The Fighting 29thAll about New York's 29th Congressional Districthttp://www.fighting29th.com/node/4570/atom/feed2007-11-28T07:55:49-05:00Randy Wants Some Sugar In His Bowlhttp://www.fighting29th.com/2007/11/randy-wants-some-sugar-in-his-bowl.html2007-11-28T07:55:49-05:002007-11-28T07:55:49-05:00Rottenchesterhaving some fun with Randy Kuhl's junket to Brazil. Kuhl is in Brazil right now, as part of a bi-partisan trip to understand Brazil's successful ethanol industry. At his Allentown town meeting, Kuhl said that he was making the trip to be "fully informed".
Here's a little information: Brazil uses sugarcane to make ethanol, which yields 8 gallons of ethanol for every gallon of fuel consumed to make it. Corn-based ethanol yields 1.3 gallons of ethanol for every gallon of fuel. Brazil produces [pdf] 300 million metric tons of sugar per year. The US produces [pdf] less that 24 million, and we grow it only in Florida, Hawaii and Louisiana and Texas.
By the way, all but one of the links in the last paragraph are from US Government reports. The last one is from a 78-page report by the US Department of Agriculture titled "The Economic Feasibilty of Ethanol Production from Sugar in the United States." Randy sits on the Agriculture committee. He could have just asked for the report instead of taking a six-day trip to Brazil. If he did, he'd have learned that our entire entire production of sugar cane would make 468 million gallons of ethanol. Brazil produced 4.2 billion gallons last year. Our own corn-based ethanol program made about 4 billion gallons, too. Sugarcane is literally a drop in the bucket, and it's not worth a six-day trip, or even a three-hour tour, to figure that out.
Update: Eric Massa referred to this scathing Washington Post description of Kuhl's junket in today's press conference. It is a damning piece, indeed. ]]>having some fun with Randy Kuhl's junket to Brazil. Kuhl is in Brazil right now, as part of a bi-partisan trip to understand Brazil's successful ethanol industry. At his Allentown town meeting, Kuhl said that he was making the trip to be "fully informed".
Here's a little information: Brazil uses sugarcane to make ethanol, which yields 8 gallons of ethanol for every gallon of fuel consumed to make it. Corn-based ethanol yields 1.3 gallons of ethanol for every gallon of fuel. Brazil produces [pdf] 300 million metric tons of sugar per year. The US produces [pdf] less that 24 million, and we grow it only in Florida, Hawaii and Louisiana and Texas.
By the way, all but one of the links in the last paragraph are from US Government reports. The last one is from a 78-page report by the US Department of Agriculture titled "The Economic Feasibilty of Ethanol Production from Sugar in the United States." Randy sits on the Agriculture committee. He could have just asked for the report instead of taking a six-day trip to Brazil. If he did, he'd have learned that our entire entire production of sugar cane would make 468 million gallons of ethanol. Brazil produced 4.2 billion gallons last year. Our own corn-based ethanol program made about 4 billion gallons, too. Sugarcane is literally a drop in the bucket, and it's not worth a six-day trip, or even a three-hour tour, to figure that out.
Update: Eric Massa referred to this scathing Washington Post description of Kuhl's junket in today's press conference. It is a damning piece, indeed. ]]>