Re: BRAZIL'S ALCOHOL-POWERED CAR

§§§ Raven §§§ wrote: 
North wrote:

From Mother Earth News: Issue #66 - November/December 1980 

ANd now in 2006 we know that it would take more oil to
grow enough corn to service all our automobile fuel needs
than we are currently using in gasolene......

Yes... and no. Of course, you don't need to use oil or alcohol to fire the still. You can use coal, sugar cane husks or anything else that burns. The idea is to make a liquid fuel that can be used in cars. You can use low entropy fuels to do that.

The Brazilians use the sugar cane husks as fuel for their stills.

You get about 150 gallons (of gasoline equivelent) per acre using the Brazilian method. To replace the US gasoline supply would require about 1/3 of the US land area be dedicated to alcohol farms. The cost would be incredible; consider that at current prices of gasoline is around $2.30/gal, then you're talking about a profit much lower than $345/acre. I can grow a lot of things for better money than that - Sugar, for example! And this land has to have a lot of water available, and be of a southern latitude. Alaska and the Western US is not an option.



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