Alcohol binge leaves nasty hang-over

This isn't the usual dry-mouth, aching head, nausea beyond weltschmerz kind of hangover, this one is going to be financial. Lost jobs. Plants shutdown. The kind of thing we expect everywhere at any time in this current phase. It's not drinking that's the trouble among humans this time, but still it's ethanol. We have too much of it for our own good. It's the same C2H5OH that makes wine and whiskey a common craving, but when it fuels inanimate objects it has stiff competition from gasoline, diesel fuel and electricity.

Another Nebraska ethanol plant closed down this week. The state is among the leaders for ethanol plants closed. For the ghoulish among us, here's a death map of shuttered ethanol plants. Some shut plants are NOT in the Midwest.

By the end of 2008 corn prices had fallen to about one-third of what they'd been in June, the high mark. So what's the problem? It appears to be the usual whamo: falling gasoline prices making ethanol even less competitive, inability to get loans to continue production at a loss, over-production of ethanol even if you can sell it.

Still the current version of the Department of Energy has plans to grant lots of money for the construction of new ethanol plants. One more exciting issue for the next Energy Secretary.

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