Dumb Law Blocks A Great Way To Fuel America for $1.50 per gallon @Forbes

This year American motorists will burn through 14 billion gallons of ethanol, the end product of 5 billion bushels of corn—a third of the U.S. crop—grown on 33 million acres of farmland. It arguably cuts pollution coming out of U.S. tailpipes, but at a huge cost..Steven Sterin thinks he has a better way... figures Celanese can make ethanol for a cash cost of only $1.50 a gallon. 

As president of the advanced fuels division at Dallas-based chemicals company Celanese, he's supervising construction of two new plants—one in Texas, the other in China—to make ethanol. But you won't see any vats fermenting corn here. Celanese makes its ethanol by tearing apart and recombining the hydrocarbons found in plentiful natural gas or coal. "We have the best gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids technology in the world," he says. If it works, what Sterin is building will revolutionize the fuel industry. But that's a very big if.

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/03/ethanol-minus-the-corn-it-could-fuel-america-if-it-werent-illegal/