Misterimpatient

At the dawn of the automobile age, Henry Ford predicted that “ethyl alcohol is the fuel of the future.” With petroleum about $65 a barrel, President Bush has now embraced that view, too. But Brazil is already there. Finally a good and appropriate use for sugar. A report in today’s NY Times explains how Brazil is taking advantage of huge sugar cane crops to supplement their fuel supply.

We’re talking a truly renewable fuel source here. Of course, the US places a 54 cents per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports from Brazil so we won’t be seeing any benefit from this here. The article does say that Brazil is capable of using all they can produce for now, but production is increasing.

There are reports of abuse of the workers who cut and process the cane, forcing more productivity in the fields. Standard employer evils. Maybe we can get Google to go into this business?

Anyway, I see a real upside here. If our economy largely embraces sugar cane for ethanol production, the price of sugar will rise. A natural effect of this will be a rise in the price of candy and perhaps this will have a positive impact on the obesity epidemic world wide.

Just a thought.

Later…

Filed by misterimpatient at 5:09 am under I'm not fat today, Patter