I wonder, could the tariff be removed after the ethanol from corn subsidy is stopped?

As the Energy Blog and others have observed, it makes sense to stop the ethanol from corn subsidy coincident with availability of cellulosic ethanol, which compares more favorably in terms of energy balance.

Maintaining a tariff does seem foolish given Peak Oil and potential losses from the Middle East and Nigeria, plus greater demand from China and India.

It will be interesting to watch as the major agri-firms takes on the Seven Sisters, eh?

James, the difference in fuel efficiency between ethanol and MTBE is that your children won't be born deformed.

other than that, there isn't any difference that anyone will ever notice

as with any other system, we deal with trade-offs. solutions that improve one aspect of a system without making another part worse are desireable, but rare.

in this case, we trade the slightly higher fuel efficiency of MTBE for the lesser environmental problems of ethanol

if we only cared about MPG, we could easily achieve double or triple our current fuel efficiency.

we would drive 1 liter deisels, remove our catalytic converters, mufflers, airbags, structural reinforcement, radios, power steering, back seats, sound insulation, one of the wheels, use low rolling resistance tires (these decrease comfort and increase noise), use unpainted plastic body panels and run the vehicle in lean burn mode all of the time and never go over 80 km/hr

A 54 cents a gallon duty on imported 'clean burn' ethanol is the USA standard approach to Free World Trade. There is always a USA pressure group around to force that type of twisted unacceptable double protectionism attitude = (local farm subsidies + import duties on competition).

Wouldn't it make more sense to apply the same duty on imported 'dirty oil' to protect the 'poor' local Oil and Gas industries, reduce pollution and part of the high federal budget deficit.

How can a so-called democratic free country apply import duties on clean fuel and let dirty fuel equivalent come in free? Where will such twisted thinking go? Trade wars are often justified for less.

Dave: Does it have to come from USA to be green enough? Is corn ethanol (from USA corn) greener than sugar cane ethanol? (from Brazil or somewhere else) Is burning imported middle-East and triple dirty Alberta Oil greener than burning imported sugar cane ethanol?

According to American experts, USA would have to use up to 71% of its farm land to produce enough corn ethanol for the current fleet. Could 300+ million Americans survive on the remaining 29% of the land? Maybe, but .....much leaner.

In the long run, wouldn't it be better to switch to non-liquid fuel, such as plain old clean electricity from Hydro-Wind-Sun-Nuclear-Waves etc for our tansportation, industrial and home needs. Farm land could keep on feeding the world growing population.

Dave: Biofuels production, even if it could be very profitable, would sooner or latter be limited by the availaility of feedstocks and the world would soon be looking for other sources of energy to satisfy the growing needs. It would be, at best, a partial short term solution.

Clean Hydro, Wind, Solar and Wave energy is by nature more sustainable and is available in sufficient quantity in North America. It will be around for as long as the millions of us need it without unduly reducing farm production for future generations.

As motive energy, electricity is at least three to four times as efficient as current ICE using gasoline, diesel, ethanol or biofuels and certainly much cleaner.

Another important advantage is that the existing electrical grid/network could be used, with relatively moderate modifications, where and when required. Extended interconnected networks would increase availability of variable energy sources.

Why bother with the production and distribution of a multitude of liquid and gaseous fuels where electricity can do it more efficiently. Bi-directional, two hundred million, 52 KWh on-board batteries, could smooth out electrical grid power consumption and drive us where we want to go without imported polluting oil.

Where is our quest for more efficiency, lower cost, higher profits and cleaner air?

"You could think of corn ethanol as paving the way for more efficient biofuels, building out the flex fuel infrastructure, forcing carmakers to build FF vehicles and distributors around the country to start carrying biofuels. Then when more promising solutions like cellulosic ethanol come along, cars will be available and an infrastructure will be in place."

Finally, someone I can agree with! Sure, Hydro, wind, and solar are likely more sustainable over the long run, but then, we have this little issue of having virtually no pure electric cars to take advantage of it. Yes, it may become a bigger part of the energy picture ten years from now, but we cannot sit on our asses until then....the best way to phase this in is through plug-in hybrids.

If we can someone create an infrastructure that will give people this flexibility (plug-in flex-fuel cars), economics will surely prevail. If solar/hydro-electric is as efficient as it should be, it will win in the end. You'll see batteries get bigger and engines get smaller, until the need for the ICE is obviated altogether.

A couple of other posts have mentioned this, but BUTANOL certainly sounds like it has a ton of potential. I'm sure there are down sides that aren't being advertised though....