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"I can't figure out why corn is the only crop those ethanol plants use, when corn isn't even the best crop TO use for maximum ethanol production."

Right now corn is the best crop grown in this country to use for ethanol production. If our farmers could find a better one, they'd jump right on it. They're in this to make money. If there was a feedstock they could grow as cheaply as they grow corn and it would give higher per acre ethanol yields, they'd start growing it and would bring in more money for it per acre than they can get now for corn. Ethanol producers aren't any different, they're also in this to make money. They want the cheapest, highest yielding feedstock they can get. It's not hard for them to switch to another grain or another feedstock, although it may be difficult for some of these plants to make the big jump to cellulosic ethanol production if that technology ever pans out. A few plants already use other feedstocks besides corn, especially sorghum. They mostly all use nothing but corn though because corn is the cheapest feedstock they can get and they're able to get pretty high yields from it. There have been studies done on using sugar cane, sugar beets, and all sorts of other feedstocks, and none of the other feedstocks were as cost effective as corn for use as an ethanol feedstock in this country. Corn is abundant and relatively cheap, and it's about 70% starch, which can all easily be converted into fermentable sugars. They get about 2.8 gallons of ethanol per bushel now, and farmers are able to get well over 150 bushels per acre on average. Bushels per acre yields for corn keep improving as time goes on. Sugar cane would be better in terms of gallons of ethanol per acre yields, but there are very few places where it will grow in this country and what little we are able to grow ends up going for a high price for sugar production. The same applies to sugar beets, which on a per acre basis will produce more ethanol than corn, but they only grow well in limited parts of this country, they're expensive to grow and harvest and destructive to the soil (after a sugar beet crop farmers wait several years before planting them in the same field), and what little we are able to produce already command a high price in our lucrative sugar industry.

There is no great conspiracy to use nothing but corn for ethanol production in this country. The reason corn is the ethanol feedstock of choice in this country is because it's relatively cheap and high yielding as an ethanol feedstock. It's the best one we have, for the time being. When something better comes along, farmers and ethanol producers will quickly adapt and start growing it and using it to produce fuel.

"There is no great conspiracy..."

One word. Congress.

US domestic price of sugar is twice the world price. It is illegal to import sugar. Ditto peanuts and hosts of other products.

If law. The force of government. Arrest. Fines. Prison sentences aren't at least an open conspiracy, I don't know what is.

Ethanol fans should at least remove the quotas on imports and 'save' and 'help' the consumer. After all this is the reason they are such fans of ehtanol. Right? Right? Money, profits are secondary. Of course, once this tax/money shuffling farm scam really gets big, and farmers get even more hooked on the public tax teat....then they'll demand, demand I say, demand, Congress open up the US market to cheap foreign ethanol. Right. Suckers line up please. What ever the prospects of ethanol, you can rest assured the the US will be the high cost nation. Which means all energy users will have higher priced goods, more difficult to export.