[PJammers]

"The keys to kicking oil addiction are lowering the mass of vehicles per person transported, lowering the number of people transported and the number of miles they travel."

How do you propose do do that? Most of the power that the internet uses is from a power plant that is fired by fossil fuels.

Nuclear energy is a tried an true method of reducing dependency on foreign sources of fossil fuels. I would also like to see more coal conversion strategies.

These "exotic" methods of making alcohol are decades away from becoming a reality.

My question is; why can't you just ferment sugar? Why does it have to come from bugs? Last I checked sugar is a rather cheap commodity.

[Dark Skies]

How do you propose do do that? Most of the power that the internet uses is from a power plant that is fired by fossil fuels.

lol...tell me about it. My computer has a four-barrell c-drive and a hyper-net connection to the internet...that baby can suck down the fuel!

[Chanticleer]

My understanding is that ethanol made from sources like corn and sugar actually costs more to produce than its worth as fuel. If you could cheaply produce ethanol from things like corncobs (especially without adding pollutants to the environment in the process), it might go a long way to making ethanol a more viable fuel. There are several threads on ethanol as fuel (pro and con) on FR by people who have much greater knowledge on the subject than I. I don't think it's junk science, though; I think it has a lot of promise. It might be a piece of the puzzle -- like the bacteria that eat oil used as part of environmental cleanup after a spill.

[liberallarry]

Powering the Internet - by any means - is far easier and more effiecient than powering vehicles. So far, anyway.