Friday, July 01, 2005
THERE's a surprise
Researchers (including neither of the usual suspects, Pimentel and Patzek) have concluded that fuel ethanol is not worth the impacts of producing more of it, in either the United States or Brazil (!). Article: Physorg.
They produce an estimate of the energy payback from ethanol in the USA in the expected range: about a 10% gain over the inputs. This isn't anything like the return required to be worthwhile.
If we are really, really lucky, sanity just might prevail in the House-Senate conference committee handling the energy bill, and they'll get rid of all the ethanol subsidies and mandates. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.Labels: ethanol, ethanol mirage
¶ 7/01/2005 06:00:00 PM
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Which is why I think that they should be replaced by set-aside subsidies and payment to grain elevators to provide a buffer against unexpectely small harvests or high demand.
Paying farmers to produce excess corn so that we can pay again to turn it into motor fuel, paying a third time in bid-up prices for home-heating fuel and the like, is insane.
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Paying farmers to produce excess corn so that we can pay again to turn it into motor fuel, paying a third time in bid-up prices for home-heating fuel and the like, is insane.
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