Corn-Based Ethanol Losing Steam As Biofuel Of Choice

By LOREN STEFFY
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle


BP, the oil patch's self-proclaimed king of green, says it sells more ethanol than anybody. But it doesn't produce a drop.

And it doesn't plan to.

"We're not in the ethanol production business," BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, told me last week. "What we'd like to do is get to the next generation of biofuels."

BP blends ethanol as an additive in its gasoline and is embarking on a program to sell E85 ethanol (an alternative fuel that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline) through many of its stations in the Midwest.

Houston Chronicle, June 19

But it doesn't see ethanol as the answer to the alternative fuel question.

Corn-based ethanol, which the government touts as the best substitute for gasoline, may already be losing its luster as a fuel of the future. Increasingly skeptical reports question its efficiency, energy output, emissions and economics.