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Ethanol Idiocy Will Not Die

By Rich Lowry



When Al Gore drops an environmental fad, it has truly reached its expiration date.

In his wisdom, the Goracle recently acknowledged what almost all disinterested observers concluded long ago: Ethanol is a fraud. It has no environmental benefits, and harmful side effects. The subsidies that support its use are an object lesson in the incorrigibility of Washington's gross special-interest politics. It is the monster that ate America's corn crop.


"It is not good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," the former vice president and Noble Peace Prize recipient said, referring to corn-based ethanol. He called the fuel "a mistake," and confessed one reason he fell so hard for it is that he "had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa." These farmers vote in the First in the Nation caucuses and practically insist that their favored presidential candidates drink ethanol at breakfast and hail it as the nectar of the gods.


Gore's ethanol apostasy is a symptom of a left-right coalition that has arisen to expose the former wonder fuel. (The Gore of old insisted that "the more we can make this home-grown fuel a successful, widely used product, the better off our farmers and our environment will be.") But common sense, even cross-ideological, bipartisan common sense with all the evidence on its side, is no match for Congress' boundless appetite for expensive favors for powerful lobbies and constituent groups.


Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley, the Democratic and Republican senators from Iowa, stand at the doors of Congress declaring: Ethanol now, ethanol forever. They have graced the Obama-McConnell tax bargain with an extension of a tax credit for ethanol that costs about $6 billion a year, and with an extension of a tariff on ethanol imports. Ethanol is so uneconomical that Congress supports it three different ways -- with a mandate for its use, a tax credit to subsidize it and a tariff to keep out competitors. Rarely are so many levers of government used to prop up one woeful product.


During the last decade, ethanol enjoyed a good run as a notional part of the solution to global warming. Then, environmentalists began to realize it might actually increase greenhouse emissions. Ethanol releases less carbon dioxide per gallon than gasoline. Once the emissions necessary to convert land to corn production and then grow and process it are taken into account, though, ethanol doesn't look so green anymore.


So much corn -- about 40 percent of the US crop -- is feeding into the maw of government-created demand for the fuel that it could be increasing world-wide food prices. In short, in exchange for not reducing greenhouse emissions, ethanol reduces the availability of food to the poor.


The multiple layers of subsidization have their own perversity. Since there's already a mandate to blend ethanol into gasoline, the tax credit is giving away money for something that would happen anyway. Environmental groups say this pads the bottom line of Big Oil. Harry de Gorter of the free-market Cato Institute has a more complicated take -- the subsidy decreases the cost and therefore the price of gasoline, effectively subsidizing its consumption. Your Congress at work.


But who cares about the facts? Once we have fired up a vast machine that from cornfield to distilleries produces 38 million gallons of ethanol a day, it will be nearly impossible to turn it off. Too many people will have a vested interest in continuing the scam, and its supporters -- like Harkin and Grassley now -- will always argue that any change is too disruptive. We'll still be mandating ethanol long after the internal-combustion engine is obsolete.

The ethanol experience should counsel against blithely creating new government-supported industries on the basis of dubious promises of cost-free environmental benefits. Judging by the tax bargain, festooned with all manner of other green subsidies and credits, it's a lesson ignored. In Washington, the boondoggles may lose their luster, but they never die.

Well put.

The fact that the use of ethanol lowers MPGs was a first impression punch in my gut. How can that ever be a good thing?

With motor fuels taxed by the gallon, the motor fuels industry will be "wrong" for generations to come.

Marine engine mfgs wont warranty a motor run on e-fuel.
The stuff costs more to make than it yeilds. I figure e-10
results in a power loss of at least 10%. I hope my friend
Bucky will chime in with our results running to the NERALLY.

We found some non-e gas, big diff.

It's often stated that folks won't notice the loss in power with ethanol based fuels. I would have to disagree. Charlie and I, as residents of the east coast, are fed a constant diet of ethanol laced fuel. At a couple hundred miles inland from the coast, we fueled up on the way to Stony Brook with ethanol free gas. We both gained top end and the bikes just felt better. First question at first stop after ethanol free fuel up:

"Does your bike feel like it gained power?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

We were able to cruise at around a buck ten without a problem. (He made me do it... I wanted to go 40)

We noticed.

What? I was doin' 90 when you passed me, flipp'n me the bird

That wasn't a bird.
I had a cramp in my finger from holding on so tight

Ethanol is a joke,I see now on other bike forums how its messing up fuel lines and inline filters.
I try my best not to run the stuff,its gonna end up being like Bio-Diesel a waste of money and repairs....

I liked the gasoline from back when I was a kid... it even smelled better!

I like ethanol.
I am partial to the stuff made from agave, and another from barley, though corn squeezin's are OK in a pinch.

I have three stations within 6 miles of my house that still sell 100% gasoline.Two are older business and one is a newer chain. Interestingly the chain account has 30 stores locally and this one location sells 100%.
This is very unusual and I feel fortunate to still have an option.

Use star-tron. My local trump dealers sells this stuff like crazy... So does a local dealer... It's a must use for us sledders.. 15% in the future will kill motors without this new "blue" wonder. V.

Quote:

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Keith, I remember that smell of gas when we were kids. Not the same now, and I am pretty sure its because back then it had lead in it. It was just a more potent smell. Hard to describe, but I know what you mean. It just smelled better.

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It sure as heck did, lol!!!

BREAKING NEWS...The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene in the United States Capitol
this Christmas season.
This isn't for any religious reason.
They simply have not been able to find Three Wise Men in the Nation's Capitol.
A search for a Virgin continues.
There was no problem, however, finding enough a**es to fill the stable...........

Talking heads. So mr. ahole'gore now thinks ethanol is purple? What about all those compact fluorescents that get trashed. We'll save the world. Yeah we'll get all them folks that say mercury in vaccines is bad and make them touch eat and smell mercury forever more...


back to topic: 10% is a base line. A very good one when discussing the mpg difference.

I don't like ethanol in my tank as well as gasoline, but it is a lot better than the MTBE they were putting in fuel. On the other hand, Ethanol works well enough in my glass.