To Be Announced...

Look...I know we're in Iowa and corn is king. But this ethanol craze has got to stop. I'm a little tired of hearing every politician in the universe suckling up to the "American farmer" and promoting this junk.

First, a few points.

• I use the fuel now because it's cheaper at the pump.
• Ethanol is subsidized, so without the subsidy (which I'm paying for anyway), ethanol would go bust.
• I really don't care how much/less it pollutes the environment. All the studies I've seen suggest it pollutes more because of the lower fuel efficiency you get. Toss up on that one, but I've never really adjusted my driving habits to sooth the savage environmentalists.
• There's no way in hell we'll ever be sustainable as far as energy is concerned by substituting ethanol for middle east oil. It ain't. Gonna. Happen.
  

Secondly, where the hell is all this mandated ethanol going to come from? Even if you use every kernel of corn in the universe currently, you can only come up with 13-percent of the current fuel usage demand. What will we use for food?

Now, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has come up with a new paper related to ethanol that most farmers aren't going to like to hear. Too bad. It makes sense to me. Even so-called "Greens" like Al Gore and other nutjobs should be able to appreciate this bit of news. It's right up their usual scare-mongering alley...

Biofuels, Food, or Wildlife? The Massive Land Costs of U.S. Ethanol

Food and feed demands on farmlands will more than double by 2050. Unfortunately, the American public does not yet understand the massive land requirements of U.S. corn ethanol...

The United States might well have to clear an additional 50 million acres of forest—or more—to produce economically significant amounts of liquid transport fuels. Despite the legend of past U.S farm surpluses, the only large reservoir of underused cropland in America is about 30 million acres of land—too dry for corn—enrolled in the Conservation Reserve. Ethanol mandates may force the local loss of many wildlife species, and perhaps trigger some species extinctions. Soil erosion will increase radically as large quantities of low-quality land are put into fuel crops on steep slopes and in drought-prone regions.

Now, it's fine with me if you want to begin clear-cutting and putting those CRP acres back into good use. And we can start treating "factory farms" with a little more respect and truth. I'm right there with ya if you want to really make the above a go...

Just don't call ethanol environmentally friendly anymore, please.

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Labels: ethanol