Is ethanol doing more harm than good?

I think Ethanol is a total load of garbage. the ONLY benefit that it has is that we produce it here. That means we might some day be able to produce all of our own fuel and stop relying on the middle east. It's also renewable, meaning that we can never "run out" of it, we just keep making more.

That being said, I don't think it does anything to help the environment. The reasons for producing E85 are political.

Of all the crops on earth to produce, corn is among the worst on soil. Cranking up crop production just to add more ozone to the atmosphere is just plain wrong.

We have ample access to methane (better known as natural gas), which is a far healthier choice since we need to keep our automobiles fueled.

I agree that ethanol production is a political compromise that only benefits ADM and other industrial scale farm operations.

Consumer Report did a test on a Tahoe and the conclusion is that with E85 they got 27% less mileage than with regular gas. Which even though E85 costs a little less, just means you have to buy more to go the same distance. So based on that, that would be about the same as gas costing over $4.00 per gallon.

While we need to shake off the need for imported oil, alcohol from corn is not a good place to start.

Development of more efficient automobiles and other vehicles would go a long way towards resolving the need for pollution and consumption problems.

No no matter what the pollution effects of ethanol it is still coming from Iowa insteda of Iraq.