Sugar cane to the rescue! From the ingenuity of TRUE pro-lifers:

[Deja Q]

http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0616brazil16-ON.html

What had enough energy to rot your teeth and more can be used to fuel your automobile:

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- While Americans fume at high gasoline prices, Carolina Rossini is the essence of Brazilian cool at the pump.

Like tens of thousands of her countrymen, she is running her zippy red Fiat on pure ethanol extracted from Brazilian sugar cane. On a recent morning in Brazil's largest city, the clear liquid was selling for less than half the price of gasoline, a sweet deal for the 26-year-old lawyer.

"You save money and you don't pollute as much," said Rossini, who paid about $18 to fill her nearly empty tank. "And it's a good thing that the product is made here."

Three decades after the first oil shock rocked its economy, Brazil has nearly shaken its dependence on foreign oil. More vulnerable than even the United States when the 1973 Middle East oil embargo sent gas prices spiraling soaring, Brazil vowed to kick its import habit. Now the country that once relied on outsiders to supply 80 percent of its crude is projected to be self-sufficient within a few years.

Of course, how much EXTRA land will people use to grow sugar (and not eat the profits.) Given the price of land, the net cost is not going to be 10 cents a gallon. Not when you factor how much sugar is needed for 300 million automobiles in America alone... Might work for them. Won't work for us without a massive paradigm shift (hah!)

I wish them the best. Unlike America, Brazil has leaders who are pro-life.

Officials from other nations are flocking to Brazil to examine its methods. Most will find Brazil's sugar-fuel strategy impossible to replicate. Few countries possess the acreage and climate needed to produce sugar cane in gargantuan quantities, much less the infrastructure to get it to the pump.

Brazil better patent it before someone else figures it out. It's always about profit, but for once it'd be fun to see the arrogant Americans lose out. (ambivalence)

But the discovery of cheap, abundant petroleum changed everything. Like much of the rest of the world, Brazil guzzled imported crude until the 1970s oil shocks put its economy over a barrel. So totally reliant was Brazil on foreign oil that surging prices wreaked havoc on its balance of trade. That led to massive borrowing, huge deficits and, eventually, hyperinflation and a devaluation of its currency.

Sound familiar? :D

Thus the Brazilian government, then a military dictatorship, launched efforts in the mid-1970s to wean the nation off imports. Those efforts included its National Alcohol Program, known as Proalcool.

What the US is about to become?

Article has more...

[bleedingheart]

1. but at what cost????

"And there is a lot more where that came from. Brazil has about 13.5 million acres planted with sugar cane currently. More than 200 million dormant acres lay ready to cultivate."

What are those 200 million dorman acres? Are they rainforest?
I am all for alternatives but what if they cut down every last bit of their heritage..their grand and great forest so they can have a car to drive?

I would much prefer to see them work on mass transit as well...

[Deja Q]

3. Eep. And the rainforests are crucial to the global ecology. Talk about

globalization...

[Maine-i-acs]

4. Tending toward converting old ranch lands ...

They are aggressively pursuing illegal Amazon loggers (89 arrested last month). The sugar cane fields need to be closer to the population base.

Unlike the USA, environmentalists there are listened to by politicians.

Having just returned from Brasil I was amazed by the ethanol's cheapness - with oil prices rising, it is a greater bargain this year than last (in the South at least - up North they're closer in price).

[Selteri]

2. Sugar Cane for Brazil - Good for the Mexican Economy

US will have to use a cellulose based material like Hemp, but we'll never use it while it is illegalized for looking like Marijuana.

[Gold Metal Flake]

5. Stop saying that.

It looks different than Marijuana. Yes, they look similar, because they are in the same plant family. But Hemp is not deeply green. It is not dense. It does not have long colas. It looks different enough that you can easily tell the difference from the air. They happily grow with less inter-plant spacing than a pot grower would allow for his illegal crop.

Legal experimental crops are being grown now. There are such crops scattered around the country. Constant pressure on our lawmakers is required, and don't ever use pot jokes or allow a pot joke to pass unchallenged.

It is up to us to change and reframe the debate on commercial hemp.

Having said that, ethanol is not the answer for all locals. So, naturally, a variety of alternative fuel sources needs to be cultivated. Plants like Rapeseed for veg oil fuel and biodiesel, for example. Hemp can also be processed for oil, and the fibrous remains used for ethanol or paper pulp or fabric or feed etc... Don't forget about veg oil and biodiesel from recycled used veg cooking oil.

ALL of these avenues must be explored, and it is up to the individuals to make it happen. Do not count on ADM. I would prefer that we weaken ADM to the point that we can drown it in a bathtub.


EDIT: Spelling, natch.