Georgia goes Ethanol...

I believe it is great that ethanol is being developed across the nation. Below you will see some of my comments on this article... I am particularly excited about ethanol since it can be used in gasoline engines/cars with the use of an ethanol converter... which only costs $300 ... now... but as more people use, i'm certain the cost will decline.

I know that ethanol isn't perfect... but the fact that we can convert millions of cars on the road today... I believe is a good thing. Check out altenergystation.com and you can find a link to a site where you can buy an ethanol converter.



Midwest, move over: Ga. joins the ethanol gold rush

Enlarge By Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images Antawon Randall fills up a 2007 Chevrolet Impala with E85 flex-fuel at the Cheveron station in Washington, D.C.

By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY

TIFTON, Ga. — Looking out at a mound of tree tops, limbs and leaves just discarded from a harvest of 45-foot high pines, Devon Dartnell sees fuel, lots of it, to run Georgia's 8 million vehicles.

"See this?" he asks, pointing to rotted trees and scattered underbrush on a 300-acre tree farm. "This is very usable for biofuels."

Dartnell, the biomass program manager for Georgia's Forestry Commission, is thinking about one fuel in particular: ethanol.

With its 25 million acres of forest second only to Oregon, Georgia is setting itself up to lead the ethanol revolution. The state not only wants to produce and sell corn ethanol, which until recently has been confined to Midwestern corn-growing states, it wants to lead the way for cellulosic ethanol, which is made from organic matter such as trees, plants, peanut shells and sugar cane.

Amid concerns over high oil prices and the environmental impact of fossil fuels, Georgia is among a handful of states outside the Corn Belt that are joining the gold rush for ethanol, an alcohol fuel that many hope can lessen the country's dependency on gasoline.

Backed by federal subsidies for producing and selling ethanol, the states are adding their own incentives to attract ethanol producers and convince retailers to install pumps selling the alternative fuel.

New York offers a 15-cents-per-gallon tax credit for producers of biofuels, including E85, after they produce their first 40,000 gallons. Georgia has tax credits for equipment and expedites permits and other paperwork. Next year, South Carolina will return to drivers the first $300 they spend on E85.

More gas stations beginning to offer it

The number of gas stations offering E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, has almost tripled in the past two years to nearly 1,200. The market, though, is still less than 1% of the nation's 170,000 gas stations.

Colorado has 29 stations with E85 pumps and expects to see another 21 open by the end of the year. New York just opened two retail E85 pumps. South Carolina, with 37, has the most outside the Midwest.

Several, including Texas, California and Georgia, are attracting corn and cellulosic ethanol producers.

Louisiana is opening its first cellulosic ethanol plant, which by 2010 is expected to produce about 20 million gallons of ethanol a year from the pulp left over after sugar is extracted from the cane.

"All the stars are lining up," says Michael Olivier, Louisiana's economic development secretary. "It's an evolution. … In the long term, those states that are engaged in the biodiesel, biomass energy process, they will be the winners."

Last year, the United States produced almost 6 billion gallons of ethanol, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Construction of another 77 plants is expected to double production by next year, says Bob Dinneen, the association's president.

Georgia wants to lead the pack. It is launching a dizzying number of projects to eventually help the state produce about a quarter of the fuel used by its residents, says Jill Stuckey, the director of alternative fuels.

Before Katrina hit two years ago and threatened Georgia's oil pipelines and gas supplies, Stuckey was a bit like the Maytag repairman; there wasn't much buzz around her work. After Katrina, "Suddenly I was popular," she says.

Stuckey traverses the state for locations to entice biofuel companies, which make fuel derived from organic matter, to invest in Georgia. One of her big catches is Range Fuels, a Colorado company that plans to open a plant next year in southern Georgia that will make 20 million gallons of ethanol a year using the state's vast timber inventory.

Right now, Georgia has only one ethanol producer, in Baconton, where Wind Gap Farms has been churning out about 500,000 gallons a year for two decades. Ethanol is a byproduct of its primary business, drying yeast from beer waste that it sells to make pet food.

For years, the company couldn't give the ethanol away, says manager Des Stewart. "The market is growing," he says. "Two years ago all our alcohol went out of Georgia, but it is now all sold here."

As they begin to see more ethanol at the pump, motorists are trying to figure out what to make of it.

In Georgia, Tesha Moore of Atlanta fills up a 2007 Chrysler Aspen at one of the three stations in the state that offers E85. "I don't know anything at all about it, but it's cheaper," she says. "We'll see how it does."

E85, though, has a long way to go.

Only 6 million cars, called "flex-fuel," can run on ethanol or gasoline. Car companies have pledged to make half their fleet flex-fuel by 2012. Also, E85, on average, costs 13% less per gallon than gasoline, but it reduces mileage by as much as 25%.

Concerns about energy use, air pollution

The speed with which Georgia and other states are moving to produce and sell ethanol worries some environmentalists and air-quality activists, who are concerned about the fuel's impact on air pollution and the amount of energy it takes to produce ethanol, particularly corn ethanol.

Debate swirls around conflicting studies that show ethanol reduces carbon emissions that produce greenhouse gases but increases nitrogen oxide and volatile organic gases that contribute to smog.

One study, by Argonne National Laboratory, a research arm of the Energy Department, found that corn ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars by 18% to 29% and cellulosic ethanol can reduce emissions by up to 86%. However, a study at Stanford University found that ethanol was unlikely to improve air quality and that if all cars ran on ethanol by 2020, there would be an increase in certain air pollutants, such as acetaldehyde and formaldehyde, that would cause a rise in asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

A study at Cornell University that questions ethanol's environment-friendly halo found that corn ethanol takes up to 40% more energy to produce than it provides as a fuel.

"Biomass in general will not provide us with all the fuel we need," says David Pimentel, an agriculture professor who wrote the Cornell study. "I don't think it will be the savior we've been hearing about."

morefice wrote: <1m>

To reduce our dependence on oil... we need to try everything... allow everything to develop...hyrdrogen, ethanol, biodiesel, electric, natural gas... etc. We have used gasoline autos for close to 100 years now. To make a dramatic change we need to support the development of numerous technologies.

I am particularly excited about ethanol, because its a fuel that EXISTING gasoline cars and trucks can use with an ethanol converter. For most cars it costs about $300. We have a large base of cars on the road. We need to address new cars as well as existing cars on the road. Ethanol does that. The web site, www.altenergystation.com has a link to purchase an ethanol converter... as well as a link to a locator so you can find the ethanol station closest to you... check it out.... www.altenergystation.com