How much sense does this really make

Out here in my neck of the woods, corn for being raised for grain was practically un-heard of 20+ years ago. Newer varieties and no-till practices started making it a profitable crop, and it took off like wild-fire. Then an ethanol plant going up to provide a market for corn only enhanced it more. Going out on a limb here and guessing that 1/4 to 1/3 of the tillable acres in the area are in grain corn now. And this year, there is a corn crop out here that is over the top phenomenal for even in the corn belt. But, it's not drying down, so there are dryers running everywhere, burning up hundreds of thousands of gallons of propane (or natural gas, where available). To the point where farmers are having trouble getting propane. But meanwhile, up in the oil patch, millions of cubic feet of gas a day are being burned off into thin air...? One of them flares could heat a lot of homes all winter long. But,... what I find truly ironic is that all of this gas and electricity gets spent on drying all of this corn just so this corn can go to the ethanol plant and get dumped into a tank full of water. Then much more gas and electricity gets spent turning it into ethanol. Kind of makes me think that maybe we had ought to be gearing up our vehicles to just run on the natural gas/propane and skip all of the steps in between....? And I know what I see in my little secluded area is just a tip of the iceberg in the overall picture.
     Now I do not plan on hosting any "protest rallies" or shooting off my mouth for publicity. I am a farmer at heart (even though my active farming days are coming to an end) and fully support profitability for farmers ahead of anything else. And there is quite a bit more to it than what "seems obvious". For example the ethanol plant is an economic staple in the area, providing many jobs. And distillers grain has become a very important by product, that many cattle feeders in the area depend on. But just seems to me that there is a little bit of mis-alignment here that could be corrected for the betterment of everyone. Rant over. LOL! Darrel

big businesses (BIG farmers included) can operate at a loss and make up the difference in volume as long as the gov-ment backs um.

Anytime we produce energy we use energy to produce it and some is lost in the process. That is the heat given off. Think about all these people that think everything electric is the answer, we have to produce electricity somehow, whether its coal or fuel or solar or wind facilities need to be built to produce and distribute think about the loss going thru power lines just like your electric cord they heat up when we charge batteries they give off heat. Just like a lite bulb gives off heat unless it is a LED but in some cases lack of heat is a bad thing like cars in  the winter when the lights freeze over. And then we will have to replace batteries in everything, Think buying one battery for your car is bad. Now they will want to sell you a whole set because no one will take the time to sort thru them and pick out the bad one only to have another expire 2 months later. Heading a little off topic here but just trying to show that our whole energy system has its flaws. This whole thing started at the beginning of time when man found out a horse could do more work then he could by hand but then he had to feed water and care for the horse and so it began.

yes and in the land of fruits and nuts they want to ban natural gas appliances.

Basic physics...the conservation of energy. We can't create energy, we just turn one form of energy into another. Even the hot air produced by those activists and politicians.....hey, maybe that's the silver bullet!

Again with the friggin' sugar beats.......They are "a" crop, not "the" crop.  Takes LOTS of BIG equipment, and is very demanding on the soil. 

OMG!!!  And here I've been eating it and turning it into.........well, you know