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It's not better for the environment. What news channel that doesn't know what it's talking about have you been watching? Oh.. that's right.. all of them.
Ethanol is nothing but a stopgap. It's NOT a solution. There is not enough land on earth to produce fuel to meet our current need. Not to mention we still need to grow food. It's bad for the economy too- have you seen the price of bread lately? It will keep going up as wheat gets pushed out in favor of growing corn. In Mexico, the price of tortillas has drastically risen due to the use of corn for fuel rather than food.
Brazil has one of the largest, if not THE largest, gap between the wealthy and the poor. While there may be many people in Brazil, very few of them need cars and millions live in the favelas without electricity and running water. Brazil isn't exactly a shining example here.
After everything is said and done, corn ethanol is not really better than gas. The process that it takes to create ethonal involves burning a lot of coal. The biggest cause of carbon output.
Even if it was cleaner it wouldn't practical, if every ear of corn in the US went to make ethonal it would reduce oil consumption by a mere 7%.
It works in Brazil because there are considerably less vehicles.
It's not better for the environment. What news channel that doesn't know what it's talking about have you been watching? Oh.. that's right.. all of them.
Ethanol is nothing but a stopgap. It's NOT a solution. There is not enough land on earth to produce fuel to meet our current need. Not to mention we still need to grow food. It's bad for the economy too- have you seen the price of bread lately? It will keep going up as wheat gets pushed out in favor of growing corn. In Mexico, the price of tortillas has drastically risen due to the use of corn for fuel rather than food.
Brazil has one of the largest, if not THE largest, gap between the wealthy and the poor. While there may be many people in Brazil, very few of them need cars and millions live in the favelas without electricity and running water. Brazil isn't exactly a shining example here.
Corn is not a very efficient source of ethanol. Sugar cane, like Brazil uses, is much more efficient. I can't recall off-hand but I think it is something like 1 unit of energy to produce 1.3 units of energy from corn ethanol. For sugar cane it is like 1 unit of energy to produce 6 units. (As mentioned above, the energy used to produce ethanol usually comes from oil.)
Switchgrass could be a good source of ethanol. It is easy to grow in the US and holds some promise because it is nearly twice as efficient as sugar cane.
However, there are some air quality issues with ethanol. Maybe down the road there will be some technology to burn ethanol more cleanly. I would give up on it as an option but it is not quite the answer that many people thought it might be a few years ago.
comparing the USA to Brazil is like apples and nuts. Hydrogen will be the next fuel. Something about it being extremely explosive might not seem to appealing.
Get battery technology better then you will have something.
one more thing i would like to add. by growing more corn for ethanol, u are using up more water and pesticides, and consequently the pesticide runoff "can" pollute our drinking water furthermore, it is raising the price of corn, therefore, we are not able to buy as much food for '"aid" for developing countries, therefore we are not able to feed as many ppl .who knows how many more starving ppl are dying every year in third world countries because of ethanol? but hey......at least the environmentalist feel good about themselves
one more thing i would like to add. by growing more corn for ethanol, u are using up more water and pesticides, and consequently the pesticide runoff "can" pollute our drinking water furthermore, it is raising the price of corn, therefore, we are not able to buy as much food for '"aid" for developing countries, therefore we are not able to feed as many ppl .who knows how many more starving ppl are dying every year in third world countries because of ethanol? but hey......at least the environmentalist feel good about themselves
Most environmentalists were warning about the problems ethanol production would cause many years ago. Read up.
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furthermore, it is raising the price of corn, therefore, we are not able to buy as much food for '"aid" for developing countries, therefore we are not able to feed as many ppl 
