[greglindahl]

As a concrete example, consider the government effort to shift ethanol-to-be-mixed-with-gasoline from food-based sources to non-food sources like switchgrass. No one figured out how to efficiently turn switchgrass into ethanol, so it failed. And that was despite a huge economic incentive.

In contrast, the government effort to promote electric cars, solar energy, and wind energy appear to be really paying off.