I can respect Sugar's wild ambitions to slowly become the most addictive substance the world has ever seen. It's decidedly American.

But the midwest is FULL or corn, which is what ethanol is typicaly made of. There is already E85 in the US which is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, many GM products run on it already, however, many owners are unaware of it and you can only get it at select stations throughout the country. The big potential problem with ethanol is that it produces about half the energy for a given amount as gasoline so you get about half the mileage per gallon, so you'll be filling up twice as often. The other potential problem is with our current infrastructure. Ethanol is quite the solvent, and as we all know gas stations as filthy delapodated places, so it is likely that the ethanol would eat through old gas lines and tanks so they would have to be replaced at the stations. The Indy Racing League is switching over to 100% ethanol for fule next year. Regardless of any potenial problems ethanol is definetly viable alternative to gasoline, much more so than the over the top hydrogen fule cell idea. The technology for ethanol already exists and it has the same emmisions as the hydrogen fuel cell, water... So lets all go harvest some corn, set up distilleries and make a whole bunch of corn alcohol to save the planet.

While I have no doubt that the number of people with weight problems is increasing, I'm always very doubtful when I hear things about americans who are "classified" as overweight.
I've been classified as overweight for the majority of the time since I turned 14, and for much of that time was verging on being classified as "obese". The trouble is, I've never been fat, and when I was at my worst according to the BMI was when I was in the best shape. Because the BMI does nothing to differentiate between muscle mass and fat mass, a well built person goes into the same classification as an overweight person on most studies.

I'd hope that the CDC would use a different system to measure, but based on the article, it doesn't appear that way.

This FearTheReaper guy gets paid for his drivel?

I swear, if it weren't for the (admittely useful) links scattershot throughout his articles, they would consist of nothing but meandering, unreadably sarcastic whining.

I'm just not going to read his stuff anymore.

I doubt he gets paid, and I normally just tell people who complain about his articles to shut up...

But I don't get the title, the connection between sugar ethanol in Brazil and cars here, and the sugar in sugary snacks leading to obesity, somehow a shot at ethanol feasibility here because sugar prices are too high (when you can use just about anything to make ethanol)....

Dude? Were you high when you wrote this?

Seriously, you sound like a crazy homeless man yelling news snippets at people while holding a sign that reads: "The End is Near."

And this is a misconception about ethanol that the people who are against it keep increasing at every chance they get. Ethanol stores less energy than gasoline, but not nearly half as much. In actual mileage terms you are looking at 8/10ths to 9/10ths of the mileage you get from gasoline.

So E85 gives you an 8-15% reduction in mileage, not 50%. But you are right, until they start charging appropriately or put a sign up about it, it essentially amounts to a 8% "green tax", on top of the fuel prices.

In California they have a mandatory 10% ethanol, 90% gasoline mix, so its like a 2% "green tax".


Oh, also ethanol produces emissions like carbon, and carbon dioxide, without the other carcinogens found in gasoline (sulfur, etc). The reason it is cleaner is because it is called a "carbon zero" fuel, meaning they grow plants that suck carbon dioxide out of the air, and then when they are used as fuel the carbon is re-released into the air. Instead of dragging up carbon that was in the air 50 million years ago when there were no ice caps on the planet and we had twice as much carbon dioxide.

Supposedly Wal-Mart is thinking of carrying E85 at their gas stations in the future. That's pretty much the fuel's only chance at reaching any sort of market penetration. But the US cannot ecologically support moving over to a completely E85 economy anyway, so having it be 10% of the market is probably just as well anyway.

The US can so support Ethanol its not even funny. We already pay farm subsidies to grain farmers to have farms available for farming but sit unused.

The only infrastructure needed is a better process of ethanol production and to build the many production plants needed. That would take far longer than the farm aspect. The US has been at near 100% grain capacity in the past, and with modern technology, sleeping industrial and steel sectors to build farm equipment, and an economic push in the right direction, we could outpace the raw material production of Brazil in shorter time than it took us to get to the moon.

Diesel trucks switching to corn/grain biodiesel, or long term energy production through piston diesel engines running SVO would also be much more possible than ethanol production and transport.

Not to mention, the politicians shouting FUD about grain prices can shut it, because all of the grain used in ethanol and biodiesel production is feed grain. The cost of feed grain would plummet.
Know who that is good for? The fledgling US cattle industry who whines incessantly.
Hey cattle dude, heres some free government grain for you if you just start testing all your stupid cows for Mad Cow disease.

a) Our children are big boneded and muscular.
b) doesn't corn suck for ethanol production? Like it only yields 120% of energy in?

Yeah, like I said, they need to do more research on ethanol, but the capacity to support it could be there faster than they could build the facilities to produce it.

There are some scientist right now working on a species of termite they found that converts pressed grain cellulose (grain wood) into sugar much more efficiently than any type of production they currently use to get the grain to convert to glucose that can be turned into alcohol (ethanol). Eventually they will figure it out. The oil industry has been researching refinery technology for 120 years.

Playing HALO is excellent excercise if you play HALO with the neccesary fervor.

Ummm, I hate to piss on anyone's parade, but the problem with ethanol is that you have to make it in an energy intensive process, it can't be piped or stored for long periods and if you make it in the US, its really rather expensive. Add to that the aforementioned loss of combustion efficiency and the damage to the planet to grow it efficiently and its really not very attractive. The counter arguments, which categorically obfuscate these issues are all heavily funded by massive agribusiness concerns slavering over a domestic US corn market that has been moribund for decades. Its all well and good to say "We'll get better!" but frankly the two layer subsidy we pay to grow the corn and prop up the industry could probably be better spent on other environmental concerns.

Sadly, he does get paid for this drivel.

I believe it's another positive indication for the ethanol industry that the few companies that are involved with ethanol production are going public, and becoming viable investment opportunities. One of the difficulties I see with ethanol at this time (which hasn't already been mentioned) is that ethanol has to be shipped, rather than piped, to other areas in the country.

I must admit to being very pro-ethanol, however, as I've lived in South Dakota almost all my life. It's hard to not, when ethanol is percieved as being such a good thing for this state. SD is the number one state in terms of numbers of farm families who have invested in ethanol production and also first in the nation in the percentage of the corn crop used in producing ethanol.. We might be just a little bitty pissant country place, but that doesn't mean that we aren't looking for opportunities to grow.

Totally... If you play the way my friends and I do not only do you get a workout, but often a few bruises.