Is it time to place a moritorium on the sale of corn to ethanol producers?

[Purveyor]

We have seen the devastating floods in the midwest destroying acre upon acre of planted farm land.

Now we are reading reports of how the high grain prices will only go yet higher and cause our grocery prices to skyrocket.

The figures are in and most demonstrate that corn-to-ethanol is not an energy efficient way to produce the ethanol so I ask...

"Is it time to place a moritorium on the sale of corn to ethanol producers"?

[AndyTiedye]

1. Remove the Sugar Tariff and Go Back to Sugar in Our Soft Drinks

There is a shortage of corn. There isn't any shortage of sugar.

[Wapsie B]

2. And use sugar cane for the ethanol.

Brazil does and does quite nicely.

[elocs]

3. Sugar cane probably grows a little better in Brazil than it does here.

Plus, I think I have read that some of the rainforest in Brazil has been cleared to plant more sugar cane. One of ethanol's biggest problems: finding enough acres of land to grow whatever is used to make the ethanol to make an appreciable difference. Hungry people and those paying too much for food generally prefer crops be used for internal consumption rather than external combustion.

[NYC_SKP]

4. End all subsidies and let Ethanol die a natural death.

Accelerate research on use of other non-food biomass such as switchgrass and cellulosic ethanol.

[Donnachaidh]

5. not gonna happen. Obama's already being courted by the ethanol crowd

see here -- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3363448

He's going to be looking to keep these guys going, now that he's big buds with Daschle and the ethanol companies.