I have serious concerns about the energy inputs required to make fuel alcohol from corn, but I read stuff like this from February 19, 2009 Al Arabyia, and I just shake my head:
A prominent Saudi scholar warned youths studying abroad of using ethanol or other fuel that contains alcohol in their cars since they could be committing a sin, local press reported Thursday.Look, I understand the Islamic prohibition on alcohol. Alcohol destroys a lot of lives every year. I can understand the prohibition on being involved in the alcohol trade. But that's drinking alcohol--not fuel alcohol. And it's not like there's some interaction between the places that produce drinking alcohol and fuel alcohol.
Sheikh Mohamed Al-Najimi, member of the Saudi Islamic Jurisprudence Academy, based his statement on a saying by the prophet that prohibited all kinds of dealings with alcohol including buying, selling, carrying, serving, drinking, and manufacturing, the Saudi newspaper Shams reported Thursday.
Saudi and Muslim youth studying abroad would violate the prohibition if they used bio fuel, he said, since it “is basically made up of alcohol.”
A cynic might suggest that the sheikh is concerned about reduced demand for petroleum.
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