How $Much$ Have We Wasted On Ethanol?

The FT sums up the pain to investors of the industry’s losses:
* Six of the biggest publicly traded U.S. ethanol producers have lost more than $8.7 billion since the peak of the boom in mid-2006 and Oct 1.
* U.S. tax breaks since 2005 for ethanol amounted to more than $11.2 billion, with billions more in direct state and federal subsidies for U.S. ethanol production.
* Fuels analyst Bob Starkey at Jim Jordan & Associates Houston research group told the FT the ethanol industry has “cost $80 billion to get to this point.”

This article lists the billions that it’s cost to get us to the point where they are losing Billions of dollars. This still doesn’t account for the BILLIONS that the ethanol boondoggle has cost the American consumer (let alone consumers all over the world) in increased food prices.
And all of this has done nearly nothing to make us more energy independent, certainly not as much as opening up a few thousand acres in the arctic wasteland.
Of course as expensive as this is some people want more:

Renewable Fuel Association’s Bob Dineen, saying, “I’d challenge you to find any energy resource today that isn’t dependent on government support.

And why the heck should we be dependent on the government to provide us energy resources? One of the largest portions of my budget goes to paying for energy. They certainly don’t need government to do anything more than get out of the way.