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To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (4379)	2/17/2006 6:24:14 PM
From: Crabbe	Respond to of 218633

The point is that ethanol can be produced basically from any plant matter, cellulose, hemicellulose, sugars, and starches. Cellulose is just a long chain sugar. It can be broken down into short chain sugars, dextrose, glucose, fructose, etc. There need not be one acre of land, in either the Canadian or US plains, dedicated to growing crops for fuel. The list of waste feed stocks that can be used, economically and efficiently varies from newsprint, to nut shells, to sawdust, to grass, straw, leaves, cannery waste, garbage dump fill. Other biologic processes can create methane from municipal sewage. Crops of course can be grown for the purpose of fuel, perhaps the best overall is soy beans. Two fuels are possible here at the same time, bio-diesel, and the rest of the plant can be converted to ethanol. Land that is otherwise useless for raising food crops such as hillsides, or poor soil, or low water resource can be utilized to grow crops such as trees, or even just grass. In fact the highest yield / acre crops are some varieties of grasses. Certainly Brazil is a great producer of sugar cane and use of sugar cane may well be the best producer / acre, especially when the bagasse is also converted to sugars and fermented. However Brazil does absolutely nothing when achieving energy independence for anyone but Brazil. Therefor I would think that alternative methods and crops must be considered for the US and Canada. Another point, the US now produces more ethanol than Brazil. It caught and Passed Brazil two years ago and is growing at 20-30% per year. At present the US production of ethanol is approximately enough for a 12-15 day supply of motor fuel. Finally, production facilities for ethanol in the US from biomass now exist, it is not a theoretical process but a proven one r