Al, what you probably didn’t know is that the corn that is used in the production of ethanol is called #2 corn, and it is not directly eaten by humans. Most #2 corn goes into animal feed, like cattle, and they actually prefer to eat the meal that is the co-product after you’ve taken the starch out of corn to make ethanol. Corn to ethanol is available RIGHT NOW on an infrastructure, production, and vehicle utilization standpoint, and thus can contribute to immediate petroleum reduction goals today. Also, just as petroleum is getting harder and harder to extract, corn ethanol and other renewables are getting more and more efficient every day. One needs only to look at the most recent report by the USDA that states this:

{Ethanol produced by a typical dry-grind plant delivers about two times as much energy as it takes to grow the corn and make the fuel, according to a USDA analysis. The energy balance of ethanol can be as high as 2.8 times the amount of energy needed to produce it, if the fuel is made in a plant that is powered by biomass.

In a 2004 study, the net energy balance was about 1.8.

“Ethanol has made the transition from an energy sink, to a moderate net energy gain in the 1990s,, to a substantial net energy gain in the present. And there are still prospects for improvement,” the study said.}