re: I'm feeling guilty over this...

Man, there is no guilt necessary, there is another way. I write this post from Brazil....I work in the biofuels industry. Specifically, I work on the harvest side of things. 30 Years ago, Brazil decided to be energy independant and today, most of their fuel comes from ethanol from sugarcane, biodiesel from soybeans, and the oil that they need comes domestically offshore production.

I can guarantee you that we can do the same in the US. We need to forget about corn ethanol for a moment and look at other crops. We are doing this today. The technology for cellulosic ethanol is finally about where it needs to be. This technology is energy balance positive now and is certainly the way for us to go.

It just sucks that we most likely had to witness something like the Horizon disaster to kick us all into gear like Brazil did 30 years ago.

If you don't believe the resources are available in the US, Google the Billion Ton Study done by the USDA and DOE a few years ago.

And....by the way, Brazilians have Yamaha outboards and Honda dirtbikes that run just fine over here with lots of ethanol in them.