Alternative Fuel Summary

Brazil has cars that run off of 100% sugar cane ethanol. It's becoming more and more popular, because the energy return is much greater than that of soybeans or corn.

Yes I have heard a snippit about that before, it's very good to hear as we become a more conciencious more clean world.

Here's a decent artcile on it as well.


http://www.globalexchange.org/countr...azil/3776.html

IF PRESIDENT Bush needs an example of how ethanol can help to reduce dependence on oil imports, he need look no further than Brazil. What Saudi Arabia is to crude oil, Brazil is to ethanol — the environmentally friendly, renewable fuel of which it is the largest producer. Brazil makes the fuel by fermenting and distilling its sugar cane crop, the biggest in the world, and then using the liquid to fuel a rapidly increasing proportion of its transport fleet. Seven out of ten of all new cars sold in Brazil are now "flex-fuel" — owners can fill them with either ethanol or petrol. Computer sensors inside the engine then decide what will be the best mix of whatever is in the tank for optimum performance. Finding ethanol is not a problem either — nearly all petrol stations have pumps selling pure ethanol, while all regular petrol sold at the pumps is a mix called "gasohol", a blend that contains up to 25 per cent ethanol.

One downside is that ethanol engines require about 25 per cent more fuel per mile than petrol. But in Brazil this is offset by ethanol's lower cost. It typically sells for 50-66 per cent of the price of petrol.

Now Brazil's main challenge is meeting demand. The country aims to double ethanol production by 2013. Already demand is straining supplies between harvests, causing ethanol prices to rise to close to where petrol becomes more cost effective for flex-fuel drivers. But the industry says expanding sugar cane plantations and new ethanol plants will quickly solve the problem

Well, more than that. I think that this idea could lower gas prices, as the United States could adopt the idea and be less dependent on foreign oil. Along with the ethanol 'movement', Minnesota has been making plants like mad. There are nothing but farm fields within a 90 mile radius of where I live. Makes sense. Besides, most of our home-grown crops are going to feed livestock anyways.

Hemp is like 5 times more efficient per acre than corn for biofuels.

k

Hemp is like 5 times more efficient per acre than corn for biofuels. k

Proof or fail.

Either way, I think sugar cane is 7 or 8 times more efficient than corn. Switchgrass has been talked about as well.