And it's not yet clear, according to the Consumer Reports website, how the higher blends would affect engine reliability or longevity.

It's already well known with the current blend down here on the street. The use of ethanol in your vehicles will lower your overall miles per gallon even after switching back to total gasoline and destroys your engine especially the engines of older vehicles. The word on the street I'm hearing is don't use ethanol-blended gas unless you have the money to replace or repair your engine. I know several people who have already had problems.

Ethanol is nothing but corporate welfare driven by greed.

Corn should be used for food, not livestock feed.

Its also possible that meat consumption in Asia is partly encouraged by the US government-as their are western advisers there running slaughterhouses etc.

Its about time people are waking up to the ethanol scam!

Ethanol is not an energy solution. It is a gov't subsidized bankroll to ADM, the farm lobby (sort of).

The reason the gov't funded ethanol (and hoped for its success) was because every other energy saving, fuel saving and clean technology for transportation reduces or even potentially eliminates gov't taxes on energy and the oil-lobby's monies.

Ethanol? Forget about driving, use Old Mister Boston.
I saw some beer called "Curve Ball" and thought of our CIA.

Sure ya can, just add a little OJ to it … HICK … (sound of crash in distance)

We're using Bio-diesel in the public transit fleet here in Vancouver. The drivers and mechanics HATE it for the very reasons mentioned in the article. And the busses involved were BUILT SPECIFICALLY TO USE BIO-DIESEL!!

We are now competing with our cars for food!

Sick. Perverse...

Everything has an upside and a downside; there's no getting away from it. Solutions often create more problems than they solve. And there are no "magic bullets".

That's life.

:-(

These articles are tiresome and people need to know the truth.

What are the credentials of the Boston Globe Editorial board on the science of permaculture? People, it's time to give David Blume the microphone - he has already written America's new game plan for getting ourselves off of oil, fueling our vehicles, helping stop global warming, and feeding a hungry planet.

I CHALLENGE the Boston Globe to do an interview with him and review his book. Unless they are too afraid David Blume might be right and we could have a real plan to get out of this awful war?

The Forbidden Fuel

Alcohol Can Be a Gas by Dave Blume, published by the
International Institute for Ecological Agriculture, 2007, 630 pages, $59 hardcover.

In the forward written for this book in 1983, when the project was first started, R. Buckminster Fuller writes that it is possible to harvest enough energy to sustainably meet humanity's needs through solar sources while completely phasing out all fossil fuels and atomic energy. Many know Bucky Fuller for his work on geodesic domes. Few are aware that he was also in charge of alternative energy research for the U.S. military during WWII, and held ethanol fuel in great esteem. The author was inspired and mentored by Fuller in the 1980's, and it could be said that this book is the culmination of Fuller's work in this field.

The intent of the 600+ pages of Alcohol Can Be a Gas is to act as a complete tool kit to revolutionize our transportation fuel system, from the grassroots up. It combines sweeping vision with intricate ecological and mechanical detail, starting with a thorough history of the use of alcohol as a fuel for internal combustion engines.

The Model T car was designed as a flex-fuel vehicle, and got 34 MPG on alcohol until prohibition put an end to small-scale ethanol production. "There's a lot that goes on in the world of energy that you never see on the 11 o'clock news" writes the author. "The control of a country's energy is the ultimate control of its people."

Blume has seen his share of the dark underbelly of the big energy conglomerates in his 25+ years working in this field, and carries the scars to prove it. There are six big sections to this tome, each of which could be a book in its own right, comprising 29 chapters. Section I gives the sweeping vision of ethanol set within the context of an ecologically renewed agriculture. The great promise of alternative energy development under President Carter during the first energy crisis is summarized, and what the author dubs 'MegaOilron's' success at squashing it.

Blume dives quickly into the controversies swirling around ethanol as a fuel with a chapter entitled 'Busting The Myths.' These myths include: 'Ethanol's net energy is negative' (studies from Brazil show ethanol has a positive net energy ratio of 9.0 when using sugarcane); 'There isn't enough land to grow the crops for ethanol' (highway medians could grow enough ethanol crops to supply 40% of America's gasoline); Ethanol is an ecological nightmare' (a permaculture ethanol system vastly improves soil fertility); 'It's food vs. fuel' (cattails grown in wastewater show tremendous promise); and 'Ethanol fuel does not address global warming' (the growing of plants, especially if organic, ties up much more CO2 than goes into the ethanol).

Part of the beauty of this book is its ecological sensibility. Blume is an organic farmer and brings 20+ years of bioregional wisdom to his writing. Two chapters contrast the nightmare of America continuing on its present energy course vs. retooling the way we do agriculture and energy along the regenerative principles of Permaculture design. There are sidebars on the restoration of degraded prairie farmland using highly complex fuel crop polycultures, and the practice of swale contour farming to replenish groundwater and topsoil.

His vision for a grassroots ethanol revolution is ambitious but conceivable: "A nationwide switch to organic farming is in order, but it can't work if we maintain a monoculture-based system, with its present emphasis on corn farming."

The second big section of Alcohol Can Be a Gas has five chapters laying out the How To's of alcohol production for fuel, including chapters on feedstocks (everything from algae to buffalo gourd), fermentation technology, distillation, and plant design.

Section III deals with saleable or otherwise useful 'co-products' from alcohol production -- from livestock and aquaculture feeds to yeast, methane, protein and propagation material for mushroom production. Sections IV, V & VI address the mechanics, regulations and subsidies for using alcohol in engines: "We can put 85% alcohol in our cars now! Really!"

Included are chapters on the business of alcohol, its economic, regulatory and legal considerations and a practical vision of small-scale production that Blume dubs "Community Supported Energy." Six case studies depict the type of grassroots on-farm ethanol production the author envisions in his revolution.

One of the few criticisms I have of Alcohol Can Be a Gas is that Blume is unabashedly caustic towards the large energy corporations. The book will likely alienate middle Americans who are uninformed about the politics of energy. Instead, it is tailor written for activists who want to put their shoulders to the millstone and do something. Despite its narrow-minded focus on ethanol as The solution to our looming energy crises, this book has the feel of a resource one does not want to be without -- the depth of a Whole Earth Catalog hybridized with the humor of a Humanure Handbook.

Those people working on biofuel development would be well advised to study the history of ethanol cooperatives described in this book -- honesty, integrity and setting a high ethical standard seem to be crucial to success.

do some research on nuclear breeder reactors. we simply don't have to do oil or its substitutes anymore.

Pojer- As enthusiastic as you are about alcohol fuels, you have NOT addressed the single greatest flaw in that particular techno-fetishist dream.

Alcohol simply DOES NOT have the requisite energy density our modern technological society DEMANDS! Alcohol's energy density if FAR less than even the basest petrochemical derivative.

Even those who work in the forefront of the bio-fuel and alcohol based alternative energy fields acknowledge this. To do otherwise is, literally, alcoholic fantasy pink elephant stuff.

Alcohol fuels are a stop gap PR measure to placate the masses on their way to an oil depletion future.

Another thing about alcohol. It is bio-based. Alcohol comes from the fermentation or distillation of plant materials. Corn mash anyone?

kloro, nuclear is dangerous and poisonous for millennia. for what it takes to build a nuclear generator, we could have a lot of wind and solar and more plug-in hybrids. given the information here, i'm agnostic about ethanol but definitely against ethanol from corn. given current farming practices, imagine all the roundup herbicide and bt toxin producing corn going into that corn ethanol.

Another CD biofuels article. This one is really scraping the bottom of the barrel complete with grammatical errors and oversimplification.

Comparisons of ethanol versus gasoline assume incorrectly that the ethanol is produced by cutting down and burning the rain-forest, which of course is deplorable and carbon intensive. That is responsible for the high figures. I wonder if the comparisons take into account the fact that the oil we burn is shipped thousands of miles across the ocean. I doubt it.

Lies, damn lies and statistics, at work here.

Ethanol consumes almost a quarter of US corn production. The energy self-sufficiency that all the candidates seek should not come at the expense of the environment or the food supply.

--quite alarming, if true. Trading food for gas does not seem to be a very good bargain. Does it essentially mean that the government is subsidizing the spread of hunger? Not surprising, since it already subsidizes the outsourcing of jobs. Our tax dollars hard at work.

Here's another angle missing from the "ethanol" scam:

Nearly 70% of all "corn" grown in the US is of the transgenic mutant variety, more commonly (and erroneously) referred to as genetically modified corn.

When consumers learn their corn is a mutant organism (made by the same patriots who made Agent Orange,) sales plummet - not good for Monsanto and friends, you see. The only way for the mutant-makers to continue polluting the food chain with their untested patents is to sell it for non-consumption - which means no testing, but which explains the doubling of their stock price in just the last year.

Of course, according to Monsanto: "We want to make the world a better place for future generations." And what a fine job they're doing so far, eh?

l hear in Cuba they converted a 1955 Cadillac to run on an alcohol based fuel and the good news is that it gets 56 miles per gallon, the bad news is that it uses Bacardi Dark.

Is it me or is the future happening right now? I mean the stories of the hungry rioting on the streets of the developing world because the rich west are putting corn in their cars instead of feeding people sounds like a near-future sci-fi plot. In a novel it seems like the world would never be that stupid but, hey, we are that stupid it appears!

frank1569 - Hate to break it to you but all our food it mutant. Oh my! This is called breeding and is why our food crops are so different from their wild pregenitors, and also why we have so much food. Oh my! GM is allowing breeding to move faster and that is why farmers are buying the stuff like crazy and why Monsanto stock has doubled! Oh my! The sky is falling!

Henny Penny

Mr. Obvious April 13th, 2008 6:33 pm

"GM is allowing breeding to move faster and that is why farmers are buying the stuff like crazy and why Monsanto stock has doubled!"

I dare you to go and find a natural bred ear of sweet corn and a new un-natural produced ear of Monsantos corn and test them. Monsatos corn is tasteless and not fit for consumption. You can't buy good tasting ears of corn in the store anymore. Luckily we have local farmers where I live that grow the good stuff.

I just watched the World According to Monsanto a great documentry exposing this rotten company! However, I wish it goes into the biofuel dilemma--someone needs to make another documentry on that.
http://tinyurl.com/55jp46

We will soon use cellulose ethanol that is made from corn stalks. Corn for food and stalks for fuel.

HEMP HEMP HEMP FOR ETHANOL. Don't through the technology out for the wrong crop! Demand fuel crops for fuel..swithgrass, algee, fungi, HEMP!!!!! I wish Common Dreams would stop publishing every aqnti-ethanol and get off the UN Agenda 21 bandwagon!

For Jstevens: the shift to corn in us-->shift away from soy in us and subsequent price increase in soy-->soy production on Amazon pasture land-->further cutting of Amazon forest for more pasture land

Mr Obvioius

US TAXDOLLARS PROP UP MONSANTO

You state "GM is allowing breeding to move faster and that is why farmers are buying the stuff like crazy and why Monsanto stock has doubled!"

Firstly, it is another myth that GM allows breeding to take place faster. Ask any honest plant breeder.

Secondly, farmers have no choice, Monsanto has patents registered over 91% of GM seed sold globally and the US is the biggest planter of GM crops.

Basically US farm subsidies are US tax dollars propping Monsanto up. Take away US taxdollar subsidies to farmers and Monsanto would collapse.

Nothing like a little bit of croney capitaism on the side to help ones corporate mates hey.

MUTANT SEEDS??

In addition, Mr O, what do you mean all food is mutant?

For thousands of years farmers have increased yields by cross breeding, selective breeding and hybridisation etc.

Now suddenly in the 1970's splicing genes from bacteria and viruses into naturally bred crops was introduced in laboratories.

This scrambles the DNA of the new organism with unintended and sometimes harmful consequences. the research I have posted elsewhere shows that GM crops don't yield more and sometimes yield less.

In Europe with its most informed consumers in the world, GM FOODS are known as Frankenstein foods and rejected.

In India on April 8 this year, 5000 farmers protested against GM crops. Hardly an endorsement, see:

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8970
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8975

Hey Mr OOOO

NON-GM PLANT BREEDING SUCCESSES

For example a U.S. scientist has developed a non-GM process for allergen-free peanuts while another a non-GM approach for Striga-weed-resistant cowpeas in Africa.

Australian scientists have developed non-GM salt-resistant wheat while the Gates Foundation supports a non-GM
b-carotine rich sweet potato in Africa.

A non-GM virus-resistant cassava has been developed for East and Central Africa, while non-GM technology has been used to reduce aflatoxins in maize in Nigeria.

In the UK, iron-fortified non-GM maize cuts anaemia rates in children, while Austro-Indian non-GM research shows cuts of 50% in cotton insecticides while adding 75% to profitability.

In Holland a Dutch researcher has bred a non-GM fungi-resistant tomato while in Italy non-GM tomatoes have been made to drink less water.

In India a non-GM rice with bacterial leaf blight-resistance genes has been developed and according to New Scientist a non-GM solution has been found for the cassava root-rot devastation in Africa, and in the U.S. a grape researcher has bred non-GM vines resistant to Pierce's Disease.

For more information on the dangers of GM food and successful non-GM plant breeding visit "Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Science and Technology" at www.psrast.org

gee just start to sell the electric car or AIR CAR that uses no oil. Put a 500$ widemill beside your house with a few truck batteries and guess what, oil free. OR just plug it in.
I have driven electric cars when at different tracks through my auto racing and guess what these demostration cars would fill the needs of over 80% of what we use a car for.
NOW I know they will start to say what about electricity, well the last time I looked you can't eat electricity and THEY DON'T USE CORN TO PRODUCE IT.
With more companies building them the price drops and speed and distance would go up.

Our tax dollars go to subsidies for ethanol production from corn that drives up food prices world-wide, increases fertilizer runoff into the Mississipi and Gulf of Mexico, has wrecked crop rotations, drives up fertilizer and fuel prices, and produces less energy and more CO2 making ethanol than if the energy inputs were burned directly. Gasoline containing substantial ethanol also causes reduced miles per gallon and may be hard on engines.

Then it gets worse. Even with the subsidies, ethanol production for fuel should not survive in the "market", but our oil industry oriented free market government is actually forcing the oil companies to use it at whatever cost!

7.8% ethanol should meet the oxygenated fuel requirement and is safer than MTBE, but there should be a way to make cars burn fuel just a little more cleanly. It is not needed everywhere, just in high smog areas. A mandate forcing E85 (15%)everywhere is beyond stupid.

The Boston Globe editors smell lucrative kickbacks for distracting their readers with putting out fires instead of going after the arsonists.

rickster469 - You wrote:

"I dare you to go and find a natural bred ear of sweet corn and a new un-natural produced ear of Monsantos corn and test them. Monsatos corn is tasteless and not fit for consumption. You can't buy good tasting ears of corn in the store anymore. Luckily we have local farmers where I live that grow the good stuff."

Most people find sweet corn better than field corn. DUH! Monsanto does not sell GM sweet corn.

Andy - Maybe if you keep repeating yourself someone will believe you. Mutation is the basis for evolution, and selection of novel mutations is a main driver for traditional plant breeding.

Oh Mr O:

Genetic engineering: Gene insertion methods create mutations, fragments and multiple copies, and mutations can have serious consequences, see fully referenced article: Gambling and Scrambling with the Genome:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/utility/showArticle/?objectID=278

I am surprised to see how easily swayed some of the Common Dreams readers are. Thanks pojer and Jeanette for some nice posts. I think this article really misses the point. Of course it is foolish to trade food for gas, but to apply that reasoning to the technology is equally if not more foolish. The government currently spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year eradicating wild hemp (aka ditchweed) throughout the midwest. This plant has higher ethanol production capabilities than corn, and yet we can afford to have tax dollars spent to spray it with toxic chemicals. Why???...Strangely enough it is sprayed with chemicals made by the same company who is genetically engineering all the corn with terminator seeds. Our friends over at Monsanto/Dupont.
Please wake up people, the answers to the problems so often posted on this site are being presented to you and now you reject them based on a little hiccup in the Boston Globe. We need to get off oil. Look at the war, death, famine, environmental ruin and economic hardship that oil provides, and now we should worry about ethanol???...Come on.!! The fact that people here are condemning clean, locally grown energy is mind-boggling.

mr boston - Terminator technology was developed by the USDA to prevent cross-pollination and was never commercialized by anybody. This is an urban myth. I understand the mistake. With folks like Dandy Andy posting here, its hard to discern reality from fantacy. If you want to understand the facts in these situations you need to move away from .org sites with an agenda and .com sites with a profit margin to maintain. Try .edu sites or peer-reviewed publications.

Can't eat Ethanol - can't swallow FDA data policy

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Newsletter/Nov2007-CompanyResearchisRigged/index.cfm
excerpt:
"Whenever private submissions are made public through lawsuits or Freedom of Information Act Requests, it becomes clear why companies benefit from secrecy. The quality of their research is often miserable, incompetent, and unacceptable for peer-review. In 2000, for example, after the potentially allergenic StarLink corn was discovered in the food supply, Aventis CropScience presented wholly inadequate safety data to the EPA's scientific advisory panel. One frustrated panel member, Dean Metcalfe, MD,—the government's top allergist—said during a hearing, "Most of us review for a lot of journals. And if this were presented for publication in the journals that I review for, it would be sent back to the authors with all of these questions. It would be rejected."[8]
Submissions to the US Food and Drug Administraion (FDA) may be worse than in other countries, since the agency doesn't actually require any data. Their policy—overseen by Monsanto's former attorney who later became the company's vice president—says that biotech companies can determine if their own foods are safe. Anything submitted is voluntary and, according to former Environmental Protection Agency scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman, "often lack[s] sufficient detail, such as necessary statistical analyses needed for an adequate safety evaluation." Using Freedom of Information Requests, Gurian-Sherman analyzed more than a fourth of the data summaries (14 of 53) of GM crops reviewed by the FDA. He says, "Our evaluation found that the biotechnology companies provide inadequate data to ensure their products are safe."[9]"

Morgellons Disease May Be Linked to Genetically Modified Food - But recent evidence suggests that the disease is indeed real, and may be related to genetically modified (GM) food. What is Morgellons Disease? On August 1, 2007, the CDC issued the following statement regarding Morgellons Disease: ...
NaturalNews.com - http://www.NaturalNews.com

Mr Ovious...funny we are both mr's. While my answer may have been a bit brief in the interest of readability, it simply states that Monsanto is genetically engineering corn with terminator seeds, which they are. There has not been a commercialization of the seed...yet, but that hasn't stopped Monsanto from developing the product. Monsanto has pledged not to use terminator seeds "on FOOD crops". Which leaves ethanol crops wide open, and the research here is well documented and wide open on .coms, net's, org's, edu's and the like.

This article is misleading and manipulative propaganda. I believe that the "biofuels displaces food" frame originates with the fossil fuel industry. And they are apparently getting a lot of mileage out of it (much more than their "global warming makes the world greener" idea). To me, this article reads as if it is directly sponsored by the fossil fuel industry.

The article states that "ethanol consumption generates more carbon dioxide per gallon than gasoline." Perhaps, but the article fails to recognize that ethanol is NOT a fossil fuel. Rain forests emit enormous amounts of CO2. Does that mean we should ban them? No, because the carbon emitted is not fossil carbon.

Also, the article blames higher food prices on ethanol production, and fails to mention rising fossil fuel prices as a major factor.

We need to reduce fossil fuel consumption as much as possible, as soon as possible. That means more energy conservation and more alternative energy production.

Mr. Boston writes:

"There has not been a commercialization of the seed…yet, but that hasn't stopped Monsanto from developing the product."

--Right, Mr. Boston, and without any regulations preventing Monsanto from making a profit from such a product, it will try. Those who believe in self-regulating industries, no doubt believe in faeries bringing the morning dew as well.

Deregulation brings out the best in industry, does it not?

Yeah, right.

That terminator technology is as bad as copy-protection on software and should be stopped. We need to legalize the stealing of patented products so that long term investment in technology stops. No more new inventions or medicines.

Has anyone ever wondered why the Republican Party prevails despite a hideous and unpopular war, a collapsing economy and global warming inaction. Why Mr. "100 Years War" is ahead in the polls?

I think the Liberals are a victim of their own ideology. All you have to do is throw out an article that people are starving because of ethanol, and most no longer examine the facts, or think critically at all. They had you at starve. This is the same mentality that causes people to say they didn't vote for AL Gore because he's not perfect. 10 million times better than "W" but not perfect. So they vote for Nader. Since he has never been in office, he has no voting record, no big decisions, so he is not flawed. The Nader voters are always so proud of themselves.

Now we have an emerging solution to many of our oil issues. It's not perfect, and it's not complete, but it could be an integral part of averting climate change. But look how everyone is playing into the hands of the oil companies propaganda.
We feed corn to animals. We use corn for alcohol to get drunk on. No problem. Try use corn to replace oil and look what happens. Hmmm.

EARL SIMMINS: Good one!

ANDREW TAYNTON: Thank you for the excellent data posted!

OLD GOAT: Your post says it all...

Mr Obvious,

The has never been any clear evidence that patent law encourages, or rewards in any fair way, innovation. In fact it could be just as or more true that an _absence_ of patenting may better encourage innovation. A manufacturer would have to continually improve the product to stay ahead of the copycat competetion, rather than just sit on thir patent and enrich a bunch of lawyers rahter than pay engineers and scientists?

I believe abolition of patents was even tried in a few countries - and it had only a beneficial effect on manufacturing innovation.

And the idea that "intellectual property" (a scary term) represent some kind of fundamental human right is also nonsense.

Let me give you one example:

As an EV experimenter, I have folowed advanced battery development with dismay as one company - cobalsys, which is owned by Chevron-Texaco, has obtained, through legal shenannigans and armys of lawyers, all rights to any all large capacity NiMH batteries. Mind you he creators of this technology mostly developing these technologies in public universities largely with public funds - and they saw very few rewards for their creativity.

Cobalsys is refusing to license the manufacture of any NiMH cells larger than flashlight sized. They will sit on this technology - vitally needed for the public benefit, until oil gets scarce enough to benefit Cobalsys/Chevron-Texaco, rather than the public.

The same crap is now going on with the more promising LiFePO4 battery chemistry. An outfit called Phostech - a division of the big electric utility Hydro-Quebec is attempting to lock up this technology - developed, once again, in publicly funded universities. Gangs of corporate lawyers, not scientists or engineers, are now at work getting rich on this.

Thankfully, the Chinese scientists and engineers are ignoring this legal crap, to the benefit of their economy, to my benefit; because I can get large-capacity cells from them for my EV's; and ultimately to all humanity.

Now, what about food? Well a callous greed-glorifying "libertarian" like you may have trouble understanding this, but access to food is a human right, and any commodification of food is subordinate to this. Since terminator seeds have no benefits beyond an attempt to obtain monopoly control of human needs, such seeds should be banned without question. And since Monsanto's corporte lawyers have established legal precedent that their "intelectual property rights" can be conveyed to others farmers seeds by the wind via cross-pollination, the farmers often don't even have a choice to _not_ use their seeds. What's thiss about capitalism being not "coercive"?

An account of the trouble is here:

http://www.evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?page=blogentry&authorid=51&blogid=104

Now, Mr. Obvious please go troll somewhere else.

It takes almost the full amount of energy in one gallon of ethanol to produce that gallon. It is cost prohibitive (large subsidies) adds more carbon footprint and raises the cost of food while lowering the supply of food.

Which part of that did you miss? If it was a good idea, you wouldn't have to use huge subsidies to produce it. Plus it fails reduces our dependence on oil.

...

Thomas, you write if that if ethanol is a good idea it wouldn't need subsidies, but trying to convert a technology to meet the needs of an energy addicted, growing society will not just spring up on its own. More importantly, what you fail to realize is the subsidies we pay for oil in the form of tax dollars for defense, environmental cleanup, and of course loss of life. Denying clean, bio-mass energy due to cost is as short sighted as it gets.

All this talk about patents and profits reminded me of the anger of some major pharmaceutical companies had against Indian versions of the same drugs. AZT comes to mind. Burroughs Welcome complained vigorously against Indian pharmaceutical companies for making AZT and distributing it at a fraction of the cost, claiming that it violated their patent. India essentially responded that making the drug available to those who needed it at an affordable price was more important than BW's profits. I'd like to point out that the amount BW charged ($6,300 annually) for this drug was despicable by any standards. I suppose they thought is that if people are desperate enough, they'll pay anything. Would that apply as well for hungry people purchasing terminator seeds?

I'm sorry, but some things are just inherently wrong. Those who put profit above all else have no conscience, but only pretenses of one when it serves their interests. Some psychologists regard this as psychopathic behavior.

USAn - You might want to look into the reasons for the patent system and why it creates innovation. The protection is for 17 years, so an inventor waiting around is simply burning thier limited time as a monopoly. In addition to encouraging long-term expensive research, patents also discourage trade-secrets, that may never be publically available without this system. So many of our convieniences are due to patents, I cannot imagine where you are coming from. With regard to the unwitting farmer getting prosecuted by seed companies due to pollen drift, this is a great urban legend. If you want to know the real story, investigate this at education sites, not activist sites. Or talk to the honest farmers using the technology (which are most of them).