Let me get this straight. It is contributing to rising food prices, is less efficient, and takes more energy to produce than it saves. What’s not to love about ethanol? How about this.

The nation’s drive toward alternative fuels carries a danger many communities have been to slow to recognize: Ethanol fires are harder to put out than gasoline ones and require a special type of firefighting foam.

[...]

Instead, the real danger involves the many tanker trucks and railcars that are rolling out of the Corn Belt with huge quantities of 85 or 95 percent ethanol and carrying it to parts of the country unaccustomed to dealing with it.

“Now, the most common hazardous material has a new twist to it,” said Mike Schultz, a firefighter who manned a foam gun during a recent blaze in Missouri.

[...]

Such fires require a special alcohol-resistant foam that relies on long-chain molecules known as polymers to smother the flames. Industry officials say the special foam costs about 30 percent more than the standard product, at around $90 to $115 for a five-gallon container.

So many people are in an all out rush to provide an energy answer that they fail to take time to examine just what their “answer” entails. Bio-fuels a great example of rushing to an answer before understanding all the consequences.