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Remember when Obama won the Iowa caucus due to his supporting ethanol industry? According to NY Times,this factor definitely put Obama in the winning circle. Also, Obama recently nominated the ex-governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack to be the Secretary of Agriculture.

He recently recommended increasing the percentage of ethanol in gasoline, supposedly very easy to achieve. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to achieve. According to Solve climate.com, the biggest problem with depending on ethanol, is the huge amount of water that it takes to grow the corn. According to the Economist, when an ethanol plant was built in Tampa, it put in a request for 400,000 gallons of water/day. Florida is already “tapped out.”

The greatest danger to the underground water supply (aquifier) is over-pumping, as in the example I just cited. In order to produce one gallon of ethanol, you must use 1100-1500 gallons of water. Some citizens have gone to court to stop ethanol plants from being built (Missouri). One other problem is that corn is then unavailable as a source of food. As the ad says below: Corn Is Food Not Fuel sarcastic ethanol slogan. Using corn for bio-fuel is wasteful, short-sighted and causes food shortages. Fight world hunger, don’t waste your food! Original sayings by SarcasticInc.” Sandra Case, also argues that ethanol is terribly inefficient, so much so that farmers don’t even use it to fuel their own ethanol production. It also doesn’t help with the world’s starvation problem.

There is, however, a process whereby water, simple H2O, can be converted to fuel for cars and it only requires a simple alteration of your engine. Why isn’t the government researching this? Well, no one owns stock in water.

However, as we know, there is very little rational thought going on in this administration
and most of the financial decisions seem to be being made with payback considerations.
Possibly that is why George Soros has increased his stocks in Brazilian owned ethanol company: according to Market watch, he now owns 900 million in Brazilian ethanol stock. Is it a coincidence that the first Latin American president to visit Obama is Brazilian Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva?

However, the Spectator in London has reported that General Petraeus has accepted the invitation to give the commencement address at the University of Iowa for 2010, fueling speculation that he may make a run for the Presidency himself.