Marcy Kaptur: “I think the honest answer to that is initially about 15 percent. If one looks at the current type of production where we…”

“I think the honest answer to that is initially about 15 percent. If one looks at the current type of production where we have field crops, if we compare ourselves to Brazil where they have many fewer cars than we do but they are really heavily biofueled right now, they have got well over half of their vehicles that are running on alcohol-based fuels. Under current technologies and current types of plants that we use, and current refining capacity, I think we could get up to about 15 percent. I do believe that with biotechnology and the introduction of more oil-rich seed crops we could push that number up, and that is part of the horizon of cracking the carbohydrate molecule, as we in the 20th century cracked the carbon molecule to produce gasoline and refine it off of petroleum. We are really neophytes in terms of really using oil seeds in order to produce the maximum number of Btus per acre and per ton. So I think if one looks at the period of a decade, we could do an enormous amount surely in the areas where we have field crops already in production. I would say that for the future, the Midwest would have a larger share of its vehicles that run on alcohol-based fuels than perhaps California. California might have more of a mix of hybrid battery technology, maybe hydrogen-infused systems. I do not think that there is just one answer here.…”