Dr. No

The Case Against Ethanol

Two thirds of Americans are overweight, one third is obese, worse than any other country. 70% of grain is used to generate animal protein at a 8:1 ratio. There is huge savings potential for grain in a better diet (ie avoiding cardivascular and metabolic diseases) by cutting meat intake. Also, Americans eat twice as much as they need per day - again huge savings potential right on your plate.
Finally, America is the biggest consumer of everything: energy, food.

Make the connection fatzo: eat less - drive more!

Pacific Ethanol: Juicy Details From Tuesday's 10-K

So much hearsay so little facts.

Issues with covenants and automatic defaults are serious because they indicate cash management issues on the slope to chapter 7/11.

However:
Brtitishsteel is wrong with the connection between corn for fuel and food prices. Food prices go up because of higher beef demand (eats corn) and oil prices (needed for fertilizer and tractors).

BM1087 should less believe in PR hype and go for a treasure hunt to find one (1 only!) succesfully operating cellulosic or gasification/FT type ethanol plant, checkback when you found it and good luck!

Questioncorn needs to figure out where cane is grown (savannah) and where the rain forest is (equator, not savannah). More geography in school could help.

Those concerned with high food prices should eat less meat. 70% of corn goes into burgers the conversion is 1:8 and as 2/3 of Americans are overweight and 1/3 is obese maybe they could shed their weight pass the fat on for biodiesel and lower transportation cost due to lower weight. Then, as in the US we produce and stuff twice as much food into ourselves than what we need, we could also be healthier by eating less and making that less available for fuel. Problem solved: Eat less - its good for you and your tank!

That said, the financial conduct of PEIX isn't very promissing and not understanding commodity risk is the death knell for ethanol plays.

Ethanol Update: Crush Spread Plunges, Bush Expresses Concern

Well if you think cellulosic ethanol all the way through, and consider that turning forested areas into agricultured will release tons of GHG (just read the two recent science papers in a biggr sense), is cellulosic ethanol from wood chips still such a great idea ???
Because as you turn the wood into ethanol your land needs to be dealt with and you all of sudden created agriculture, which is exactly what the science papers were attacking.

Cramer: "Ethanol Is a Fuel That Doesn't Work"

Cramer uses (as the author of this post) the ethanol tag word as a board to jump on a waggon. While there are issues with ethanol, rising oil prices (i.e. 100% from Feb 07 to Feb 08) have a much bigger impact on food and all living expenses than increased use of corn for ethanol. Run the numbers! (so the corn in a box of corn flakes is about 10c, how much does the box sell for ?)