Ethanol Being Beaten Back

The problem with ethanol as a fuel source isn’t that bio-mass conversion of living matter to fuel doesn’t work but that the first big effort was to grab the low hanging fruit — the grains that we all need just to live, much less to be mobile at high speeds. Work is continuing on converting weeds, switch grass and even garbage into fuel. Those pushing corn and other grains into the hopper are running into some serious push back.

The ethanol industry, until recently a golden child that got favorable treatment from Washington, is facing a critical decision on its future.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily waive regulations requiring the oil industry to blend ever-increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline. A decision is expected in the next few weeks.

Mr. Perry says the billions of bushels of corn being used to produce all that mandated ethanol would be better suited as livestock feed than as fuel.

Feed prices have soared in the last two years as fuel has begun competing with food for cropland.

Ethanol Push Back