Friday, May 23, 2008
This Man Is An Impostor!
"My View" piece in the op-ed section of today's paper concerning the quote-unquote issue of ethanol driving up food prices. It's not really an issue, of course, but people like to demonize ethanol, even here in Hillbillyana, where there is little else going on but corn. The interesting thing about this very good op-ed piece, though, is that it's written by Dick Lugar. His positions and opinions are so well thought out and intelligent and (often) correct that it always seems incongruous to me that he's a Republican.
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People like to demonize Ethanol because not only does it drive up prices of just about everything there are some significant downsides to it.
1) Making ethanol produces a lot of "harm" to the environment. No, I didn't become a tree hugger but many environmentalists are against pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere yet to produce ethanol means a lot of pollution plus clearing out a lot of land to make more refineries. Not only are those refineries eyesores they produce a lot of waste. I read an article somewhere stating that it will produce 18% more CO2 in the environment than standard gasoline. Also, studies are inconclusive if ethanol will decrease CO2 in the atmosphere than standard oil. I remember seeing an article in Indystar a while back that plots where the refineries are, there are a lot dotting this state. Plus there are people upset because they plopped refineries right near residential areas which makes the value of their homes plummet.
2) Transporting ethanol is tricky. You can't send it down a pipeline which means you have to use barges, trains and trucks. More CO2 into the environment, and very expensive to transport.
3) Your basically putting food in your car. Instead of feeding people we are feeding our cars. Kind of weird.
4) Gas prices will continue to rise, a lot. Ethanol will not decrease the price at the pump, as a matter of fact it will increase. It costs a lot more money to produce ethanol.
So lets see: deforestation, more pollution, more money to transport, decreased land, decreased home values, increase in food and goods prices, decreased food production. I'm trying to see an upside to this but I'm just not. I noticed Lugar didn't bring up these downsides and painted a nice rosy picture to ethanol. While I respect Lugar a lot I really disagree with him on this.
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