A Cynical Look on Ethanol

Corn: a delicious vegetable, but also a useful one. Corn is used to make a variety of 0ther products such as chips, soda, cereal, candy, and if you want it can even be distilled into an alcoholic beverage called moonshine. There is one thing, however, that corn should never be used for: ethanol.


Ethanol is held in high regards as the "savior" of our dependence on foreign Oil. We see commercials on it everywhere, showered in politician's unconditional love. Barack Obama, Nanci Pelosi, and even John McCain are big fans of ethanol from corn.
This affects you! Have a car? Most gas stations (At least every one that I have been to in the past year) have 5%-10% ethanol mixed in with the gasoline. Chances are, unless you use diesel, you have ethanol in your tank. However, there are several myths about ethanol that you should be made aware of.

-Ethanol is better,"green" choice for the environment than Oil

Not only is there no real evidence that ethanol reduces carbon emissions, and apparently global warming, compared to oil, but there is substantial evidence to the contrary.

-Ethanol is worth the cost because it reduces our dependence on foreign oil.
The massive increase the production of ethanol causes in the price of food like corn and soy is a far greater cost than the amount we could reduce the cost of oil by producing ethanol.

-Ethanol is just as good as gasoline for your car
Although ethanol can clean out old "gunk" in a car, the mileage per gallon is greatly reduced in gasoline vs oil.

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I will finish this post later on.