This very long article on energy delves into a lot of detail, and among the information provided is yet another analysis that indicates the conversion of corn into ethanol uses almost as much energy as it produces. There is a lot of debate about this issue, and I am not an expert, but I suspect that anything that reduces our dependence on foreign sources of crude oil is probably a good thing. Many ethanol conversion processes are either looking at or already using alternative energy sources for the heat required for the conversion process, and burning biomass (plentiful in rural areas) is one of them. When studying these debates about the efficiency of ethanol conversion, it is important to remember that while it may be true that it takes almost a gallon of oil to produce a gallon of ethanol, most ethanol producers know that is not an efficient or effective way to fuel the conversion process.
But the most interesting bit of information is farther down the page, in a sub-section titled "How does this relate to oil again?" Here the author notes that if we all drove cars that could be recharged from the electric grid, and if those cars had a minimum range of 60 miles before needing to turn on the conventional engine to recharge the batteries, we could reduce our demand for liquid vehicle fuels by 80%. I do not know if this is correct, but it sounds about right, since most of us drive less than forty miles a day in our cars.
The implications of this are enormous. It means the the "energy crisis" could be met head on and very quickly just by switching to electric cars. Along with the reduction in liquid fuel use, it also means much less air pollution. But that scenario also leads to other questions. Is our current national electric grid up to the task of charging all those electric cars? And who will recycle all those batteries when they wear out? It also means most gas stations would go out of business.
There are a lot of business opportunities buried in the last paragraph. And communities that look ahead and prepare to adapt to an Energy Economy driven by electric vehicles could enjoy above average growth.