Pricey Ethanol Follies

And we just wasted billions on water-hog, energy-inefficient ethanol. Which will be looking for new handouts.

NY Times, "Ethanol, Just Recently a Savior, Is Struggling". God help us. They're not worried about the money, but about unmet mandates. Climate change hysteria will bankrupt us all:

“The ethanol industry is on its back despite the billions of dollars they have gotten in taxpayer assistance, and a guaranteed market,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy analyst at Rice University.

The NY Times is confused:

This is not how it was supposed to be when Congress mandated in 2007 that refiners blend increasing amounts of ethanol into the country’s transportation fuel supply.

Another brilliant Dem, Sen. Jeff Bingaman:

“There’s no doubt when we wrote that bill, we did not anticipate the recession we are currently sinking into,” he said. “Exactly what that requires us to do as far as changing the law, I am not clear on yet.”

What is clear is that we can ill afford to send more money down the ethanol hole. Even environmentalists view current corn-based ethanol production as harmful, and cellulosic ethanol remains on the far horizon:

Small, mostly private companies that go by names like Range Fuels, Poet and BlueFire Ethanol have built pilot plants and hope to move into commercial production. But private investment in advanced biofuels has plummeted since the economy went sour late last year, and it is unclear if the industry can scale up. “Cellulosic ethanol is something that is always five years away and five years later you get to the point where it’s still five years away,” said Aaron Brady, an energy expert at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.

Does this inspire poetry in you, the taxpayer? Enough of these ethanol follies.