In the seventies, Mother Earth News ran articles about farmers whose cost of growing corn was upside down with the prices, building solar stills against the South side of the barn, running their corn mash through several times to get burnable ethanol, all at a minimal cost. Start the tractor on gasoline, switch a valve to run on straight ‘e’. The industrial scale of this and the impact on world food prices illustrate the lack of forethought behind the rush. And of course, we’ll probably need that ethanol soon, to forget the worst of the side effects.
In the seventies, Mother Earth News ran articles about farmers whose cost of growing corn was upside down with the prices, building solar stills against the South side of the barn, running their corn mash through several times to get burnable ethanol, all at a minimal cost. Start the tractor on gasoline, switch a valve to run on straight ‘e’. The industrial scale of this and the impact on world food prices illustrate the lack of forethought behind the rush. And of course, we’ll probably need that ethanol soon, to forget the worst of the side effects.