That's a dodge.

Ethanol is only going to be beneficial if it is done on a minimal scale.  You would get far more energy out of the corn if you just burned it to heat a home.  Ethanol production just concentrates the energy in the corn plant into an energy dense liquid fuel, but because of effiency losses at each step of the process, there is far less available energy at the end.  There are situations where this loss would be acceptable because of a need for an energy dense fuel (life flight helicopters for example).  But the environmental costs of growing so much grain, the food vs. fuel problem, etc. make it really hard to justify its use to just to continue the easy motoring lifestyle.  

Question then to you:

If we use all our tillable land for ethanol crops then how can
ADM continue to be 'The supermarket to the world.'?  or whatever inane slogan of theirs they once used with flying ears of corn or whatever , as a 'proud' sponsor of PBS.

If we have then cut off most grain exports to the rest of the world, causing panic, economic chaos there, rapid rises in the cost of basic foodstuffs, loss of aquifer storage levels, yada...yada,.....

...then tell me how YOU would ascertain the real cost of ethanol production? I would like to know the answer.

Right now many ethanol plants are being built as well as biodiesel , very close to my part of the country. In fact two are starting groundbreaking very soon and most if not all of our grains will be shunted to them instead of the barges and railroad cars.

What then? Peak Food I suppose.

airdale -- Note the lack of graphs. This is something that can be graphed, IMO. You just have to drive the farming countryside and look out the window. Maybe the bootheel of Missouri would give one a big wakeup call. Watch out for the irrigators.