Ethanol boondoggle

Reader comment on: Ethanol and Offshore Drilling

Submitted by J.Johnson (United States), May 4, 2010 11:30

The push to use more ethanol is profoundly illogical and certainly runs directly counter to Obama's argument just this past weekend at the Univ. of Mich. that what is needed is "smarter" government. If the ethanol content of gasoline is increased much more, it will begin to adversely affect automobile engine performance and usable life. And, for what? The net effect of the substitution of ethanol for petroleum is negligible and, by some accounts, arguably zero when all of the energy requirements for production and transportation are taken into account.

It takes 100 gallons of water to grow a bushel of corn. I wonder how environmentalists pushing ethanol feel about draining America's aquifers, especially in dry states like Nebraska, to grow corn for ethanol while imposing a 50 cent per gallon tax on imported ethanol, much of which is made from sugar cane and other plants with far less environmental impact than corn. Once produced, it is so corrosive that it cannot be sent through the pipeline system and so must be trucked everywhere it is used. And all of this does not take into account the clear and unarguable effects already seen in other countries due to U.S. ethanol policies, such as higher food prices and the destruction of forested land to replace land now used to grow corn. The word FIASCO in the dictionary should have a photo of a U.S. ethanol plant next to it.

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