Ethanol More Mean Than Green

Far from the solution to America’s energy crisis, corn ethanol is “one if the great political boondoggles of our time,” Rolling Stone says in a scathing broadside. The “dangerous” and “delusional” hype over the corn biofuel raises the price of food for the needy because it puts corn to work powering SUVs. And on top of that, ethanol isn’t even environmentally efficient.

Creating ethanol requires a major power input for relatively little payback. But politics and panic over dwindling oil supplies have transformed corn into a bulwark in the War on Terror. The piece argues that “energy crops,” including ethanols produced from wood and grasses, are the real answer to shaking off the yoke of oil and global warming, but warns nonetheless against "blind faith that technology will solve all our problems." (More ethanol stories.)