WEDNESDAY WORD 3-29-06

Today's word is "corn". As in HOW CAN YOU BE AGAINST GAS MADE WITH CORN??

Seriously. Ethanol is the way to go right now. I could go on for some time about this, but I'll try to keep it short for you, the busy reader. It runs in most modern cars, it's just as fuel efficient as regular gasoline, and it's made of corn! So, not only do we help decrease our use of oil by diluting it with up to 85% corn juice, but the farmers of this country see a boom in corn demand. Farmers win, drivers win, animals that eat the edible corn by-product win. Everyone is a winner in this equation. Unless you really like paying 40 cents more for gas than you did a year ago. If you do, drop me a line, I've got a tank to fill.

Plus, just earlier this month scientists discovered they could create ethanol out of cheese waste as well. As we all know from the rhyme about Little Miss Muffet, when you make cheese you get curds and whey. Since there's not a big market for cheese milk, whey is usually just disposed of, at a cost to the farmer. Now that waste can instead be turned into fuel at the tune of 10 gallons for every 100 gallons of whey. Four to seven million gallons of ethanol could be made yearly by this process. Obviously that's not a lot compared to how much fuel we use every year, but it's still a start, right? And you've got to start somewhere.

How are people still against this?? Honestly, I'd like to know.