[A Navy Vet]

""This is about jobs, energy security for America, improving the environment and meeting our legal responsibilities under the 2007 energy bill," said retired Gen. Wesley Clark, co-chairman of a group of ethanol firms called Growth Energy."

Huh. Why is it a lowly E-6 Navy Veteran can see the idiocy of ethanol being a stupid idea over a General? ALL the research has shown that ethanol takes more energy to produce it than we get back. Yes, there are new technologies that can produce ethanol from other cellulose products, but it is still a non-viable product, and will be so for many years.

Sheesh, what a putz Wesley Clark is. Got a vested interest there do you, Wesley?

[Wonder Warthog]

"ALL the research has shown that ethanol takes more energy to produce it than we get back. "

Not true. The majority of the studies show a positive energy return. The studies that show negative balances are all connected to a guy a Cornell named Pimentel, most authored directly by him, and a couple with one of his grad students (now a professor at another university).

And even if it DIDN'T have a net positive (which it does), it would STILL be worth doing, because most of the energy intput is NOT petroleum, but can be coal or nuclear (production of fertilizer). The fraction of PETROLEUM energy input is a tiny fraction of the total. And the result is a TRANSPORTATION fuel. So ethanol production can be viewed as equivalent to coal liquefaction, but by a different route.

[Wonder Warthog]

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/03_28_05ArgonneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf

See third chart.

[pointsal]

Wesley came out of Westpoint and was issue life-time knee pads.