Since corn is not the best source of sugar for ethanol, why not import sugar cane from Cuba?

Question

Sugar cane does not grow well in the majority of the United States. Fidel Castro has stepped down and there could be an opportunity to begin trading with Cuba. Maybe we could import sugar cane for conversion to ethanol and still keep our farmers busy growing corn if we exported some of our crop to Cuba?

Answer 1

No need to use sugar or corn or any other food sources that compete with global food production. There is a technology now that converts solid wastes into ethanol thru gasifiiers. The process can recover 30% ethanol from your regular municipal wastes and the residual ashes could be converted into hollow blocks for construction purposes. Cool! The Philippine Biofuels Act Of 2007 is implementing a the E-10 fuel in 2007 and improving it to be E85 by the year 2010. One of the sources being tapped is ethanol from solid wastes, a UK technology, and in all probability will be used by end of 2009.

Answer 2

The U.S. cant import from cuba. there has been a ban on trade since the cold war. I dont think the gov't will ever change after this long.

Answer 3

sorghum can be grown anywhere corn grows & can produce 900 gals. of alcohol per acre compared to 370 gal. per acre for corn. but we still dont have enough land to grow all our fuel even if we grow NO food crops.

the alcohol from cellulose (weeds,grass.garbage.sawdust) process will help.

we have more coal than the mid east has oil were just going to have to pay the much higher price of removing the carbon when we burn it & build a lot more nonpolluting nuclear plants if we want to keep on having air conditioning & bright lights at night. or just keep on letting China burn the coal to make the products we buy like we are now.

Answer 4

Because sugar is much more expensive than corn.

Answer 5

I think that's a great idea. Also I was recently watching a presentation on how iceland and switzerland use geo-thermaL energy to power and heat their homes and such...Why don't we do that at all?

Answer 6

Because after you wasted all the money and energy to ship the crops back and forth then what's the point.  It would cost twice as much for a little better content.

Answer 7

Ethanol does more harm than good, it takes more energy to make than it produces and is not cleaner when you consider an acre of forest cleans literally TONS more air than an acre of cornfield. Besides sugarbeets grow great as far north as Canada.

Answer 8

1) The US does not allow trade with Cuba.

2) Cuba needs sugar cane for it's own vehicles, especially as the US oil corps are not allowed to sell it petrol

3) the US had home grown deisel but banned the growing of hemp.

4) the amount of crops that can be grown is limited by the energy available from sunlight. this has to provide us with food as well as fuel etc. and although we can reduce our consumption eg eat less meat, drive/fly less, insulate our houses... most people just want a quick fix that doesn't inconvenience them/require them to adapt.

5) The oil is just saved sunlight which has enabled us to live beyond the carrying capacity of the planet. Last hours of ancient sunlight http://www.thomhartmann.com/index.php?op...

6) what other countries could take from Cuba is how to survive peak oil - eg local city organic/permacultural food production, neigbourhood agricultural advisors & seed banks, http://www.cosg.supanet.com/greencuba.ht... , plus high levels of education, health service, high life expectancy

Answer 9

Why not just grow our own.  There are plenty of locations in the US where sugar cane grows quite well, and the combined area of these locations far exceeds the area available in Cuba.  Why would we want to help out the Cuban government anyway?

Answer 10

Why don't Americans grow sugar cane or beets, and the "F" with the Cubans.

The whole idea is not to import anything, oil or cane.

Answer 11

I don't get that. Wouldn't exporting the corn to Cuba be the same as turning the land over to sugar cane? I mean, wouldn't the value of the corn exported and the sugar imported have to be more or less the same?

Answer 12

I seem to remember when Hawaii was big into sugar production.

Answer 13

Check this out www. FreshSugarCane.com is where you want to buy your fresh organic sugar cane instead from Fidel!