Within the tax cut extension that was just passed was the extension of the Ethanol subsidy.  From what I have heard and read, it costs us about $5.2B per year for this ‘investment’ directly.  This figure does not include the pricing impact on corn as about a third of US corn production goes into ethanol.  Many will argue that we need it to lower the impact on the environment.  I would counter and mention to those narrow minded hacks that farming ain’t exactly environmentally friendly.

The whole mania around ethanol can also be applied to solar.  Yes, they may be cleaner in the harvesting of energy but what about the energy needed to produce them?  As is written below, studies suggest that ethanol and solar are two the three worse forms of energy when measured on the ‘Energy Return on Energy Invested’ scale.  To put it simply, it looks like you have to spend a barrel of oil in energy to create enough ethanol to get a barrel of oil’s worth of energy.  Not a great investment…