The danger of subsidizing renewable energy

Reason.tv has a great video on the fiasco that Bio-fuels made from corn ethanol has brought on the world.

When government ends up subsidizing an industry or a program that ends up having poor unintended consequences, like we have experienced with corn ethanol, my trail test to those that favor deep government subsidies for projects that they deem essential to society is what happens if that program or policy turns out to not work as initially expected? Since Democrats, environmentalists, and even some Republicans continuously call for subsidizing “renewable” energy or “alternative” energy, what happens if government picks a loser and ends up wasting billions of taxpayer funds chasing a viable technology? I find it difficult to imagine that many of these groups would be comfortable with such a waste.

Now that many national and international organizations and government bodies have acknowledged the problems with corn ethanol, how long will it take our government to fix the problem? I bet that it will take at least a decade before subsidies for corn ethanol bio-fuels are reversed.