Politicians Making Fools Of Us All
The Case of Ethanol as Motor Fuel
April 24, 2007
Ethanol has always been a poor choice as a fuel, but the scientific and economic considerations behind that statement
don't stop politicians from claiming otherwise.
American use of ethanol blended into gasoline actually represents a hidden subsidy to corn farmers, a subsidy on top of
other subsidies, because American corn production itself has long been subsidized. The American program, to be expanded
now by a leader widely recognized for wisdom and insight, George Bush, subsidizes farmers hurt by the abundance of their
own subsidized production.
Subsidies plus the extent of Midwestern farmland suitable for its production are why America produces such an abundance
of corn. Its use in motor fuel on any scale started as a way to stretch America's fuel supply in the face of Arab anger
over foreign policy.
But it does not really do this. Although numbers naturally change over time, ethanol has roughly 70% the energy content
of gasoline, yet it costs about 40% more to produce and distribute. In order to deliver this economic bargain to
motorists, the government forgoes taxes paid by the users of gasoline, taxes which, of course, pay for important
government services.
You don't need to study economics to appreciate that as a bad bargain.
In the years since the original strategic argument, arguments for the use of ethanol in fuel have developed around its
being a benefit to the environment. It is no surprise that many embrace this at first hearing: growing something for
fuel just sounds cleaner and healthier than using a minerals dug out of the ground.
But this is a false argument, false at several levels. If you have a certain distance to drive, requiring a certain
amount of energy, you will have to fuel up more often, and you will be paying the same or more for this privilege with
ethanol as part of each fill-up.
The motorist, re-fueling his or her car, will not be aware that significant amounts of petroleum products go into
growing corn before any fuel is manufactured. Tractors, harvesters, trucks, and conveyor belts don't run on alcohol, and
agricultural chemicals aren't derived from it.
It will be the furthest thing from the motorist's mind that ethanol for fuel cannot be shipped by pipeline, the cheapest
form of shipping liquids and gases, because ethanol picks up water on it way underground, so ethanol must use more
expensive truck transport, and what do the trucks run on?
The motorist also likely will not be aware that while burning some ethanol with gasoline reduces carbon dioxide
emissions, if you account for the carbon dioxide emissions of the corn's production, there is almost no net gain.
A recent, published finding that ethanol increases ozone in the lower atmosphere is also unlikely to drift through his
or her thoughts while squeezing the pump handle. Ozone is a constituent of smog which affects those with respiratory
problems. Ironically, ozone in the lower atmosphere is itself a greenhouse gas.
Now, corn is a staple food for many poor people, especially throughout the Americas, and it is a simple matter of supply
and demand that if large quantities of corn go to fuel, poor Mexicans and others will be eating less because its bounty
in the food supply will drop. In very small quantities, this effect is almost invisible, but in large quantities - and
what is the use of such programs if they do not become large? - it will become painfully obvious.
Canada's Conservative government , a government whose previous environmental minister became an international
embarrassment to the country, is in a desperate search for some environmental goodness to smear on its face as political
war-paint and has discovered the mumbo-jumbo of ethanol.
Recently, it has run a television ad, over and over, done in fake cinema verité style showing vignettes of an odd little
man with the sardonic smile of a skull asking citizens on the street about growing "our own fuel." It even features a
scene of the would-be comic dancing spontaneously on the sidewalk with someone in celebration of growing your own fuel.
It ends with another man announcing proudly to the astonished little man that his great hulking SUV actually uses
ethanol. Will wonders never cease?
Why do governments do this kind of thing? Well, ethanol as fuel allows you to brag about doing all kinds of good things
- of course, the bragging is done by stating partial truths, but isn't that what all advertising is, partial truth? -
while you dish out a new subsidy to some of your constituents. And you get to advertise what you are doing at the
expense of your listeners.
Ethanol-as-fuel's other great attraction is that politicians get to hide for a while from the real solutions, such as
simply raising vehicle efficiency standards, which require some courage. What a sweet scam.
*************
….coming soon
What's it all about? Read...
THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE
by John Chuckman http://chuckman.blog.ca/
Magpie Books, London