Once just a kernel of innovation, ethanol industry now popping

McClatchy Newspapers:
by Greg Gordon -- 12/9/2005
"WASHINGTON - A Midwestern farmers cooperative is spending $8 million so it can make ethanol by burning scrap wood instead of more expensive natural gas.
Agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. is building a plant that will make five times as much of the gasoline additive as a typical operation.
And in Canada and Louisiana, cornstalks, trees and leaves are being tested to see whether ethanol might someday come from a variety of sources instead of the corn that is now its mainstay.
After years of struggle in which some wondered whether the industry that converts corn kernels to auto fuel would ever be viable, it appears that ethanol is coming of age."