DRIVING AWAY FROM CORN-BASED ETHANOL
President Bush has made a surprising call to eliminate a two decade long tariff on ethanol produced from sugarcane in Brazil.  Sugarcane produces eight times more energy per pound than corn, making U.S.  corn-based ethanol appear to be irrational and inefficient. But according to Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, a biofuel trade organization, competition in the global marketplace will only create demands for U.S. farmers to generate biofuels more efficiently.  A potential competitor to sugarcane ethanol is cellulosic ethanol, derived from switch grass and farm waste. "No threat. It's an opportunity," Shaw said. "We are in Iowa. All you see is cellulose."  Meanwhile, Archer Daniels Midland, one of the most powerful corporate agribusiness lobbyists in Washington, continues to successfully push Congress to approve subsidizing the less efficient corn-based ethanol with billions of dollars of taxpayer money. Some studies have estimated that in order to replace all U.S. oil imports with domestically produced corn ethanol, as much as five times the entire area currently farmed for all crops in the U.S. would be needed. 
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_661.cfm