Brazil isn't held hostage by oil rich countries.Why wont the USA do what Brazil did become reliant on ethanol

Question

After the 1970's oil problems in the USA and world. Brazil started producing Ethanol using sugar cain and beets. Now Brazil is self
sufficent with ethanol and there cars can burn gasoline or Ethanol.
The USA gasoline has 10% ethanol I am an American and proud of it ,but I find it hard to beleave our great country depends on the middleeast for oil when Brazil depends on themselves. We have more corn than we need. Our goverment spends billions of dollars on other countries.Its time we take care of ourselves.Let the rest of the world fin for themselves.

Answer 1

Actually, the US has 10% available, but also has E85 available. 10% tends to be in the NE and calif, E85 is kind of scattered all over. All cars built in the last 10 years can run on 10% ethanol mixes, and many built in the last 4 years can run on E85.

One problem is that right now the US cannot produce enough ehanol. Just to get ALL our gas to 10% would require 5x the ethanol that we produce in a year. However, our production capacity goes up at about 25% per year, so we are headed in the right direction.

Then the question becomes "Why don't we import the ethanol that we need? From Brazil?" Well, its because of a 50c per gallon tariff that the US Farm Lobby has forced our government to slap on Brazilian ethanol. So, the farmers in the US are causing our gas usage to remain higher than it would otherwise by preventing us from getting more ethanol. Nice, huh?

Also, there is a 50c per gallon ethanol tax credit avail to producers of ethanol here in the US. So, ethanol is slightly cheaper than it would be otherwise. However, if you got rid of the 50c tax CREDIT and rid of the 50c tax TARIFF, we would stop shuffling money around and would probably have alot more ethanol avail to mix into gasoline.

As of January 2006, 25% of Brazil's fuel usage was ethanol. They are still importing ethanol however because demand exceeds their supply. Their production capacity is still going up because of this demand, but they absolutely are not self sufficient...at least not as of January 2006. But yes, they are far ahead of us.

I agree though...we should be more self sufficient. Corn stalks are an excellent product to use to produce ethanol...and we have ALOT of corn stalks!

Go to this site...see if your car can run on E85. One of mine can, two cannot.....

http://www.e85fuel.com/index.php

Answer 2

Brazil is a smaller market. The US actually produces slightly more ethanol than Brazil does right now. The problem is the amount of ethanol needed and the false promotion of negative energy that oil companies back that is causing political trouble.

Answer 3

The USA could never produce enough ethanol to supply our fuel needs. If we put every acre of crop ground the USDA says we have into corn and got the national average of 140 buschel per acre and turned every bit of that corn into ethanol we could supply maybe 15% of our current fuel needs. People talking about harvesting grasses or turning crop waste into ethanol through fermentation are not very realistic. The more nutrients you remove from the soil the more you have to put back. Most of our fertilizers are very relient on fossil fuels either in production or in transportation. Does anyone have any idea what kind of infrustructure would be needed to harvest 10 tons of biomass from an acre of ground? Raising grass crops that are machine harvested takes an amazing amount of fuel and fertilizer and time, its actually cheaper to raise corn. The amount of work to move all this biomass would be astronomical, we have no where to store all this biomass during the off season its just crazy talk. The average age of farmers is in the upper 50s, these guys just dont have the energy or stamina to do that much field work, who are we going to get to do all this labor cheap enough to make it economically viable? Biomass is very labor intensive, no one actually seems to know this. This talk of ethanol is a pipe dream that is politically motivated to make it look as if politicians are actually doing something about high fuel prices. No one is talking about conservation at all! When market prices start moving upwards the market is telling all users that rationing should begin, that is how markets work. No one seems to understand this..at least in the general public. Our country has been set up on the premiss that fuel will always be cheap. We have gotten rid of most of our public transportation and any idea that you should conserve anything. The real fuel of the future is electricity, from coal nuclear or altenative means. No one has even spoken about electric cars. That is a true and real answer to our fuel problem in the USA. I have been a farmer all my life raising both corn and hay crops, and for the last 7 years I have been working in an ethanol plant. My stance in no way will help me economically, the price of corn is starting to go up because of ethanol production, Im getting bonuses at work because of all the money we are making right now. If you want to start paying me a lot of money to mow, rake and bale grass for fuel production just say the word Im there but as for being an answer for fuel production its not even close.

Answer 4

I, like you, am hoping that Ethanol takes off and we can be like Brazil. I think I read their fuel is ridiculously cheap at under $1 a gallon. Funny thing is that their cars are made by Ford and Chevy!

I think the answer is that the investors on Wall STreet that have driven up the price of oil are making sure that Ethanol doesn't take off because they will lose too much money. They are rich--what do they care about the rest of us? They can afford their gas.

Answer 5

Part of the issue is the manufacturing rate of ethanol. The US can only produce so much Ethanol a year (I forget the exact number) and the US uses a years worth of ethanol in gasoline in less than a month.

We simply couldn't produce enough of it. We need an alternative source yes, but this isn't the answer.

Answer 6

I think that Brazil uses about 2 Million barrels of oil/day.

The US uses about 20 Million barrels.

Brazil has at least as much biomass that can be used for ethanol as the US. Therefore, the us would need about 10 times the biomass of Brazil. It's a choice. Buy oil or cut out eating.

As my college professor used to say, "Ain't gonna happen."

Answer 7

Pocketbook attitude. The only way the US ever makes strives forward when it comes to new innovative thinking is when everyone gets hit in the wallet. Gas has been cheap cheap for years so nobody really cared. I actually hope it keeps going up so it almost becomes a luxury item so the US will HAVE to switch ethanol or some other forms.

Answer 8

Dude, I hate to break it to you, as I hate to be the one to tell you you are uninformed and ignorant. But just last night I saw a commercial on TV from Ford, about them selling ethanol cars. I've seen articles in science magazines about large ethanol producing plants they are making in dying farm towns (reviving them), and the amazing technology going in to that. And I've heard about large grants being given to people to research how to make ethanol. Why won't the US do it? Bud, they are doing it. But it's not cheap. And it's a big country, be more patient; it's coming.

Answer 9

It's kinda like cigarettes. In order to get rid of gasoline or cigarettes you have to drop all of the jobs that are related to the industry. In the US that's a lot more than in Brazil. The whole town of Winson-Salem, NC would cease to function without cigarettes, even though they kill people.

Answer 10

First, our fuel appetite is much greater than Brazil's.
second, sugar cane produces more cellulose than corn; to feed this nation's fuel need with corn would require 50% of our land mass to be planted with corn. Trees produce more in both the short and long term but still, we would be looking at major timber harvests. (2.5 times more cellulose per acre over the life cycle of the tree)
Third, the only plant that can produce an economically feasible amount of cellulose per acre which will grow in most of our nation's climate is under prohibition. (industrial hemp 4 times more cellulose per acre per life cycle than trees)