Article: "Honesty About Ethanol"

I read an article that raises some interesting points that I haven’t heard before on the topic of ethanol. The main question is if there should be a increase in the production of ethanol from 7 to 36 billion gallons. There are a couple factors that need to be considered with this increase in ethanol and corn production that goes with it. The benefits of ethanol have been that it burns much cleaner than gas making it what has been thought to be carbon neutral. It also has the benefit of creating jobs and refineries in the United States and helping with the dependency on foreign oil.
There are studies still being conducted showing that ethanol might not be as environmentally friendly as we thought. The main problem is that we haven come up with an equation factoring in the carbon created by turning food to fuel in the Corn Belt. There will need to be much more land needed to be tilled and cleared for increased production of corn. Also other places in the world will have to start farming on what is now untouched land to make up for the loss of corn production for food. We could be creating more carbon in a worldly scale if the increase in land and the methods of harvesting and refining ethanol are all taken into consideration. The article mentions how hard it is to get real answers from the media concerning anything that consider with the Bush administration and foreign oil production. The government could be using ethanol as an excuse to cut and clear more rainforrests or other protected lands for profit. I have heard that there are much more efficient crops to harvest for biofuel such as wheatgrass. Maybe one of them could be an answer to the over farming and production of corn and the harm it has on the environment.