Rolling Stone magazine says Ethanol is a "Scam."
The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn’t that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after “solutions” that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make from corn.
The ethanol scam, unfortunately, is a bipartisan folly. President Bush includes subsidies for ethanol in his energy plan. The Democratic Congress raises the ethanol ante, and presidential candidates of both parties kiss Iowa corn farmers' butts with promising of yet more ethanol assistance - such ethanol policy is nothing but liquid pork for the corn states.
It's a waste of your tax dollars and won't really help with either energy independence or global warming - though increased use of corn-based ethanol may increase hunger in the Third World by driving up corn prices. (It's already driving up the cost of tortillas in Mexico, adding to the economic misery of millions of Mexicans and likely playing a role in increased illegal immigration to the United States.)
It's time for a presidential candidate and some right-thinking Republicans in Congress to stand up to this folly.
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