[melliedee]

On corn ethanol:

But the push to develop corn ethanol has a cost, and NRDC's Greene wonders if that's the wisest policy choice. "It's folly to do what we're doing today, which is mandating it, giving it multiple tax credits and still throwing other government subsidies at it," he said.

"We're bribing the market.... That's $5 billion a year that we could be using to help our farmers and help our industry get to the next generation of this stuff."

Lapola, looking at Brazil, notes some biofuels don't have the huge carbon footprint of sugarcane, soybean or corn. But so long as governments keep a sharp eye on land-use changes, he thinks biofuels make a good "workaround" for petroleum fuels.

"A workaround, but not a complete solution," he added. "The point is that from now on we need to evaluate more carefully our energy matrix to not incur in the same mistakes we made with petroleum."

Is Ethanol from Corn Bad for the Climate?: Scientific American