Ethanol is Still Evil

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article today about ethanol, pointing out that the government isn't reading its own research reports and is hell bent on forcing Americans to use it, whether we want it, or can afford it.

The Obama Administration is pushing a big expansion in ethanol, including a mandate to increase the share of the corn-based fuel required in gasoline to 15% from 10%. Apparently no one in the Administration has read a pair of new studies, one from its own EPA, that expose ethanol as a bad deal for consumers with little environmental benefit.

The biofuels industry already receives a 45 cent tax credit for every gallon of ethanol produced, or about $3 billion a year. Meanwhile, import tariffs of 54 cents a gallon and an ad valorem tariff of four to seven cents a gallon keep out sugar-based ethanol from Brazil and the Caribbean. The federal 10% blending requirement insures a market for ethanol whether consumers want it or not -- a market Congress has mandated will double to 20.5 billion gallons in 2015.

The Congressional Budget Office reported last month that Americans pay another surcharge for ethanol in higher food prices. CBO estimates that from April 2007 to April 2008 "the increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices." Ethanol raises food prices because millions of acres of farmland and three billion bushels of corn were diverted to ethanol from food production. Americans spend about $1.1 trillion a year on food, so in 2007 the ethanol subsidy cost families between $5.5 billion and $8.8 billion in higher grocery bills.

A second study -- by the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Transportation and Air Quality -- explains that the reduction in CO2 emissions from burning ethanol are minimal and maybe negative.

Turns out that corn ethanol doesn't work. Cellulosic ethanol might, but that's not the way the government is heading.

Why do we need the government involved at all?

By the way, did you know that ethanol eats away at your car's insides?

And you get fewer miles to the gallon?

Have a nice day.

Failed Ethanol Industry Wants More of Your Money

We nearly missed the Wall Street Journal post on how the corn ethanol industry is begging for bailout money from the federal government because it is going bust. (Hat Tip to Drew Thornley at Planet Gore.)

The commodity bust has clobbered corn ethanol, whose energy inefficiencies require high oil prices to be competitive. The price of ethanol at the pump has fallen nearly in half in recent months to $1.60 from $2.90 per gallon due to lower commodity prices, and that lower price now barely covers production costs even after accounting for federal subsidies. Three major producers are in or near bankruptcy, including giant VeraSun Energy.

So here they go again back to the taxpayer for help.

They want $1 billion in immediate subsidies and several billions more for "expansion." As if expansion of a losing proposition was a good thing. They just want to be too big to fail!

But chillingly there is this:

The lobby would also like Congress to ease the 10% limit on how much ethanol can be added to gasoline for conventional cars and trucks — never mind the potential damage to engines from such an unproven mix.

What we hear is that it goes beyond "potential damage." Corn ethanol is not safe to use. Several mechanics have told me that not only do you lose miles per gallon -- may I be permitted to say that anyone who is willing to lose MPG in this fashion is a dumbass? -- but it corrodes certain plastic parts that are inside every modern auto engine.

That taxpayers already have forked over $25 billion to the Agri-Corp hoax-masters of this travesty is bad enough. No more!