"Brazil uses ethanol based on a sugar cane manufacturing product cycle. The plant fermenting and distilling the ethanol product produces surplus electricity by burning the stalks. Since embarking on this energy independence path twenty years ago, Brazil is now an energy exporter with a huge number of ethanol running autos. The ethanol is sold side by side with gasoline at local stations, the cost is 30 to 40 per cent less than gas. Acre for acre, cane from the tropics can convert more solar energy to fuel than corn from the temperate zones. This could be a partial solution for Hawaii, Florida, Puerto Rico, some parts of Texas and La."
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And there's the rub. Sugar cane cannot be grown economically anywhere in the continental United States. Were it not for the politically-connected sugar barons (the Fanjul Bros. etc) we would be importing sugar at the much lower world market price. Provided, of course, that you do not consider sugar to be of "strategic value."
horse poop.. look at southern Louisiana and the Texas gulf coast (within a hundred miles inland too), well actually the entire gulf coast area for that matter, sugar cane can grow economically QUITE well!