Comments on: Beware the allure of ethanol investing

Ethanol investing is full of minefields, and despite ethanol becoming a major source of US fuel supply, that has not translated into gains for the ethanol investors.

[JMoore1984]

If I could, I'd be investing in Algae

[artie V]

You've forgotten to mention the rollercoaster called SunOpta (STKL). Been riding that rollercoaster for a while now. The core business unit is in organic food, but they also have legitimate operations and alleged patents granted for cellulosic ethanol production. If cellulosic ever comes around, it'll be good stuff. But for now, I'm banking on either expensive battery powered cars, new gen diesel engines, or further fetched hydrogen tech.

[lingsun]

Ethanol is an incredible waste of money. It shouldn't be subsidized. It should be imported from Brazil. It makes no energy sense to produce it in the U.S. Why waste fuel for tractors to grow corn to ferment it to burn it for fuel? Burn energy to burn corn? That's stupid. It's also making food prices a lot higher. There are poor people around the world that are starving partly because ethanol has made their food too expensive. It's also directly raised food prices in the U.S.

[123omg]

Also it kills the rain forest-Brazilians are eliminating the rain forest to make way for sugarcane and soybean crops. That releases an enormous amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. Ting sun is correct too...The food prices to us is just a burden, but to developing countries it means riots and death.

[billmosby]

A study from Iowa State shows that gas prices are "way lower" than they would have been without corn ethanol? Big surprise. By the way, a 40 to 60 cent per gallon decrease does not qualify as "way lower". Sure, it's not impacting food prices much now. How about when the goal of 5 or 6 times as much is being produced? Maybe that's why the link said that aspect is "a topic for another day". It should be a topic for today, while we can still kill the ethanol monster before it starves all but the ethanol sheiks out.

[pjk0]

Corn-based ethanol is a defective product sold to an unwitting public by the massively powerful US corn lobby. Corn is a really bad source for ethanol for a variety of reasons (some stated by earlier commenters), but since the US passed a law barring sugar cane sourced ethanol from being imported to the US, we're stuck with this nonsense right now.

The whole world will abandon this - including sugar-cane sourced ethanol - as soon as people wake up and realize how dumb it is. Meanwhile, the speculators have the last laugh..

[suyts]

Why don't we let corn be a food source and just drill more oil. We import 750 million barrels of oil each year. There is an estimated 86 BILLION barrels off the coast of Florida alone. Coastal Florida could solve our oil import difficulty for over 100 years, open some refineries and the immediate problem goes away. This would allow us time to mature industries and technologies that allow for alternative fuel sources. Kind of a no brainer. Cheap oil, cheap fuel, energy independence, less stress on the food prices and increased employment in the U.S. Naw, we don't want to do that. I know, let's take food out of the out of the food supply and make a less efficient fuel with it. I don't buy the "ethanol = cheaper gas prices" either. It takes almost 1/2 bushel of corn to make a gallon of fuel. Corn is trading over $6/bushel. So, before any transportation or processing or refining, ethanol is coming in at about $3/gal. at about 85% efficiency How is that going to drive the price of gas lower? It doesn't..

[rickolano]

Corn ethanol is a diversion away from far better alternatives.