Cellulosic Ethanol

President Bush introduced the idea back maybe 10 years ago.  Back then the greenies were pushing ethanol (drinking alcohol) as a motor fuel, it was supposed to save the planet.  For some reason the carbon dioxide created by burning alcohol didn't contribute to Global Warming, where as the carbon dioxide from gasoline did. 
   Anyhow the greenies convinced Congress to require motor fuel to contain 10% ethanol.  Trouble is, you have to make ethanol from corn, which is food, which is responsible for the drastic rise in food prices since the ethanol mandate took effect.
  And so, some greenie claimed that you could make ethanol from waste, the chaff from wheat, the cobs from corn, brush clippings, wood and woody plants.  And the Bush administration tried.  Congress added a mandate to add "cellulosic ethanol" to motor fuel.  Only nobody has been able to make ethanol from garden trimmings yet, so EPA is raising the price of gasoline by fining oil companies for not adding cellulosic ethanol of which there is none to be had.
   And, I doubt that there ever will be any cellulosic ethanol.  Cellulose (wood) is the result of a billion years of plants evolving a material that is inedible to animals.   And it works.  I may have deer eating my vegetables, but you don't see 'em eating the siding off my house.  Or the cord wood off my woodpile.  Inedible to animals means no digestive juices or stomach acids can turn wood into sugar.  And the animals have been evolving digestive juices and stomach acids for as long as the plants have been evolving inedible wood.  This says to me that wood, and woody plant stems cannot be turned into sugar, or alcohol, by anything.  The plants have won.  With the exception of termites, no animal can eat wood.  Which is a good thing, if wood were edible, there would be no forests.  Animals would eat the trees right down to the ground.