The grain required to fill a 25 gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol would
feed one person for a year.
The grain to fill the tank every two weeks over a year would feed 26
people.
U.S. taxpayers now subsidize the ethanol industry at a rate of 51¢ per
gallon (a law in effect until 2010).
Source: Earth Policy Institute
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Brzil makes their ethanol from sugar cane a much more efficient
plant than using corn as in the USA. Also Brazil is a small contry
and does not have to ship its ethanol thousands of miles to get
to its citizens..
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I saw on Dateline May 7th a few months ago...
Mr. Vinod Khosla who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems
claim there is a much better way to make
ethanol from praire grass...at $1 a gallon or less.
He claims this could happen within 5 years .... not 10 or 20 years.
Dateliine May 7, 2006 transript
A better way to make Ethanol
A engineer responds to Vinod Khosla
Dateline took Mr. Khosla in Brazil. At a Ethanol plant
Mr. Khosla stood next to a gigantic pile that was left over
from making Ethanol from sugar. Mr. Khosla picked up a handfull
of the left over and said that using new methods of making
ethanol this all could be converted to ethaol instead of becomming
a waste product. The way ethanol is made today is the same way
alochol is made for the last 200 years. There is better
technology now to do this more efficiently and cheaper.
Khosla said ethanol could be made from prarire
grass which would use less energy to make.
Or, next generation could be placed next to paper mills or
turning leftovers into fuel Or next to orange jucie factories
where orange peels could be made into ethanol.
Khosla said for $1 gas to happen in the USA four condtions must be met...
1) All new cars would have to come with "flex-fuel" engines that can burn
both gas or enthanol or both like they do in Brazil. The president
of Ford in Brazil which developed the technology said this could
be done at no extra cost. In fact you can get "flex" engine as a option
if you buy a Ford or GM car in the USA or today.
2) The oil companies would.have to put ethanol pumps at all gasoline stations. ...and allow ethanol pumps
at their gas stations. To do this at a thousand gas stations in California would cost
$15 to $20 million. Last year Exxon made $36 billion in profits.
3) The oil companies who own the gas stattions must give
the ethanol gas compaines a play fair and not lower their prices
to compete with Ethanol
4)Start making the next genearation plants to make the ethanol from praire grass.
or hemp.
In the 1930's Henry Ford made a car to run on Hemp
fuel and its body was made to resist collisions. It was so strong
that FORD offered people to take wacks at it with a hammer to see
if they can dent for 10 cents or so at the worlds fair in Chicago
back in 1920's. The body stood up. I met someone who took the 10,000 swing at the car.
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Bill Joy co-founder of Sun Microsystem
Vinod Khosla
is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, the world's
fourth-largest maker of computer servers for networks. He is now
sinking his own money into ethanol fuel research.