Letter to the Editor, New York Times

      Daniel Akst,
      Re: your article about fuel-efficient cars.
      Why don't you write about straight alcohol fuel for American cars? Brazil switched to alcohol fuel in the mid 70's and they do not have a pollution problem like our problem and no phony oil shortage.
      Straight alcohol 185 proof is equivalent to regular gasoline, almost no pollution, and can be produced and retailed for about $1.00 per gallon.
      The only change in manufacturing automobiles would be to use rust proof materials that come in contact with alcohol fuel plus adjust the fuel injection system to use alcohol and virtually no increase in manufacturing cost.
      Gasohol does not make any sense because the higher power alcohol, 188 –190 proof, used to increase the power of gasoline requires considerably more processing resulting in much more production cost and only a small reduction in pollution. Alcohol processed to 195 proof requires a huge increase in processing and is about equivalent to nitroglycerine.
      When alcohol is made from corn, the corn by-product has about the same nutrition value as before the alcohol processing and can be used for food products and feed for livestock.
      Corn alcohol fuel would create an increase in employment, more income for American farmers, and eliminate our dependence on the Mid-East.
      The oil companies could produce alcohol fuel but the oil cartel does not want them to produce alcohol fuel.
      A switch to alcohol fuel would solve our pollution problem, help our earth-warming problem, gas-gouging problem due to the phony oil shortage, and create a large number of new jobs.
      The population increase in Bush's first 4 years caused a need for approximately 6,500,000 new jobs. Bush barely recovered the jobs he destroyed and we still need jobs to accommodate our population increase.
      Today's unemployment numbers cannot be correct because our population increased by approximately 10,000,000 from 2000 through 2004, yet our employment numbers or unemployment numbers do not reflect this increase in population.