My e-mail to John Stossel of 20/20

Let me preface this before showing the e-mail: I have tremendous respect for John Stossel. I love his journalim and I agree with him far more often than not. He's done excellent exposees on the homeless, the education system in America, and health care, but I disagreed with him on energy, making points that I would expect him to know. Here it is:

John,

while I agree with you 90% of the time, I must disagree with you on ethanol. I am not a midwest farmer or a ADM lobbyist. I am a 25-year old city-slicker from San Antonio, TX. I disagree with you for 3 reasons: (1) Corn is not the only source of ethanol in this country. We have plenty of switchgrass that can be used for ethanol. We also have sugar cane in Florida and Louisianna, and sugar beets in Minnesota. Outside of this country there is Brazilian and Caribbean sugar cane. (2) You say ethanol has to be transported in trucks because it is corrosive to pipelines. Currently that is true, but how do you know that one day our pipelines won't be revamped in such a way that they will be able to carry ethanol. After all, if it couldn't be done, how do Flexfuel cars have fuel lines that can carry ethanol without corroding? (3) You say nothing of biodiesel. It is a non-corrosive compound that any diesel vehicle can run on. It can be made simply from USED restaurant cooking oil. The fats that lie in the grease tray for my George Forman Grill when I cook chicken breasts or burgers can be used for bio-diesel. So ethanol AND bio-diesel will one day help us become energy independent.

Thank you.