Biofuel Salvation

Vinod Khosla in "My Big Biofuels Bet" (RC,WW 520-527) has "been searching for a renewable fuel that could realistically replace the 140 billion gallons of gasoline consumed in the U.S. each year" (521). He further believes that "corn ethanol is a crucial fist step toward kicking our [USA] oil addiction" (521) by using "cow manure--because this waste powers a facility that turns corn into ethanol" (521). He answers the objection that "there's not enough land to grow crops for ethanol" (527) by saying that "taking land now used to grow export crops and instead planting energy crops, it's feasible to eliminate our need to import oil for gasoline" (527).

Do you believe "that Americans are addicted to oil and alternative fuels are our only salvation" (529)? What do you think about replacing food crops with fuel crops?

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 19, 2009 at 9:31 PM

    I don't just believe that Americans are addicted to oil. I know that they are because oil is needed for everything and it is our only salvation. For instance, oil is a demanding substances right now that the cost for it continues to rise and people just can't afford it anymore. Also besides the cost, it is actually good for the environment too.

    I would be fine if they replace food crops with fuel crops because i think it's a pretty good thing since the oil we're using now will soon be gone and the fuel crops can be a good alternative.

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  2. AnonymousMay 19, 2009 at 10:25 PM

    I do believe Americans are addicted to oil. We need oil for energy, to run our cars, and for other imporant necessities used in our daily actitivies. An alternative fuel is our salvation, someday we'll run out of oil, or it'll too expensive for anyone to afford. If replacing food crops with fuel crops is our only alternative,why not do it. I don't feel there is anything wrong or harmful about it.

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  3. UnknownMay 28, 2009 at 3:29 PM

    I don't believe that Americans are addicted to oil. It just happened to be that the oils that we need are really necessary to our lives. But I do believe that alternative fuels are our salvation. Someday we're going to seek for alternative fuels if we run out of oil.

    In terms of replacing food crop to fuel crop, I disagree with that. What if we run out of food?There are many vacant lots or lands all over USA. We can use them instead of replacing it with fuel crops.

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  4. DianeMJKMay 14, 2012 at 10:17 AM

    I think America does have an oil addiction along with the rest of the world. We are all so reliant on oil and we don't even realize it, its not just gas in our cars but oil is in everything from plastic bags at the store to medical supplies. Scientists have recently estimated that globally there is only 50 years left of oil and after that we are going to have to find some other way to power our nations. Although ethanol burns cleaner and it renewable I'm not so sure that its going to be a long term solution to oil. We have a limited amount of crop lands and if we use it to grow corn for fuel instead of food its going to cause problems. There maybe a balance between growing food and growing fuel but what about all those plastic products we love? Corn can't replace that. We are currently in an energy crisis that we on'y have 50 years to solve.

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