It’s the sort of news that probably gets bio-ethanol a bad reputation.  VNBusinessnews.com reported on Monday that 24 hectares of land in Vietnam are to be cleared in order to build a bio-ethanol plant.

Now, obviously a bio-ethanol plant has to go someone, and this one will be making other by-products as well.  But clearing land to build one opens up the discussion about what else the land could have been used for (eg. food production).

Why not “regenerate” a disused factory site instead?

Is Bio-ethanol and the Church an unlikely combination?  Well, I did wonder if the headline meant that the popemobile was going to be converted to alternative fuels.

But no, there are parts of the World there the two come together for a different reason, that reason being that the Catholic Church in the Philippines are concerned about the building of a bio-ethanol plant.

Read more about their “Bioethanol forum” on the One Alternative Energy Blog.