Originally posted by TC'd Swazo:
Why not look to our farmers to provide our fuel? Corn and soy beans could give us E100, or we could even produce our own 100% US E85 and we could make our own bio-diesel.

That would also mean that we would not have to subsidize the farmers at all, we'd be pumping billions into OUR economy.

Other than the fact that the lobbyists have their arms crammed so far the politicians asses, I simply do not get why this isn't an option for the United States. Brazil did it, why can't we?





If we didn't subsidize the farmers, E85 would be outrageously expensive. There's nothing cheap about growing corn to produce fuel. Even worse it takes 1.5 gallons of E85 to take you as far as 1 gallon of gas. So it costs alot more to go the same distance. The cost difference coupled with the efficiency difference means that ethanol costs twice what gasoline currently does to move your car the same distance.

And to grow enough ethanol to replace our gasoline, we'd have to turn over 70% of our farmland to growing corn. Obviously not gonna happen. We could only afford to turn over a few percent of our land to such an alternative use.

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