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To: CommanderCricket who wrote (81933)	3/26/2007 3:27:58 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 206178

Ethanol is a perfectly fine fuel, if it is produced in an economic manner. Unfortunately producing ethanol from corn doesn't meet this requirement. Race cars in the 1920s needed a higher octane fuel than gasoline provided and as a consequence used ethanol until other methods of raising octane were found. Race cars today are again using ethanol, although this is more of a publicity stunt. California gasoline contains 5.7% ethanol both as an oxygenate and as an octane booster. This percentage of ethanol for these uses would be added to gasoline even if it cost more. But using a higher percentage of ethanol, such as E85 is simply a government farm subsidy. Brazil has temporarily achieved a lower production cost on sugar cane based ethanol by raising sugar cane in an unsustainable manner on recently cleared forest land. But as this land ages, it requires larger amounts of petrochemical based fertilizers to maintain production. Alternately, the land can be abandoned for sugar cane production and replaced with additional forest land cleared by fire. Ultimately, the production cost of ethanol in Brazil will be much higher than it is currently. .

To: CommanderCricket who wrote (81933)	3/27/2007 12:35:22 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 206178

Does anyone like corn based ethanol other than farmers? Tonight I watched the PBS Nightly Business Report interview Dan Becker, the director of the Sierra Club's "Global Warming Program". Becker said, "E-85 is a fuel that is generally unavailable, you have a loophole that the auto companies like, which gives them the ability to make more gas guzzlers than the law would otherwise allow." [Use of E-85 exempts vehicles from normal fuel economy standards.] "Which means, rather than putting better technology on their vehicles to become more competitive, they're just trying to foist the problem off on the oil and ethanol industries." .