Bob wrote:

>The word *Ethanol* brought up a subject I have wanted to do a post on for a
>long time. ...  "some
>impressive results were obtained in producing small quantities of ethanol
>from honey."
>
>Don't we really need another use for honey besides food?
> Maybe powering our vehicles with
>honey/ethanol might help the U.S.beekeeper.

        I sympathise with those getting too little for their honey, but the
notion raised here is no solution.
        Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol) is already added to petrol in a
fairly big way, producing your 'gasohol',  by an industry which maintains
the suavest offices I've seen near Capitol Hill.  This does improve the
petrol's quality, but is not a wise land-use.  Among the reasons it
succeeds commercially is that this ethanol arises as one of several
products in a farm-based industry which obviously has some political clout.

        Energy farming, the general idea of using photosynthesis to produce
fuel, is in most versions a loser.  The energy consumed, mainly as diesel
fuel, by machinery-intensive farming exceeds the energy in the product.
This was all documented in the late 1970s when 'energy farming' first came
forward as a concept in various forms.  Farms are worth running for the
*qualities*  of what they produce, but if you assess it purely on energy
the modern mechanised farms are energy sinks.

        I am unfamiliar with the report Bob quotes from, but on its face it
is implausible.  The ethanol yield in brewing follows closely the
concentration of sugars in the feedstock; it is very difficult to see how
honey could breach this pattern to any large extent.
        More seriously, honey has qualities unavailable from oil companies.
The wound-dressing role on which I and others have raved must offer some
prospect for marketing.  To squander this great gift of God as mere
feedstock for fermentation to alcohol, when fuels are readily available
otherwise, would be in my view a sin.

        Yes, I know the oil companies are bad.  (The same gangs are in NZ
too.  If you think your petrol is expensive, just find out the prices
elsewhere.  Yanks have the cheapest petrol.)   But trying to compete
against them by any form of energy farming is doomed; and the wonderful
qualities of honey should remove from consideration any such idea.

R

-
Robt Mann
Mulgoon Professor emeritus of Environmental Studies, U of Auckland
consultant stirrer & motorcyclist
P O Box 28878, Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand  (9) 524 2949