and now Gawd is telling those involved in it to stop wasting what little water there is on such a foolish fuel. Why set the house on fire just to get warm, eh? And no, I don't care if Willie Nelson and Boeing are both fully engaged in promoting biofuels.

Thanks for posting.

Ethanol is a big hustle. It doesn't save fossil fuel energy, and using it in gasoline simply drives up the cost of food Worldwide. Let the industry try to stand on its own. Remove federal price supports and mandates for its use as a fuel additive. Current policies are only benefiting those who have invested in the production plants.

Perhaps we could move to hemp-based fuels?

We need food grains for food, not fuel for our SUVs. It's not like there's an over-abundance of corn World-wide.

As to hemp: Americans in the tens of millions already use it to fill-up and top off their tanks (if you get my meaning).

I can't wait until they make more of it out of hemp and yard waste.

We need to move to more sustainable feedstock for biofuels. Utilizing cellulose is cheaper, uses less water, and is more readily available. Ethanol from sugarcane and sugar beets is more efficient than corn. We should follow Brazil's model. They started using ethanol since the the oil crunch in the 70's and they have been better off.

A company called Coskata figured out a way to make ethanol from trash. They say it costs less than $1 to produce one gallon of their cellulose ethanol. That's what we need to be utilizing more. Sure, they are trying to maximize the efficiency of corn ethanol, but we can do much better.

Using a food crop to fuel your vehicle is obscenely wasteful.

can they switch to another crop that needs less water like soybeans?

"Industry experts don't expect a shortage — millions of barrels are stockpiled and the remaining 191 plants are still producing."

good they don't have a shortage, let's hope for a lot of winter blizzards to bring in plenty of frozen water.

It doesn't require much care as many other crops do. Not much need for fertilizer.

A very good feedstock.

... is a gigantic scam and anything that hurts the industry is just all right with me.