I say it was a terrible idea. Anytime you take something out of your food supply and convert it into fuel. I think we wouldn't have ethanol today without the powerful ethanol lobby. You may say that its good for some farmers but you have to realize that its bad for other farmers. The price of corn along with other foods will sky rocket but consumers will ultimately pay the price since most animals are fed corn. Also some farmers may use this opportunity to grow less of a crop and convert more fields to corn. In the long run the open market may be able to catch up with the demand but at what price? One more somewhat related story, Are you all for the government mandating better fuel economy? I have safety concerns about this kind these days, at what price?
Two separate problems: 1. The corn supply -- Enough corn must be available for food and for fodder for the national good. 2. Ethanol sources -- There are other things besides corn to make ethanol from. First we protect our domestic food and fodder needs by setting a quota on food corn that meets these needs. This can be priced by the market as food-grade corn. All corn surplus to that would be available for pricing as an ethanol source. Every corn farmer would get a piece of the ethanol action relative to his total production, yet the food supply would be preserved in sufficient quantity to be affordable and not start an inflation spiral. Then we diversify the sources of ethanol. Sugar and sugar beets could not survive in the US without the subsidies. Why not turn them over to ethanol production along with a lot of cheap caribbean sugar? Switchgrass can be made into ethanol and it can be harvested three times a year and grown almost anywhere, even in arid areas. New feedstocks can be developed. This has started with corn because we grow a lot of it, but it doesn't have to end with corn. Farmers change crops regularly as the markets change. This is natural.
Ethanol bad. http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-basedethanol.hrs.html Lobby from Iowa must be good. Follow da money...
Saw that before and it definitely kills any real reason to say ethanol will help given that it produces a net loss. Exactly
I haven't figured out how it's the basis of any real energy policy, if that's what you're asking. It MAY be a decent stop-gap measure to relieve foreign oil pressure, but only if the energy needed to convert ethanol is derived from a non-foreign source (e.g. coal.) As a long term solution, I doubt there's much disagreement about its inefficacy.
I believe that is the only potential benefit of ethanol, but I'm not sure we can make enough of it to put a real dent in oil imports. I think cellulosic ethanol uses energy from the waste material of the plants, so that may be a better alternative to corn. The other problem with ethanol is transportation. It's too corrosive to be sent through pipelines, so we use tanker trucks. You lose some of the environmental benefits of ethanol by having more trucks on the road. Not to mention the added transportation cost. Ethanol will be a temporary alternative fuel until something better comes along.
You mean until the next lobby group buys a majority of the politicians that make energy policy right?
I never did care for ethanol. The fuel of the future is hydrogen. We likely will not be able to produce enough ethanol that would make a dent in the price of gas for another 15 years, and by then hydrogen cars should be hitting the market.
