IT'LL NEVER FLY, ORVILLE:

Gasoline's fledgling rivals: the race to power your car (Mark Clayton, 8/01/06, The Christian Science Monitor)

Middle East tensions and other factors have pushed the oil price higher: In June it averaged $65 a barrel. At that price, it cost $2.20 to produce a gallon of gasoline - about $1.56 for the oil itself and 64 cents for refining costs, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

By contrast, it costs just under $1 to produce a gallon of ethanol at current corn prices of about $2 a bushel, Professor Gallagher estimates. That means ethanol would continue to be profitable even if oil prices drop dramatically and corn prices increase, he says.

With Canada depopulating rapidly we should be able to plow most of it under.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 1, 2006 5:22 PM