Why doesn't the USA switch to an alternative homegrown fuel, such as ethanol, like Brazil has done?

Question

Brazil has become 80% independent of using fuel oil in cars trucks and aircraft by switching to ethanol produced from sugar cane. What prevents the USA from doing the same?

Answer 1

Good question. Gas companies would rather make a buck than see their children live in a cleaner world.

Answer 2

That's an easy answer - Oil Companies. They have a lot of money and they have a lot of control of the government.

In college, my boyfriend at the time was a chemical engineer and for one of his projects he made ethanol from leftover produce at the grocery store and a simple distillery set up in his kitchen apartment. He then showed that the only thing you'd need was a different carburetor and any vehicle could run on ethanol. That was 15 years ago.

There are a lot of industrial sites in cities across the US that are abandoned or unused that could be converted to ethanol refineries - so that is no excuse. They just need to be demolished, cleaned up and reused.

Answer 3

the same reason they will never find a cure for aids, the same reason they wont let the never ending light bulb or battery. there is way too much money to be made in helping people survive with aids than to just get rid of it. i read something a few years ago about the light that will not burn out unless completely breaking, and the never ending battery, companies race to invent these things so they can get them patented. that way they can throw away that battery or whatever and no one else is aloud to make it. ever. there is more money to made in selling them for a dollor for 4 then to sell 1 that will never burn out for 10 dollars. there is way to much money in the resources that we have now to do that. it is all political. the same reason that medications are sky high. hell i will garauntee that the reason the gas prices are so high here is to fund the war we are in now. back to your original question, they will become more available as people get tired of paying such high gas prices. but when they do become available the price will be too high for the average joe to get for at least 5-10 years. just trust me when i say this it is ALL political. especially for the US when we supposedly have more than any other country on earth

Answer 4

NIMBYS (Not in my back yard) types. We have not built a new refinery in this country for 20+ years. Environmentalists are part of the problem, instead of being part of the solution. We have enough Oil in Anwar (Alaska) to supply the US needs for 20 years. But no one will allow it, because we may disturb a VERY small piece of wildlife area. Need a total solution. Won;t happen until gasoline is $5.00 a gallon. $3.00 a gallon has not slowed us down.

Answer 5

Better solution. Allow the oil companies to utilize their profits on building new refineries. That would create some decent jobs. We have plenty of oil, just not enough capacity to refine it. Supply would go up, demand would go down, prices would drop.

Answer 6

right now, to make a gallon of ethanol, it takes over a gallon of gasoline. So we lose energy. Also theres not enough land to grow enough corn to support the whole US with ethanol.

Answer 7

not enough land to grow even 10% of the fuel we use even if we converted all of our farmland and we also use gas to plant harvest ect less than 15% of the energy is new energy MORE sugar cane will only grow in the tropics(or semi-tropics) we are forced to use corn which is much less energy intensive

Answer 8

The US uses a lot more energy than Brazil does, both in absolute terms and per capita.

Answer 9

Because the big Texas oil billionaires and the oil rich Arabs would lose money.

Answer 10

The cost of refining it.