I wasn't referring to corn-based ethanol (although I see how my reference to the ethanol lobby may have been misleading); note that I referred to cellulosic ethanol, which is what producing ethanol from garbage is. The overarching problem with the process is one of concentration, and scale (or volume). To extract ethanol from substances with a relatively low sugar content like those found in garbage, you have to go through a complicated, expensive, and energy-intensive process of steam, acid, and/or enzyme addition. This cellulosic fermentation process yields a mash with an ethanol content of only about 5%, vs. the 15-20% from grain alcohol (higher if something like sugar beets are used), so you're stuck with inputting a lot of money and BTUs for a pretty meager end result. And then there's the problem of the enormous amount of material that needs to be transported and sifted through to extract the potential feed material. Plus, you have the same problems of massive water usage, and high volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and NOx emissions associated with the production of ethanol.
Yes, it's garbage, and therefore virtually infinite in terms of supply. And don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the idea of utilizing waste material to produce energy. But it has to be economically feasible for somebody to make it happen, and given the problems I cite above, it simply isn't. Not yet, anyway. I'm sure there are there are hordes of scientists working feverishly to find ways to improve the yield of cellulosically derive ethanol. I hope they succeed, because I completely agree with you that this would be a good thing. But given the critical need for additional sources of energy, wouldn't you expect that if it were feasible to do this, somebody would already be doing it? And I don't believe for a minute the nonsense that the big, bad oil companies are suppressing the work of plucky, hard-working, patriotic folks working on saving the world from evil oil. If there's money in it, the oil companies would be all over this.
And, human nature being what it is, I'm afraid that even if we were to one day derive ethanol from garbage on a large scale, we'd have a whole new set of "fat cats" in control of it, and we'd soon be accusing them of profiteering at the public's expense, price gouging, and all the rest.
And on top of all this, I keep coming back to the question of what will doing something like this get us. I agree that spending part of our military resources to defend many of the world's oil supplies sucks, but in the overall scheme of things, it's a drop in the bucket (sorry...). Our overall federal budget is something north of $3 trillion, of which defense represents about $700 billion. The deficit for this fiscal year is about $1.3 trillion. The defense budget as a share of the overall budget had been dropping steadily until 9/11, after which it has ratcheted back up, but still, even if you make a generous assumption that 20% of the military budget goes toward directly or indirectly defending oil supplies, eliminating this doesn't come close to making a dent in the deficit, which is the source of the recent panic and subsequent credit rating downgrade. And I don't understand how this has anything to do with the fiscal messes in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland, which seem to be the flashpoint in the latest financial crisis.
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