Open Letter to Ethanol

Dear Ethanol,

Thank you for making my latest gallon of 2% Milk cost over four dollars. And for robbing my car of precious miles/gallon.

Love,
Wood

Mythbusters: Ethanol is better than oil

First off, read this article by John Stossel. He explains the myth of ethanol very well.

Now, after reading that and gaining a little perspective I think we can all agree that it would be better for everyone involved if farmers had to compete in the food business and stop cheating in the energy business with subsidies. Oil exists only to be consumed by humans. It has no other function, while soil can be used to grow other foods and other resources. That's what we should use soil for - not some pipedream of driving cars with corn.

Don't get me wrong - ethanol isn't completely useless. It's just not a lot better than oil. In fact, it may even be worse than oil because oil is free and basically one small, cheap step away from gasoline.

Ethanol gets less miles per gallon than gasoline on the order of about 70%. So if E85 costs $2.15/gallon, Super 90/10 blend can cost $3.07/gallon and be exactly the same price per mile. They don't brag about this of course because they want people to assume that a gallon is a gallon, but in practical terms, it is very different.

Proponents of ethanol want Americans to assume a lot of things that just aren't true. Americans are stupid and grew up in horrible schools that taught them that oil is bad and it's "going to run out," which just isn't true.

I don't have a problem with ethanol if it can compete fairly with oil, but it can't right now. If technology improves, that's a different story. It may be a viable alternative to gasoline with advancements which yield more energy from less corn more easily. This would, of course, consume less money and energy. Until this happens, the government should not subsidize research and development or production, which only hinder true ingenuity. We can use farmland to grow food that can feed hungry people. We can't feed hungry people oil (yet) so we should use that to fuel our cars.

The market chooses the fittest and the fittest is, indeed, oil.