Brazila becomes energy independent

[yesthattom]

I recently saw a presentation by someone advocating the US do the same thing.

http://www.truthabouttrade.org/article.asp?id=5029


Sugar cane, switch grass, and other plants make better ethanol that the US corn-made stuff. Can we overcome our addition to corn and become energy independent too?

Comments

[etler.livejournal.com]

> Can we overcome our addition to corn

If the bourbon stops flowing there's going to be trouble.

small correction :P

[rfj.livejournal.com]

hi there!

sry...my brazilian friend would be upset if i didn't correct you.

"Brazila" is spelled Brasilia if you are talking about the capital of Brasil.

...it was very interesting to see that all the gas stations carried ethanol when i was there. it'd be nice if the US could learn that it's not that hard to do.

Re: small correction :P

[lilbjorn.livejournal.com]

it'd be nice if the US could learn that it's not that hard to do.

Especially if we stopped paying farmers (or rich people who own farmland) not to plant crops.

[wayward-va.livejournal.com]

See, to me ethanol seems the perfect political solution to the energy problem. Flex-fuel vehicles are about the same cost to manufacture as gas-only vehicles, so the auto companies are happy. Farmers get a new market, read a new way to be subsidized, so agribusiness is happy. Lower trade deficit, more freedom to act in the middle-east, everywhere you look you find a constituency that can get behind this thing.

Hell, even oil companies can grow to like it. It's a liquid fuel for vehicles. Their whole business model is about refining and selling liquid fuels for vehicles. Better to stay with a business model they know than have to figure out some way to make money in a world of electric cars, eh?

Whether it makes real scientific or economic sense is eventually going to be beside the point. With enough momentum America will end up trying it anway. Somebody is going to have the smarts to get all these constituencies in a row and make it happen. I just hope that the damn thing actually does work or we're gonna be screwed.

[rfj.livejournal.com]

...well the only problem with ethanol, as i see it, is that most ethanol plants are powered by coal...which emit more CO2 than the cars burning gas. :\

...still it's a start.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see our gratuitous over-use of corn products in foods steeply curtailed, too.