Ethanol: Good or bad?

GOP presidential candidate John McCain and 24 Wisconsin GOP senators joined together Monday to protest the effect of the federal ethanol program on the cost of food, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports today:

"This subsidized (ethanol) program - paid for by taxpayer dollars - has contributed to pain at the cash register, at the dining room table, and a devastating food crisis throughout the world," McCain said in a statement.

Critics of the proposal said that too much attention was being placed on ethanol as a reason for rising food prices, and that not enough attention was being placed on the role that rising crude oil prices - which surged to $120 a barrel Monday - have played in driving up the cost of food.

"It's the wrong medicine for the problem," Wisconsin Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen said. "If we hadn't had the significant increase in renewable fuels that we've seen in the last five years, we would have higher gas prices today, not lower ones."

What are your thoughts?  Is the federal ethanol program good or bad for Americans?  How about Illinois farmers?  How about your family budget?

Link: JS Online: GOP group wants curbs on ethanol.

Comments

[spintreebb]

Like doing it for the children, doing it for the family farm is the bogus mantra of all these farm subsidies. Ethanol benefits ADM and a very small number of others.

It's pollution and CO2 production is the same or worse than gasoline. It costs more than gasoline both without the subsidy considered, and even more so, with the subsidy considered.

But the worst impact is that large numbers of politicians and voters feel the need to "do something". If there were no ethanol to assuage their guilt, they would have to face the reality that we need several prongs to energy sanity:

1. We need to pump more offshore, in Alaska, in Wyoming-Dakotas.

2. We need to reduce the absurd regulations that drive up the cost of windmills and other alternative energy sources.

2. Nuclear. In the 50s and early 60s nuclear was the darling of the left (and still is in France). ComEd was the leader in nuclear. Then the son of the head of ComEd and leader of the NEW-LEFT rebelled against his father.

Now guess who is the son of ComEd ! A name we hear in other threads.

Interesting how invoking fathers are the subject of high profile political books right now.

[Frank Goudy]

Corn was 2.00 a bushel in 1950 and is 6.00 now. Wages are 10 times higher. Wish everything was only three times higher since 1950.

The food price increases have little to do with the use of ethanol from corn. Another idiotic scam from the lunatic left and the Oil industry.

We need all the energy we can get from this country including ethanol, nuclear energy etc.

However, the market should determine whether
corn should be used for ethanol. Certainly, the subsidies to ethanol producers must be stopped as should the absurd tax breaks given to the Oil industry, and many other corporations.

[rockdalian]

The duty imposed on imported ethanol should also be ended. Brazil manufactures ethanol from switch grass and can import it here but for the import tax.
Manufacturing fuel from food crops is not a good idea.
Ethanol production involve more energy than it saves. Consider the farming, fertilization, and transportation for instance.
Ethanol cannot be sent through pipelines, due to the corrosiveness of it, and must be shipped via truck. Maybe rail, not sure about that.
It should also be mentioned that ethanol has less mpg than regular gasoline. To get the same mileage, you must burn more.

[Frank Goudy]

RE: "Brazil manufactures ethanol from switchgrass"

How much does Brazil produce from switchgrass? Was unaware they did this except to small experimental amounts at best. Data and source of data Please!!

So many claims are made by those who hate corn from ethanol that it is often difficult to get facts.

Again, please provide data and source of data for this claim. If this is the case we should emulate it, but so far research in this country on switchgrass to ethanol is only beginning.

Looking forward to a specific response.