Quote:
Originally Posted by Bay Kid
Growing corn hurts the fields. The crops need to be rotated. The world could use the food.
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Farmers do rotate crops. I come from a big ethanol-producing area, and farmers know how to get the most out of their soil. Usually rotate corn-soybeans.
But ethanol for fuel is an illusion anyway. America uses corn which is at best a 1-1 proposition, usually less. In other words the best you can hope for is to get as much energy OUT of the ethanol as you put into making it. Brazil is virtually petroleum-free, but their ethanol comes from sugar cane, which can be grown over much of Brazil and gives a 7-1 return, but which is limited here. We could use Sorghum, which gives back a 2-1 return, but to go that route means different farming machinery, different refining methods, etc., and could not be done overnight.