" From: "Todd Wallis" <cyclone@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> " " Ethanol sounds good but it is more complicated than that. true. afail all our fermentation methods are woefully inefficient, leaving lots of unfermented but theoretically fermentable residue. " Countries like China and India (with populations that make ours look paltry) " are modernizing fast and their demands for petroleum are rapidly increasing. " When fossil fuel crude gets really scarce you would need an impossible " amount of surface space required to grow all the corn necessary to " accommodate the US fuel demand much less the rest of the world. this may be urban [rural?] legend, but i've heard that a field 500 miles on a side could grow enough oil crop [canola, soy, whatever] to supply all the us oil needs. now combine that with biodiesel... " Even if you had the surface space on the planet, planting that much of a " single crop creates a biodiversity nightmare. this is true. commercial ag is already over the edge with monocultures. read up on bananas... ________________________________________________________________________ Andrew Hay the genius nature internet rambler is to see what all have seen adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and think what none thought