FT.com / In depth - Investors suffer as US ethanol boom dries up

FT.com / In depth - Investors suffer as US ethanol boom dries up: "Investors suffer as US ethanol boom dries up

By Kevin Allison in San Francisco and Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington

Published: October 21 2008 23:22 | Last updated: October 21 2008 23:22

Investors, such as Microsoft’s Bill Gates, are sitting on billions of dollars in losses after buying into the corn-based ethanol industry that George W. Bush embraced as the ans wer to US energy woes.

Six of the biggest publicly traded US ethanol producers have lost more than $8.7bn in market value since the peak of the boom in mid-2006 and the beginning of this month, according to an analysis by the Financial Times. The boom followed a 2005 law requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of the biofuel with petrol."