[Pukin Dog]

The answer is complicated, but the short version is that it takes more energy to produce Ethanol then Ethanol itself gives back in the form of fuel.

[John Geyer]

Oh, so it's a lot like hydrogen powered cars and such.

[eraser2005]

This is no longer true. You get more out of ethanol than you put in, but the balance is not overwhelmingly positive. It is not equal to the balance you get from drilling oil, for example.

The real reason prices rise with the addition of ethanol is that ethanol is more expensive to make than gas (though the energy balance is positive), and it is much more difficult to transport and store. Until ADM and others can ramp up ethanol production to meet demand and the oil companies get off their lazy bums and develop a distribution system for ethanol, you'll see shortages from production and distribution. Combine that with general market panic, and prices rise....

[colonialhk]

Yeah but we can waste the fossil fuel domestically for machines and fertilizer and feel in control by paying our farmers to grow the corn....don't try to drill near me though or put windmills in my view plain or a nuclear plant on my planet or or or eat a fish that suffers as sushi. How do they think that way with a straight face...lol

[Cobra64]

And, I think there are transportation cost issues, and government subsidies to the corn growers. IMO there are too many folks who think ethanol is the planet's fuel panacea.

[EternalVigilance]

The answer is complicated, but the short version is that it takes more energy to produce Ethanol then Ethanol itself gives back in the form of fuel.

Wrong.

Like many, you fail to take into account the fact that a large portion of the corn in the ethanol production process ends up as cattle feed.

I don't know why so many are so intent on continuing to push this sort of false information.

I guess you'd rather that those literal mountains of Midwestern corn would be sold for a pittance and shipped to China to have value added.

I'd rather burn corn than Saudi oil, thanks.