A Sweet Alternative to Petro

Fire of Liberty

Now while I'm pretty critical of using government subsidized food-stuffs like corn to produce ethanol as an alternative to petroleum because it pushes food prices up and is less efficient, I'm somewhat intrigued by a new process in which a mixture of water and sugar is converted to fuel by running it through particles of platinum and rhenium. I don't know about the cost of these metals, the availability of the sugar(we could run into similar problems as we have with corn, especially since Americans consume lots of sugar) as well as the applicability to an outside the lab production. I for one have to give a hand to enterprising scientists or inventors who come up with such alternative fuels. I just hope these individuals will have the ability to live or die by the free market rather than the federal government picking winners and losers. Unfortunately, after reading this it looks like Congress is indeed picking the winners and losers with pending legislation on offshore drilling(the Dems are holding a vote but restricting the drilling to 50 or more miles and loading it down with green friendly tax breaks and subsidies that won't expand our supply of oil/gas or lower fuel prices.) Let's hope this act of political pageantry will fall on its face and Congress will bring forward a bill that will bring forth greater supply of oil/gas and create an environment that allows enterprising scientists and inventors to create viable free market solutions.