grain
something like a quarter of the us grain harvest is converted to ethanol. damn. this really doesn't seem like a good idea. or maybe it's brilliant. i'm not sure. ethanol from crops has been surging in recent years. grain prices worldwide have reflected the increase in demand. folks in some places are getting hungry. places where an authoritarian regime is doing things less efficiently than a free market would. hungry people are much more likely to do something radical. like overthrow their corrupt government. so maybe putting their food in my gas tank is a good idea cause it leads to democracy. hrm. course in a few years, they better have food in their bellies. or the world will be no better off than it was. which means less for our tanks.