My Hummer's had too much to drink...

I don't get ethanol. I mean, I get ethanol, a bottle of Cabernet without it would be just (sour) grape juice. But ethanol as a fuel is one of the dumbest things we Americans (who have done a LOT of dumb things) have ever done. We're spending about $15 billion in tax dollars this year to pump corn into our gas tanks. We tell ourselves noble stories about "green" ethanol helping to wean us from fossil fuels, while cutting greenhouse gases and reducing our dependence on oil imports. Frankly, we're full of sh*t. Turning corn into ethanol is economic and environmental idiocy.

Ethanol from corn provides no net energy benefit. A number of studies on ethanol production estimate that it takes anywhere from .83 gallons of oil (this is the most optimistic study, produced by the National Corn Growers Association - http://www.ncga.com/public_policy/issues/2001/ethanol/08_22_01b.htm) to 1.3 gallons of oil (this one from Cornell was published in a peer-reviewed science journal - http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-basedethanol.hrs.html) to produce one gallon of ethanol. The consensus of all the studies on the ratio of energy input to energy output of ethanol production comes out to about 1:1. The economic bottom line: we’re spending billions $$ to turn a gallon of oil into a gallon of ethanol.

Diverting corn (and other grains) to ethanol production raises food prices. Subsidies for ethanol production have reduced the proportion of agricultural land used for food production, and more than doubled the commodity prices for grains over the past few years (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-wed-world-food-programmar05,0,2800064.story?track=rss). These price increases concatenate down the grocery chain, leading to sharp increases in prices for everything from bacon at the Stop & Shop to tortillas in Mexico City. The nutritional bottom line: as crops are turned into fuel, food prices rise around the globe.

Corn based ethanol not only costs more than petroleum, and increases food prices, it degrades the environment. If it takes a gallon of oil to make a gallon of ethanol, then ethanol provides no reduction in fossil fuel pollution or greenhouse gas emissions. But it's actually worse than that. Farmers are clearing, cutting and plowing "idle" forests and meadows, in pursuit of subsidized ethanol profits. This land clearing displaces wildlife, releases stored carbon and increases air and water pollution. The environmental bottom line: corn based ethanol is more harmful than the fossil fuels it purports to displace.

We cling to our ethanol dreams, and refuse to admit they are phony fantasies. Politicians are happily willing to suspend disbelief, in their eagerness to win votes in the Midwest (there's a powerful synergy between the importance of the Iowa Caucus and the subsidies Congress pours into Iowa corn). And corn growers and agribusinesses are not about to question the illogic of ethanol, for fear of shutting off the flow of billions in tax $$.

It's time to ask ourselves - "how are tax payer funded ethanol subsidies a good deal for Americans?" (you can read what Cato thinks here http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=7308). We're paying far more for ethanol than we would be for gasoline (although the real price of a gallon of ethanol is hidden by government subsidies). We're increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing environmental damage. We're raising food prices. We're importing more oil than we ever have. And we're putting off doing the difficult things (which I'll tackle in an upcoming post) that we need to do to cut our use of fossil fuels.

What do you think - are we ready to stop fooling ourselves, put down our ethanol high balls and push away from the bar? Given the economic and environmental damage from our ethanol dreams, we'd be better off writing checks to Iowa farmers and ADM to get them to stop producing ethanol from corn.