Moonshine over a thousand farms

“Fuel made from corn is produced right here. That’s biofuel for thought,” says a new ad from BP, the oil company now known as Beyond Petroleum.

As Peak Oil pushes up gasoline prices, America’s top biofuel, ethanol, can power our cars more cheaply, while enhancing U.S. energy security and helping the environment. But ethanol can only live up to its full promise if it is made by farmers instead of big corporations.

And that’s a very tall order because it bucks current trends that would simply replace Big Oil with Big Ethanol.

Washington has already committed billions of dollars in public subsidies to create an ethanol industry dominated by agriculture conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland.

Now, oil companies are getting into the game. Joining BP, which blended 575 million gallons of biofuels last year, Chevron announced last week that it was forming a division of its own to develop and market ethanol and biodiesel.

Augusta Free Press (Virginia)