Ethanol’s drawbacks
Worried about America’s addiction to foreign oil, President George W. Bush is pushing home-made moonshine instead.
The biofuel industry is set to motor on, with backing from its congressional and corporate friends despite its six biggest public companies having lost more than $8.7bn in market value in the past three years alone
The likes of Microsoft’s Bill Gates are sitting on billions of dollars in losses after buying into the corn-based ethanol industry that George W. Bush embraced as the answer to US energy woes
Billed as a solution to farm finances, air pollution and US oil security all at once, corn ethanol has instead undergone a rapid boom and bust
Track the mix of politics and business interests that led to a boom in ethanol investment which burnt some savvy investors
Audio slideshow: How the biofuel transformed the fortunes of the Midwest
Worried about America’s addiction to foreign oil, President George W. Bush is pushing home-made moonshine instead.

The US and Europe could open their markets to more ethanol from Brazil, where the impact on agriculture would be small, writes Ed Crooks