July 07, 2006
I agree with this article, ethanol (especially corn ethanol) is not going to solve our energy issues:
A major reason why Ethanol is so popular in the United States is the presence of huge subsidies throughout, not because of any magical energy sources. There are subsidies for growing the corn, for building the distilleries, and a 51 cent subsidy for every gallon of ethanol produced. This is to say that the taxpayers are paying much of the Ethanol tab. Whatever the consumers pay at the pump is so much the better for the ethanol lobby. This excludes state tax credits and other subsidies. For the record according to Patzek, in the 10 years from 1995 to 2004, taxpayers spent $41.9 billion in corn subsidies. Currently, according to Patzek (UC Berkeley The Real Biofuel Cycles April 17, 2006), there is an estimated total ethanol tax credit of 57cents per gallon. This is collected by the Ethanol lobby, too. Just to make things sweeter, the U.S. has erected import tariffs on imported ethanol of more than 50 cents/gallon to defend against lower cost imports of that Brazilian ethanol. This helps to inflate the price of ethanol to the consumers, quite similar to the tariffs erected to protect the US sugar lobby. According to Tad Patzek, the true costs of corn ethanol to the taxpayers are $3.12 per gallon of ethanol, or $4.74 per gallon of gasoline equivalent GGE—to adjust for the energy difference in the two fuels).Half the energy of gasoline and most of today's vehicles are not designed to burn the stuff. That's why they can only use it as a fuel additive, one that reduces gas mileage. The only upside it presents is that it is renewable, although there is a resource cost to growing and refining it.
