What about Ethanol

A sobering look at the miracle cure for oil: (as taken from MSNBC)

...What about ethanol, the supposed miracle fuel made from corn that President Bush has pushed as an alternative? It's kind of a bad joke. As a Deutsche Bank analyst pointed out recently, ethanol is the energy equivalent of "methadone" -- a palliative, not a cure. At present, ethanol requires huge tax subsidies to generate and transport, and the net savings of foreign energy dependence are negligible since corn, its feedstock, is farmed with oil-powered tractors and nourished with gas-based fertilizers and oil-based pesticides. Moreover, Deutsche notes that ethanol is 30% less fuel efficient than gasoline, which means that a car will travel only about two-thirds the distance on a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of gasoline.

In a situation when solutions are scant, it is easy to just fall back on the easy ploy and accuse service-station operators of price gouging. But that really misses the point. The independent station owner is almost as much of a victim as the consumer, as he faces escalating wholesale costs, rising credit card fees and the enmity of his customers.

-well Mr. Bush, thank you for your miracle cure.