Ah, the Genetic Modification bogeyman comes to the 'green' world! Talk about politically and emotionally conflicted!

I'm scratching my head over some of this article anyway. It has long been known that corn and soybean are both poor sources of ethanol (compared to, say, sugar cane). Corn, in particular, doesn't seem to be good for much of anything, except making meat animals grow obese rapidly (works on humans, too).

"Other issues like growing biofuels without the use of fossil energy (e.g., gasoline powered tractors, etc.) and toxic fertilizers need to be addressed as well."

Yeah, dinofuel is CHEAPER, and that's why it's used in the production of ethanol (DOH!). As for toxic fertilizers -- just how is the anti-toxic-fertilizer bunch going to go for Genetic Modification? I wonder sometimes if being "green" is a mental disability, especially after reading articles like this one.

One way to get some clarity in this issue would be to stop the subsidies and let the true economics of alternative fuels show through. I think that without subsidies, biodiesel would be the clear winner.

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Basically what Howard said.

Drop all the subsidies and tariffs. Let us import Ethanol from whoever can make it the cheapest (probably Brazil). I actuallly get so upset when I see with link between Ethanol and American Corn growing farmers. That link hurts the world in 3 ways

1) It makes us have to pay more for lesser yielding crops and support random farmers who we don't want to. Message to American farmers, stop sucking up our tax dollars. We want to pay less for farm products and don't care if they come from abroad. There are certain jobs that our economy is just bound to shed, and small family owned farms should have died along time ago

2) We have an opportunity to lift millions of people out of poverty worldwide by buying their CHEAPER goods which we want. Instead we put tarrifs on them and then subsidize our own goods.

3) Because all of these damn countries are poor (and we deny them their one chance of making money [farm goods], we have to pay billions of international aid a year which further increases our taxes.

Just drop the subsidies and tarrifs for gods sake.

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Howard,
You say that "One way to get some clarity in this issue would be to stop the subsidies and let the true economics of alternative fuels show through. I think that without subsidies, biodiesel would be the clear winner."

Since soybeans are used in the production of most biodiesel, are there not the same problems with biodiesel as with ethanol? Such as a majority of the soybean crops being transgenic and require gasoline powered tractors.

Agriculture subsidies are ridiculous in the U.S., but ingredients for biodiesel are also subsidized and they are also genetically modified. I do like the idea of more soybean production to decrease the need for nitrogen fertilizers. Although, there are other ways to address the issue of eutrophication and the use of fertilizers.

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I agree with Howard.

Biodiesel is the way to go, you can use it in the current generation tractors with little if any modification and there is a net gain in energy produced (unlike ethanol).

I wish that America would get their head out of their asses and see the benefit of diesel automobiles for a short term solution of the foreign oil issue. Forget ethanol, it is only a boon to the mega-AG companies with lots of lobbying power and the car companies trying to meet cafe, it has no real world value in America (unless you want to destroy the wetlands to grow sugarcane). The only reason that ethanol has caught any traction is because the large AG companies have pu$hed it, the car companies see it as a loophole, the isolationist want it to be the “imported oil replacement” and the greenies have believed that it is better for the environment (and the president pushed it in his state of the union speech). It is a cash cow/loophole for big business and the rest of us have been fooled by out emotions. Wake up America!

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Brad -- Soybeans are almost as lousy a source of biodiesel as corn is for ethanol. In fact, corn is almost as good a biodiesel source as soybean.

Just because most biodiesel is derived from soybeans doesn't make soybean oil the best source. There are over a dozen plant oil sources that are better, both in terms of yield/acre and economics. One such source is a variety of algae, which is the best source that I have seen so far.

In order to examine the economics of soybean biodiesel, you have to also look at uses for the leftover soybean meal. Regardless, I am not a fan of the soybean.

I don't know if there is any use for whatever is left over after the oil is extracted from algae, but there is likely to be something it can be economically used for...

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