It’s not that hard to run this piece of chalk…
Dear Abby:
Last time I wrote you I was in fourth grade, I had told you about my Teacher (Mrs. Owens), she was a tyrant who made the meekest girl in class ask three times to go to the restroom. All of us knew that it took all of Susan’s courage just to ask! When our classmate lost her water all over the floor, Mrs. Owens got down on her hands and knees with a sponge to clean it all up. Susan finally was allowed to leave the room in a stream of tears. You had advised me that I really needed to stop smashing bugs on top of Mrs. Owen’s desk when she was off smoking in the teacher’s lounge. I did take your advice and quit a full week prior to summer vacation.
But now I’m Older, and find myself with no one else to turn to for an answer, so I ask the following question:
Those pro-ethanol producer guys. Why is it their fuel of choice is foreign produced diesel fuel? Why haven’t they flooded Massey Ferguson, John Deere, and others with requests to build the E85 tractor for the fields? And where’s the over the road tractors that runs on what they want us to use? You’d think it was just common sense to run what you sell.. It reminds me of the Chevy salesmen driving a Ford to work every day and parking it out front on the lot.
Abby’s Answer:
Dear George,
No doubt Mrs. Owens was deserving of the attention you gave her, but at some point you needed to stop. Cross contamination is a real thing, and the bug guts on her desk likely found their way onto the backs of graded papers and returned to the students, and perhaps even carried home in their empty lunch boxes, you can see the potential health hazard. I’m glad you saw the big picture.
Now onto your question about Ethanol. It’s all simple, fourth grade math is all you need. Yes, you are much older now, but all you need do is add up all the BTUs required to plant, harvest, process, distribute, blend, and then deliver to the point of sale. Just the distillation process is plenty energy intensive.
You know that Ethanol has a much lower BTU content as measured by volume, against gasoline or Diesel. And you know that if the Ethanol Industry powered their entire operation with Ethanol, they’d fall way short, and have nothing to sell.
Thanks for writing, and I’m glad to know you are still a student of all things, it’s a sad day when we quit learning, and many quit learning once they knew it all..
Sincerely
Abby Bee
Truth be told, my dad was a very wise man. He always said “Common sense is not very common.”
We should all read “The Death of Common Sense” by Phillip K. Howard…….