Ethanol Costs Motorists, Wastes Fossil Fuels, and Corrupts the Environment
In part I, we pointed out how subsides paid to the few, have contrived a permanent food shortage by absorbing the enormous surplus of corn. For all of us this means much higher food prices, but for the world\’s most poor it means malnutrition and starvation. This series is based on several published research papers that can be found by searching author\’s website for "ethanol." (www.whtt.org)
In the 1990\’s Congress, under pressure from the giant agribusiness lobby, quietly passed a law requiring the payment of some $.51 per gallon to anyone who would build plants to produce, and blend ethanol with gasoline, and sell it to the consumer. The obstacle was that consumers did not want the blended fuel because alcohol is well known to reduce miles per gallon. For instance, race car participant knew that cars that run on alcohol had to be fitted with bigger gas tanks to get to the finish line. Congress responded to this problem by passing legislation that forced consumers to purchase the new fuel.
If you look at the gas pump, you’ll see a little sign: “Contains 10% (sometimes 15%) ethanol.” So, if your tank holds 20 gallons, and at a cost of $3.00 per gallon, three of the 20 gallons you pump into the tank are grain alcohol made from about 75 pounds of corn. One independent study tells us the subsidy costs taxpayers $2.21 per gallon of fossil fuel replaced, or $6.63 for your three gallons, because corn production consumes vast amounts of hydrocarbons, especially for fertilizer, and because drivers get an average of 15% less miles per gallon from the blended fuel. No wonder agribusiness wants to build more plants and distill more corn into ethanol.
Corn that would otherwise have been converted into beef, chicken, eggs, milk, pork or catfish. It sustains human life as a main staple for those who cannot afford meat, eggs and milk. Ethanol does not.
David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, wrote in 2004:
"In terms of renewable fuels, ethanol is the worst solution…it is the highest energy cost with the least benefit."
–“corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; Soybeans and other fuel sources are no better…Ethanol production requires large fossil energy input, and therefore, it is contributing to oil and natural gas imports and U.S. deficits…There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel…These strategies are not sustainable."
The Ethanol industry now operates up to 190 giant plants in the USA, and its trade association propagandists claim to have the capacity to produce about 13.5 billion gallons of ethanol, which will result in the destruction of over 5 billion bushels of corn every year. Agribusiness spokesmen, as well as one past President, have voiced plans to consume 25% of the country’s corn crop. As a direct result the price or corn is up 240% since 2004, and there are no longer significant long term reserves of any grain in the USA.
Starvation is the issue
Grain alcohol (ethanol) has always been the drug of choice for one of the world\’s social problems, drunkenness. It is your author’s terrible vision that the ethanol monopoly will contribute to squeezing most Americans out of the middle class, and it will condemn many in the Third World to starvation. Our "on the take" Congress is not the solution; it is the problem.
For the record, this series was written before Congresswoman Giffords of Arizona was shot on January 8, 2011. Shooting Congress is no more the solution to bad government, than is ethanol the solution to the energy shortage. I sympathize with the victims of both. ccarlson@whtt.org
Endnotes to Part I
(1) Biofuels Policy and Legislation
http://genomicsgtl.energy.gov/biofuels/legislation.shtml
(2) Producing ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other crops is not worth the energy, Physorg Magazine:
http://www.physorg.com/news4942.html
(3) Zfacts.com Subsidies for corn ethanol:
http://zfacts.com/p/63.html
(4)Study: Ethanol Production Consumes Six Units Of Energy To Produce Just One http://www.energybulletin.net/5062.html
(5)Grain of Hope for Gaza Residence
https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=1591
(6) The High Costs of Ethanol, New York Times Sep 19, 2007
https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=1773
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