Ethanol's a Big Scam, and Bush Has Fallen for It

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:15:38 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

Kevin Hassett at Bloomberg.com - touting ethanol as a cure for America's oil dependence is a huge scam. Don't fall for it. [sunni]

Bush should have known better. In a capital city that is full of shameless political scams, ethanol is perhaps the most egregious. There has probably never been a specific topic around which so much disinformation is spread. Ethanol lowers our reliance on fossil fuels! Ethanol helps clean the environment! Ethanol will save the family farm!

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A recent careful study by Cornell University's David Pimentel and the University of California at Berkeley's Tad Patzek added up all the energy consumption that goes into ethanol production. They took account of the energy it takes to build and run tractors. They added in the energy embodied in the other inputs and irrigation. They parsed out how much is used at the ethanol plant.

Putting it all together, they found that it takes 29 percent more energy to make ethanol from corn than is contained in the ethanol itself.

It's not that corn is a bad source for ethanol. The other sources mentioned by the president look even worse. Wood biomass takes 57 percent more energy to produce than it contains. Switch grass takes about 50 percent more.

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The arguments against ethanol are so persuasive you have to ask yourself: Why does Congress keep throwing money at it?

The answer appears to be that elected officials from corn-growing states such as Iowa and Illinois see it as a cash cow for their constituents.

The ethanol business is a pretty good source of cash for the lawmakers too. The political action committee of Archer Daniels Midland Co., the world's largest producer of corn-based ethanol fuel, gave $69,000 to federal candidates for the 2004 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In 2002, before such unlimited "soft money" donations were outlawed, ADM gave $1.8 million to political parties. Its political action committee gave close to $200,000 to individual campaigns and committees.

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