There are high hopes and lots of claims for this suddenly popular liquid.

They range from already-proven usefulness as a fuel additive (it makes up 10% to 15% of almost every gallon of gasoline you buy) to a good many over-the-top supporters who suggest ethanol to be the absolute 100 % stand-alone fuel of the future.

The reality is that the efficacy story of ethanol is still evolving and it can be truly said that the extent of its long term viability in America is not yet firmly settled.

To begin with, there is lack of agreement in how to even measure the actual cost of planting, growing and harvesting of corn, or any other of the various crops or ingredients--barley, sugar cane, switch grass, algae, etc.- which are current being used or tested for use to produce ethanol. There is further disagreement as to which possible production processes will be most viable. As this is written, new techniques of production are in experimental stages while some existing methods are actually being improved.

Simply stated, it's a plethora of moving targets and there is no consensus. There may never be a single winning process. Maybe there doesn't have to be.

Meanwhile battle lines are already drawn and the government is beginning to come to grips with deeply entrenched arguments and assumptions and powerful commitments on the part of vested interests on each side. Opponents of ethanol cite such arguments as its corrosive nature which makes it expensive to transport and store and that usage in gasoline in amounts higher than 10 percent will harm many existing automobile engines not to mention those of boats, farming, or even hand-held power equipment. Proponents, on the other hand, point out that ethanol would be an American product and despite production problems or costs it will enhance American employment, reduce dependence on imported oil and the outflow of dollars. Corn presently is the most widely chosen ingredient in the US and all of the corn growing states and allied industries support it, some seemingly almost blindly.

Further there has not been a thorough examination of such considerations as how to mitigate or even regulate potential over planting, or of possible destruction of agricultural lands and water resources or even the adverse climate results that vast ethanol production from corn has sometimes been said to create.

In the end America will need to cope with complexities in its grand movement towards the adoption of ethanol beginning with the realization that not all the problems have been attended to.

Welcome to the roller-coaster world of Ethanol.

It's going to be quite a ride.

Energy 101: A brief glimpse of the larger picture.

In the last century-and-a-half only five energy sources have become truly dominant. They are petroleum, coal, natural gas, hydro, and nuclear.

There are, of course, numerous other energy sources. You and I can name many of them and there are undoubtedly scholars who might name all of them. (Wikipedia lists 127 at my latest count.) But these other sources are really only niche players. By this I do not mean they're unimportant to their users but they are not large in their contribution to energy on a worldwide basis.

So accept the fact that, today, in both developed and emerging civilizations, the world lives on energy generated primarily by the big five. And though they differ widely in their respective properties all except hydro share one commonality. They are dependent on extractions from the earth.

Ethanol is different. It is made from renewable ingredients. And it holds its promise to become a major addition to gasoline (thereby lowering the consumption of petroleum) partly because three of the five energy behemoths are beginning to confront relatively new and quite serious dilemmas.

With petroleum, there's the realization that it, truly the most useful of the energy sources, is not only becoming more difficult to find, but when found it is at depths and in areas that make it hugely expensive to extract. This is, of course, the "Peak Oil" conundrum we are reading more and more about.

With coal, there's a growing concern that its continued use (acknowledging, of course, its advantages of being relatively plentiful, inexpensive to extract, and demonstrably useful) will eventually prove damaging to the environment, causing pollution and climate change. Efforts to mitigate this (sequestering, other "clean coal" technologies,) have so far proven neither effective nor scalable.

Finally, with natural gas, the new technique for its extraction from certain shale rock formations (called "fracking") has, at least in many cases, required a process and chemicals that have contaminated underground water sources and some studies say the extraction process will also seriously deplete the nation's water supply. Costs, too, lately have been questioned.

Hydro and nuclear do not have serious new problems although there is a lingering public fear of safety with nuclear and with hydro there are just not many large water flows left to dam.

Further it should be recognized that three of these five resources, coal, nuclear, and hydro, are useful only for power generation-not transportation. And a fourth, natural gas, though it presently fuels some transportation its use falls far behind petroleum.

So ethanol, (or perhaps a similar form from its biofuel family) now has its best chance to reach the big time. It would be combined with gasoline to dilute and thus extend the life of the world's petroleum.

It is not the purpose here to describe these energy realities in detail. There are terrific web sites which can provide you with authoritative information. Try reading for example, www.theoildrum.com or www.energybulletin.net or you can Google many others.

You must also consider that power generation, in fact, may one day be combined in a larger scale with battery technology to become an added source for transportation energy. And, in turn, the power generation sources may be enhanced in the future with the addition of solar and wind.

Ethanol will have to fight to find its place.

* * *

Afterthought.

As the future edges nearer countries will make their own critical choices as to which mix of energy sources will best fuel their future needs. As they do this some sources may be diminished or even gradually discarded.

There will be energy winners and losers. And so in an economic measure there will be winner and loser countries, too, depending the quality of their choices.

One would hope a nation's energy choices would be made rationally and expertly based on such factors as availability, access, and cost, as well considerations of benefits derived from advancing technologies and hopefully, with some consideration of environmental concerns.

It may not be easy to transition to new energy sources in America. The country has never had an energy policy. Its society is increasingly dissatisfied, bitter, and polarized. There is little recent history of cooperation or compromise. Short term thinking seems to trump vision. There is already resistance to change or even consideration of change on the part of entrenched special interests and their lobbyists, captive legislators and in some cases, even a biased, over corporate-friendly media.

Will America make the right choices? Will other countries leave us behind? It will take a while but we will eventually know.

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