Boondoggle Ethanol Program Got You Down? Help End it.

Below the Gnat Line ^ | May 19, 2011 | Ken Carroll

[possum john]

Ethanol is Not About Energy Independence

Have you figured out that the federal ethanol program is not about becoming energy independent, but about putting Midwest corn farmers on the government dole? If not, keep reading. If so, are you ready to help end it? That's in here, too.

If you think ethanol lowers fuel prices, then I guess you don't know that each gallon of ethanol is subsidized 47.5 cents per gallon by our tax dollars. In fact, Brazil exports ethanol, but we put a 54 cents per gallon import tax on Brazilian ethanol and then limit its import to seven percent of US production. If it were about saving money, we'd simply import the much less expensive ethanol from Brazil.

If it were about energy independence, we wouldn't us corn, either. It takes about 65% more energy to produce ethanol from corn than the ethanol yields. Who says so? University of California-Berkeley geoengineering professor Tad W. Patzek in Science Daily back in 2005.

[Larry Lucido]

So you admit to being a user, not a contibutor.

Hope you and your sockpuppet have fun here.

[antisocial]

“The subsidy is paid at the blending of gasoline. It is paid regardless of the source. If we eliminated the tariff, the subsidy would still be paid, but we would be promoting the foreign import over domestic production without the tariff.”

You appear to be forgetting about these subsidies.

http://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn

[thackney]

How many of those are tied to production values? How many would actually result in less paid if more was produced? How many would be paid regardless?

I am not promoting the subsidies. But the poster seemed to be talking about the blender credit subsidy. I definitely do not want to be paying a subsidy to foreign produced ethanol.

[antisocial]

I think subsidies are subsidies. They should all be eliminated. If a farmer can grow corn and sell it to an unsubsidized ethanol plant at a profit with no subsidies along the way I say more power to him, otherwise, it needs to end.

[thackney]

I think subsidies are subsidies. They should all be eliminated.

Agreed. But as long as the subsidies exist, the tariff needs to remain so we are not subsidizing foreign production.

[shibumi]

"I did make a recent exception for the Georgia Chapter of Americans for Prosperity for this same blog, but they asked up front and I gave them my permission to post it on their site. Are you that much better than them?"

Yes.

If we weren't, you wouldn't be so hell-bent on pimping here, now would you?

[SunkenCiv]

One-half gallon of oil in the form of pesticides per bushel of corn would cost $2 to $3 per bushel. If this were true -- and it clearly isn't -- it should be enough to illustrate to literally anyone that the price of petroleum is quite literally the ONLY thing driving corn prices. And this idiotic piece of agitprop -- from a hydrogen "energy" advocacy site -- also shows the guy in the encounter suit spraying chemical fertilizer, a sight that I've never been privileged to see, what with me *growing up on a farm*.