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> >The Brazilian ethanol production is 8x more energy efficient than corn
> >ethanol.
>
> Interesting, I didn't know that. I wonder what's different about
> growing and harvesting corn that makes sugar cane more economical?
I believe there are several factors:
* Growing sugar cane is a less energy-intensive process than growing corn.
* Sugar cane contains more sugar than corn. :-) The ethanol process
converts sugar into ethanol, so a high-sugar source is more efficient. Corn
contains starches that must first be converted into sugars, and this cuts the
efficiency by about 30%.
> I observe, also, that the whole political push behind ethanol is
> based on the idea of U.S. energy independence. We rely on the
> middle east now for oil; switching to relying on Brazil for ethanol
> doesn't really solve the dependency problem.
I don't think we could. Brazil consumes most of its ethanol production and
still consumes 2,000,000bbl/day of oil. Even so, it exports about 1 billion
gallons (not barrels) of ethanol a year -- still a drop in the bucket compared
to the US energy demand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil has more info, including a
claim that Brazillian ethanol production has an energy balance of 8-10. Not
sure how accurate the "up to 35x" claim is.
> I suppose the U.S. could ramp up its sugar cane production, though it
> would be at the expense of other crops.
I believe efficient cane production requires tropical or subtropical conditions,
which are not well met in the US other than Hawaii and maybe Florida. We
can grow sugar beets but I suspect that suffers from the same expensive
growing process that corn does.
Gary
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