Pickens people not interested at all???

[D.Thomas Laskowski]

I posted a question on 6 of the Pickens plan groups a few days ago asking if anyone has heard of the book. And was interested or had concerns in the possibility of alcohol for fuel instead of natural gas. Because of what I see as some of the obvious problems getting Natural gas on that level to replace gasoline in Florida thou I have no practical knowledge in this area. Can you believe I have had no responses, not even some flame telling me the food chain line???
However while working a convention one of the questions asked of the group was how many ears of corn does it take to fill an average gas tank. Answer: 517, then the speaker (a pretty big hitter in the financial world) came out and augmented the answer that that was the same amount of corn it took to feed a child for a year, there for ethanol is a poor idea. That's the close minded thinking that is being feed to the business world as well as to us through the media. So I guess it should be no surprise.

[D.Thomas Laskowski]

Here's some valid points we have to address. One person on pickens writes:
While a 10 percent ethanol blend contains about 97 percent of the energy of "pure" gasoline, the energy loss is partly offset by the increased combustion efficiency of the engine. This could increase fuel consumption by about 2-3 percent. Several other factors influence fuel consumption. For example, driving at 120 km/h instead of 100 km/h increases fuel consumption by an average of 20 percent.
And another also writes:
Also, it uses a huge amount of fresh water -- something that is become more rare in the world every day.
here's the complete thread:
http://push.pickensplan.com/group/pickensplancentralflorida/forum/topic/show?id=2187034%3ATopic%3A156080

[Michael Winks]

Re water:
It uses three gallons of water per gallon of ethanol. How much water does refining oil use?
As Dave points out, not all ethanol crops are created equal and some can use less.

[Robert Jackman]

Some ethanol plants use refrigeration equipment and recycle the water in the process, transfer heat, etc. This is a good thing since such a system can be built anywhere.

I suspect the reason large oil refineries are usually near ocean is they can get all the sea water they want to cool condensers, etc.

[Robert Jackman]

I have had good success on Pickens plan sharing information. I suspect some of the people joining our group has come from Pickens Plan.