The
Case Of Ethanol As Motor Fuel
By John Chuckman
27 April, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Ethanol
has always been a poor choice as a fuel, but the scientific and economic
considerations behind that statement don't stop politicians from claiming
otherwise.
American use of ethanol blended
into gasoline actually represents a hidden subsidy to corn farmers,
a subsidy on top of other subsidies, because American corn production
itself has long been subsidized. The American program, to be expanded
now by a leader widely recognized for wisdom and insight, George Bush,
subsidizes farmers hurt by the abundance of their own subsidized production.
Subsidies plus the extent
of Midwestern farmland suitable for its production are why America produces
such an abundance of corn. Its use in motor fuel on any scale started
as a way to stretch America's fuel supply in the face of Arab anger
over foreign policy.
But it does not really do
this. Although numbers naturally change over time, ethanol has roughly
70% the energy content of gasoline, yet it costs about 40% more to produce
and distribute. In order to deliver this economic bargain to motorists,
the government forgoes taxes paid by the users of gasoline, taxes which,
of course, pay for important government services.
You don't need to study economics
to appreciate that as a bad bargain.
In the years since the original
strategic argument, arguments for the use of ethanol in fuel have developed
around its being a benefit to the environment. It is no surprise that
many embrace this at first hearing: growing something for fuel just
sounds cleaner and healthier than using a minerals dug out of the ground.
But this is a false argument,
false at several levels. If you have a certain distance to drive, requiring
a certain amount of energy, you will have to fuel up more often, and
you will be paying the same or more for this privilege with ethanol
as part of each fill-up.
The motorist, re-fueling
his or her car, will not be aware that significant amounts of petroleum
products go into growing corn before any fuel is manufactured. Tractors,
harvesters, trucks, and conveyor belts don't run on alcohol, and agricultural
chemicals aren't derived from it.
It will be the furthest thing
from the motorist's mind that ethanol for fuel cannot be shipped by
pipeline, the cheapest form of shipping liquids and gases, because ethanol
picks up water on it way underground, so ethanol must use more expensive
truck transport, and what do the trucks run on?
The motorist also likely
will not be aware that while burning some ethanol with gasoline reduces
carbon dioxide emissions, if you account for the carbon dioxide emissions
of the corn's production, there is almost no net gain.
A recent, published finding
that ethanol increases ozone in the lower atmosphere is also unlikely
to drift through his or her thoughts while squeezing the pump handle.
Ozone is a constituent of smog which affects those with respiratory
problems. Ironically, ozone in the lower atmosphere is itself a greenhouse
gas.
Now, corn is a staple food
for many poor people, especially throughout the Americas, and it is
a simple matter of supply and demand that if large quantities of corn
go to fuel, poor Mexicans and others will be eating less because its
bounty in the food supply will drop. In very small quantities, this
effect is almost invisible, but in large quantities - and what is the
use of such programs if they do not become large? - it will become painfully
obvious.
Canada's Conservative government
, a government whose previous environmental minister became an international
embarrassment to the country, is in a desperate search for some environmental
goodness to smear on its face as political war-paint and has discovered
the mumbo-jumbo of ethanol.
Recently, it has run a television
ad, over and over, done in fake cinema verité style showing vignettes
of an odd little man with the sardonic smile of a skull asking citizens
on the street about growing "our own fuel." It even features
a scene of the would-be comic dancing spontaneously on the sidewalk
with someone in celebration of growing your own fuel. It ends with another
man announcing proudly to the astonished little man that his great hulking
SUV actually uses ethanol. Will wonders never cease?
Why do governments do this
kind of thing? Well, ethanol as fuel allows you to brag about doing
all kinds of good things - of course, the bragging is done by stating
partial truths, but isn't that what all advertising is, partial truth?
- while you dish out a new subsidy to some of your constituents. And
you get to advertise what you are doing at the expense of your listeners.
Ethanol-as-fuel's other great
attraction is that politicians get to hide for a while from the real
solutions, such as simply raising vehicle efficiency standards, which
require some courage. What a sweet scam.
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