They did not tell the rest of the story....ethanol is not a fraud. Wait and see what comes out of this technology......you will all be surprised.
I just wonder why E-85 price goes up the same as gas when it is only 15% gas????
“But if ethanol made so much sense, we wouldn’t have to subsidize it or mandate its consumption”
Ok - that makes some sense.
So as soon as we agree to stop HEAVILY subsidizing oil, roads, airports, etc, as well, we should stop subsidizing ethanol.
The laughs I got from the comments section was worth the visit. :)
Ethanol needed to be subsidized when oil was $20-25 a barrel. With oil over $50, corn ethanol is viable without subsidy. The current subsidy is an artifact of the oil price structure and needs to be revised.
The tricky thing, however, is that the bigger potential is in cellulosic ethanol and that has still not been demonstrated to be economical in commercial scale production. Several pilot plants are in operation and ground is being broken on the first generation of commercial scale demonstrations, but we're not quite there yet. A lot of people who would ordinarily be talking about phasing out the subsidy are hanging fire until the picture on cellulosic clarifies.
The stakes here are much bigger than a windfall (which is now occurring) for corn farmers and ethanol producers. The stakes are building out a new energy source that can supply a third, and perhaps much more, of the nation's transportation fuel supply.
My former senator (Dole) was nicknamed “the senator from Archer-Daniels-Midland”. If lefties had any sense (there’s a contradiction) they would stop screaming “Halliburton” and scream “ADM”. They scam TONS of money from the government through this ethanol crap.
bump
The stuff seems to work well in South America.
Meanwhile...we’re buring our food.
Saw it last night. It was a great piece.
Was real disappointed the section on the DC Madam didn’t name Norquist though.
Well, maybe there was one good thing about President Bush coming out in SOTUS with his ethanol plan. It means that the media will immediately start attacking it, simply because Bush proposed it.
It WAS the property of the Democrats until now. They backed it by pretending it was environmentally sound, but their real motive was pork for the farm state votes.
I know a lot of environmentalists who are now speaking out and saying that ethanol is a stupid idea that will end up increasing the price of food and starving the poor, and that it doesn’t save energy anyway. All true, but they weren’t saying it until Bush made his proposal, at least not that I heard.
So, maybe we can kill the whole idea of government subsidies for ethanol. If so, then Bush’s proposal will have been very helpful.
btt
We are subsidizing every Arab oil producing country thru military protection and various other gimmicks dreamed up by the oil companys and our hokie state department. Saudia Arabia and Kuwait being the prime example of our tax dollars receipients.
Ethanol is produced in America and by American farmers and companies for the benefit of Americans - get it?
A few years ago, the US gov’t started puting up terraces on hilly farmland to slow down soil erosion due to water runoff. They also provided slightly more habitat for wildlife. These terraces were paid 50% by the landowner and 50% by the gov’t.
Now, with ethanol production threatening to raise the price of corn, the gov’t is tearing down these terraces to increase the total acreage of tilled land available for corn.
I ask you this: what the he11 are they thinking and who the he11 is running this dog and pony show? Does this make any sense to anyone?
We are destroying wildlife habitat and increasing soil erosion and farmland degradation so we can be environmentally responsible and make more ethanol???
THIS COUNTRY IS TOTALLY F*ING INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!