nonsense. Corn growers were subsidized long before ethanol ever came along to be promoted as alternative fuels through farm subsidy programs, and still are.
The billions in subsidies is simply to build more ethanol infrastructure, modernize older less productive plants, and fund biotech research.
Ethanol is an excellent fuel with excellent potential, except to those who haven't a clue how an engine runs in the first place.
And no, "food" isn't being used to put in gas tanks. Ethanol production uses feed corn, which isn't even digestible to humans. The by-product of ethanol production is -animal feed. Nothing is taken away from the food industry by ethanol production. Again this is myth propagated by those who haven't a clue how ethanol is made, nor how many types of corn is grown and for what reason. Ethanol is also a superior fuel. IF it's burned in an engine designed to burn ethanol.
Stranghe how it is that people wouldn't dare put diesel fuel in a gas engine, and expect it to run, but they will put ethanol in a gas engine and expect it to run.
Sure it will, but it won't run as good as it could had the engine been built to burn ethanol, or at least very high ethanol/gasoline blends.
This requires completely different engine timing, much high compression ratios that gasoline today simply cannot tolerate.
The "Flex fuel" stupidity that came out of detroits auto plants is a bone headed idea. With ethanol available in many states, at a cost of $1.87 pure ethanol engines, and ethanol diesel engines should be powering cars, and would be twice as efficient as crappy gas engines made today.
“Ethanol production uses feed corn, which isn’t even digestible to humans. The by-product of ethanol production is -animal feed.”
Wow, that explains why chicken layer is ~$12 a sack as compared to just short of $5 I paid a few years ago.