The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is offering grants of almost $5 million to expand access to ethanol blends at gas pumps. But experts say the environmental and economic tradeoffs of ethanol aren’t worth the investment.

“Ultimately, we want to use less fuel, not more, and so we should be looking at increasing vehicle efficiency more,” he said. “We should be looking at public transportation options.”

The article doesn’t get into it much, but an acre of solar panels provides a lot more vehicle-miles than an acre of corn turned into ethanol.