Reality Check
Ethanol based fuels do not burn cleaner than gasoline. Ethanol is not cheaper to make or distribute than gasoline. Ethanol is not in any way "greener" than gasoline and is in fact in some ways worse than gasoline.
"In Brazil, ethanol made from sugar cane has an energy balance of 8-to-1 -- that is, when you add up the fossil fuels used to irrigate, fertilize, grow, transport and refine sugar cane into ethanol, the energy output is eight times higher than the energy inputs. That's a better deal than gasoline, which has an energy balance of 5-to-1. In contrast, the energy balance of corn ethanol is only 1.3-to-1 - making it practically worthless as an energy source."
When these total carbon ratios are calculated for various energy sources, from wind to waves, there are some inescapable conclusions. Failing some sort of fabulous technological discovery (that no one thinks will happen), 1) we will likely be building a lot more nuclear plants, and 2) we can not completely replace our current rate of energy consumption with anything we know of (society will be forced to make significant structural changes, globally, one way or another). Given what we know today, this is unavoidable.
"The ethanol boondoggle is largely a tribute to the political muscle of a single company: agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland."
As usual...
"...corn production depends on huge amounts of fossil fuel -- not just the diesel needed to plow fields and transport crops, but also the vast quantities of natural gas used to produce fertilizers. Runoff from industrial-scale cornfields also silts up the Mississippi River and creates a vast dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico every summer. What's more, when corn ethanol is burned in vehicles, it is as dirty as conventional gasoline and does little to solve global warming: E85 reduces carbon dioxide emissions by a modest fifteen percent at best, while fueling the destruction of tropical forests."
Not just America, but the global human population is at a crisis point; a point at which we have our last decades available to make changes that may overt economic, political and environmental disasters that could, and probably would, lead to the downfall of this current incarnation of human civilization. But people will do nothing, no matter what, until it is already much too late. The "idea" (and that's all it is, a well marketed idea where by a few will reap a great short term profit) of an ethanol-based energy infrastructure is not just fiction, it's likely dangerous.
But wait, aren't there technologies for creating alcohol from corn fiber using organic processes? There's two points, 1) the technology affectively does not exist as a practical matter so the idea of adopting ethanol as energy policy now is very premature. And 2) why corn at all? Well, a look at the Senators backing this and where they are from answers that.Meanwhile, America continues to have some of the worst automobile mileage standards of all major nations, including China. This whole thing has nothing to do with creating a more responsible energy policy.
America continues to avoid the real heavy lifting it will have to do, one way or another, someday; use less energy. Much, much less energy. We either do that in a planned organized way, or nature will do it for us and we'll find ourselves returned to some sort of bronze age. It's one way or the other.
I know which outcome I'd bet on. People are stupid.
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