It has been quite some time since we discussed ethanol, but we recently came across a number of items on the topic. Eventhough the topic is cooled, ethanol continues to attract a fair deal of attention.

Reuters reports that Hawkeye Holdings, an ethanol producer, has filed to raise up to $350 million in proceeds.

According to Steve Gelsi at Marketwatch.com this marks the third ethanol producer to file for an IPO in recent weeks.

Evelyn Rubin at the Energy Stock Blog delves into the Hawkeye Holdings prospectus and pulls out the informative details of how corn is actually transformed into ethanol.

Rob Black also at the Energy Stock Blog looks at the best way to play the trends in ethanol. Rather than focusing on the pure plays that will be buffeted by oil and corn prices, he recommends investors looked at secondary companies to play the ethanol trend.

AutoBlogGreen explores the implications of research that shows that the US corn surplus, which is now exported, could soon be entirely diverted to ethanol production.

It will be interesting to see how receptive the market eventually is towards these pure-play ethanol deals. In some cases these are short-term flips by private equity players. Successful or not, ethanol will continue to be a controversial sector with above average volatility tied to the prices of the underlying and competing commodities.