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By now I should know better than to reply to ethanol posts, but here I go again. First, common sense tells me that's it's pretty difficult to produce ethanol from corn and get a net energy gain. There are studies from both camps claiming either a net loss or net gain. So it's a matter of who you believe is the bigger liar. Note that big business and government interests on either side of the argument stand to gain or lose depending on the outcome. Since I can't trust either side to tell the truth, I fall back on first three laws of thermodynamics, which say there ain't no free lunch. Even if you can get a net energy gain from corn-based ethanol, the reality is that agriculture today is heavily dependent on petroleum: Petroleum is what we use not only to fuel our tractors, it generates a significant percentage of the electric power in the country. Also, fertilizer production is dependent on petroleum, not to mention plastics, lubricants, etc. Don't forget that the cropland in the midwest is being gobbled up by development, so much of the corn is this country is grown on poor soil in places where irrigation is required. Anyway, my point is, even if you do get a net gain from ethanol production, you're going to use up a lot of scarce petroleum in the process. Does this really make sense? One last comment. I don't think it's entirely reasonable to compare Brazil and the US. Brazil has plenty of rainfall, and when they need more farmground they just burn another million acres of rain forest.
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