The problem with ethanol....

[Michael]

[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]http://apnews.myway.com/article/20131112/DAA11OTG2.html

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It's impossible to precisely calculate how much ethanol is responsible for the spike in corn prices and how much those prices led to the land changes in the Midwest.

Supporters of corn ethanol say extreme weather - dry one year, very wet the next - hurt farmers and raised prices.
But diminishing supply wasn't the only factor. More corn than ever was being distilled into ethanol.

Historically, the overwhelmingly majority of corn in the United States has been turned into livestock feed. But in 2010, for the first time, fuel was the No. 1 use for corn in America. That was true in 2011 and 2012. Newly released Department of Agriculture data show that, this year, 43 percent of corn went to fuel and 45 percent went to livestock feed.

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IMO it really makes very little sense to be taking a perfectly good food source and turning it into a fuel. The *total* cost to the consumer has to take into account the rise in food prices, and IMO this factor, along with the environmental costs, are almost never factored into the equation.