[Farmall] running a Farmall H on ethanol

[Spencer Yost]

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
On 9/4/2005 at 6:33 PM Larry L Hardesty wrote:
>The differences in views may be less a question of rumors, debunking and 
>wishful thinking than different analysis, different consideration of 
>facts, and different timing among those looking at the situation.  There 
>are plenty of sources on the Internet for the debate but the following is 
>(in my humble opinion) fairly balanced: 
>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/27/ETHANOL.TMP
>

Hey Larry,

Just got your note here on the list and I appreciate it and as usual have
always enjoyed your good nature and remarkable clarity.  First, I am NOT an
ethanol fan.  Ethanol probably isn't the answer and I certainly don't know
what the answer is.  I can promise that folks ignoring good science, or
using rumor to marginalize good science, simply to satisfy a certain world
view isn't the answer either.  That was what I was responding too
originally.



However, I have been waiting for someone to mention Patzek's name because
he is one of the primary source of the rumors that biofuels eat more fuel
than they produce.

To prove my point, consider this:
1 - He is a petroleum engineer abd is a member of the Society of Petroleum
Engineers.
2 - Patzek is a former petroleum engineer for Shell Development (considered
the mother of all petrochemical research)
http://www.Berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/08/23_ethanol.shtml
3 - He has courses at Berkeley that trash alternative energy is all forms,
including hydrogen even though that industry isn't even far enough along to
have enough known parameters to argue
about.(http://petroleum.Berkeley.edu/patzek/ce24/Fall2003/ce24top.htm)
4 - He been hostile to all biomass fuels in general.   This in and of
itself is not a problem of course, but he does so by using nonsensical
premises and using arguments that treat certain thermodynamic points like
they haven't been proven already.  I could only find one of these papers,
here it that link:
http://petroleum.Berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/thermodynamics_of_biomass.htm
5 - He the director of the UC oil consortium, primarily funded by
government grants originating from oil management subsections of the DOE
and from the oil industry
itself.(http://petroleum.Berkeley.edu/ucoil.html).  BP, Chevron USA, Mobil
USA, Shell and Unocal among its members
6 - His research has been and continues to be supported nearly entirely by
the oil industry

In short, he doesn't prove his points and even if he did, he is too
inextricably linked ot the oil industry to be taken at face value.   At any
rate, this is all I could come up in ten minutes from memory and a bit of
scouting of the web sites to document the web sites that support my data
points.  There is more, believe me.  For examples, as of the last time I
checked a few months ago, his articles have not passed the academic muster
necessary to appear in any of the widely circulated academic journals that
deal with subject such as "International Journal of Life Cycle Analysis" or
even any of the economic magazines.

Bottom line:  While Patzek somehow manages to continue to pop up at various
debates and meetings and get quoted, he is, as you can imagine, widely
disregarded.

Spencer Yost
Owner, ATIS
Plow the Net!
http://www.atis.net