Ethanol Pushers

If the industry continues to grow, fuel and food will soon start to compete for the same kernels. Stan Cox, a researcher at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, warns that even if the nation went hungry, farms could not produce enough corncobs to fill our gas tanks.

"Let's say the U.S. ends all grain exports and converts that to fuel," Cox proposes. "That would get us the equivalent of two gallons of gas per person per month. If we ourselves gave up eating food, turned all the grains and oil seeds we feed or eat into fuel, we'd get another two gallons a month. In addition, we could strip all remaining crop residues from the land and get another two gallons, maybe a bit more. That's six gallons of gas per month per head. But no food. And degraded soil."

Energy researchers say the way forward is cellulosic ethanol, made from a process that would use industrial-strength enzymes to break down the tougher materials in corn stalks, timber and hearty grasses. Nelson has worked with switchgrass for years and says the plant has a much lighter impact on the environment and more promise as a future fuel source. But even he doesn't promise that energy independence will sprout from America's cropland.

"A lot of scientific work needs to be done, and people realize corn isn't going to get us there," he says. "How far will cellulose get us? I don't know."

Cox has run the numbers, and he doesn't think that America's energy demands can be satisfied by switchgrass or any other crop.

"The amount of fuel we could produce within our borders on all of our cropland in a year would keep us going from New Year's to Labor Day," he says. "After that, we'd be walking."

Driving down the soggy dirt roads in his flex-fuel pickup, farmer Gene Millard acknowledges that ethanol will never replace gasoline as Americans' primary fuel: "We just use too much," he says.

Right now, the nation is gripped by an "irrational exuberance" when it comes to ethanol production, he cautions. Millard knows that the pendulum can swing both ways, so instead of cashing in on the current fervor by increasing their fuel production, Millard and his partners in Golden Triangle hope to differentiate their plant.

The wildly expanding ethanol market is set to flood the United States with 8 billion gallons by 2008. By then, Millard says, his facility plans to start pumping out 200-proof alcohol that has a wide range of industrial and commercial uses.

"Just look in your medicine cabinet," Millard says of the possibilities for Golden Triangle's alcohol expansion. "How about a little Scope?"

While the rest of the country banks on corn farmers to solve the fuel crisis, Missouri's pioneer ethanol plant will at least be poised to provide some relief if the ultimate reality is just too sobering.

"Vodka," Millard says with a slightly mischievous smile. "We're not going to sell vodka. But we could. We're permitted."