US Ethanol production is a tough business to be in right now - as is evinced by the performance of US ethanol stocks since the beginning of the year. They appear to be quite simply out of favour with investors.

Take Green Plains Renewable Energy, who recently lost its CFO, Brian L. Larson, after joining just 6 months ago. They have just announced the results of their annual meeting;

i) Three directors, Barry A. Ellsworth, Brian D. Peterson, and Herschel C. Patton, were elected to serve on the Board of Directors for three year terms. The terms of these directors expire at the 2010 annual meeting.

ii) The 2007 Equity Incentive Plan was approved by the shareholders of the Company

My gut instinct is that investor sentiment will recover vis a vis US ethanol producers in the next couple of years. This will come about when company's like GPRE finally start to bring onstream their two 50 million gallon ethanol plants later this year. Too many alternative energy companies seem more like an idea rather than a product-selling, profit-maximizing organisation. In the long-run, more investors are drawn to the latter.