The Energy Harvest

September 15, 2006 by Mary Wynne-Wynter 

I read this and thought of both Al Gore and Google and how desperately we need change leadership.

[TS] The Energy Harvest: "Not only is ethanol fuel for real, but we have not even begun to tap its full potential…."

A breakthrough is expected within five years, and when that happens it will be possible to extract “more than double” the amount of ethanol from each sugar stalk, said José Luiz Oliverio, a senior V.P. at Dedini, the Brazilian industrial giant, which has a pilot cellulosic ethanol project.

I asked Brazilian experts what they’d do if they were the U.S. president. The consensus answer: Require U.S. oil companies to provide ethanol fuel pumps at all their gas stations, require U.S. auto companies to make all their new cars flex-fuel and improve mileage standards, and get rid of the crazy 54-cent tariff we’ve imposed on imported sugar ethanol (to protect our farmers). And then let the market work.

Demand for ethanol would soar. This would push us faster down the innovation curve, so we’d solve the cellulosic ethanol problem quicker, and that would strengthen the democrats in our hemisphere and weaken the petrocrats in the Middle East. If only we were as smart as Brazil …

(Via NYT > Columnists.)

Filed under: Consciousness, career, going solo
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