[jluetjen]

Actually, the trick is to get ethanol from non-food sources. The problem is that corn's high sugar content makes it relatively easy to distill ethanol. National Geographic had a interesting article on this in the October issue. Right now it takes 1 energy unit of fossil fuel to make 1.3 energy units of corn ethanol. Sugar cane on the other hand (largely due to Brazil's efforts to improve the efficiency of this source) creates 8 energy units of output from 1 energy unit of fossil fuel input.

Depending on the production method, cellulosic ethanol from Switchgrass, agricultural leftovers like corn husks, or forestry wastes like wook chips and bark would produce between 2 and 36 energy units of output for 1 energy unit of fossil fuel input. Algae (aka: Pond Scum) can also be another excellent source. The challenge is that the process hasn't been routinely productionized, nor has the infrastructure (such as refineries) been put in place to support it.