Five Big Myths about Alcohol as a Fuel

[Domdabears Profile Website]

Have you ever heard the one they say that making alcohol in the United States causes the

children in Africa to go hungry? More specifically, the accusation is that making alcohol

causes the price of corn to go up and hence causes food to be expensive and scarce.


Myth Number One is utterly unscientific, but it is good Big Oil propaganda because itʼs an

easy sell in their Lamestream Media, especially to those who call themselves “progressives”

or “liberals” or “environmentalists.”


First of all, corn is not used as food for human beings in the majority or in the precise sense of

the words, “human food.” Approximately 87% of the corn grown in the U.S. is used for animal

feed (and in making alcohol fuel or ethanol concurrently—more on this important fact later).


Only about 1% all the corn grown is used for actual human consumption as in corn flakes for

breakfast cereals, corn chips, canned and frozen corn, etc. Another 1% is used to make

whiskey which you may or may not consider to be human food. The rest of the corn grown is

used for things like high-fructose corn syrup, modified food starch, and other corn-based

products that are not exactly fit for human consumption.


You could make a half-convincing argument that the corn used for the cows that are then

eaten by human beings is human food. So, letʼs tackle this argument head on, shall we?


It takes about 10 pounds (or 10 kg) of corn to grow 1 pound (or 1 kg) of beef in the U.S.

Why? Because cows are not designed by Mother Nature to digest starch. Cows are meant

to graze on woody brushes (and grasses). Forcing them to eat corn, i.e., all that starch which

make up 70% of the corn kernel, is animal cruelty and causes all sorts of problems including

bloating and digestive diseases. Inefficient digestion equates to inefficient meat production.


Were that 10 pounds (or 10 kg) of corn be turned into alcohol first by fermentation, we would

get alcohol as a fuel and about 3.3 pounds (or 3.3 kg) of mash—the leftover solids from the

fermentation process, full of proteins, fats, nutrients, vitamins, etc. Feeding cows this mash,

also called distillerʼs dried grains or DDG, actually produces 17% more meat 13% faster!


So instead of feeding cows 10 pounds (or 10 kg) of corn to only get 1 pound (or 1 kg) of beef,

we could feed them the 3.3 pounds (or 3.3 kg) of the mash instead—after turning corn into

alcohol fuel first—and still get 1.17 pounds (or 1.17 kg) of beef!


Less animal feed, more beef, and healthier cows. What a concept!


During Prohibition, the revenuers, i.e., the alcohol police enforcers, would go to the county

fairs to discover who the “moonshiners” are, i.e., those farmers illegally making alcohol by the

light of the moon. How? They would look for the fattest cows and fattest pigs, because those

farmers were feeding their prized animals with the leftover mash they got from their illegal

moonshine stills. Thatʼs how! Talk about a historical precedence.


So, making alcohol as a fuel can provide both fuel for human beings and food for animals at

the same time. It makes cows happier. And it makes more beef.


Myth Number One goes straight into the dust bin of Propaganda History 101.


Myth Number Two goes along this track: There is not enough land to grow crops for making

alcohol as a fuel and to grow crops for human food at the same time.

What this argument leaves out is the assumption that they are using corn as the only

feedstock to make alcohol fuel. Corn is one of the worst feedstocks to make alcohol from.


Letʼs use this corn feedstock as our example to demolish Myth Number Two. Itʼs a silly

argument thatʼs already debunked above, but youʼll get the gist of this Big Lie as we tackle it

in another manner.


Typically, growing corn can produce up to 250 gallons of alcohol fuel per acre per year (about

2,300 liters per hectare per year). In Brazil, they use sugarcane as their main feedstock.


Sugarcane can produce up to 900 gallons of alcohol per acre per year (about 8,400 liters per

hectare per year), or almost 4 times what corn can yield.


To supply ALL the gasoline and diesel fuel needs of the U.S. (yes, alcohol can run diesel

engines too!), we need about 200 billion gallons of alcohol fuel per year. At 250 gallons of

alcohol produced per acre of corn per year, we need about 800 million acres of farmland to

grow this amount of corn.8 There are about 1.373 billion acres of farmland and cropland in

the U.S. So, we need about 58.3% of the entire farmable land9 to grow the amount of corn

necessary to supply all the fuel needs for the U.S.


That is if we are really stupid and want to use corn which is one of the worst feedstocks for

making alcohol.


We could use fodder beets (~1,000 gallons per acre per year, the 58.3% mentioned above

goes down to 14.6%), sweet sorghum (~1,500 gallons per acre per year, the 58.3% now goes

down to 9.7%), or mesquite pods (~340 gallons per acre per year) which donʼt even require

any farmland, farm work. or irrigation water because they already grow in the deserts of

Arizona! All that is necessary to do is to harvest the pods. Imagine that.


And we can use many other non-agricultural plants and crops like sea kelp (marine algae)

that produce sugars and/or starches. In fact, feedstocks for making alcohol fuel can be

almost anything that contains sugars and/or starch.


Think: waste wine, waste fruits, waste breads, waste donuts, waste candies, etc.


And we havenʼt even talked about making alcohol from cellulose (maybe a future article on

this topic perhaps). A cost-effective, cellulosic alcohol process that is open-sourced is about 1

to 2 years away and it will change the entire alcohol fuel business for the better.


Think: lawn grass clippings, newspapers, papers, all sorts of biomass, etc.

This whole argument that we donʼt have enough land to make alcohol is totally bogus.


Myth Number Three says that using alcohol fuel will damage our car engines. Another totally

unscientific lie based on asinine assumptions left unstated.


Their assumption is that you are driving a car or truck older than 1983. Why? Because some

cars made prior to 1983 use certain materials that are not compatible with alcohol. Alcohol

could degrade these materials over time. Guess what? If you have a car or truck that old

(more than 28 years old), maybe itʼs time to replace a few hoses so that you can run your car

on clean alcohol?


In many states in the U.S. like California, gasoline supplied at fuel stations already contains

up to 10% alcohol to clean up fuel emissions. So, the argument that alcohol damages cars is

almost totally bogus, if not 99.99% bogus.


In fact, running your car on alcohol actually makes the engine last longer. You could probably

get two to three times the engine life if you run your car on alcohol instead of gasoline. This is

because running the internal combustion engine on alcohol produces no carbon soot which is

one of the major causes of engine wear and tear. Studies have shown that cars and trucks in

Brazil and the U.K. that used only alcohol lasted almost three times as long as their gasoline

and diesel counterparts.


The other major cause of short engine life is high engine temperature. Cars and motorcycles

running on alcohol actually run cooler. Alcohol exhausts the engine at around 1,000 degree

Fahrenheit (or 540 degree Celsius) whereas gasoline comes out at around 1,400 degrees

Fahrenheit (or 760 degree Celsius). You can put your hand on the tailpipe of a motorcycle

without burning your hand—that is if it is running on alcohol and not gasoline.


You may lose up to 12% miles per gallon (or 12% less km per liter) when you use 100%

alcohol in your fuel tank. Thatʼs because the modern internal combustion engine has been

co-opted by Big Oil to run on this toxic junk called “gasoline” which has a range of burning

points, not a single burning point like alcohol. When the IC engine is re-redesigned back to

run on alcohol alone, as has been done in Brazil since the early 1980s, they will get up to

22% more miles per gallon (or 22% more km per liter).


Myth Number Three goes straight into the toilet bowl.


Myth Number Four is that it takes more energy to grow the feedstock (corn) to make alcohol

fuel than the energy you get when you burn it in your car. This myth is disseminated almost

solely and ceaselessly by one professor from Cornell University by the name of David

Pimental. He factored into his alcohol or ethanol “study” the energy required to make the

steel that goes into making a 6 to 8 ton tractor (the supposed reason is that it takes this

supersized tractor to farm the 40 acres used in his “study”!). Wonder if he would do the same

for gasoline or diesel as it takes oil tankers to ship them from the Middle East? Probably not.


It just so happened that David Pimental was working with Mobile Oil at the same time his first

ethanol “study” came out in the early 1980s—the same Mobile Oil that was pursing a patentpending

cellulosic alcohol process. Conflict of interests? How do we know this interesting

fact? Well, Mobile Oil took out full page ads in major newspapers defending the right of David

Pimental to work for Big Oil after the intrepid news columnist Jack Anderson exposed their

incestuous business relationship in one of his newspaper columns in 1982.


Money canʼt buy you love, but it sure can buy you “science.” Monsanto GMO science!


Myth Number Five states that making and using alcohol as a fuel causes global warming

because it produces more carbon dioxide or CO2 gas when alcohol is used up (fermented

first and then burned in cars) than when it is grown. Studies done in Brazil, where they have

been using alcohol as a fuel since the early 1980s, demonstrate that more CO2 gas is

sequestered by the plants and crops used to grow alcohol than by the fermentation of those

feedstocks and the subsequent use in cars, i.e., growing and using alcohol fuel actually

causes CO2 gas levels to go down.


What Big Oil purposefully donʼt tell you is that when you use gasoline and diesel in your cars

and trucks, they produce CO2 gas too. But the big difference is that the CO2 gas produced

from burning gasoline and diesel is a one-way, non-renewable process. This only adds more

CO2 gas to the atmosphere, not less.


More crappy science.


There are a few other Big Myths perpetrated against alcohol in the Lamestream Media by Big

Oil, equally bogus and unscientific. But you get the idea

Source and more info on "Liquid Sunshine"

http://www.survival-tube.com/apps/blog/ ... -as-a-fuel

[dlslith Profile]

Gawd I love Homer

[Domdabears Profile Website]

I know it's long, but the writer made some good points in there.

He emailed today and wanted me to make an article on his main article, and put it on my site.
I seen the 5 myths and decided to just make that an article.
I linked his main article in there if you wanna read the whole thing. It's really long.

[Mydogma Profile Website]

Ya its amazing what marketing(propaganda) can do, afterall coal is still attempting to greenwash..I do have mixed feelings about the corn..i would rather grow food..sugar cane apparently is much better with far less processing...I do agree that there is no way that we could support all of our needs off of ethanal..I think reducing consumption is the first key to sucess...wether its hybred cars or super insulated homes..u can easily drop consumption 50-75 percent which makes far more sense then planting thousans more hecters of land(and processing it) if our government had an ounce of seriousness it would have mandated builders to superinsulate...and tax the bejezzus out of the suv market...it always makes me chuckle when I drive by a mcmansion that is an energy gluton..see a 4x4 pckup and a hummer in the driveway...right beside their blue box.....

[Tgwusauk Profile]

Ya its amazing what marketing(propaganda) can do, afterall coal is still attempting to greenwash..I do have mixed feelings about the corn..i would rather grow food..sugar cane apparently is much better with far less processing...I do agree that there is no way that we could support all of our needs off of ethanal..I think reducing consumption is the first key to sucess...wether its hybred cars or super insulated homes..u can easily drop consumption 50-75 percent which makes far more sense then planting thousans more hecters of land(and processing it) if our government had an ounce of seriousness it would have mandated builders to superinsulate...and tax the bejezzus out of the suv market...it always makes me chuckle when I drive by a mcmansion that is an energy gluton..see a 4x4 pckup and a hummer in the driveway...right beside their blue box.....

SUV's are not the problem, the engine designs and the type of fuel is the problem.
There is "new" technology available to run cars on water at 1000 per gallon, emitting only steam, a German scientist invented a carburettor in 1932 that achieved nearly 200 miles to the gallon, obviously he was "removed"
Yes, I have an SUV before you ask Ford Excursion Limited Edition V10 6.7L.