Anyone interested in a corn-to-ethanol postdoc?

[eppur_se_muova]

http://chronicle.com/jobs/id.php?id=0000601534-01

[Xipe Totec]

1. Not really

not if it's for fuel purposes.

A waste of good booze.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. For the currently unemployed, *any* job will help with the booze. nt

[Xipe Totec]

3. Alcohol from corn as a fuel will be a disaster

it will displace food crops and raise the price of food for all of us.

Not to mention the ecological devastation of monoculture to provide enough raw materials for the process.

[skepticscott]

4. What do you mean

"will be"? It pretty much already is. On top of the things you mention, it isn't even that big an energy source, if it is at all. It depends on who's adding up the numbers, but even as a best-case scenario, you don't get that much more energy out of a gallon of ethanol than it takes to produce it (maybe about a 1.1:1 ratio), and some sources even claim that it's a net loss. The only people making out are the ones getting the ethanol subsidy-production of corn-based ethanol is huge business in states like Illinois and Iowa, and the Senators in those states are powerful and protect the handout very well.

Until cellulosic ethanol becomes viable on a large scale, the production of ethanol is largely a boondoggle.

[Xipe Totec]

5. I think we are in violent agreement

what can I say?