[Wonder Warthog]

"Then you both are a little dim, because you might as well crack the coal to begin with instead of creating a massive farm welfare state. Unless that's the goal, in which case we might as well go back to burning wood in steam engines because that would certainly create more work."

Completely wrong. "Cracking coal" (in reality, a bit more is involved than simple cracking, as a large amount of post-cracking refining is also involved) is FAR more energy intensive than simple distillation of ethanol, and so uses far more coal energy per gallon of "transportation fuel" produced than would the ethanol route. To take JUST the core processe---"cracking" involves temperatures up around 500 Centigrade--distilling ethanol barely takes 100 Centigrade.

There's someone "dim" here, but it's neither me nor IronJack.

[FastCoyote]

"Completely wrong. "Cracking coal" (in reality, a bit more is involved than simple cracking, as a large amount of post-cracking refining is also involved) is FAR more energy intensive than simple distillation of ethanol"

But if coal is cheap, and even better if there is a giant subsidy, then by your arguments for ethanol cracking coal would be a great place to throw away money. You haven't been arguing for lower energy usage, you've just been arguing for replacement of Arab oil at any cost.

Here's a bette idea that fit's your logic: take tar sands and burn off the crude. Then use the sand to make silicon solar cells. Use the electricity to run steam powered agricultural machinery devoted to corn production. Turn the corn into ethanol which politicians drink, allowing them to vote for more rube goldeberg energy schemes.