By Alan Caruba
The rocketing costs of gasoline and the price of corn being paid worldwide are the result of U.S. government mandates requiring the inclusion of ethanol in the gasoline all Americans must use. The time has long since passed to eliminate ethanol from this primary fuel.
A recent report by ActionAid USA, “Fueling the Food Crisis: The Cost to Developing Countries of U.S. Corn Ethanol Expansion” is based on work by researchers at Tufts University. ActionAid USA is an anti-poverty group. The study found that the corn-importing countries of Central America and North Africa are at the highest risk from ethanol expansion—the requirement to include ethanol with gasoline.
“Strong policy should not be based on prayers for good weather, especially when the stakes are so high. From the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the G20, it is time to recognize that current biofuel mandates are unsustainable,” said Kristin Sundell, a policy analyst for ActionAid USA.
The group is calling on G20 leaders who are meeting on World Food Day, October 16, to eliminate incentives that encourage unsustainable biofuels production.
The idea behind ethanol is that it reduces carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and, in doing so, it saves the Earth from global warming/climate change, but CO2 plays no role in climate change, and shows up well after any increase or decrease of temperatures. Ethanol is bad science. It is bad for the engines of cars that must use such a gasoline blend. It increases the cost of gasoline and all other corn-based products. It actually increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. And it reduces the mileage a car can achieve with pure gasoline.
An authority on the U.S. oil industry is Sel Graham, the author of “Why Your Gasoline Prices Are High”. He is a man with more than fifty year’s experience, first as a petroleum reservoir engineer and later as an oil and gas attorney. He is also a graduate of West Point.
Here’s what Graham has to say about the current gas prices:
“Gasoline prices could be decreased instantly by President Obama if he wanted to do so. Republicans have not yet picked up on this issue.”
“Abolishing the ethanol mandate requiring ethanol to be blended with gasoline at the pump or waiving the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) would: (1) lower gasoline prices by millions of dollars; (2) result in billions of miles of free travel annually; (3) prevent millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide from being emitted into the air; and (4) improve national security and the energy picture since it is impossible for US ethanol to ever replace foreign oil imports.”
“The following is reference data for skeptics. Gasoline prices can be lowered instantly by either abolishing the ethanol mandate which requires that ethanol be blended with gasoline at the pump or waiving the RFS. This would eliminate the millions of dollars in waivers which refineries are required to purchase because there is no cellulosic ethanol production, thereby decreasing the price of gasoline."
"The 2012 RFS for cellulosic ethanol is 8.65 million gallons. Cellulosic ethanol production through August 2012 has been only 20,069 gallons, a shortage of 8.63 million gallons requiring $0.78 per gallon waivers.”
An essential truth that few Americans are aware of is that “The price of U.S. oil is always lower than the price of foreign oil. Last year, U.S. oil averaged $95.73 per barrel, $7.25 cheaper than foreign oil imports at $102.98 per barrel. If U.S. oil replaced the 3,261 million barrels of foreign oil imports, it would be a savings to Americans of $23.6 billion annually.”
Given the enormous oil reserves in America, both domestic and offshore, there is no reason why they should not be extracted, but the environmental movement in combination with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior and Energy Departments, has restricted access to our own oil.
The ethanol mandates are not just robbing Americans at the gas pump, they are endangering the cost of food prices worldwide
Current government energy policies are a definition of insanity.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
Comment
Comment by Arthur Bruce Robertson on October 17, 2012 at 8:21am This information needs to be provided to your representatives in Congress and to those at the top of the Republican party, to assure the review of Ethenol policy when President Romney takes office.
Comment by John Brunner on October 16, 2012 at 12:39pm No administration to date has faced the problem with requireing ethanol in gasoline at the same time using our great corn production wisely. It is a mess and getting worse. These administrators will push the price of food up world wide just to keep an industry which cannot stand on its own continue to suck at the public ti er brest!
Comment by Daniel Morrison on October 15, 2012 at 9:54pm I'm proud of my carbon footprint (2500 series diesel truck, 20K pool, home w/air conditioning, power toys and power tools everywhere you look) but its important to keep the facts coming...all Alan Caruba has done here is given fodder to the environmentalistas. Start with the facts, then draw on them...don't be reduced to proving an argument by either debasing or making up the facts like our left leaning friends are so fond of.
http://ethanolrfa.org/pages/monthly-fuel-ethanol-production-demand
Comment by Roc29 on October 15, 2012 at 9:23am This just out:
Global warming stopped 16 years ago
When control of mass communication is in the hands of charlatans, the general public has no choice but to believe the bamboozle. If you repeat a lie often enough truth becomes the victim.
Al Gore and his minions have become rich beyond their fondest dreams pulling off this scam. So many, otherwise, smart people have been taken in that it will still be hard to get the truth out because the Goreites will continue to defend and the smart suckers' egos won't let them admit that they had been taken.
Carl Sagan said it best:
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Comment by Ginny Marriott on October 14, 2012 at 8:39pm PCBob, hunter60, you are both right! I call the corporate farms "Big Farma", ha! Ethanol is robbing the world of food and putting it in the gas tank!
Comment by PC Bob on October 14, 2012 at 7:05pm Comment by hunter60 on October 14, 2012 at 6:12pm Ethanol is simply another government sponsored fraud with the predictable results of every government fraud. In this case, that prices go up, overall fuel economy goes down, personal property is damaged, food prices skyrocket, and the stated goal of alternative energy and lower CO2 emissions are never really reached. In fact E85 powered vehicles in the local govt's fleet refuel 3 times more often than on unleaded, how does that help anything? Sounds just like every federal government program, costs too much, never achieves it's goal, and makes everything worse all the way around. Obama's ouster in November should be the start of a goal to reduce the total size of government by about half starting with the EPA.
Comment by Ginny Marriott on October 14, 2012 at 5:37pm I live in the corn belt, and each day as I listen to Rush, I hear the agriculture report during commercial breaks... and believe me, today's farmers are a huge lobbying group... I get the idea they are thrilled that food stamps have increased by millions and ethanol is mandated more and more... they seem to love Big Government and all the goodies they get from it. Yet, the farmers I know personally are very conservative, so it's puzzling.
Comment by Phil McConathy on October 14, 2012 at 4:39pm The ethanol scam is just as big as the global warming scam. Both are despicable issues and the science isn't solid to say the least on either. This ethanol crap is what occurs when bureaucrats in DC decide how the American driver will pay for their transportation. They make stupid laws that actually hurt the environment and costs rise to unheard of levels for the consumer. They make a law requiring a specific product, which hasn't been developed yet, and then penalize oil companies because they don't use this product which hasn't been created. Now that is the normal operations of the federal government operating in a way that hurts every American.
Comment by Vern Shotwell on October 14, 2012 at 3:03pm The facts are verifiable, Leo. Or last time I looked..
Has nothing to do with Ethanol production.
The key words are "Cellulosic ethanol" The requirement exists to use a product that cannot be produced.
See "EPA blasted for requiring oil refiners to add type of fuel that's merely hypothetical" at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/21/regulation-requires-oil-...
There's a lot more information, but that will get you started. Please don't expect the author or others to feed you all the data.
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