A Gallon Of Gas And The Ethanol Hoax
By Thomas D. Segel
April 25, 2008
When I read the newspaper or view the nightly television news shows I can't help but feel almost uncontrollable anger. And the truth is, I really don't know where that anger should be directed. I listen to my fellow citizens anguish about the price of fuel, the price of food and sticker shock at everything they want to purchase. They have great concerns about the price of gas at the local station and the cost of milk at the super market. And they blame the politicians for inaction, along with greedy farmers and Big Oil for high prices. With their next breath they are crying for more of our corn based ethanol to help lower prices at the pump. It is enough to make a rational person want to bash his or her head against the nearest hard object in complete frustration.
For the past thirty plus years we have allowed the environmental activists of the Democratic Party to, stop all forward movement in our national quest for energy independence. We know how to obtain oil from places such as Alaska, Wyoming and the Dakotas, but legislation to drill has been blocked. We know oil is waiting offshore, but we are not allowed to drill due to environmental impact, even though other nations are reaching for that same oil, just a few miles away.
We have even allowed these same activists to stop the building of new oil refineries for the past 30 years.
Our energy demands from abroad could be reduced by nuclear power, but the socialist led environmentalists have swayed enough pandering politicians to stop the production of nuclear power plants. Other socialist-activists who hide behind the green wall of environmentalism have slowed the much touted wind farms of this country to almost a standstill. When construction is almost at hand there is always another call for a study to see if these wind farms will kill migrating birds, or perhaps block Ted Kennedy's oceanfront view.
Though the United States has enough coal to handle the majority of our energy needs for decades, political roadblocks keep on appearing to slow the rapid development of coal based technology.
While on the topic of energy concerns, lets not forget the political love affair with corn-based ethanol. To say this bio fuel is a gigantic con game perpetrated by corn producers and politicos would be an understatement. We must add into the mix major corporations that keep the myth of reduced dependence on oil alive, because they are financially invested in bio-fuels.
When we examine the politician's incessant praising of corn based ethanol, we fail to understand these are really people who are prostituting themselves for more votes and financial support from the agro-community.
Ethanol, as we produce it today, is 20% less efficient than gasoline. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce enough ethanol to fill the tank of the average American automobile. (Think about that for a minute. It also takes about 450 pounds of corn to feed one person for a year.) It is too corrosive to be shipped via pipeline and must be trucked to distribution points. Added to these negatives...it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel, coal, oil, or natural gas, to produce one gallon of ethanol.
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