[docbnj]

More idiocy. It costs more to make this ethanol, uses up soil resources, and produces a diluted fuel which causes harm to engines. And then they try to say that this is good for the environment!

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

[Captain PJ]

The government is involved, what could go wrong?

[goodn'mad]

Agreed. I detest ethenol for what it does to small engines. Another example of unintended consquences.

[X-spurt]

We need to get away from this E-fuel BS. Now they want to go after another feed grain?? Makes one think that they also have some PETA thinking in addition to the silly climate change poop.

Brazil is awash in ethanol and they really would like to export it to us, but the US taxes their ethanol to the point its not imported and instead we stupidly burn our food.

The watermelon greenies be damned!

[chaos_5]

Agreed, ethanol is just a crappy source of fuel especially when one takes into consideration how much energy goes into the production. I think a viable partial solution could be found from algae sourced bio-fuel. Much of our waste streams could be used as food to grow the algae and depending on the type used it wouldn’t even consume much in the way of our precious fresh water supplies. It’s hard to imagine how massive the infrastructure would have to be to produce all the diesel one would expect the nation too use. Perhaps 50 years of building and investing in refineries and farms may get us close. Not sure though – I kinda just pulled that number out of my a$$.

Algae is also a potential food source, see Spirulina

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplement)

As unpopular as the sentiment may be I think we do need to come to grips with the inconvenient reality that we simply cannot expect to indefinitely use crude oil as our primary fuel source and also realize that using up fresh water and top soil (primary food production sources) is suicidal. Growth of developing nations will continue to put pressure on our supplies and simply producing more crude oil is not a viable or sustainable solution.

Crude oil is a finite and diminishing energy source. Top soil and fresh water are precious resources. The world has a plentiful supply of garbage, sun light, and salt water. The solution seems obvious to me – algae!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Get ready for more depletion of the Ogalala Aquifer as water is sucked up to make fuel, not food!