Sap'em on 2/6/2006 at 14:23
Round here, we grow so much corn and soybeans, it takes a couple of months every fall to truck/train the stuff off to get rid of the mountains at the grain mills. I'm still not convinced that ethanol/methanol is the answer to the fuel problems. At least, not from corn sources, not after watching all those farmers make thier 4 passes at 180 plus acres each with a very large tractor belching diesel fumes the whole way. Not to mention the grain trucks all burning - you guessed it - diesel - to haul the grain to the mills. Plus the whole cost savings thing isn't materializing. The cost of E85 is now only about 30 cents cheaper per gallon than regular gas - and you get less mileage out of E85. Politicians and economists in this state say that increasing demand for E85 is outstripping supply = increase in prices. Go figure.:p
On a more positive side- a local industry is installing a windmill farm to not only power its own operations (they build utility vehicles like garbage trucks) but they now power about 1/2 of a small city (3k) by selling the excess power back to the grid. The land around the windmills is still in production for corn. The footprint for each windmill is about 30 square feet plus an access road.
