Rethinking Ethanol

I have in the past argued for ethanol (see The Kind of Car We Need, and More on the Kind of Car the US Needs) as part of move for plugin-hybrid cars. I still argue that we need plugin-hybrid cars, however I have re-thought the whole use of ethanol.
Corn prices have gone up more than the rate of inflation (we could largely get rid of inflation if we got rid of the Federal Reserve...who would wants to do that... oh yeah, Ron Paul, but I digress) do to the public and government's push for ethanol. The crazy thing is the government gives huge subsidies to farmers who grow corn of ethanol in addition to the normal farm subsidies (I could name somebody who wants to get rid of farm subsidies, despite being from a farm heavy area, but I already mentioned him, so I won't do it again ) and yet corn prices are out pacing inflation. The rising cost of corn, which is heavily used as feed, has forced other food prices to go up, especially meat. The overall cost of groceries is up, again up compared to inflation. Can all this increase in cost be attributed to just ethanol? No, but a good percent can, the rest of the increase (we are talking the amount over the rate of general inflation) is more a result of increasing fuel costs.
The demand for ethanol is leading to a shortage of corn for consumption as well. Not only this, but it is also leading to a shortage of other crops as farmers replace other crops with corn to keep up with the demand. Corn (and to a slightly less degree, soybeans, which is another source of ethanol) is a row crop contributing to soil erosion and water pollution. It takes large amounts of fertilizer (made from oil) and pesticides to grow. In the end it takes about 3 barrels of oil to produce 4 barrels of ethanol (it isn't clear if that statistic accounts for the oil used to make the fertilizer or not), so a net gain of only one barrel. The shortage of corn and other crops for consumer's tables means we are starving people to fuel our vehicles.
Ethanol can't be transported via pipelines like gas is, which means from beginning to end, it is sent via truck and rail, using more fuel and creating that much more pollution. (Again, my support of alternative fuels has little to do with the environment, though if they help, all the better, but more to do with removing our dependence on foreign oil.)
There are alternatives available, mostly in the form of bio-diesel. Not that bio-diesel 100% perfect since you are still often taking food/feed crops, or planting stuff in place of food/feed crops to get the plant mass for the bio-diesel. However, there is at least one plant available for bio-diesel production that require far less fertilizer and nearly no pesticides, hemp. The advantages of hemp are many. It can replace cotton (which uses nearly 50% of all pesticides used in the US, and hemp lasts far longer and is supposedly softer), it can be used to make paper cutting back on the need to deforest, it can replace soy in many cases (and is supposedly healthier and better tasting) and many other things, though bio-diesel, fabric, paper and food/beauty products would be the largest portion of hemp use. The big advantage of bio-diesel however comes from converting waste cooking oil into a clean burning fuel. Get some old cooking oil, and using your home distiller, you can get bio-diesel that can run in any diesel engine without conversion. With some conversion and good filtering, you can use the old cooking oil directly, but why convert the engine, add another gas tank and all the other modifications when you can just distill it easily enough? I shouldn't say you can use 100% bio-diesel with no conversion, you generally will have to modify some of the fuel lines to a higher quality line that won't dissolve as quick, but this is fairly cheap and easy from what I hear. This bio-diesel will actually make the car work better since it does a better job of lubricating the engine then conventional diesel (especially the newer ULSD diesel as the process used to remove the sulfur reduces the lubricating properties of the diesel).
In America at least, we tend to associate diesel with bad memories and images. The black smoke poring out of semi-trucks and buses. The old 70's and 80's cars that smelled bad, had loud knocking and the like. However, today's "clean" diesels have been improved a great deal. They are much cleaner than their old counterparts, even with conventional diesel fuel they are basically the same as gas, and with 100% bio-diesel much cleaner than gas. The sound issue has also been kept care of. There is nothing that should stop American's from embracing diesel now... outside of a shortage of ULSD which is needed to fill a 2007 and newer model... every diesel pump I see says you can't use it on a 2007 and newer vehicle. The shortage of ULSD will end soon though due to government mandates and market forces.
Here is an ad from Honda about their new diesel (it's a little old now as it was used in Europe where diesel is much more popular than here, and where it first appeared, the Honda diesel will be coming to the US soon):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXf5UUnLzwQ[/youtube]
Here is a game to go with the ad (another version from the game's developers which is nearly the same, a few more animations)
Coming from Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Jeep (Chrysler) and Volkswagen (among a few others) is Bluetec, a clean diesel technology that markets itself as the cleanest diesel in the world. Some of them will use an additive to make it 50 state compliant (many clean diesels don't qualify in California and a few other states) by adding urea to the emissions (you'll have the AdBlue refilled during regular services such as oil changes) or by using the engine itself to periodically to treat the NOx out of the converter.
GM has a 50 sate diesel coming for their light trucks, but no word on it for cars. I haven't heard about Ford's or Toyota's plans for 50 state diesels. I would guess Ford would be like GM and restrict it to its truck line. Toyota is supposedly making a diesel hybrid (if they would only make it a plug-in they would have a real winner), but no word on if it will be 50 state while the engine is running or not.
Well, I rambled on more than long enough.