Do you still believe in the use of corn-based ethanol when you know it's taking food out of people's mouths?

The fact is, they don't use the sweet corn humans consume, but the yellow corn that is usually fed to livestock. They've taken a lot of sweet corn acreage out of production to grow the heavily subsidized yellow corn for ethanol so arguing it's not the kind we eat is misleading.

The amount of CO2 released in producing one gallon of ethanol from corn exceeds what a gallon of gasoline produces, it takes more ethanol to run your car than an equivalent amount of gasoline since it's energy density is less, and it has led to speculator's driving up the price since they're not sure how this will effect the market in the long-term.

The stupidest thing we can do is to continue making ethanol from corn when there are many far more efficient crops that we could use. Sugar cane (like Brazil uses), switchgrass or a new strain of algae produce far more ethanol per acre and in the case of switchgrass and algae, they don't tie up prime farmland that we can use to grow food. Algae can produce 6,000 gallons of ethanol per acre compared to 328 gallons for corn. Since it is incredibly stupid to use corn, I expect that's what we'll do until we kick out the current crop of idiots in Congress and put in fresh faces.

It may not be wise to use ethanol at all until we convert cars to run on a higher concentration since at low concentrations of 90/10 or 85/15 it creates a health hazard from ozone formation. It cuts down on particulate pollution and if we used a more efficient crop to produce it, overall it would be a good transitional fuel until we have electric cars widely available and new battery technology.

I support corn-based ethanol as a readily available product of which there was a substantial and subsidized surplus, until a more efficient source becomes available. Remember that the byproduct of ethanol production is still suitable for use as a feed stock for up to 40% of most livestock diets, so it doesn't really take that much out of the food production chain. The correlation is not nearly as direct as one would presume. There are downsides, unintended consequences and environmental costs of one sort or another for pretty much any energy source if one cares to play that game. Corn-based ethanol is certainly not "the" answer to global warming, I don't think anyone ever proposed it as such. EDIT: See, here is an example of how little people really understand about ethanol and farming-someone says that "Switch grass and other high cellulose alternatives to corn show promise but I would expect the same idiotic politicians to block that and continue to buy votes in farm states," not realizing that switch grass and other cellulose alternatives are agricultural products too-if the government was subsidizing corn because the market price was below the cost of production, why wouldn't farmers want to diversify and rotate their crops-or better yet, get another salable and PROFITABLE commodity from the same crop-i.e. "high cellulose alternatives?"

Not to mention that Corn based ethanol actually results in higher CO2 emissions than getting the oil out of the ground.

Corn based ethanol was always a bit shaky but with food problems and the fact that it doesn't help the environment it is unconscionable to continue to provide subsidies for growing it (it'd be cheaper to just give the farmers the money than paying them to grow it).

I have always been against corn-based ethanol. Corn is a food stock not a fuel stock. If one wanted to use a non-food stock like switch grass that can be grown in non-food farmland, I would be more apt to support it.

Bio-diesel produced from used cooking oil is a better alternative.

The rationale here would be that any practise that takes food off the market should be stopped?

We know that livestock feeding removes a lot of food from the market, even as it does return some food to it. We know that land banking removes food from the market. And we know that low food prices tends to take food off the market even though very large crops that swamp the market also lower prices.

Any market strategy that diverts food to some other purpose and so keeps food prices higher than they would have been tends to ensure there will be production of food.

But this only works well if the food diverted is really good food that can be diverted back to people as and when needed. Corn and sugar cane are not really great food for people. So we need an alternate diversion scheme.

I never did believe in using corn-based ethanol. Its a poor choice that won't help us get out of this energy crunch.

Absolutely not!! Ethanol is the result of people like Dingy Harry (S) Nev. and Pelosie (D) Ca. who have blocked every energy policy since they got in office. The environmental wackos like Al Gore have blocked every attempt to break our dependence on foreign oil. New drilling? NO! Windmills (Ted Kennedy D MA) NO! Nuclear? NO! Not in my back yard! Solar, hey great. Should be ready by the time my kids have grandkids!

So the Democrats are basically against anything that can help our nations current energy needs, with one excuse or another. And Obama wants $12 a gallon gas so we will wean ourselves off of oil. Wonderful.

So because of the wacos in congress we have a product (ethanol) that is poised to wreck the entire worlds economy. Anyone ready for congressional term limits yet?

I've yet to hear of ANY food grade corn being used to produce ethanol. All reports I've read show that it's feed corn being used.

it ridiculous to subsidize farmers to grow corn, but americans have become too dependent on corn, corn syrup, candy corns, candy canes, sugar cane, sugar daddys, .... Less corn dependence is a good thing. Read The Omnivore's Dilemma if you want to think about it more

in the end, everyone will have to pay more in order to be more environmentally concious. maybe this is the way to do it.

I think the corn is used for livestock. It's the livestock that contributes to the pollution.