Taking away our dependence from corn requires a different ethanol strategy. One way to go about this is to empower local communities to produce ethanol from the best available feedstock. I wrote a long article yesterday on the benefits of decentralizing, or "regionalizing" alternative energy as it relates to ethanol production. Cellulosic ethanol will most likely be the best bet for this.

The biggest hurdle the cellulosic ethanol producers face at the moment is the cost of the enzyme needed to breakdown the cellulose into a sugar. While everyone from private industry to the US govt is throwing money at these research projects, we have yet to hear how they are going. I posted last week on this topic specifically in the article, "Cellulosic Enzyme Cost Reduction is still a WIP".

Not only does this support the local economy, but it reduces the strain on major ethanol crops like corn.

I frequently write about the business side of alternative energy on: Energy Spin: Alternative Energy Blog for Investors-Served Daily

Cheers,
Francesco DeParis

Corn is takes too much energy to grow. It needs to be treated with weed killers, fertilizers, and sometimes irrigated. Hemp on the other hand could produce oil for fuel & fiber for paper. It doesn't need the labor involved with corn. pound per pound from an acre it will out perform corn.