I read the Associated Press article about ethanol in the July 11 Sun Journal. The article was too negative.

It is true that ethanol fuel is not “the” energy solution, but it is a partial solution. There are many good applications in ethanol’s future. For example, farmers could produce ethanol on farms from grains, use the residue for high protein livestock feed, make enough to run all of their equipment on ethanol, use the manure for methane generation and, the latter, for fertilizer. This could be done with the energy resources available on several modern farm configurations, leading to a 100 percent energy gain.

That use of ethanol wouldn’t take away from food production and it would ensure food production during fuel shortages.

Each alternative energy source has applications that could help. No one alternate energy source will solve the problem. Each alternate source can fit some of our needs. We need to develop all of them.

Throwing up our hands and saying this alternative energy source will not solve our problems is counterproductive.

We must not dam the river of American creative genius by looking for a single solution. We need to facilitate the development of many solutions.

To solve the problem of our dependence on foreign oil and global warming, we need to look for and implement many partial solutions.

Daniel Relph, Lewiston