Great rundown of hearings on 'Axis of Oil' post at Dkos.

[blm]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/13/193246/405

For the political/good governance junkies among us. In case you missed it.

[Robbien]

1. Uh oh. More taxpayer money to be given to Exxon I see.

Republican Jeff Sessions (R-AL) concluded the session by admitting that if you looked at energy as a national security issue rather than as a market commodity, Congress might be justified in spending more money on energy R&D and tax credits.

[blm]

3. Interesting that corpmedia couldn't manage to find any 'news' at these hearings, eh?

I am thankful to find this diary - even a newsjunkie like me misses much with the corpmedia we have.

[mod mom]

2. On brighter note: Panelists agree US should remove $.54/gallon tax on imported ethanol:

The panelists agreed that the U.S. should remove the 54 cent a gallon tax on imported ethanol, which would be especially helpful to Brazil’s ethanol industry, which produces ethanol far below the cost of the U.S. industry

-snip

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/13/193246/405



Brazilian use of sugar cane for ethanol:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

Not only is Brazilian ethanol cheaper , but more efficient:



The recent price spikes for gasoline have forcibly reminded the people of Chicago and Wisconsin of what happened when ethanol was forced on them during the summer of 2000. Moreover, the promise of energy independence that Brazil has explored through ethanol is widely misunderstood. Recently a Brazilian official, commenting on our third and most recent attempted conversion to ethanol, said that when Brazil tried using agricultural crops for ethanol, it achieved only a 1:1.20 energy conversion rate, too low to be worth the effort.

FINAL BOW? On the other hand, ethanol from sugar cane delivered 1:8 energy conversion, which met the national mandate. Unfortunately for us, sugar cane isn't a viable crop in the climate of our nation's heartland. But the part of Brazil's quest for energy independence that the media usually overlooks is that ethanol wasn't the only fuel source the country was working on: Its other, more important, thrust was to find more oil. To that end, last week Brazil's P50 offshore oil platform was turned on. Its anticipated daily output is high enough to make Brazil totally oil independent.

-snip
http://www.businessweek.com/print/autos/content/apr2006/bw20060427_493909.htm

Japan developing MONSTER CANE: 3 times the ethanol, more bagasse, more drought resistant.


In the race to improve the efficiency of biofuels, Brazil has been promising to introduce new higher-yield strains of sugar cane. But Japan may have been beaten them to it. A friend sent me this link to a recent Reuters story about a strain of Japanese 'Monster Cane' produced by beer maker Asahi Breweries, which is said to produce astonishing yields of ethanol.

The cane grows up to three metres tall and is extremely hardy in poor soil and harsh weather conditions. It yields twice as many stems as most sugarcane. So far its only been grown on a test field on the tiny island of Ie in Japan's southernmost district of Okinawa.
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Sugar Cane is grown in Louisiana, Texas and Florida.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=77201