ETHANOL

This will be short because I know just enough to be dangerous like some people.

I do know the cost of producing ethanol is significantly higher than the cost of producing fuel from petroleum products. I know that the cost of food is going to go up tremendously when all farmers want to grow is corn because of government subsidies.

Corn is not nearly as good for ethanol production as sugar cane. Also, it takes more ethanol than gasoline to move a vehicle a given distance.

Are we really sure we are doing the right thing ?

We need to get back into nuclear power plants and also open up exploration of some of our known oil reserves. We could require automobile manufacturers to meet minimum fuel efficiency ratings, more miles per gallon.

Some people think we should go all electric or hybrid cars and that will solve the problem. Where do you think we get electricity. Electric cars require charging all night to be ready to go about 140 miles the next day. They use a lot of electricity made by burning coal, lignite, wood or whatever. If we were using nuclear power that would be different. You may think that wind generated power doesn't have any problems. Do you know how many thousands of birds are killed every year by wind power generators ??

One of the first laws of physics is 'matter can be neither created nor destroyed' or to put it another way, you can't get something for nothing. Solar power is OK but not too dependable on a cloudy day and very expensive to install. Water power is OK if you don't happen to be a land owner whose land was flooded to create the lake behind the dam.

When a politician suggest a solution just remember if he is a democrat, he is a lawyer, not a scientist. Make sure you are aware of all the consequences of the solution before jumping on the band wagon. To back up the lawyer comment, every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer. Almost all of the top people in the Republican party are and have been business men, not lawyers. Sorry, didn't want to get into politics and I don't care who says it, if they say electricity doesn't have a carbon footprint - they are crazy.