Stop the Ethanol Madness

[Elderberry]

The Atlantic by Mario Loyola 11/23/2019

The mainstay of the Renewable Fuel Standard is an unmistakable social and environmental failure. Why does it persist?

The idea of requiring the nation’s gasoline supply to contain a certain amount of renewable biofuel was born in a short-lived doomsday fad of the 1970s. With experts warning that the world was quickly running out of oil, the shocks of ’73 and ’79 led President Jimmy Carter to call for wartime-style rationing of fuel and other draconian measures to avoid a “national catastrophe.” His proposals, fortunately, didn’t get much further than a small subsidy for corn ethanol.

Just a few years later, with its market share under assault from new non-OPEC oil producers, Saudi Arabia suddenly doubled production. Oil prices crashed around the world, and a decades-long oil glut ensued. So much for that doomsday fad.

As a way to replace dwindling reserves of oil, ethanol subsidies had a certain brutal logic, especially if oil prices were going to keep rising with no end in sight. But as a way to address climate change, the program never made any sense. Corn ethanol may well be worse for the climate than fossil fuels, and the program does significant damage to both the economy and the environment. Its sole beneficiaries are large agricultural corporations—and the politicians who serve them.

More: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/ethanol-has-forsaken-us/602191/

[IsailedawayfromFR]

The goalposts have slid once again since ethanol got into our fuel system.

Now proponents claim it is better since it is 'carbon neutral'.  Their claim is the carbon is first captured by the plants then spread into the atmosphere where it is 'recaptured' by the plants.

Sounds great, doesn't it?  Except it is not true.

Biofuels turn out to be a climate mistake – here’s why
https://theconversation.com/biofuels-turn-out-to-be-a-climate-mistake-heres-why-64463

[Free Vulcan]

Having lived in Iowa most of my life, farmers are maddenly bipolar.

They've lept forward in orders of magnitude at growing their crop efficiently, yet market it like it's still the 50's and refuse to change.

And when they do take a risk and invest in something new, they'll plunk down millions for some pie-in-the-sky thing that fizzles, or ultimately fails, like ethanol.

Yet they keep on and on with the same paradigm, somehow expecting different results.

[GtHawk]

I think it's part of the plan to get older vehicles and motors out of use by destroying them with higher percentages of ethanol.