The real reason ethanol won't—and can't—cut American oil imports. - By Robert Bryce - Slate Magazine

The punch line here is obvious: The corn ethanol scam cannot, has not, and will not significantly reduce overall oil use or significantly cut oil imports because it only replaces one segment of the crude-oil barrel. Furthermore, all the talk about "cellulosic ethanol," a substance that, in theory, can be profitably produced in commercial quantities from grass, wood chips, or other biomass, is largely misplaced because, like corn ethanol, it will only supplant gasoline.

Unless or until inventors can come up with a substance (or substances) that can replace all of the products that are refined from a barrel of crude oil—from gasoline to naphtha and diesel to asphalt—then the United States, along with every other country on the planet, is going to continue using oil as a primary energy source for decades to come. And that will be true no matter how much corn gets burned up in America's delusional quest for "energy independence."

LewRockwell.com Blog: Special Interests, Aggression, Power, and the State

...There is no acknowledgement that this may be bad for many, many people, not just the power plant owners. Also no acknowledgement that having power plants just sit around is wasteful in and of itself. All Americans rely on electricity, to the point that power outages cause enormous hardships. If money is not already going to green energy, that is because it is too costly. These costs get passed onto consumers, rich or poor, adding undue burden to the lives of Bookbinder's fellow citizens...