Far as I know, you can make ethanol from practically anything. I don't know how it's made from canola, but the "Sugar Buses" (as they're called) use ethanol made out of waste product from the sugar cane industry - which is quite a large industry in Australia. Sugar cane might not be as effective in countries where it's not already big. I don't think ethanol _itself_ is a scam, although it may well be that explicitly cultivating corn for ethanol is inefficient. (Let's face it, if you're growing something for no reason other than to power a bus, that's ultimately a grossly inefficient solar powered bus.)