The Clean Energy Scam?

Question

Hyped as an eco-friendly fuel, ethanol increases global warming, destroys forests and inflates food prices. So why are we subsidizing it? Deforestation of the Amazon is releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The U.S. could never run on biofuel alone, so what can we do?

Answer 1

The US government is subsidizing it, because they wanted it to appear that they were doing something about the problem of global warming.  Unfortunately, the current administration has been dragging it's feet for years about the problem and offered this as a token effort to help the environment.  Guess what?  They failed to do their homework and research BEFORE promoting it (hmm, does that sound familiar to anyone else?).

Answer 2

We're subsidizing it because the current government jumped on corn-based ethanol as a way to benefit farmers while appearing to help the environment before all the facts were in.  Now we know that corn-based ethanol is a very poor solution (probably even worse for the environment overall than gasoline), and the subsidies should stop.

What we should do is concentrate on switching to hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and fully electric vehicles.  Electric motors are far more efficient than internal combustion engines, produce lower emissions than gas cars even when powered mostly by coal, and we can make them as green as we want by building more renewable energy power plants.

Answer 3

The corn-ethanol 'fix' was a knee-jerk reaction (by politicians) to the alleged 'man-did-it' global warming movement.  As noted by previous posters, the pollution created in the production of ethanol is greater than that of regular gasoline.  In addition, Food prices have soared as a result of burning our food in vehicles.

The subsidies were thrown at the ethanol industry to promote plant construction and increased corn acreage.  The farmers are happy with the high grain prices, but the resultant high food prices are tough on many of our citizens.

Answer 4

The USA encourages and subsidizes ethanol programs in the developing nations for the same reason it promotes hydrogen, and the development of essentially worthless hybrid cars like the Volt;  the idea is to generate evidence that alternative fuels don't work, hybrids don't work, and that usable alternative fuels are 50-100 years away.  It's criminal that the rain forests are being cut down to support this agenda, but it is the current Administration that is paying them to do it.  We may be very close to a viable ethanol process (all the ones the USA subsidizes in developing countries are proven unworkable).  There is still no possibility of ethanol working as a replacement for gasoline in the USA or Europe.  We have technologies that could replace gas, but the car companies, oil companies, and federal government have done an effective job of suppressing them.

Fabulous question!

Answer 5

Here's who's behind the rush to Ethanol and "BioFuel":

Ethanol Industry Gets a Boost From Bush

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

"At the State of the Union address Tuesday night, Don Endres relished the strange applause rituals, the pomp and ceremony, and even the dinner in the Capitol beforehand at which he rubbed elbows with leading lawmakers.

But most of all, Endres, the chief executive of the nation's second-largest ethanol maker, relished President Bush's message: that the government should sharply raise the mandate for ethanol use in motor fuels, setting a floor for alternative and renewable fuel use in 2017 that is equal to seven times the current ethanol output."

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John McCain called for the end of ethanol subsidizies way back in 2000 during Republican debates:

McCain, Bush clash over ethanol during first debate in Iowa

http://www.drake.edu/journalism/CyberCau...

"I'm here to tell you that I'm going to tell you the things that you don't want to hear, as well as the things you want to hear, and one of those is ethanol," McCain said. "Ethanol is not worth it. It does not help the consumer."

"Those ethanol subsidies should be phased out, and everybody here on this stage, if it wasn't for the fact that Iowa is the first caucus state, would share my view that we don't need ethanol subsidies. It doesn't help anybody," McCain said.

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In my opinion Bush should have been impeached for treason long ago for his attacks on the Bill of Rights (tramling freedom os speech by scientists, evesdropping without a warrant, jailing indefinitely without an arrest or trial), undermining our 3 branch system of government, and for allowing Rumsfeld to commit war crimes.

You're right that Biofuels are doing a tremendous amount of damage to the Amazon:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl...

Brazil just announced that deforestation is on track to double this year; Carter, a Texas cowboy with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, says it's going to get worse fast. "It gives me goose bumps," says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to promote sustainable ranching on the Amazon frontier. "It's like witnessing a rape."

We'll pay a huge price for that as our food supplies are further threatened by global warming:

Food News

http://www.climatechangenews.org/nFood.h...