Another good question! No, I think the results have been artificially inflated due to heavy government subsidies to the farm industry and effective lobbying that those subsidies bought. One article I read stated that if we diverted all of the corn we produced in the country to ethanol production, it wouldn't make much of a dent in our oil consumption. More importantly to me is this: If you account for all the cost of ethanol, you will find that it is every bit as damaging as any fossil fuel. The damage we do to the land, the fertilizers we put on the crops, the pesticides we poison with, the oil it takes for the machinery to harvest the crop, the manufacturing process and the pollution it causes...you get the point. All in all, from the indications I've seen, Ethanol isn't the magic bullet.

Depends. Ethanol derived from corn is not energy efficient. It takes more energy (generally petroleum products) to grown, harvest, and process the corn to make ethanol than we get out of the ethanol as fuel. However, ethanol from switch grass or sugar cane may be worthwhile ventures because of balanced energy budget used in production from these sources.

Or ethanol to continue down the road! ;-)

I'm sorry, I have done some more research so I wish to change my answer. It seems the beginning of the path toward ethanol started during the Carter administration, it has just been accelerated recently. Ethanol produced from corn is one of those bad ideas that has gained so much momentum it's going to be hard to stop. Ethanol from Sugar Cane is better, as it has a lesser effect on the food supply.

no..no..no!!..its a rort and inefficient... the amount of land and water you need to make enough crops to grow to make it is and will always be beyond any common sense, if you are going to do all this wouldn't it be better to feed the worlds starving instead, and it also takes the grains away that can be used in food production which will lead to shortages which will lead to cost increases for such things as bread and meat ..yes meat because cattle are grain fed

Nope. Food prices have already gone up thanks to ethanol and will continue to rise if we continue to use it. What good is cleaner air or cheaper gas if we cant afford food to eat?

no, I think we should use the corn to make liquor and get happy

We are idiots... We have been spoiled for so long with cheap fuel prices that now we are crying... You must admit that a weak dollar does hurt some but our gov't has not made it a priority to develope alternatives over the last 30 yes 30 years... We should have learn our lession in 1970's and did not ... NOW the best or funniest thing is the Americian people do not realize that using CORN is not a good option... Congress and the farmers think it is great. Lets drive up 70% of our food prices (yes 70%) farmers are taking wheat, soy bean fields and turning then over to corn to sell for fuel raising their prices... Cattle farmers are selling off their herds due to the price of feed (corn) giving us lower meat prices for the next few months but just wait until amount of cattle goes way down driving up meat prices as well... If you think things are bad now... $4 gas in the summer and higher food prices due to the gas it takes to move the trucks PLUS new shortages of crops of various types, higher beef prices and corn prices will go up as well. OH BY THE WAY do you know that the energy it takes to convert corn to a fuel is close to what it gives us so we are not gaining anything by doing this right now and in the future that will change with technology advances but the increase we get will it be worth higher food prices. Did we forget we also try to feed a good protion of the world. I guess we can just say do not have any more babies other wise will starvation increase since we are producing corn for fuel instead of feeding people? Why not increase wind farms, hydro from the ocean, nuclear, solar, fuel cells... lets spend money hand over fist NOW to improve these instead of spending more the rest of our lives which will end up costing much much more. LONG ANSWER SHORT NO... RENEWABLE is the only way to go but not ethanol. But we need to go fast!

Bio-fuels are not the way to go. example why? Look at the Sotuh American rain forest. they are taking it down and replacing it with Soy farms for this purpose. In fact Paraguay relies on Soy as almost it's sole export.

No, we should not. It is helping fuel prices wreak havoc on our economy. By adding an agricultural byproduct to the fuel, we are just making a bigger mess. We need to develope hydrogen and electric transport, both of which are more economically and ecologically friendly.