Ethanol – chasing the impossible?

So the Wall Street Journal is reporting that ethanol producers won in the latest energy bill:

WSJ.com – Senate, House Near Energy Agreement

The nation’s ethanol industry and corn farmers emerged among the winners as House and Senate negotiators hammered out final details of national energy legislation.

In language approved yesterday, Congress would require the use of 7.5 billion gallons of the corn-based gasoline additive annually by 2012, up from four billion gallons used this year.

[snip]

While the measure, which could reach Mr. Bush’s desk by the end of the week, won’t deliver a noticeable price reduction at the gasoline pump, motorists will see a change in the product they buy. Today, 30% of the nation’s gasoline is blended with ethanol to boost octane without producing the ingredients of smog. Within seven years, according to Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, that will rise to 70%, as ethanol pushes from its Midwest base into California and other states outside the Corn Belt.

From what I understand, trucking all this ethanol to the refineries, and adding it to our gas here in California makes it more expensive. Great.

The reason I bring this up is because I remember reading this article:

Study says ethanol is not worth the energy

But researchers at Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley say it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces.

[snip]

“Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation’s energy security, its agriculture, the economy, or the environment,” according to the study by Cornell’s David Pimentel and Berkeley’s Tad Patzek. They conclude the country would be better off investing in solar, wind and hydrogen energy.

So, let me get this straight – ethanol doesn’t save fossil fuels, transfers wealth from the citizens from California to the Mid-West, and yet our Congress is moving to nearly double this amount.

That doesn’t seem right.