Mystery author

to speak at library

Al Lamanda, author of “Sunset,” an Edgar Award nominated mystery, will speak at the North Gorham Public Library, 2 Standish Neck Road, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 21.

A resident of Gray and a retired private detective, Lamanda has written six novels, including the sequel “Sunrise,” due out this summer.

For more information, call the library at 892-2575 or visit www.north-gorham.lib.me.us.

GHS annual breakfast

The Gorham High School Dream Factory will be hosting its annual Happily Ever After breakfast 8-11 a.m. on Saturday, March 23, at First Parish Congregational Church, 1 Church St., Gorham.

Included in the breakfast will be a silent auction, noodle sword fighting, nail and face painting, gown decorating and dancing. Proceeds will benefit the Dream Factory, a national organization dedicated to granting wishes to chronically and critically ill children ages 3-18.

Cost is $5 or $20 for a family of five or more.

Local resident derides ethanol mix

As consumers keep an eye on gas prices at the pumps, Gorham resident Alton Shurtleff believes use of the gasoline-ethanol blend for fuel drives up transportation costs, increases pollution and ups U.S. dependency on oil imports.

He shared his conclusions, which stem from a lengthy study he recently conducted.

Shurtleff, who worked in paper mill engineering for 30 years, said his mileage dropped from 34 miles per gallon using straight gasoline to 29.5 miles per gallon with the ethanol blend. It represented a 13 percent loss. “These figures were carefully calculated by systemically and carefully checking mileage on the open highway at a constant 65 mph,” Shurtleff reported.

Applying figures proportional to his, he calculated that, if a motorist averaged 25 miles per gallon, 600 gallons of straight gasoline would be required to travel 15,000 miles while 690 gallons of ethanol blend would be needed.

The price of regular gas in New England on March 11 was $3.77 per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

If gas cost $3.50 gallon, he said, the additional 90 gallons of ethanol-blend gas per year would equate to an extra 1.73 gallons a week or $6.06 per week for a motorist.

At that rate, according to Shurtleff’s statistics, 200,000 drivers in the country collectively would spend an extra $1.2 million per week, burning an additional 18 billion gallons per year.

In the results of Shurteff’s research, he reported that ethanol might cost about 70 cents more per gallon to produce than gasoline. With ethanol produced from corn, Shurtleff contends it represents a misuse of resources.

He cited thousands of tons of fertilizer, thousands of acres, thousands of barrels of fuel, and untold amounts of labor to produce ethanol. He said those resources should be utilized in food production to feed starving people.

“It is clear that the ethanol blend is not helping our environment or minimizing our oil dependency.”

U.S. taxpayer debt

The Bureau of Public Debt reported on March 8 that

the U.S. public debt was $16,701,846,937,879.74.