RE: Bill Maher this past Friday evening....

[pepperbear]

Bill re-iterated a point he had made the week before about how Brazil had recently become energy-independent.

I haven't been able to find a link to any articles, because I would think that would be pretty darned remarkable.



Can anyone provide any assitance as I sure would love to read about what they did. Any opinions why this hasn't been screaming front page news everywhere? I think it goes beyond the usual mass distraction apparatus already in place.

I am crossing my fingers that the environment becomes a REAL hot issue in the coming election(s).

[catmother]

1. yes. i heard it from bill maher. don't have any info. our

government probably wants to keep it quiet.

[greenman3610]

2. page one of USAToday a week ago

as well as front of the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago.
Wonder if Katie Couric will cover it?

http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-03-28-brazil-ethanol-cover_x.htm


A three-decade-long alternative energy campaign has outfitted Brazilian filling stations with fuel pumps that offer pure ethanol, a blend of gasoline and 20% ethanol called gasohol, or even natural gas. This year, Brazil will achieve energy independence — a goal the United States has been chasing without success since the energy crises of the 1970s.


and the Chicago Trib also carried this
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0603250014mar25,1,657342.story?coll=chi-business-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
Ethanol fuels nearly one-half of Brazil's automobiles. So far this year, three of every four cars sold in Brazil have been flex-fuel, meaning they can run on gasoline, ethanol or a mixture of both. (Ethanol is sold at Brazilian service stations in its pure form and already blended with gasoline at a mix of 25 percent to 75 percent.) If producers can keep ethanol's price at less than 70 percent the cost of gasoline, experts suggest that in the near future as many as 9 of every 10 cars sold in Brazil will be flex-fuel.

Even the state-owned giant Petrobras, the world's ninth-largest oil company, is high on "alcool," as the fuel is called in Brazil.

[pepperbear]

4. WOW! that was fast thanks! N/T

[bookman]

6. One of the reasons DU is great...

...people here are great resources.

[pepperbear]

3. sure would love to keep this kicked until someone

finds an article. I honestly haven't had any luck.

THANKS!

[robinlynne]

5. I'm from brazil, and ethanol replaced gasoline as the most used fuel

over 20 years ago. The large American oil companies were the main reason for the switch back to gasoline. You see Brasil produces it's own oil, but American companies refine that oil and make it into gasoline, then sell it back to Brasil. Hence the switch back to gasoline. (not the sugar prices mentioned in the article.) The brazilians also found out way back when, that alcool can be produced form a variety of sources. It doesn't have to be corn or sugar. A chemist was able to successfully produce ethanol from wild coconuts growing in abundance in the poorer northern brazil. He was murdered 20 years ago. They never found his killers. In other words, it is easy to get off gasoline. the world has known this for decades.

[blondeatlast]

7. Here's an easily understandable article from CBS News Online:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/29/eveningnews/main1454613.shtml

Here;s my Google News results. Since I'm a library reference provider, I've learned many different ways of conducting the same search.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=brazil+ethanol&btnG=Search+News

[Kansas Wyatt]

8. Just think of all the family farms that were wiped off the country side

A few decades back. Just think of how a policy like that here could have saved them from corporate farms taking over. Rural America would not have slipped into a Jesusland despair, and small towns would see a prosperous future, rather than facing a ghost town status. An energy independent United States, while everyone benefits. Well, everyone except Big Oil pimping their exclusive product for every dollar they can squeeze out of Americans, rather than do what is right for the country that has already given them so much. When Big Oil can buy farmland for pennies on the dollar and the government pays for the refineries to make the product, then the United States will make it their policy.

People incorrectly assume that rural and small town people were listening to the Christian moral crap Republicans have been selling. Republicans have only been playing a shell game on them by reminding of a time when, with a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work, one could make something of themselves in rural and small town America. Back then, Mega Corporations didn't rule their lives, and people and communities thrived in Rural America. Rural and small town America wanted that back, but Republicans were only selling an image that could not work without fundamental change and pushing corporations back. So the Republicans were only selling an image that once was, but had no intention of giving.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. kick

[rurallib]

10. I have heard that such 'independence' has had a big cost in lives.

That young folks are kidnapped and forced to work on sugar cane farms almost as slaves?

[phoebe]

11. people of Norway have their homes heated by raw sewage now

http://www.thewoman.blogspot.com/ has 3 paras on it..