Dateline Avoids Discussion of Obvious Flaw With Ethanol

Just exactly how much ethanol is produced in Brazil?

Brazil is turning sugar cane into the equivalent of 300,000 barrels of oil a day. To people in this country, what you’re looking at is a field of dreams: Homegrown security that has helped this country to completely free itself from foreign oil.

Last month, Brazil announced it no longer has to import oil from the Middle East or anywhere else. And much of the credit goes to ethanol.

The world's largest sugar cane mill is located in Barra Bonita, Brazil, producing more than 100 million gallons of ethanol a year.

This isn't a panacea for the US, not by a long shot, even if President Bush thinks that ethanol is the wave of the future.

US daily consumption of gasoline is over eight million barrels a day. Someone want to explain how ethanol is supposed to make up that difference? We simply can't produce that much corn, and the fact is that sugar cane is even more efficient for making ethanol than corn. That Brazil has managed to wean itself off pure gasoline to ethanol or ethanol blends only highlights that Brazil's economy isn't anywhere near the size of the US economy, which relies on petroleum not only for gasoline, but for plastics, electricity production, and manufacturing processes to the tune of more than 20 million barrels a day (2004).

UPDATE:
Welcome Pajamas Media readers. I've got a point of clarification that needs to be made at the outset. I didn't see this particular segment, only commented from the online article.

Also, by my math, that new facility that produces 100 million gallons of ethanol a year is about 278,000 gallons a day. That's slightly less impressive. When converted to barrels, it amounts to - get this - 6,619 barrels per day.

Look, I know that we need to wean ourselves from Mideast oil, but thinking that ethanol is the cureall is just wishful thinking.