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Opinion
May. 12, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Those magic beans called 'ethanol'

Will common sense finally carry the day?

For decades, sensible skeptics have warned that government tariffs and subsidies designed to encourage the conversion of corn to alcohol and requiring fuel distributors to mix this corrosive stuff into our gas tanks was not going to "solve the energy crisis," reduce dependence on imported oil, or do anything helpful for "the environment" -- unless by "the environment" you actually meant "the bank account of Archer-Daniels-Midland."

If the critics failed to mention this expensive boondoggle could also promote starvation and food riots around the world, it was probably only because they were afraid of being ridiculed for "piling on."

Guess what.

While both Congressional Democrats and Republicans were cheering a fivefold increase in mandated ethanol use as little as a year ago, and President Bush was calling the cornfuel program a key to his strategy to cut gasoline use by 20 percent by 2010, today The Great Ethanol Mandate seems to meet Count Galeazzo Ciano's definition of an orphan. ("Victory has many fathers," etc.)

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    • Former "renewable fuels" champion Lester Brown now writes in The Washington Post, "It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that food-to-fuel mandates have failed."

    "Our enthusiasm for corn ethanol deserves a second look," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., in a House hearing Tuesday.

    It's hard to believe ethanol is getting "clobbered the way it's getting clobbered right now" over something as insignificant as some starving Africans, says longtime champion Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

    What happened?

    Everyone knew all along it takes 1,700 gallons of water and 51 cents in tax credits to create one gallon of ethanol from corn -- at which point the stuff still can't compete without a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff to block the importation of cheaper sugar-cane ethanol from Brazil.

    Everyone has long known we use up more petroleum-based fuel in trucks and tractors and distilleries to produce and transport ethanol than it ever saves us in the tank -- and that (speaking of tanks) the stuff is meantime creating unmeasured private costs by rusting out our gas tanks and fuel lines.

    It's long been clear the 30 million acres of American farmland devoted to growing corn for ethanol this year will consume almost a third of America's corn crop - driving up prices for meats and all other grains, worldwide -- while yielding fuel amounting to less than 3 percent of our total petroleum consumption. (If cattle stop eating corn, you have to feed them something else, driving up the price of other grains, even if Sen. Grassley still can't figure that out.)

    In December, the Congressional Research Service warned that even if we devoted every acre of American cornfields to ethanol production -- at who knows what human cost in terms of world-wide hunger and starvation -- it still wouldn't be enough to meet current arbitrary and grossly optimistic federal mandates.

    In February the journal Science reported "Corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20 percent savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years. ..."

    Forests? Being bulldozed for more corn production. O, Bambi and Thumper lovers, what hast thou wrought?

    Suddenly, inspired by the sight of thoroughly predictable food-price riots overseas, political candidates who were happily hopping on the ethanol bandwagon as recently as 2006 are looking for a way out. Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that it may now be more important to help "people get something to eat" than to keep pushing the biofuels boondoggle up the hill.

    "Corn ethanol was presented as an almost Holy Grail solution," moaned Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., this week. "But I believe its negatives today far outweigh its benefits. ... We need to revisit this ... and back away from the food-to-fuel policy."

    Would those be the same negatives we and the other skeptics have been warning about for years, congressman? What did someone do in the interim, teach you simple arithmetic and the first semester of Economics 101?

    Meantime, the governor of Texas and 26 U.S. senators, including GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain, have asked the Environmental Protection Agency to cut in half this year's requirement for 9 billion gallons of corn ethanol in order to ease the pressure on rising food costs.

    That would be a start. But washing their hands and pretending they don't know who gave birth to the biofuel boondoggle will not suffice. Congress needs to repeal the ethanol mandates, subsidies and protective tariffs immediately. The congressmen need to admit they don't know a darned thing about energy markets, and vow to stop using billions of our precious tax dollars meddling in matters they don't understand.

    Finally, investors and energy companies need to soberly review where it gets them to rush into programs that couldn't possibly survive in the unmanipulated market, based on the promise that big federal subsidies are going to make everyone rich.

    The old warning was, "Remember Colorado oil shale." The new one will now be, "Remember ethanol." But the lesson itself is the same: Depending on idiotic congressional enthusiasms is like trying to buy presents for the kids based on last year's Christmas list. Best to double-check. By now they've probably outgrown the Lego set and the Chatty Cathy, and moved on.

    That thing they left you holding? It's called "the bag."



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    David Johann wrote on May 12, 2008 09:03 PM: Archer Daniels Midland, and big, corn-fed, fat cat republican porkers, on the take from this and every other form of republican corporate welfare, are behind the food riots in Africa.

    Republican Archer Daniels Midland.

    "Supermarket to the World.

    Republican.


    fluffy wrote on May 12, 2008 02:41 PM: Paradise was lost when somebody appended Science onto the end of Political, and "institutions" of higher learning started selling its credentials.

    FS, you're correct. However, the days of unbridled creativity and freedom to pursue the solution to a problem are gone. Well....not as long as you're willing to pay the man's "convenience fees", licensing fees, taxes, etc, as long as you're connected enough to get an audience to be "legal" and obtain the "priviledge" of shelling out the $$$ to be "legitimate."


    Joe C. wrote on May 12, 2008 12:40 PM: Well said FS, but it will never work because the liberals know what is best for you.


    J wrote on May 12, 2008 12:38 PM: What? You mean having the U. S. tax payers subsidize ethanol is not working! Could it be, because we are subsiding tankers of European fuel that are bringing to the U.S. mixed with ethanol to get the subsidies and then these tankers are turned around, shipped back to Europe where they get tax breaks there.

    HOW CAN THIS NOT BE HELPING US HERE IN THE U.S.?


    FS wrote on May 12, 2008 07:56 AM: This is what happens when people keep looking to government for answers. The government has no answers other than to make things worse. This is the time for government to take their filthy hands off of our energy problems and let people who actually understand the problem create solutions that actually work. When the new technologies become profitable, they will come and replace the old.


    Lawrence Hyde wrote on May 12, 2008 07:24 AM: Where is harry reid? He is probably making money off of this boondoggle. If he wasn't he would have never been for it. with him it is all about him and nothing else.


    Melissa wrote on May 12, 2008 06:45 AM: Finally an R-J editorial gets some actual facts in it. The original sell on corn to ethanol was based on bogus "facts" prepared by those who stood to profit from it. Members of Congress are mostly lawyers (law is an arts degree, not science) & token stooges so they buy anything that has a campaign contribution attached to it. The general public is even more stupid & buys anything promoted in the press. Like the Iraq war. Murder for oil made out to be saving the world.

    It's time to end the ethanol nonsense. Where is Harry Reid & the rest of the Nevada delegation by the way?


    mls wrote on May 12, 2008 06:43 AM: We are living in the Mike Judge movie, "Idiocracy". It doesn't matter what reality is. It doesn't matter what the real science is. It doesn't matter what the real costs of ethanol are. Ethanol is "green" therefore ethanol is "good" - even when it is not.


    br wrote on May 12, 2008 06:28 AM: The green wennies are gradually being exposed as faux-steak. They have blocked every sensible answer to solve our energy problems. We finally got the Alaskan pipeline in spite of their false tears for the wildlife of that barren area. It was no surprise that the herds multiplied by the thousands instead of becoming extinct. They proclaimed wind power was the answer until wind farms began to be built. Now they cry that birds are being slaughtered by flying into those devilish blades. Actual figures amount to about 100 per year (their figures). Solar panels could cover every acre of Texas without contributing enough power to matter. Nuclear is too dangereous although it has been tamed for decades. Ethanol is not the answer for reasons in this article. There is no one silver bullet solution to the energy problems. Short range effort should include drilling in currently restricted areas, building new refineries and exploiting coal-fired power plants. These things buy us time to develop long range PRACTICAL answers. Turning food crops to fuel crops is not the answer. Just like the DDT ban resulted in millions of human deaths, ethanol is headed down the same road. Politicians and bureaucrats have been listening to mush-headed idealist instead of common man's common sense.


    Helen Weils wrote on May 12, 2008 06:15 AM: Brilliantly stated! Why don't we drop the tariff on Brazilian ethanol as well?


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