Henry Phish

Well seeing as there seems to be a trend in the type of searches we’ve been getting on the site, I find it ironic that a friend of mine sent me this link.  It seems, that beyond the normal reasons to promote ethenol use, you can also drink it…imagine that.  Wine, beer, spirits…and you can power your car with it….you’ve got to love it.

Check out this site to build your own alcohol reflux still.  They show you how to do it as well as providing most of the basic supplies.

My friend, he just likes drinking the stuff…what you do with this contraption is up to you:)

Build Your Own Alcohol Still

Well, with all the stir up on ethanol, it was bound to happen at some point. Analysts are starting to say there’s an ethanol bubble building. If you remember back to the 90’s when all the dot com stocks were soaring while they in turn had no tangible product to show for all their net worth…that’s basically the same thing happening with ethenol stocks today. Companies getting into the market are using their seed money to create processing plants based on speculation, and while the future looks bright for ethanol, it is hardly a sure thing. In a paraphrase of one analysts opinion…it’s really easy to get into the industry, but once there, not everyone is going to profit.

Most people who are following this stuff have noticed that some pretty high profile people have started to make some moves into the arena. People such as Bill Gates have started to buy up such stocks as Pacific Ethanol. I for one applaud his foresight.  It takes people like him to get this stuff rolling in the right direction.  However, I have to say, for the every man, that seems a little risky. Whichever company or companies that come out on top will be lauded as the greats, while the others…well they’ll be hoping for a buyout if they’re lucky. Anyway, since I know that people have been reading some the articles I’ve been posting, I figured I’d just tell you to be careful with your money.

For those of you with deep pockets, mores the power. For the rest of us…ever thought about buying a nice flat screen television…I hear they’re quite popular these days.

Top 10 signs of an inflating ethanol bubble

Is an Ethanol Bubble Brewing

Among the many companies getting rich from the sudden interest in ethanol are The Andersons Inc, ADM and Pacific Ethanol. All of these companies have been growing exponentially in both earnings and stock price in the last year or so. With Congress requiring the U.S. to use 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2012 everyone is in a rush to jump on the next big thing. Personally, I think the combination of ethanol and hybrid technology is the way to go…at least in the short term. Who am I to argue progress…

Investing in Ethanol

…More on Ethanol Investments

Since ethanol seems to be a popular subject these days, I decided to do a little research in order to find out some of the more problematic issues involving in it’s use as a fuel substitute. While people argue quite a bit over one point or another, the general consensus seems to be that cars built after the early 90’s can use gas with 10% ethanol without problem. Previous to this, the seals and gaskets in automobiles were made of rubber, which deteriorated when in contact with ethenol based fuels. So while I wouldn’t want to use 100% ethanol for fuel any time soon, it’s perfectly safe to use a mixture on your modern car. More problematic, is the fact that ethanol is not as energy efficient as regular gas. Essencially, it has the affect of reducing the gas mileage of your automobile, which means you need to buy gas more often, which means you polute more, but ethenol is cleaner burning, so there are less emmissions. Basically, that doesn’t mean a whole lot without quantified statistics, but looking around, most people in the know seem to agree that ethanol is a good alternative fuel. The way I figure it, if you ran the alt fuel with the hybrids, you’d have a kick ass car. If you got that crazy guy from california to install the plug into that thing, you’re car would be the most eco friendly thing on the road…of course the economics of that are pretty outlandish, so I suspect that most people will stick with their Toyota Corollas and Honda Civics for the time being…at least until someone makes it easy on the pocketbook for all of us to switch. Of course, if we ever did switch to ethanol as a major sourse of fuel, the next challenge problem we’d face is replacing all our lawn-mowers, gas generators, and outboard motors so that they would even run on the stuff, since they still use all the rubber seals that the car industry got rid of. Now you have the problem of creating a whole new infrastructure for your home gardening, midnight block parties, and nautical activities…of course it’s still cheaper than hydrogen, and Arnold Shwartzenegger already has a Hum-Vee that runs on the stuff.

The Bad Side of Ethanol

According to the dictionary, Ethenol is spelled with an “A”.

Ethanol

For more on ethanol visit:

More info on ethanol

So I was reading this article about turning straw into gold…err…I mean straw into ethenol. It’s kind of interesting reading. Ethenol is generally a clean burning fuel and is considered by a lot of people to be the next big thing in the fuel wars…of course they’ve been saying that for over twenty years, and most people in this neck of the woods are still scared to put the ethenol-gas blend mix in their cars. I mean enough of the myths already…when was the last time you heard of someones car dying because they put ethenol in the tank?…for those of you cursing at me that this isn’t a myth…you’re old…get with the times…these ain’t your daddy’s automobiles anymore.

Anyway, it was interesting to hear how difficult it is to make ethenol. 4 billion gallons of ethenol were created last year, 2005, while 140 billion gallons of gas were used in the US alone. They also mention that ethenol manufacturing is so inefficient that companies have been stealing corn meant for the dinner table and for livestock in order to meet the ever increasing demand.

So now, we’re in 2006 and they say they can create microbes to do the whole conversion process for us…and the great thing…they don’t even have to use corn anymore…they can use all the woody leftover garbage such as straw and cornstalks that nobody wants…sounds like a dream honestly…or a story I heard as a child…Rumplestiltskin anyone…straw into gold…whoever gets this moving first is going to be rich, that’s all I have to say…I think I feel an investment coming on.

Of course it’ll probably take another 25 years, but I’m sure it will be worth the wait. You can read the article below:

Straw into Gold