Aside from sugarcane and cattle land, soybeans are another crop that Brazil plants in former rainforest areas. I hope that they make the appropriate efforts to preserve large enough tracts of that ecosystem. Global warming threats on the one side and ecosystem diversity concerns on the other, there are few choices out there that don't implicate some important dilemma or another.

I have suggested several times that in ten years ADM would be producing more transport energy that Exxon.

ADM could definitely produce more energy if Exxon's reserves decline and is cut out of many countries like Russia, Venezuela ,etc.

Bio-fuels are indirect form of Solar power. Brazil is the king here.

If the 50 cent duty on Brazilian Ethanol is scrapped, more Americans could enjoy the benefit and E85 could become more popular.

What is so funny about the fifty cent tax on a gallon of ethanol is that it originally had nothing to do with automotive fuel.

It was a tax imposed at the end of prohibition to satisfy the bluenoses and to make it expensive to be a drunk.

Very few of us are left alive that remember that. Most certainly our "government" has long since forgotten.

The tax referred to is an import duty, the ethanol is denatured (made poisonous) it doesn't get taxed like drinkable ethanol.

If you remove the tax, the American appitite for fuel would cause the wholesale clearing of the rain forest.

Meh, just the lungs of the planet.

Dear Joe

There is so much land out there, where plantations can be done and Ethanol/Biodiesel produced.

What other solution do you suggest.

If we must have liquid fueled vehicles then I am a fan of algae.

Max

I am a TDI owning, BioD drinkin fool. Have been since 2000.

Bad Ideas: Making BioD from soy beans, making Ethanol from corn, cutting down the rain forest to do it.

Good Ideas: Making BioD from anything but soy, algea is a great one, Butanol, Using the dessert and open oceans and areas next to coal burning plants to do it.

How about making sure that all tobacco farmers get a better ROI from soybeans! Like a fixed price and steady market suppling every state vehicle with B50.

tom deplume,
Exactly, an algae oil/biomass production program would make all the fuel, cooking oil, compost and chemicals (through syngas ops) they would need. Heck, they might end up being the OPEC of biodiesel.
___ However, it would entail converting 1/4 of farmland/ rangeland (preferably abandoned and/or low productivity land) and investments in the $100 billion+ range. Perhaps a rolling start, starting out small, and using early profits to fund R&D and expansion. Another point would be for the Brazilian govt to STRONGLY disincentive the further destruction of their rainforests.