Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 Gal, w/o Corn

[Larry]

Wowie! Zowie!

It's about time something got jump started here. What happened after 1973 when everyone jumped on the new energy band wagon and immediately jumped off as soon as the middle east spigot turned back on? Good old America went back to worrying about developing cell phones and iPods.

It's about time we got serious-- and STAYED serious. This process sounds very promising. But was it just me, but reading between the lines it seemed like there were some nay-sayers who were more concerned with "how is the user going to get it?". Easy put it in a truck, drive it to a gas station and see who fights over the load! Are they kidding? Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door! Just keep the government out of this project... please!

I like the part in the article where it saws that it turns two bales of hay into five gallons of ethanol. I know of a process that turns two bales of hay into a ten mile line pile of road apples. If this doesn't pan out, we may be back to that process.

[50scars]

Last time I checked, good hay brings about $4 a bale, before we load it on to your truck. Kind of depends upon the size of your bale, because they run from maybe 50 lbs, to over 100 lbs each. Then there are the big round ones you need the forks on your tractor to handle--they weigh anywhere from 1000 to 2500 lbs, mainly depending upon your baler and the tractor you have to move them.
The immediate solution to our oil problem is to drill in our own country.
We seem to know where there is oil to get, but the environmental whackos and their politician lackeys won't let us go get it. There is a joke running around the internet about how the oil is in places like Texas, Louisiana, the Gulf of Mexico, off California, in Wyoming, etc, but the dipsticks are in Washington, D.C.
Cuba is hiring China to drill between Cuba and Florida. Do you really believe that the Chinese will be better able to control leakage than American companies? During Katrina, do you know how much oil leaked from Gulf Platforms? O---ABSOLUTELY NOT A DROP!! Did you hear about the shipment of lead from China that was recalled because it was contaminated with toys?
The price of oil is a function of what the politicians have done to the value of our money. An ounce of Gold still buys the same amount of oil it did 10 years ago. Comparing gas prices to what I made in 1960 packing groceries at Kroger, to what my son made in 2002 packing groceries at Kroger, shows that the price of gas is actually cheaper. He made 17.5 times what I did. I paid between 20 cents and 30 cents a gallon. That translates to $3.50 to $5.25 in 2002 money. We still have not seen that kind of gas price, possibly except for some places in California.