David wrote:

While I generally agree with your
comment above, there is still a lot of
hype on this topic because people (an
especially politicians) fail to consider
the total energy equation. This is
especially true here in the U.S. where
ethanol is a big topic. The public does
not realize that the savings are
relatively small. The BTU content/unit
volume is about 70% of gasoline (lower
miles/gallon), it takes a lot of energy
to make it (fertilizer, fuel for
planting, cultivating, harvesting,
distilling), the diversion of corn to
ethanol is driving up prices for animal
feed and therefore milk and meat, and if
all corn was turned into ethanol you may
divert 3% of the total energy use in
this country.

The idea of making ethanol fuel from corn is unique to the USA. I hear ADM
regularly named as the culprit here.

Far better to use feedstock that doesn't require intensive agriculture.

Is your newsreader set to a line length of about 30 chars or so btw ?

Graham