Amazing new diets, intriguing self-help books, a daily dose of St. John’s Wort – we are a country obsessed with quick fixes. Now, as Time points out in this cover story titled The Clean Energy Myth, we can add ethanol to our national wish list.

Consider this: If every kernel of corn and if every single soy bean produced by American farmers were converted into ethanol, it would account for just 20 percent of the country’s on-road fuel consumption. That’s one of many eye-opening conclusions in Michael Grunwald’s lucid account. Ethanol is not the answer to our national woes. It is one of many answers on a long list of energy sources that are presently underutilized, including natural gas, coal-to-liquids, wind power, solar power, and nuclear power.

Parting Thought? It’s all about the land, isn’t it?