Sam Hopkins'  Instablog

U.S. corn ethanol's on the ropes.

The problems start with water.

That's because domestic corn-based ethanol requires between 3 and 4.2 gallons of water for each gallon of fuel output, depending on whose numbers you trust.

Of course, the domestic ethanol industry gives the more favorable 3-to-1 ratio. Other number crunchers—some of them paid by fossil fuel interests—say the amount of H2O it takes to produce the top American biofuel is too high to justify.

"We're definitely looking at something where the cure may be worse than the disease," said one representative of the industry group Ceres, whose research focus is highlighting the potential economic harm of transitioning to renewable energy.

The real problem, though, is that ethanol is a political "maybe" in an era of decisive and broad government initiatives. Why?

The answer is that, on a worldwide scale, U.S. ethanol is in a sort of confused adolescence. It's not a newborn anymore, but it's still far from full adulthood.

From 6.5 billion gallons in 2007, the U.S. ethanol industry churned out 9 billion gallons of the biofuel in 2008. That's 52% of the world's ethanol production, but still most American motorists aren't able to put ethanol in their tanks.

That's a huge disconnect. Fortunately there's a better alternative...