  My Kingdom for a Horseless Carriage The Biofuels Trap  We must
move our nation beyond fossil fuels. But let’s not be suckered
by the promoters of biofuel alternatives like corn ethanol and
soy biodiesel.  Large companies that stand to reap billions in
subsidies and tax breaks from these energy "sources" are selling
them as the way to a healthy planet and energy independence for
the United States. For two reasons, don’t believe it.  First,
consider "energy return on energy invested," or EROEI. This is
how much energy we "earn" for every unit of energy we "spend" to
get it.  Gasoline’s EROEI ranges between 6-to-1 and 10-to-1,
says Cutler Cleveland, director of the Center for Energy and
Environmental Studies at Boston University. In other words, we
get anywhere from six to 10 gallons of gasoline for every gallon
we use to find oil, pump it out of the ground and refine it. But
the EROEI of corn-based ethanol, the most common U.S. biofuel,
is a mere 1.34-to-1, the Agriculture Department says. So even
though an a