One third of the U.S. corn crop doesn't go to food but is made into ethanol. Since 2005, the law requires that ethanol be in your car's fuel. Less pollution has been good. But the price of U.S. corn has tripled, and in many ways that's not good.
There's not enough ethanol for gasoline in spite of the fact that other plant sources (not food) have been tried, backed with money from the government. So refiners have paid fines because their gasoline doesn't have the right mix.
Enter another player in the game: "Celanese [a chemicals company] makes its ethanol by tearing apart and recombining the hydrocarbons found in plentiful natural gas or coal. . If it works, what [Celanese] is building will revolutionize the fuel industry."
So natgas could solve the shortage of ethanol - if the law requiring plant based ethanol is changed.
If America doesn't go for it, China will. They can't afford to waste farmland growing plants for ethanol. Celanese is building a huge plant to make ethanol from natgas in China right now.
(from "How A Dumb Law Blocks A Great Way To Fuel America" at Forbes.com)
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