[chaos_5]

Ethanol from corn is foolish. Corn produces far less sugar per acer than sugar caine. This whole ethanol/energy independence is just another scheme to subsidize corn farmers.

As far as it taking food from the mouths of the starving. BS, they are staving which means the don't have food now. LOL

Seriously, countries like Africa and Mexico have plenty of rich farm land that can be developed to support their growing populations.

If you are looking for an organic source of fuel, try bio-desil. At least that way you can directly use the plants oils rather than have a bacteria "eat" the sugar in it and then try and distill the ethanol it produces. Furthermore, the BTU of ethanol sucks!

[dynachrome]

"the BTU of ethanol sucks!"
That is one of the big negatives. In Colorado, we have to use 10% ethanol in the winter and it really knocks my mileage down.

[TKDietz]

The problem with biodiesel though is that per acre yields are so low. Most of it comes from soybeans and they only get about 48 gallons of biodiesel per acre on average from soybeans. That's pitiful. It would take something like 10 acres of land to supply just one average driver enough fuel for a year, provided his vehicle has good fuel economy and he doesn't drive too many miles. It would take around two acres of land to supply the same driver ethanol if he was driving a similar vehicle burning pure ethanol. Ethanol yields from corn are just so much higher than biodiesel yields from soybeans that it doesn't really matter that you can get about twice as many miles per gallon of biodiesel than you can from ethanol in a similar vehicle. Until we get new feedstocks for biodiesel that are a good four or five times or more productive than soybeans, ethanol will be the better fuel on a miles per acre basis.

None of these fuels made from plants we grow are really going to work out well until we can come up with one that we can produce enough of it from each acre to supply several drivers. With ethanol from corn it takes maybe slightly more than two acres of land to supply one average driver. With twenty million acres of corn devoted to ethanol we would only be able to supply somewhere around 10 million average drivers. If we could produce enough of some biofuel concoction to supply four drivers per acre, 20 million acres would be enough to supply 80 million drivers, which would really be something. I don't think that's impossible at all. There are 43,560 square feet in an acre. It's taking a little more than 100 square feet of farmland on average to produce enough feedstock for just one gallon of ethanol, and closer to a 1000 square feet to produce enough feedstock for just one gallon of biodiesel. Surely we can do a lot better than that.