Why corn ethonol, what about suger cane or suger beets?

Question

why is there such a big push for corn ethonol when suger cane is brazil's choice for fuel ethonol. or why not suger beets which produce more ethonol per acre then corn.

Answer 1

Because the farmers and ag industry that make the political contributions and vote were already growing corn.

That and neither of those grow real great in the states.

Answer 2

actually, were we to simply set up collection sites for  grass clippings and make them into ethanol people would live a much greener life and we'd be dumping millions of tons less biomass into the landfill sites while simultaeneously . saving the  corn and wheat that we are diverting from our food supply and  driving food prices up.

Answer 3

Forget bio. It's too much on the food supply.

Answer 4

I think it will be changing to sugar beets.... this year is Monsanto's first year of a GMO sugar beet crop.   There has been such an outcry over the use of food (corn) which was mostly Monsanto corn, that they have branched out into the sugar beets.   It still all boils down to $$$.  They (Monsanto) own the patents on these ubercrops, and will end up making the most money off the fuel crisis.  

Check out at what cost below....

Answer 5

Because America is No.1 in the corn growing business - and this is big $$$.

Yes sugarcane and other sugar sources will be used soon - but food prices will rise to compensate.

Answer 6

because sugar beets and sugar cane don't' grow well int he plains states...

corn has the highest sugar / acre yield of plains states crops

Answer 7

Hahaha.  Yea, I know.

            Corn Ethanol doesn't produce much energy return when you consider what it takes to make the stuff.  I would say switchgrass ethanol is a better option, as the energy return is higher.  Ethanol might not be feasible in the long-run though, as the demand continues to grow.  We might find ourselves asking, "So, do we grow fuel, or do we grow food this year?"  LOL.  Look into what they are doing with sugar cane in South America, though.  It does seem hopefull.  Doesn't it?  (Look up switchgrass ethanol, you'll smile, or at least feel like there is hope for this race, yet.)

            Now, we could reduce the gravity of this issue, especially from the farmer's end, by simply helping them to procure cleaner-running equiptment, and supply the ethanol plants with electricity from a cleaner energy source?  But until Areva starts building the new power plants with those fancy-clean EPR's (haha), then we will have to continue using power from Coal and LNG plants as well. 1/1.3 energy ratio with corn ethanol, right?  Well, that's not good enough.  You are keen to metion that sugar cane is being used though.  I wish more people knew what the nation of Brazil is doing.  Makes us Americans look stupid.  Though our demand for fuel is much much larger, and we are naturaly slow to change, as our oil infrastructure is firmly in place already.

ITER and DEMO will be completed in 20 years.....don't worry, we'll have fusion before the end of your life.  When that happens, energy will be a simple matter.  Energy will be virtually free.  Maybe....

Thanks for asking this question.  I think we should ALL be asking the same thing...