And phase out farm subsidies concurrently.

In addtion to the benefits mentioned in return for the supposed small net gain in energy, the writer forgets to mention the money diverted from imports that remains in this country. Additionally, reducing dependency on imported oil gives us some strategic military/geopolitical options we don't currently have. And that does not have to mean abandoning Israel, but effectively gives us more options for our defensive posture in the Mid-East while gaining economic leverage there we don't currently possess.

I fail to see the logic here. It takes almost as much energy to produce ethanol as it generates and the gas mileage is significantly less so the net, net is what? Also, are we going to plow back under OJ's beloved suburbs so we can grow more corn?

Genecis: We pay them in dollars. There's no other place they can spend them.

Rick:

The net is corn instead of oil.

David, Right now they're spending them on properties, corporations, Madrasses, gold, precious metals, base metal futures, technology from Russia, China, North Korea worldwide. The dollar works everywhere.

Rick, the net gain will grow as we and our technology becomes more efficient. As we reduce our imports the market will lower oil prices on that we do use. Eventually drivers will be able to buy the blends they prefer, just as they do today at Sunoco stations, or no blend if willing to pay the price. Eventually, someone probably will develop better alternatives, but can we count on waiting for that to happen?

Do you have an alternative in mind for reducing petroleum usage in the USA, or do you think we really don't have a problem here?

"It takes almost as much energy to produce ethanol as it generates and the gas mileage is significantly less so the net, net is what?"

Popular Mechanics to the rescue!

"The performance of E85 vehicles is potentially higher than that of gasoline vehicles because E85's high octane rating allows a much higher compression ratio, which translates into higher thermodynamic efficiency. However, FFVs that retain the capacity to run on gasoline alone can't really take advantage of this octane boost since they also need to be able to run on pump-grade gasoline.

Cynics claim that it takes more energy to grow corn and distill it into alcohol than you can get out of the alcohol. However, according to the DOE, the growing, fermenting and distillation chain actually results in a surplus of energy that ranges from 34 to 66 percent. Moreover, the carbon dioxide (CO2) that an engine produces started out as atmospheric CO2 that the cornstalk captured during growth, making ethanol greenhouse gas neutral. Recent DOE studies note that using ethanol in blends lowers carbon monoxide (CO) and CO2 emissions substantially. In 2005, burning such blends had the same effect on greenhouse gas emissions as removing 1 million cars from American roads.
"

dollars work. "Technology" from North Korea ansd Russia doesn't.

G:

No, there may be a problem but I'm really not sure how big a problem it is. Ethanol sounds like a "feel good" solution rather than a real solution. I don't see the point of it when it likely takes the same amount of oil to get your car down the road a mile, whether your car is running on ethanol, gasoline, electricity (from plug in) or diesel. The oil used is the same, just used in different places in the energy chain.

I also think it likely that any oil usage reduction in this country is going to be more than offset by increases in population (hey, OJ!) or increased economic activity, either here or abroad.

Finally, I'd like to see how much and where excess growing capacity we have here to grow all that corn. In Illinois, we've been losing farmland to those suburbs OJ loves so much. I'm not sure the enviromentalists will look kindly on massive new corn farms.

You can get it in my backyard. Seriously, the idea that we don't have enough land is preposterous. There are unfarmed acres in WI, IL, WYO, and SD that could be put to use (assuming that the climate is viable for growing in - I'm not sure about that), and those are just areas that I've driven through in the last year and seen.

Hmmm, I may be on to something there. How about a corn co-op, where you grow it and bring it in to a distilling/refining station and get a portion of the profits comensurate with your donation of raw material? Brings new meaning to the term "energy independence". You might even be able to create a biodesiel for use back on the farm while you're at it.

Meh, call me a dreamer....

Jay,

Those SoDak farmer are, er, just a little ahead of you:

http://www.sdcorn.org/sdcorn/ethanol/default.asp

Genecis: Dollars only have value because you can spend them here. Ultimately, they all have to come back. We can't make ourselves richer by not buying oil is oil is the most cost-effective fuel for our economy.

The DOE analysis is problematic and, in fact, no one thinks that corn ethanol is going to be a big factor. That's why the government is looking to switchgrass ethanol. The problem is that switching all of our gasoline to E85 with switchgrass ethanol -- which, remember, is more efficient than corn ethanol -- would require one-third of our arable land.

The key to the Popular Mechanics article is that, because of ethanol's higher octane, you could design a high compression engine that would get better mileage on pure ethanol than on gasoline. However, no one is making or planning on making such a vehicle because no one thinks that ethanol can replace gasoline. Instead, manufacturers are planning on making flex-fuel vehicles which are still able to use gasoline, but can't get the high compression rations necessary to use just ethanol.

We don't have to switch all of our gasoline usage to E85, since America only imports around half of the oil that it uses for gasoline.

Switching 60% of our gas usage to E85 would work well enough.
That would only require 20% of our arable land - except that switchgrass grows well on land that we presently consider to be "non-arable", so we don't have to take any currently farmed agricultural land out of production to get all of the ethanol that we could want.

Noam: There's a world price for petroleum, so how much we produce domestically is irrelevant, except as it effects world supply.

Switchgrass can be grown on traditionally non-arable land, but doing so will reduce the amount of ethanol per acre, or increase the energy cost of the resulting ethanol.