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.

It seems that in the World of statistics, there is now a space for biofuels.  And the winner is… Brazil, who not produce the most bio-ethanol but also the most biodiesel.

According to articlesworld.com, they account for half the production of bio-ethanol on the planet!

With the USA in second place, how much of the market does the European production really have?

This week the environmental news is full of reports that bio-ethanol production uses more water than was previously thought.

Many of them say that the usage is about three times higher than was previously claimed, something that may not be welcome news in parts of the World where water is in short supply.

However, it is not all bad news.  Apparently Minnesota and Iowa, for whatever reason, use less water than other states in the production process.

I wonder if making it from wood chippings, as is often the case in Scandinavia, needs more or less?