Blog: Corn: Kind of the Worst Thing Ever

I emphatically agree with the points this article makes.

I have spoken to many people who realize that corn based ethanol won't work. What bothers me is that no one seems to care that our government is promoting it anyway.

Much of our surplus corn is shipped overseas and sold to countries that themselves can't produce enough food. When corn is used for ethanol, there is less of it for hungry poor people overseas. Now if we were doing it to get cheaper gas I could at least rationalize it, but we're not, we're doing it for no reason whatsoever and that bothers me.

In what way is the government supporting corn-based ethanol?

n what way is the government supporting corn-based ethanol?

How about this White House press release?

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/spr/President's_Four_Part_Plan-_High_Gas_Pri.pdf

Read section 4, especially. Extending a 51 cent per gallon tax credit to ethanol suppliers and creating an additional 10 cent per gallon help for small suppliers, providing loans or grants to ethanol businesses, and starting a Renewable Fuels Standard that is intended to nearly double the ethanol in our fuels in the next six years. I'd call that support . . .

It was just a question. Thanks for the answer.

Every article I've read, from the Economist to Consumer Reports to Car & Driver, puts ethanol at a break even proposition at best in terms of energy used vs. energy produced. So I'd have to agree with the analysis.

Why is the government supporting this? IMHO, the first place to look is Archers Daniel Midland, the agro giant that is sucking up a huge amount of the money. Then you get the auto manufacturers, who need a good sized handout now. Especially if it doesn't look like a handout. Finally, there are a lot of small producers who are jumping in on the inflated prices. This means that the politicians can hide behind a "helping the small American farmer" theme as they shovel money to their lobbyist friends.

Or is that too cynical?