We wanted to follow up quickly on our dispatch concerning your Cap & Trade Legislation op-ed piece, and our first response concerning the research at Cornell which illustrates that Ethanol isn't a very attractive option compared to other liquid fuels - especially those made from coal..
We will provide documentation of what we herein relate, if needed/requested.
But, Cornell's Pimental asserts that ethanol requires about half again as much energy to produce as it actually provides.
What isn't clearly stated is that much of that needed extra energy comes from burning coal in the Iowa power plants serving the several ethanol producing facilities there.
Iowa has some of it's own coal, but it's mostly lignite that will generate a lot of waste ash, relative to WV-type bituminous, and just as much CO2 when it's combusted to generate electricity.
They might import coal for their power plants from southern Illinois, in which case it would be about the same as "Pittsburgh" seam types widely exploited in our area. It wouldn't be any worse than what we have, but no better, either.
Point is: They are burning coal to get the power to convert corn into ethanol. The process of making ethanol is just a very indirect and wildly inefficient coal-to-liquid fuel conversion process.
We would be far better off converting our coal directly into methanol, an established technology whose end product has more "energy density" than ethanol in the first place, provides a material which can be efficiently converted into gasoline, and is, plainly, a more direct, more efficient and cleaner use of coal.