Interesting post from Kevin Drum on the changing landscape on ethanol, methanol etc. Every time I’ve done my homework on ethanol, I’ve come away convinced it’s a boondoggle and government moonshine. But I keep hearing the technology’s changing and that maybe this isn’t the case anymore. I need to do more homework, but as a general proposition I think ethanol would be great if it worked. Who wouldn’t want to grow their own gasoline?

Of course, even if it worked — a point I remain very skeptical about — who wants to take bets that some environmentalists will immediately start complaining about it? I’m not sure what they’ll say, but one point might be that it removes wild land from the environment. America’s been converting its farmland back to forest for a while. That’s a good thing if you ask me. But if we grow all our own fuel, that trend might reverse. Or maybe they’ll complain about bioengineered switchgrass. Who knows? All I know is it will be something.