Ethanol: The Fuel to Nowhere

Not only is the concept of using food to power machines horribly STUPID on every level, but the government pushing it and subsidizing is brings new levels to IDIOCY. First off - it's terrible as a fuel. The energy output vs energy input is abysmal and it does absolutely nothing to reduce "greenhouse" emissions. It's all about buying votes and convincing the STUPID that the government cares and is doing something about "the problem."

Advocates of the ethanol program claim that rising corn costs have only contributed modestly to overall food prices. They're not being entirely honest, as they're only counting the direct costs of ethanol. They don't count, for example, increases in soybean prices resulting from farmers switching to the more lucrative corn crop. Soybean crops dropped by 11 million acres last year - much of it used to produce corn.4

The corn growers and Big Ag, flush with new-found cash, have generously increased their campaign contributions, making everyone happy - everyone, that is, but consumers and taxpayers.

Taxpayers are shelling out billions of dollars while getting nothing in return, making ethanol truly a fuel to nowhere.

Worse, the ethanol program is not reducing greenhouse gas emissions as promised, but increasing them. That's according to two new, independent, scientific studies published in the journal Science.

One study, by the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy, concluded that further converting the rainforests, grasslands and savannahs of Southeast Asia and South America to crops for bio-fuels will increase greenhouse gas emissions, perhaps for centuries, while destroying important habitat.

A second study, by researchers at Princeton University, came to a similar conclusion, finding that corn-based ethanol would produce twice the greenhouse gas emissions as conventional gasoline over the next 30 years.

The recently-passed energy bill is expected to create even greater demand for ethanol, since it requires the U.S. to ramp up biofuel production to 36 billion gallons by 2022 from 7.5 billion gallons today.