[saganite]

Everything I've read says tar sands are profitable above $30 a barrel and the greatest problem there is recovering the huge sunken costs of setting up the recovery and refining process. Since oil shale isn't even to the production phase yet there's only speculation as to it's cost but I've read it would be profitable to extract it at a price above $35 a barrel.

I'm not aware of subsidies for these in the category of subsidies for ethanol but would be interested in your info in that regard.

[palmer]

The ethanol production tax subsidy is 51 cents/gallon http://www.taxpayer.net/TCS/wastebasket/environment/2005-07-01drunkonethanol.htm
The corn farmers (not just ethanol) get billions every year: http://www.ewg.org:16080/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn
The break-even cost for ethanol is about $5/gallon: http://www.safehaven.com/article-5010.htm based on the price of corn and processing (doesn't reflect how increases in energy prices will affect the corn growers).