First of all, with respect to the environmental benefits of first-generation or grain-based ethanol, let's just say that especially if you're looking at Canadian plants...there may be some U.S. midwest plants that are getting their power to run their facilities from coal, and therefore their greenhouse gas emission reductions are probably modest, but in the Canadian case, where you're talking about natural gas-fired green ethanol plants, you're looking at greenhouse gas emission reductions north of 40%, compared to gasoline. That's the Canadian picture.
With respect to the cost-benefit analysis study that was done, it's important to remember that this is a draft, and as you saw, we had an article refuting some of the facts and figures, but basically it looked primarily at the cost and didn't really look at the benefit side. It had some flaws in it that we intend to address with Environment Canada, such as the $58-a-barrel long-term price for oil and failure to take into account the $2.8 billion of new investment from the renewable sector in the jobs that have been created. It also gave a price for ethanol that was the opposite of what is actually happening, which is that gasoline has been more expensive than ethanol over the last three years, and it had assumed the reverse.
Obviously, we'll be responding to that study, and hopefully once it's past the draft stage and into its final form, it will be assessing some of the benefits rather than just the cost.
As to a comprehensive review, we welcome that. We think that would be a great step in the process.
