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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (322806)	1/25/2007 3:50:19 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574071

The US consumes 20 million barrels of oil per day That's oil consumption, not gasoline consumption. Also typically you can only have 10 to 15% ethanol in normal cars. Cut out oil not used for gasoline. Now multiply by .1 or .15% and you get how much ethanol we can use as fuel absent other changes. Now 8 billion gallons a year isn't quite a drop in the bucket any more. The 8 billion gallons is not until 2012. Currently, we produce less than 5 billion gallons. Currently, the US consumes roughly 146 billion gallons of gas per year. Ten to 15% of that total is 14-22 billion gallons. Hence, 5 billion is a drop in the bucket when you consider how little it reduces our dependency on oil. genomicsgtl.energy.gov to make that 4.9 billion gallons of ethanol, it took 1.6 bushels of corn......which is roughly 14% of the annual US corn crop. That's a lot. 14% is a lot? Its also going up. And there are a number of proposals to increase it even more. Yes, and they are talking about using grasses instead of corn because they produce more fuel. To look at it another way - Assume your data is accurate. Now assume we move 100% of corn production to ethanol. We only get about 35 billion gallons of ethanol per year, still well short of 840 million gallons isn't it? To sum up - 1 - The portion of corn that goes to ethanol is large and rising. It isn't large and it may not rise all that much more. 2 - Don't look to ethanol to be more than a marginal part of reducing gasoline and/or oil use. I don't disagree with you there. There is third point.......you gave out erroneous data.

To: TimF who wrote (322806)	1/25/2007 10:28:47 AM
From: Alighieri	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574071

To look at it another way - Assume your data is accurate. Now assume we move 100% of corn production to ethanol. We only get about 35 billion gallons of ethanol per year, still well short of 840 million gallons isn't it? You are assuming present corn production rates, and no ethanol production from other sources. 2 - Don't look to ethanol to be more than a marginal part of reducing gasoline and/or oil use. Tell that to Brazil. At current prices, Brazil can make ethanol for about $1 a gallon, according to the World Bank. That compares with the international price of gasoline of about $1.50 a gallon. Even though ethanol gets less mileage than gasoline, in Brazil it's still cheaper per mile driven. As a result, ethanol now accounts for as much as 20% of Brazil's transport fuel market. The country's use of gasoline has actually declined since the late 1970s. The use of alternative fuels in the rest of the world is a scant 1%.... With government support, sugar companies and auto makers' local units delivered cost-saving breakthroughs. "Flexible fuel" cars running ethanol, gasoline or a mixture of both, have become a hit. Car buyers no longer have to worry about fluctuating prices for either fuel because flex-fuel cars allow them to hedge their bets at the pump. Seven out of every 10 new cars sold in Brazil are flex-fuel. Al