Big corn and ethanol con

[patsfan13]

Great Editorial on the crazy Ethanol scam, just shows what happens when you have lawyers trying to satisfy constitutents rather than (preventing the markets) solving the energy 'crisis.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/artic...012/commentary

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline.



Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be shipped by truck, rail car or barge. These are far more expensive than pipelines.



Ethanol is 20 to 30 percent less efficient than gasoline, making it more expensive per highway mile. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce the ethanol to fill one SUV tank. That's enough corn to feed one person for a year. Plus, it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel — oil and natural gas — to produce one gallon of ethanol. After all, corn must be grown, fertilized, harvested and trucked to ethanol producers — all of which are fuel-using activities. And it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. On top of all this, if our total annual corn output were put to ethanol production, it would reduce gasoline consumption by 10 or 12 percent.



Ethanol is so costly it wouldn't make it in a free market. That's why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers. In fact, there's a double tax — one in ethanol subsidies and another in handouts to corn farmers to the tune of $9.5 billion in 2005 alone.

See the link for the rest of the article.

[Wildo7]

The corn industry is actually pretty bad but nobody calls them out on it because it's corn. But they're also the ones responsible for the wonderful poison known as High Fructose Corn syrup. Evil, evil corn people.

[BelichickFan]

Don't forget that the usage of corn, etc, for this poorly thought out policy is also a large contributor to the rise in food costs at the grocery store. Not the only reason, the greater worldwide demand and shipping costs adds too but increasing food demand by using food for gas is no small contributor.

[patsfan13]

As pointed out in the article if we used all our corn for ethanol it would intheory reduce our gas consumption by only 12%. given it take more carbon based fuel to produce than we realize from the ethanol, this is a truly stupid policy.

Biodiesel based on sawgrass which is easy to grow would be fesiable.

[Terry Glenn is a cowgirl]

The ethanol experiment was designed all by purpose.

To forever raise the floor on grain commodity prices (corn is a grain... not a veggie).

Ethanol actually is good for the vehicle manufacturers, as it wears down your motor at a much faster rate than either gas or diesel typically does.

PLUS, by growing so much corn throughout the Midwest, it sucks ALOT of water for the irrigation... AND, the cropland that was once used for wheat, makes wheat alot more rare as well... since the cropland is now used for corn.

So, yeah... ethanol for fuel is a joke.

WVO or growing your own safflower, sunflower, camolina, rape seed, or other related oil based crops are the best way to go to make biofuel.

Heck, even using your used crankcase oil is better.

[Wildo7]

conservatives and lefties coming together in agreement

[Terry Glenn is a cowgirl]

Originally Posted by Wildo7

High Fructose Corn syrup...

Can you say... insulin spike aka diabetes?!?!?

YUP...