Corn based Ethanol

This article here discusses corn-based ethanol and its various economic effects.
The basic concept is that corn based fuels are not cheap now and will only increase both in cost and other undesirable ripple effects.

One of the initial effects is that increased demand for corn has increased the price of corn which then effects consumers who purchase direct corn based products- tortillas, anyone?

Since corn is going up in price, more land will have corn planted on it, at the cost of other crops. These other crops will have a smaller harvest, so they too will increase in price.

Another effect is that livestock feed that is corn based is increasing in cost, so the end product- meat in the grocery store or at the restaurant will cost more as well.

The government is subsidizing the production of ethanol for a number of reasons- it gets farmer's votes, it is an attempt to address global warming, etc. A car trip last summer to Iowa, showed that ethanol is readily available at many gas stations.

The thing is that is takes a lot of energy to extract the energy from the crop. When it is added to gasoline it is a weaker source of power, so vehicles make less power and have less fuel efficiency (lower MPG). This also increases demand for more ethanol, (more corn) and has a similar effect on price.

An interesting conundrum. Petroleum based fuels are much more efficient for combustion based engines than ethanol blends. There are some other ethanol based products that are more efficient than corn- cellulosic and sugar based ethanol, but they are future alternatives at this time.

It is pretty evident that the solution is not more consumption with corn based alternate fuels, but more sensible use of fossil fuels until a real alternative fuel is found.