loader rather than a top loading machine, we’d save about a million gallons of water per day.

Think compact fluorescent bulbs have a funny light? Now you can get a full spectrum CFB. Claims are that it mimics natural light, reduces eye strain and alleviates fatigue. And as we all know, CFB’s use a fraction of what a standard incandescent bulb slurps up. Maker is Lumiram Ecolume.

Think big wind turbines slaughter poor defenseless birds by the millions? Think again. Most studies indicate that house cats are the big predators. Give the birds some credit… they can usually avoid large moving objects (like the blade of a wind turbine.) Actual number is two birds per turbine per year.