CNN is reporting that our fearless president; George W. Bush will be taking about AND I QUOTE “”America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world … The best way to break this addiction is through technology,” Bush will say, according to an excerpt released just hours before his address.”

Wow, they release snippets of his speech to media outlets? How Clever

What President Bush should be suggesting (and I think he will, if he can handle saying “Ethanol”…let’s face it it’s 50/50 that he can handle that..moving on) as a means of weaning ourselves off of the fossil fuel teet is Ethanol. Yes I said it, Ethanol. Made from corn and crap in fact the wonderful people over at The American Coalition for Ethanol describe it better…

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Ethanol is a clean-burning, high-octane fuel that is produced from renewable sources. At its most basic, ethanol is grain alcohol, produced from crops such as corn. Because it is domestically produced, ethanol helps reduce America’s dependence upon foreign sources of energy.
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Now the real good stuff is called E85, which is 85% ethanol and 15% unleaded gasoline. Currently there are over 4.6 million vehicles (according to George so I’d check on that) on the road that can use this stuff, and Ford has been making a lot of them for years without really telling anyone about it! GASP!

Well they are now, with the Ford Escape Hybrid E85 SUV.

CNN has a great article on it…

“The U.S. auto giant says the small sport-utility vehicle is the first hybrid capable of operating on blends of fuel containing up to 85 percent ethanol.

“This innovative research program could lead to breakthroughs to significantly reduce our nation’s dependence on imported oil while also helping to address global climate change,” Anne Stevens, Ford’s chief operating officer for the Americas, said at a news conference.”
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GM, a little slower than Ford in general is set to crank out 450,000 “FlexFuel” models in 2006, FlexFuel meaning regular gas and variants of Ethanol mixes.

The Feds, usually the slowest of them all have started to assist with a new federal energy law requiring a doubling of the ethanol production of around 3.3 billion gallons a year is set to take effect in 2012. I think with some good old competition and an open market we could cut that down drastically and have our cake to eat by 2008.

Canada has even jumped on this…well all I did find was an article at CANMET Energy Tech talking about it’s advantages…

“Ethanol has many environmental advantages over gasoline - a major contributor to climate change. It is estimated that a litre of biomass ethanol used to replace a litre of gasoline reduces the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide - a harmful greenhouse gas - by 70 per cent.”