The D & C ran a story this week on a new, state-of-the-art cellulosic ethanol plant to be built here in Monroe County. I don’t know much about the merits of cellulosic ethanol, but The Oil Drum was not very sanguine about it a few months ago. After hearing Eric Massa wax optimistic on the subject, I sent him an e-mail that he might want to curb his enthusiasm. As I remember, there was an issue with the enzymes and energy inputs needed for production. I’ll try and look into this further.

Interesting to me is that the plant will be located in Greece, a heavily Republican suburb, and not exactly the progressive capital of Western New York. This smells of something.

Then yesterday, they announced another plant to be built in Caledonia.

A couple of weeks ago, our County Legislature passed a budget which included shifting $175K from Cornell Cooperative Extension to a new thingy at MCC. Reasons given included things like “we’ve been getting complaints from the agricultural community about CCE.” Almost on the same day, the announcement was made that Mr. Bob King, formerly the CCE head in Monroe County, would head up the new venture. So if you were getting complaints about a thing headed by this guy, do you expect something different about something headed by him again? Rochester Turning was looking into this some.