Predictions, anyone?

The price doubled from $1 to $2 this took ten years then the price doubled from $2 to $4 in five years or less, so $4 to $8 in two and half years or less. Of course if the dollar falls any futher against international currencies that will be refelcted in the price.
 
What we SHOULD be doing is to move the ethanol crop production to the south. Use sugar cane instead of corn, though. It's a MUCH more efficient crop for this purpose than is corn...

Think about it. The 'combine' cuts the cane & squeezes the sap out - it is pumped to a tank on the machine. Periodically, it gets transferred to a tanker. The left-over cane residue stays in the field, & eventually gets plowed under (& serves as compost)

The tanker moves the sap to the processing plant, where it's fermented & distilled. Since the sap is nearly 100 percent sugar water, the fermentation is fast and just about 100 percent efficient. Corn, on the other hand, has to be ground up into meal, mixed with water (mashed) to release the starches, (cooked?) and then those starches have to be broken down into sugars before the fermentation can really begin to make ethanol. And then, you have to haul away the residue (the leftover fiber from the corn meal) and handle the corn oil byproduct.

Brazil has been using sugar cane for ethanol for many years, and has worked out the bugs in the process already.

The farmers in the midwest can sell their crops for food instead of fuel. PLUS, we'll add a NEW cash crop.

Sugar cane & sorghum can be grown fairly far north in the US. My uncle grows sorghum cane (for molasses) in central Ohio.
 
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I think that you have just about hit it right here Mark -- 8.00 dollars by the year 2012 --- sounds darn close to me !!! Met a family on vacation - they were from Denmark - they said that they pay aprox. 11 US dollars a gallon !!!! We - in the USA have been getting gas cheap for A LONG TIME... As much as we all hate it -- I think the time is coming to where -- WE HAVE TO PAY OUR DUES.. Happy Riding from - Mountainman
 
Here in Oz we use sugar cane bases etanol blend fuels in some servo's.

Its a higher octane rated fuel for a lower cost than standard fuels.

Sugar cane grows quickly the world oil reserves took millions of years to create.

Also here on Oz fuel prices are about $1.70 a litre, they predict it will hit $2 a litre by christmas. Thats $8.80 a gallon.

So forget fuel prices to hit $8 a gallon by 2012 people, expect it a lot sooner than that.
 
The reason gas is 11.00 a gallon in places like Denmark is TAXES those coutries have a consumption based tax system... here we are taxed on income , property, consumption (sales taxes), inspection ,registration, fishing, hunting and on and on. It is an unfair comparison to equate the two countries, another thing look at the land mass of the U.S. compared to E.U. they are two different worlds. The media wants you to feel good by showing you how much they pay for gas and conviently leave out all the important differences. And as far as paying our dues Americans have been paying dues since WWI.
 
loquin said:
What we SHOULD be doing is to move the ethanol crop production to the south. Use sugar cane instead of corn, though. It's a MUCH more efficient crop for this purpose than is corn...

Think about it. The 'combine' cuts the cane & squeezes the sap out - it is pumped to a tank on the machine. Periodically, it gets transferred to a tanker. The left-over cane residue stays in the field, & eventually gets plowed under (& serves as compost)

The tanker moves the sap to the processing plant, where it's fermented & distilled. Since the sap is nearly 100 percent sugar water, the fermentation is fast and just about 100 percent efficient. Corn, on the other hand, has to be ground up into meal, mixed with water (mashed) to release the starches, (cooked?) and then those starches have to be broken down into sugars before the fermentation can really begin to make ethanol. And then, you have to haul away the residue (the leftover fiber from the corn meal) and handle the corn oil byproduct.

Brazil has been using sugar cane for ethanol for many years, and has worked out the bugs in the process already.

The farmers in the midwest can sell their crops for food instead of fuel. PLUS, we'll add a NEW cash crop.

Sugar cane & sorghum can be grown fairly far north in the US. My uncle grows sorghum cane (for molasses) in central Ohio.
Click to expand...

I read that switch grass is also good and it grows like a weed.
 
I don't think this is exactly on-topic, but I'd like to take this opportunity to defend the oil companies. (I'm doing it because I think they are being scape-goated. And I promise, I am no friend of big business, usually. For example, I think we should all be unionized and I would support a law making it automatic for anyone on a w-4 type income.)

I've heard the notion that speculation is at least part of the reason for high oil prices. And though I don't think it's impossible, I look at high world wide demand coupled with the fact that the easiest oil in the world is under ever increasing threat from those who want to set the world on fire and I see all the explanation I need for high prices. I just don't see that speculation or price fixing is needed to explain it.

And I can remember oil at $12.00/barrell, during the Reagan years. I'm grateful to the oil companies for sticking it out through times like that. I don't suppose they were raking in record profits under those conditions.
 
As regards compulsory unionization for non-salaried employes, I'll say this - NO!

Unions have their places and uses, but compulsory participation? I sauppose you are also in favor of reinstating the draft? Both are involuntary servitude.

I have no beef with the oil companies - if you understand projective commodity pricing, then you KNOW why gasoline prices have skyrocketed. Speculation does indeed drive a very high proportion of the commodity price escalation.

Frankly, insofar as sugar cane and sorghum as sources for biofuels go, they're great. Unfortunately, they require fairly intensive cultivation, and a LOT of water. Energy costs associated per unit of fuel produced are 3.5 to 4.5X what switch grass sourced fuel costs. In addition, they need farmland that is best suited to monoculture large-scale farming - better used for food grains and crops. Switch grass grows on almost any soil.

For cane syrup sourced biofuels we ought to cut a deal with Cuba. Forget the ideological nonsense, Cuba is the most productive sugarcane growing nation on earth, per hectare. They'd do a deal in a heartbeat, if we lifted that utterly idiotic embargo.

It's not like we don't have communist trading partners, after all - can you say China?
 
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