Putting politics aside and the money hungry companies/speculators and environmentalists as well. I do not believe ethanol is the right or best answer to the air polution problem but what is?????
Corn grown for ethanol and not for human food or animal feed use is increasing and that will drive the price of non-etanaol corn related products up substantially even without oil and gas prices increasing. There are may problems fighting a fire with ethanol in the fuel as the foams used for years ..do not work now.
Oil supplies of crude oil from Saudi Arabia which is the main source "Sweet Lite Crude" and is the easiest and cheapest to refine into gasoline are dwindling. Not so much as you can see it now but the supplies are not finite as many may believe. Now China, India and other developing countries are vieing for more oil to fuel their new industries and the cars the populations are buying instead of using public, bike and motorbike/cycle transportation. the world is using more oil and we hear at the lake and elsewhere are seeing the result of that.
The US is not the biggest player or producer in the oil market today so we do pay for that at the pumps and elsewhere. We are no longer in control as we were in the 40's, 50's and 60's. Remember the 74 oil crisis ???? I do as I worked in a gas station then. Our biggest source of oil is now from Canada and I believe Venezuala for heating oil (at least for the eastern half of the US) and not the Middle East as it once was.
There are many alternative sources for getting oil but it is very expensive to do. So if you think gas prices are high now it could be worse sooner than later unless we do something sooner rather than later.
The History Channel has had 2 shows recently that address the problem with oil and give a good look at the history of oil and what is coming in our not to distant future if we do not do something to conserve and find alternative sources of energy soon.
They will be repeated in this month and are worth viewing.
Episode: Oil Apocalypse
http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=273137
Episode: Oil.
http://www.history.com/shows.do?acti...isodeId=276885