While some crops are superior to others and forest eating cellulostic ethanol technology scams are still in development, corn ethanol primacy is devouring the nation's alternative energy focus. Billions of taxpayer dollars are being thrown into this unsustainable technology and we subsidize each gallon of auto alcohol to the tune of 51 cents per gallon. The ethanol fumes are leaving us drunk on delusion, ignoring the consequences and refusing to face the future when the oil dries up.

To grow enough corn for ethanol to replace our oil addiction would require approximately 482 million acres of cropland, exceeding the current total of 434 million acres of cropland used for all food and fiber. This does not even account for projected growth of oil consumption in the U.S. There is already the push to put the marginal Conservation Reserve Program lands, vital for wildlife and water quality and quantity, into intense energy crop production.

Old school ethical farmers in the corn belt are already lamenting the destruction of soil saving windbreaks, some planted during the CCC years, the plowing under of hayfields to corn, highly erodable hilly lands being put into corn, and water drainages being reduced, hearkening back to the depression era insanity that squandered so much vital topsoil. Cellulostic ethanol scams will fare even worse for the soils as "residues" are scooped up, leaving virtually nothing to feed back to the soil.

this is what I mean by interrupting the nutrient and hydro cycles.

In the rush to burn our nation's dwindling soil resources, corn is king. Corn devours soil nutrients at 12-20 times the rate of soil renewal, meaning it is already a highly unsustainable crop. Corn is also highly dependent on fossil fuel based fertilizer and pesticide inputs. With the inevitable hybridization and Genetically Modified Organism corn crops, the soil nutrient depletion will accelerate. The Corn Cartel, led by the likes of Archer Daniels Midland and Monsanto, have been working for decades on their plans for corn dominion over the U.S. and are now reaping record profits and subsidies.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, in addition to the land ethics meltdown, prime farmland prices have soared, rents have become prohibitive to all but the largest agribusiness operations, and again, the small farmers, the backbone, are being winnowed out like so much chaff. Seed, fuel and fertilizer costs are rising to meet the increased profit per bushel and farmers find themselves back on that familiar treadmill, the promise falling short as it always has.

In a land already plagued with poisoned groundwater, the incidence of atrazine and other poisons will only become more pervasive. Aquifers, already drained faster than recharge will only dry up faster in direct proportion to our ethanol consumption. It takes around 8,000 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol from corn and each gallon of it leaves eight gallons of toxic waste sludge. Even in the land of 10,000 Lakes, Minnesota is experiencing water shortages from the ethanol production explosion. With 99% of corn production under intensive fossil fuel nitrogen fertilization regimes, there is a directly proportionate resulting contamination of surface and groundwater and growth of the dead zones where our rivers drain.

Anglo/Euros laugh, or sneer, at the "sacred cow" in Hindu tradition.  "with people going hungry, why don't they eat the cows?" is often the reflexive thought of the western observer -- followed by "jeez those people must be dumb."

watch us feed our soil to our Sacred Cars... while people go hungry.

who's laughing now?

and the cars aren't even, in an emergency, edible.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...