TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - For more than two decades, special interests have persuaded Congress to mandate Americans buy ethanol whether they want to or not. As a result, 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop is now used for ethanol rather than food.
The ethanol mandate means that ordinary Americans pay more for a poorer quality automobile fuel and more for groceries. Ethanol proponents claim these costs will bring us environmental benefits and energy security. They are wrong.
A good first question about a mandate is "how good can a product be if you have to force people to buy it?"
The answer: not very good. Ethanol is vastly inferior to gasoline.
Running tractors, combines and trucks, making fertilizer, and refining corn into ethanol all require energy - mostly from oil and natural gas. If the weather is good, corn ethanol shows a slight energy gain over the fuel used to make it; if not, it might be a net loss. The ethanol mandate just burns money to turn oil and natural gas into corn.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?no=subj&articleid=20130111_222_A12_CUTLIN834544
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