Ethanol Can Drive You to Drink

In America , we call it a “water sucking corn” based fuel supplement. Corn is one sixth as efficient in producing ethanol than say, Brazilian sugar cane, and you simply have to look at a juicy kernel of corn to see how much water it absorbs. Since most of that corn is raised in the Mid-West, and most of the water for that corn comes from the giant Ogallala Aquifer, which was once the size of Lake Huron and sits underground from the Dakotas to Texas, it isn't comforting to know that many experts believe that massive grain-growing source of water may run dry in 25 years.

And taxpayers are bearing the burden of all this? We're adding ethanol to gasoline to reduce our dependence on oil, after all. According to a January 24, 2008 story in U.S. News and World Report: “The federal government gives preferential treatment to domestic, corn-based ethanol in the form of a 54-cent-per-gallon tax on imported ethanol, which largely affects Brazilian producers of ethanol from sugar cane. That tax comes on top of a 51-cent exemption from the federal excise tax on gasoline that goes to fuel mixed with ethanol.”

So the federal government is subsidizing farmers to grow an inefficient crop that is decimating the most vital water table in the West – the very life blood of grain farmers – to burn as fuel? We already know that lots of corn fields were planted (and most farming is large corporate industrial farming), that feed grain has sky-rocketed (feed represents about 40% of the cost of raising livestock), and that there has been a direct and immediate impact (not good for consumers!) on food costs as a result. But wait, there's more!

With all that federal subsidy money – that fat tax exemption for American corn-growers and that stupid “equalizing” tax on sugar-cane-based ethanol – you'd think it would be a great business opportunity for farmers, huh? Well aside from the processing plants that aren't getting finished on schedule and the number of American ethanol and biodiesel firms teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, today’s thedeal.com provides us with this handy list of such companies that have already “tanked” under bankruptcy laws:

• Beatrice Biodiesel LLC of Beatrice , Neb. (Aug. 21);
• Wyoming Ethanol LLC of Boise , Idaho (June 19);
• Ethanex Energy Inc. of Bashor , Kan. (March 27);
• BioEnergy of America Inc. of Edison , N.J. (Jan. 3);
• Central Illinois Energy LLC of Canton , Ill. (Dec. 13, 2007);
• E3 BioFuels-Mead LLC of Shawnee , Kan. (Nov. 30, 2007);
• Earth Biofuels Inc. of Dallas (July 11, 2007).

Did I mention that ethanol isn't even efficient – that it gets fewer miles-per-gallon than gasoline? Can't our government get anything right?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.

Government-Speak Meets “Miles per Gallon”

There’s English, and then there’s “government English.” Congress wanted much more in the way of mandating that car manufacturers build more fuel efficient cars than did the current administration. They passed a bill in November of 2007 providing a newest of measurable fleet mileage mandates (moving from the current fleet average for new cars of 27.5 MPG for cars/22 MPG for light trucks to 35 MPG for both cars and light trucks and SUVs by 2020) to be imposed on manufacturers. The fact that this is a long time line for a relatively modest improvement does not augur well for the priority we have placed on these issues, but wait, there’s more.

You should know how fleet mileage is measured. Miles per gallon… per gallon of what? The government looks at gasoline consumption, not fuel efficiency – across the designated manufactures’ vehicle output. So “flex-fuel” vehicles, capable of running partially on non-gasoline biofuel alternatives, even when there are almost no filling stations equipped to provide cars with products like bio-diesel, give an artificial boost to fleet averages! We really need to stop playing games and get down to business; failure to act sufficiently won’t result in an inconvenience; it will create a radical decline in the quality of our lives.

And then there is the Brazilian “energy independence” story – how are large nation with lots of cars made it work simply with ethanol-based fuel generated from sugar cane. Aside from the fact that the number of cars per person are a whole lot fewer in Brazil than in the U.S. or that sugar cane produces six times more ethanol than a comparable amount of corn (which also sucks huge amounts of water from aquifers that are running out of that precious substance), Brazil also has massive off-shore oil reserves making it one of the richest countries in the Americas! That’s another part of government English… spinning ain’t sinning!

I’m Peter Dekom and I approve this message.