(Great Energy plan Bush, now small farmers and poor people get fucked over once again)
Ethanol proves to be the big letdown of 2007
By Joe Carroll and Mario Parker
Bloomberg News
Ethanol, the centerpiece of President Bush's plan to wean the U.S. from oil, is 2007's worst energy investment.
The corn-based fuel tumbled 57 percent from last year's record of $4.33 a gallon and drove crop prices to a 10-year high. Production in the U.S. tripled after Morgan Stanley, hedge fund firm D.E. Shaw & Co. and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla helped finance a building boom.
Even worse for investors and the Bush administration, energy experts contend ethanol isn't reducing oil demand. Scientists at Cornell University say making the fuel uses more energy than it creates, while the National Research Council warns ethanol production threatens scarce water supplies.
As oil nears $100 a barrel, ethanol markets are so depressed that distilleries are shutting from Iowa to Germany. An investor who put $10 million into ethanol on Dec. 31 now has $7.5 million, a loss of 25 percent. Florida and Georgia have banned sales during the summer, when the fuel may evaporate and create smog.
''I don't anticipate any sort of immediate rebound,'' says Barry Frazier, the 50-year-old president of Center Ethanol LLC in suburban St. Louis. ''It's going to take 12 to 24 months before the market is able to absorb the large amount of new capacity.'' LINK