Stop with the push for ethanol production, already. Over a year ago, reports indicated that only a small percentage of corn yields could go into ethanol without impacting prices in food markets. Certainly I wasn't the only one who heard those reports?!

Back in April, Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, issued a cautionary note about ethanol's impact on food prices:

Demand for ethanol and other biofuels is a "significant contributor" to soaring food prices around the world, World Bank President Robert Zoellick says. Droughts, financial market speculators and increased demand for food have also helped create "a perfect storm" that has boosted those prices, he says.

Before that, reports from reputable scientists began to express conflicting concerns that the benefits from ethanol use were outstripped, however slightly, by the cost of production.

August 6, 2001 -- "Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what one Cornell University agricultural scientist calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces."

Not that it costs less to produce , but it produces less energy.

While at the same time, agricultural economists reported that only a slight increase in diversion of corn into buifuel production could be tolerated before we began seeing impact on food costs as farmers vied to get their corn into more lucrative biofuel production. Now NPR, reports that we are in that "perfect storm" where exactly this scenario is playing itself out.

High Corn Prices Cast Shadow Over Ethanol Plants - A rush to cash in on ethanol has slowed as soaring corn prices squeeze profit margins for producers of the alternative fuel. At a recent high of $7 per bushel (Lalita: Last year, it was about two bucks and change), the corn used to make ethanol has tripled in price since many plants were built two years ago.

Hope Mr. Daniels is paying attention. On another note, I still am unsure about why we need to use fresh corn oil for biodiesel when the waste stream is being filled with waste oil from cooking (particularly from fast food restaurants).

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