Actually, from every single story that I've read about ethanol plants that were started, them seed that started them was always the low price of corn and a desire to create a USE for the corn that would be more profitable. It had nothing to do with the demand for energy. In fact, there are a couple of people/businesses interested in starting beet ethanol plants in this area, and none will actually do the deed until the government will guarnantee them a market with the oil companies. Seems to me that if energy demand was leading this cycle, the oil companies would be jumping at the oppertunity to get hold of this cheap ethanol.
The actual science that I've read suggests that there's a good deal more energy goes into producing ethanol that what is contained in the actual ethanol... so to me, that's just like a dog chasing his tail. When you're using more to make it than you take from it, you're going backwards... otherwise known as accelerating the use of fossil energy. One can argue the different studies out there on this subject, and debate the criteria and methods they use to form their conclusions... That can be debated.
However, one should think about one thing. Our entire system of agriculture for the past 60 years or more has been built on fossil fuels. The productivity gains, yeild gains and so on have mostly come as the result of the use of chemicals and technology derived from oil. Given that you can't get more energy OUT of a system than you've put INTO the system, I'd think that's it's fairly logical to assume that ethanol is probably at best breaking even and at worst accelerating our problem, perhaps greatly. I think if more people started looking at facts instead of making emotional arguements and preaching their desire to be clear of arab oil, they might see things the way I do...
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