I found this exchange very interesting....
so I'm passing it on to others.

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Subject: Re: ethanol vs. secretive hydrogen
From: "Frank Michael"
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006

Hiya D,

There is an incredibly persistent smog of misinformation about ethanol,
which is deliberately promoted by the petroleum industry. This is
driving environmentalists (even James Lovelock) to support aberrations
like "green nukes", which is similar to "kill for peace" or "screw for
virginity".

Cellulose-based ethanol has an EROI of about 6+ using reflux column
distillers.

Equally important, if the resulting dried distiller solids (DDS) are
put back into the soil, they are a super-fertilizer and fairly
effective herbicide, eliminating the need for petrochemical fertilizers
and herbicides, and making possible large-scale organic agriculture
without dependence on the oil teat.

Yes, corn ethanol is about the dumbest way of making ethanol fuel, but
actually it's worse than dumb. The current corn ethanol investment
frenzy would irreversibly deplete the soil in huge areas of the
Midwest, unless ethanol production remains dependent of
petro-fertilizers and herbicides. So - guess who is holding all the
aces in the biofuels game?

Integrated cellulose-ethanol agriculture would be the answer to
Petrocollapse, if only the guys with the bucks really did their
homework. Please get Dave Blume's DVD "Alcohol Can Be a Gas", from his
website permaculture.com, and check out a better perspective than the
one the oil lobbies have been pushing for about a century now. David
Blume is your neighbor; he teaches at Santa Rosa Community College.

I agree with you about where the power is to make all the hydrogen.
What the neocons have in mind for all of us is nuclear power, and
petroleum extracted from oil shale and oil sands, the two most
earth-destroying energy technologies possible.

Have you read The Party is Over by Richard Heinberg? He argues
convincingly that the time frame of PetroCollapse will make it
impossible to fulfill the Bullshite vision of a hydrogen economy - plus
there will not be enough capital for the huge infrastucture shift.

The US federal government has had the facts of petrocollapse for over
sixty years, but the neocons are playing a mixed strategy - betting
that they can dominate the whole world while avoiding the preferred
Armaggedonist scenario of their fundamentalist power base.

So, amazingly, with the situation being driven by irrational neocon
ideology, the biggest hope is petrocollapse or natural disaster on a
huge scale. Whew.

Folks like us need to be very selective about our sources, develop
critical thinking on a basis of solid information, and then have
debates that can make a difference.

But how can you judge quality of information? Ah, that's a good one.
- fm

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"d" wrote

It's great to see investment in hydrogen fuel cell technology but
without
massive investment in renewable power plants to supply the additional
electricity needed by hydrogen production( I don't see ethanol as
renewable
btw) , it is not a success story - and I don't see the feds seriously
moving toward alternative power plants.I know there are some in the
works and hopefully investors will jump in more and more - cheers - d