But … ethanol is the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems!

G Davis, how about not paying farmers billions of taxpayers’ dollars, to acheive virtually nothing except increasing the cost of food? How about importing ethanol (if you must use ethanol at all) from Brazil, where it is actually made efficiently & relatively cheaply?

I agree Dave that the larger issue is take a stand and stick with it…unless of course you’re willing to admit you were wrong and have been convinced something better exists. But to the policy of ethanol…Colin etal seems to feel it’s far worse to use it than continuing the status quo…I don’t see that. We could import ethanol from Brazil…but we’d have to get rid of the domestic sugar lobby and the tariffs they support wouldn’t we? I would say sure, even if it makes fuel more expensive, but I doubt John Q Public agrees with me. Or we could grow our own, build our own plants both of which create jobs in areas of the country that could really use them…it wouldn’t be a long term fix, but most of the other solutions are in early infant stages and will take years to mature. Should we continue to pour pollutants out using petro products because we don’t have the ideal solution at the moment? I hate the Farm Bill. I hate what’s happened to real family owned farms while corporate farms have gotten fat. But that’s a separate issue entirely. I may be wrong about this…it’s certainly not my area of expertise…but I sure don’t see a quicker temporary fix. If someone does and cares to take the time, I’d love to hear them out.