A Major Step May Have Been Taken in Stopping the U. S. From Turning Food Into Fuel –

Turning Garbage Into Fuel – That’s Better

 The United States does a bunch of stupid things every now and then, and one of the stupidest is taking corn, which is food for both humans and animals and turning it into alcohol based fuel to try and reduce imported oil.  Now it probably comes as a surprise to America’s overfed and overweight obese laden population that there are not just people in the rest of the world that go hungry, but people right here in the good ole USA. 

So to make ethanol out of corn is an affront to basic common sense, basic decency and basic economics.  And now it turns out that there may be a replacement for the corn, a firm says they can make ethanol out of garbage and wood scraps.

After months of frustrating delays, a chemical company announced Wednesday that it had produced commercial quantities of ethanol from wood waste and other nonfood vegetative matter, a long-sought goal that, if it can be expanded economically, has major implications for providing vehicle fuel and limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Here is what’s replacing corn.

The process begins with wastes — wood and vegetative matter for now, municipal garbage later — and cooks it into a gas of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Bacteria eat the gas and excrete alcohol, which is then distilled.

And apparently some of the research came from government.

The Department of Energy hailed the development as the first of a kind, and said it was made possible by research work the department had sponsored in recent years. 

Wow, a government program that actually produced beneficial results.  Don’t tell the Republicans, it will interfere with their plans to shut down the government because they can’t get their way, boo hoo.