Liberal Talk Radio

This strikes me as a pretty big deal:

Brazilian company ABC Esso will soon sell an adapter in the U.S. that lets any gasoline vehicle burn up to 100 percent ethanol.

The AutoFFV works with the vehicle’s existing sensors to detect the ethanol/gasoline ratio and instructs the engine to operate accordingly. The company has developed adapters for Ford, GM, Honda, Mazda, Volvo and Toyota vehicles.

Apparently the thing’s gonna cost between $500 and $900. And you may have to replace your fuel filter.

Now, after a long IM session about ethanol with mal54 The Chief the other night, I should say that I’m still skeptical. Skeptical, at least, of the ethanol that comes from industrial corn operations. First, it requires an ungodly amount of chemical- and petroleum-based fertilizers to grow corn on that kind of scale. And the idea of ADM and ConAgra controlling our food supply and our fuel supply makes me inherently uneasy (ADM recently hired a Chevron exec as their new CEO — that’s how serious they are about ethanol).

That said, choice is good. Once we start importing these doodads from Brazil, next we should consider importing Brazil’s sugar-based ethanol itself, which is four times more efficient than the corn-based stuff and currently subjected to a steep tariff in the U.S.

Of course, with the quadrennial corn-gasm known as the Iowa Caucuses just over a year away, that’s never gonna happen.