The simple fact is that the Bush administration saw a political advantage in supporting ethanol, it allowed them to be seen to be doing something about the availability of fuel, and it subsidised the farmers, keeping the farm lobby happy and potentially clawing back some of the democrat congressional gains in the corn growing states.
I remember at the time Bush talking of "cellulosic" ethanol, this was just a red herring, many people having heard of this think that this is what they are producing in the USA it's not, they are using prime food crops and what they are doing with everything else I am not sure, but they are not making ethanol out of it.
I heard of one report, no doubt dismissed as lefty rhetoric by the Bush administration, That pointed out that if you made ethanol from only the freely available sugars available in corn, then the total amount of diesel fuel used in the collecting and distribution would exceed the total energy yield of the ethanol you can make, this is probably what is happening and makes a nonsence out of the whole thing, which is exactly what I would expect from Bush and his cronies.
rcw
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