GH

Ethanol Growth Faces Tremendous Obstacles

The four points you quoted about ethanol's natural limitations are correct and present an interesting contrast with butanol, which is a different alcohol-family chemical that can just as easily be made from the same feedstocks as ethanol using similar processes or others (such as Fischer-Tropsch) that are well-established. Here are the four points, rewritten for butanol:
• has 95% of the energy content of gasoline (and generally produces more power and lower emissions in internal combustion engines due to more complete combustion)
• can be transported in any pipeline that can carry gasoline or oil
• can replace a gasoline grade point of sale with minor infrastructure changes (e.g. pump re-calibration)
• has (at this time) little support by car manufacturers

BP and DuPont are developing butanol biofuels. Competing against ethanol, given the 3 advantages listed above, my money is on butanol. Ethanol is a good MTBE replacement but a relatively poor fuel.

The Best Green ETF

In this realm, a green-oriented mutual fund has the potential to produce a better return than the ETFs, even after fees, because the manager is free to avoid the charlatans and bad ideas that are rampant (and will become more so, given stories like FSLR's) in this sector. I maintain my own portfolio of green companies and have no money in such a fund myself, but it seems like the topic would be good material for a follow-on article.