Dear P-eod Farmer,

   The US produces almost that much petroleum product in a day--almost 7 B gal/day.  So if ethanol disappeared it wouldn't make a lot of difference.  Except to say we'd have a hard time meeting some EPA standards so the artificial government mandates may well distort the prices.

  With supply and demand being quite close and supply of some products constrained by production limits, each gallon does make a difference and I'll agree on that concept.  But then, a single small cloud passing by makes a difference on a hot day, but not much. 

  Congress took care of your worries, though.  They simply mandated 36 B gal/day usage (if I recall the number correctly) in a few years.  No more worries, right?

  As a passing thought, I wouldn't assume corn will always be the feedstock.  There are a lot of countries just waiting to export their sugar to us and it'd make great alcohol of any sort.  Oh, and if the tariff on imported ethanol drops, which it can with a simple majority vote, then we don't have to produce anything.  Odd world, uh?

Take care.  Stetts