I was encouraged to read that a biofuels developer plans to build an ethanol plant in Westmoreland County ("Plant to Turn Waste into Ethanol," April 25) that will use biomass and waste rather than corn.

The use of corn to create ethanol has been a wasteful and shortsighted hoax of a "solution" to our energy dilemma -- given that current cultivation employs tons of petrochemical fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides, and that harvesting and transforming corn into ethanol requires great expenditures of energy -- perpetuated by agribusiness and the taxpayer-subsidized corn industry.

However, the article leaves out a piece of the equation: How much power (which in Pennsylvania means electricity generated mostly by burning coal) will the Westinghouse Plasma Center need to run its gasifier "to superheat raw materials" at temperatures up to 1,700 degrees so that it may produce the projected 40,000 gallons of fuel annually?

If we don't scrutinize every aspect of the energy issue to determine the "net gain" of any new process, we may find ourselves no closer to our goal of reducing our reliance on unsustainable, finite sources.

PHILIP PANDOLFI, Mt. Lebanon