Quote:
Originally Posted by gpsman1
Anything with starch/sugar can be fermented into ethanol.
Just when you are paying by the truckload/trainload/boatload you want a starch source with as little water as possible.
#1 you don't want to pay to ship 100 tons of "water"
#2 you have to remove the water from the ethanol in the end
Sugar beets and potatos work well for ethanol.
But when you buy 100 tons, you get ~50 tons of water.
Those options are "juicy".
( same with grapes... in wine, you of course can leave the water in... )
When you buy 100 tons of corn, you get less than 15 tons water.
( field corn is less than 15% moisture )
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Thanks for that info. Something I didn't know re: H2O content of various plants, etc. I as a biology teacher know about fermentation. In fact, I ran several labs involving fermentation.
But, while the tobacco thing just kinda popped into my head, as I think about it it may well be the, "perfect" cash crop for an ethanol based fuel. I assume it has a high water content (look at the size of those leaves) which is why the stuff has to be dried out.
Anyway from your perspective ethanol-from corn is perfect.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'll wait until they get the battery plug-in thing gets perfected - or what Bob is working on, rebuilding the batteries. Personally, I'll take my corn on the cob (yes, I know the dif between eating and field corn - and even maize).
