There is a silver lining here. Without American protectionism, the Brazilian biofuel program wouldn't have left the prototype phase. It was (1) the 70's oil crisis, (2) plenty of sugar and (3) nowhere to sell it that made alcohol economically viable.
However, this still damages Americans because we've decided to tax sugar cane ethanol imports as a means to promote domestic ethanol development. This means that the less efficient corn ethanol is cheaper than sugar cane ethanol. Hmm, sounds like another corn product that's replaced sugar in the US.
Corn crops are large; is it even feasible to suggest replacing corn ethanol with sugar? Isn't the total sugar production an insignificant contributor to potential ethanol supply? Sure the import restrictions are onerous, but not a significant factor in the ethanol debate
Corn production is an insignificant contributor to potential ethanol supply.
Ethanol is a white elephant.
To fuel even 1/10 of our needs by ethanol, we would need 53 million acres of farmland dedicated to growing fuel-corn (the process of which is 170% efficient, requiring 70% more energy to grow than can be extracted via ethanol).
In 2006, we only harvest 309 million acres of farmland.
The only reason ethanol is gaining steam is politics. It has no potential whatsoever to become even a major fuel additive. We are much better off investing those corn subsidies that keep corn ethanol cheap into batteries for plugin-hybrids, alternative nuclear sources (LFTR comes to mind), and better mass transport. Especially for freight.
The energy argument is stale: consider this article. To quote their conclusion:
"Corn ethanol is energy efficient, as indicated by an energy ratio of 1.24, that is, for every Btu dedicated to producing ethanol, there is a 24-percent energy gain."
It still doesn't seem quite right to me that our government should invest so much money in something that will reduce food production (and, at the same time, make corn too expensive for people to buy for food in some countries - this is already happening in latin america[1], though Mexico has since set an upper limit on tortilla prices[2]) when world hunger is an important issue. The only sources I could find for this were two years old; not sure if things have improved or worsened in the meantime.
