ORNL was selected as the site of a $125 million federal biofuels research and development project. The project will study cellulosic ethanol production and involves UT and several other parters at the state-funded Joint Institute for Biological Sciences. Andrew Eder has the story.

Personally, I've been opposed to the idea of ethanol. It sounds great to rural voters, though, so the politicians love to talk about it, especially Republicans in the Red States. But if you think about it, it's a step backwards to a more primitive technology. Instead of feeding hay to our horses we'll be feeding corn and switchgrass to our cars, and it still leaves us on the internal combustion dead end.

And, is topsoil really a renewable resource? How many millions of years did it take to make the rich, fertile topsoil of the Great Smoky Mountains and the Tennessee Valley? And what about the crop failures this year? Imagine what ethanol would cost at the pumps with shortages like that.

What we should be researching is efficient, distributed solar power (we've had plenty of that this year!), alternative propulsion, hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen generation and distribution, safe nuclear fission, cold fusion, antigravity, impulse power and warp drives and all that kind of stuff.

But I am resigned to the fact that ethanol is inevitable. (Every car in the Indy 500 ran on 100% ethanol this year, so it must work OK.) And I suppose paying a farmer in Kansas or Tennessee for fuel instead of funding terrorists and fighting wars in the Middle East is an improvement. And I suppose it's a viable "bridge" technology until something better comes along. So I suppose it's a good thing that ORNL and East Tennesee can cash in on some R&D action.

In case you were wondering what I think and what not.