Biofuels or Snake Oil?
With going green going crazy and global warming fear monger, Al Gore, the failed Presidential contender fanning the flames of doom, one of the strongest criticisms of biofuels like ethanol made from corn was two-fold. It takes more energy to produce corn-based ethanol than can be derived from it and using the amount of corn required to have any significant impact in moving from fossil fuels places extreme pricing pressures on the food supply.
With most of the ‘alternative’ sources of energy years off in the future in terms of practical application, the flames the likes of Al Gore, et al, are fanning are not producing a solution rather a panic of catastrophic proportions. And the far left loves this strategy. Create new victims, attack manufactured villains and the lines of people trying to get taxpayer funding to ‘research’ alternatives may eventually reach around the globe. That is about the only connection between the globe and the term, global economy.
But while the opposing sides, of which there may be more than two, sort out the energy future in this country, one report indicates we should take a more reasoned approach to any major shifts in widespread use of alternative energy sources. According to the report below, “The process yields about eight times more energy than it consumes so it is a much more energy efficient way to produce ethanol.”
If that statement is true, the case for sorghum as an alternative energy source is probably one of the more promising developments in this crazy pursuit. The pursuit is not crazy because it is intended to find non-fossil fuel alternatives but because of the total abandon excercised by most proponents. The Chicken Little posture demonstrated by the most fanatical fans does more damage than good. A little care and a reasoned approach to solutions will minimize mistakes and speed any postive results.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
Sorghum: A Biofuel Alternative?
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Biofuel Sorghum report / Broadband - Download (WM) 
Biofuel Sorghum report / Broadband - Watch (WM)
International research scientists are meeting in Houston, Texas August 19-22 to discuss various biofuel alternatives to corn, especially sorghum. Some scientists say sorghum - cultivated for food and fodder in various parts of the world - might one day help power our vehicles. VOA’s Paul Sisco has today’s Searching for Solutions report.
In the United States, sweet sorghum is grown for livestock feed and also used as a sweetener in the form of a syrup. In India, the sweet juice inside the plant’s stalk is
turned into ethanol and used as a fuel.
This has spurred William Rooney and his team at Texas A & M to work with sorghum. They say it grows faster than corn and can produce more ethanol per plant. “In the near future as we move forward you will see these types of crops become more and more prominent,” Rooney said.
Today, nearly all the ethanol in the US comes from corn. It is widely used as a gasoline additive. But using corn-based ethanol has not stopped gasoline prices from rising, and researchers are experimenting with algae, grasses, and plant stalks as biofuels.
Gene Stevens, at the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at the University of Missouri, works with sorghum.
“We produced as much ethanol with the corn as we did with the sweet sorghum but the only advantage was that we used less fertilizer with the sweet sorghum,” he explains. “It may be that sweet sorghum may have a niche in some of those soils that are not so productive.”
Also, producing ethanol from sorghum uses less energy than corn — says Mark Winslow with the non-profit International Crops Research Institute.
“The process yields about eight times more energy than it consumes so it is a much more energy efficient way to produce ethanol,” Winslow says.
Critics of corn based ethanol production say it has contributed to rising food prices because of the amount of grain used to make the fuel. That explains, in part, why
the search is on to find other biofuel sources.
“I think you are going to hear more about the crops that are starting to make sense,” Rooney says.
Among them sorghum, says Rooney, a proven source of ethanol with more potential than corn.