You're not an idiot in my book. Rock-and-roll!
How to Beat the High Cost of Gasoline. Forever!
"You probably don't know it, but the answer to America's gasoline addiction could be under the hood of your car. More than five million Tauruses, Explorers, Stratuses, Suburbans, and other vehicles are already equipped with engines that can run on an energy source that costs less than gasoline, produces almost none of the emissions that cause global warming, and comes from the Midwest, not the Middle East."
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"Instead of coming exclusively from corn or sugar cane as it has up to now, thanks to biotech breakthroughs, the fuel can be made out of everything from prairie switchgrass and wood chips to corn husks and other agricultural waste. This biomass-derived fuel is known as cellulosic ethanol. Whatever the source, burning ethanol instead of gasoline reduces carbon emissions by more than 80% while eliminating entirely the release of acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide. Even the cautious Department of Energy predicts that ethanol could put a 30% dent in America's gasoline consumption by 2030."
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"Although Brazilians have driven some cars that run exclusively on ethanol since 1979, the introduction three years ago of new engines that let drivers switch between ethanol and gasoline has transformed what was once an economic niche into the planet's leading example of renewable fuels. Ford exhibited the first prototype of what came to be known as a flex-fuel engine in 2002; soon VW marketed a flex-fuel car. Ford's Engle says flex-fuel technology helps avoid problems that had plagued ethanol cars, such as balky starts on cold mornings, weak pickup, and corrosion."
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"With Brazilian ethanol selling for 45% less per liter than gasoline in 2003 and 2004, flex-fuel cars caught on like iPods. In 2003, flex-fuel had 6% of the market for Brazilian-made cars, and automakers were expecting the technology's share to zoom to 30% in 2005. That proved wildly conservative: As of last December, 73% of cars sold in Brazil came with flex-fuel engines. There are now 1.3 million flex-fuel cars on the road. "I have never seen an automotive technology with that fast an adoption rate," says Engle."
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"The key to Brazil's success is that consumers are choosing ethanol rather than being forced to buy it. Brazil's military dictators tried the latter approach in the 1970s and early 1980s, by offering tax breaks to build mills, ordering state-owned oil company Petrobras to sell ethanol at gas stations, and regulating prices at the pump. This bullying--and cheap oil in the 1990s--nearly killed the market for ethanol until flex-fuel came along. The regime wasn't good for much, says consultant Plinio Nastari, but it did create the distribution system that enables drivers to fill up on ethanol just about anywhere."
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"he recently enacted energy bill takes steps in the right direction, like mandating the use of 250 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol a year by 2013, but much more can be done. Easing the tariff of 54 cents per gallon on imports of ethanol from Brazil and other countries would certainly help. Because sugar cane generates far more ethanol per acre than corn, Brazil can produce ethanol more cheaply than the U.S. Not only would importing more of it broaden access to ethanol for U.S. buyers, but it would also make it cheaper for the ultimate consumers--us. That in turn would spur demand at the pump and encourage service station owners to offer ethanol more widely. What's also needed is for someone big--like Shell or BP, which tout themselves as green companies--to commit to cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale."
(And just think how much ethanol we could produce if we signed up Jack Daniels!)