Hi,

 Renewable energy sources tend to be expensive and from what I read can only be counted on for 20% of total usage.  That leaves a huge hunk to be provided by "Large Infrastructure" producers. (Fossil fuel or nukes.) I do love saving energy, that is a win / win if there ever was one.

 Batteries cost so much they are almost useless here. Electro chemical systems are not exactly "Clean". 

 If that 20% limit for renewable is real I think that means nuke plants for the bulk (breeder ???) is all we have left?

Any Thoughts?

Bob K.

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pete
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 10:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] NTC - I believe ... (my credo)

Some good answers here, led me to do some more research

About 1/3 of the US corn crop goes towards livestock feed.
13% is exported.
40% is used for ethanol production
That leaves 14% for food and beverage (including oils, syrups, sugars)

Ethanol is being used in some cases to replace MTBE, to increase octane rating.  Why?  Because of it's resistance to ignition.  This is  very tiny percentage of the gasoline blend.  E10 and E85 are ethanol as an attempt to replace fossil fuels.  However, that resistance to ignition, when used at 10% or 86% is what makes it an inefficient fuel, increasing consumption by 3% or 25% respectively.  It takes one unit of fossil fuel to generate 1.3 units of (less efficient) ethanol fuel.

Since 1980, the ethanol industry has received $45B in government subsidies.

The windmills don't seem so bad anymore.

Pete

______________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] 
______________________________________________________________________