Corn ethanol subsidies getting the pro/con debate in Kansas
The debate over corn ethanol, and the federal government's strong support for the biofuel, is being debated across the U.S. Everything from the potential cost for damaged fuel systems to the possible Federal push for E15 is in the news. The discussion has even hit deep into corn country, where the Kansas City Star published a point-counterpoint opinion column yesterday on whether the Feds should continue to subsidize growing corn for ethanol. On the negative side, the corn ethanol mandate "has led to land being taken out of conservation reserves to plant more corn, cultivation practices with dreadful environmental consequences, and increasing demands on fragile groundwater resources." On the pro-corn side, ethanol reduces foreign oil use and "for every billion gallons of ethanol produced, 10,000 to 20,000 people are hired right here in America to do the work." Perhaps the DOE's funding for third-generation biofuels will put the debate to rest, in like fifteen years.
[Source: Kansas City Star]
Photo by dok1. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
required 7:40PM (5/18/2009)
I don't think corn based ethanol is a good idea (mostly because I despise and do not trust the likes of Monsanto). It is a bad one. But if we are going to continue to subsidize the freaking oil industry then what the hell, why not this industry?
Seriously.
Or how about have the old school subsidize the new school by putting a tax or something on nonrenewables that goes towards clean renewable inexhaustible fuels?
Why not?
Reply
Bill 10:03PM (5/18/2009)
drop subsidis and allow refineries to purchase ethanol on the world market
Reply
kballs 2:53PM (5/19/2009)
All of the pro-corn points apply to other [better] ethanol sources so they have zero validity for the pro-corn argument... ones that don't require 100x more water than produced ethanol, that don't require pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, or subsidies... and definitely don't require round-up + round-up-ready-plants + suing land owners when the round-up-ready seeds spread to their land like weeds in the wind. Agribusiness is just as much or more evil than the oil business... hence the corn lobby, the resistance to growing things like switchgrass which don't create 100% monopolistic interdependency for seeds/fertilizer/pesticide/herbicide.
Reply
Carney 3:41PM (5/19/2009)
Agribusiness has helped feed starving masses around the world. The price of food has gone down relentlessly as the quality and quantity of food has gone up.
But the oil cartel, OPEC, restricts production on purpose so as to increase the price artificially. The price went up tenfold from 1999 to 2008, from $10 a barrel to over $100. That's a brutally regressive tax on the world's poorest. It was hard enough for average Americans to pay that and indeed it collapsed our economy. But we make $35,000 a year after taxes. But the $100 per barrel price is charged to those who make $3,500 a year, or $350, so times a few million we see a farmer unable to pay to have his goods trucked to market before they spoil, or unable to afford petroleum-based fertilizer or fuel for his fishing boat etc.
OPEC consists of the most tyrannical and corrupt nations on Earth. They don't have to encourage and develop the human potential of their people, because they don't need to tax commerce and growth to fund themselves. All the money they need can be just pumped up from underground on demand.
That wealth is then squandered on the most obscene wallowing in luxury that has ever occurred in human history: palaces, racehorses, yachts, personally owned passenger jets, concubines, slaves, drugs, you name it. Only one Saudi national (they are not "citizens" - all are legally the PROPERTY of the monarch) works; the rest are free to idle in brothels or extremist mosques.
The rest of that wealth funds their police states and handout programs to suppress their restive populations, as well as, for the Saudis and others, their real passion, their genocidal cult. Tens of thousands of madrassas in Pakistan alone lure poor village boys with free food and a roof into mental slaughterhouses where they learn nothing but rote memorization of the Koran and that the way to a grossly carnal Paradise is to kill any Jew, Christian, or in fact any non-Wahhabi. The death toll and misery caused by this propaganda has been enormous, world-changing.
Agribusiness and oil? There's no comparison.
Carney 4:21PM (5/19/2009)
I meant only one Saudi national in six works.