Reply #16: Cellulosic ethanol is better than corn. Now in the 6 years it will take

[JohnWxy]

to get cellulosic ethanol commercially viable (then it will take several more years to get the production volume up to several percent of gasoline demand), we of course don't want to sit around with our heads up our rears. Corn ethanol which is curreently commercially viable will reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels in the mean time.

We should be trying to double our production and availability of ethanol that we are producing right now in about 4 years. That will give us some protection against teh coming oil disruption (have you checked out teh news lately, Saudia Arabia, Nigeria, Iran ). There will be a disruption of the oil supply of 5% to 10% within the next 3 to 5 years. Without reducing our dependence on oil by a similar amount in the next few years we will suffer a recesssion when the oil disruption comes.

That's something we will want to avoid. Of course any oil we do not import but replace with domestically produced ethanol will be good for our economy. Imported oil represents 35% of our negative balance of payments.