1 reply to this topic

[Rogerdodger]

One of these days, we will look back and see what a fiasco Ethanol has been as a replacement for readily available crude oil.
Ethanol production uses a tremendous amount of energy to make.
One estimate is that one fill-up at your local gas station consumes enough grain to feed a man for a year!
Many poor families who eat corn as a staple, are finding it difficult to survive.
Now Bloomberg is exposing the deadly side of sugar cane production in Brazil.

Youtube video
Ethanol's Deadly Brew
Bloomberg.com

...Silva is a foot soldier in an army of 500,000 workers who toil from March to November stooped over in the tropical sun harvesting sugar cane to make ethanol in Brazil.
...A doctor at the hospital diagnoses Silva with lung fibrosis, a scarring of the lungs that often afflicts cane cutters, according to the labor inspector's report. He may die if he keeps cutting cane, the report says.
Lung fibrosis, a scarring of the lungs often afflicts cane cutters.
...Behind the rhetoric lies a harsher reality for the cane cutters of Brazil. Most are migrants, who leave their families in search of jobs that pay about $1.35 an hour.
...From 2002 to '05, the most recent years for which complete statistics are available, 312 sugar and ethanol workers died on the job, and 82,995 suffered accidents while working in cane fields and ethanol plants, according to Brazil's Social Security Administration. Labor prosecutors are investigating the cases of 21 people who have dropped dead since 2004 while cutting cane. Most were from 25 to 35 years old. "There's strong evidence that workers die of exhaustion," Gomes says.

[Rogerdodger]

Stanford University study: Ethanol causes dirtier air!
A Big Scam: Youtube

Myth: Corn Ethanol is Great: Youtube