Even if you’re okay with subsidies, place the subsidy on the ethanol rather than the corn and you get a totally different result

…next weeks report is on ethanol

Flex fuel vehicles pollute more because the government allows the manufactures to forgo standards in order to get them to produce flex fuel vehicles so they don’t invest in them getting MPG required for other cars which results in more pollutants and lost mileage.

Ethanol can work. But it appears that no matter what direction we go with gasoline or ethanol, the government has seen to it that it will have the worst possible results. Programs that appear would produce better profits making for wiser investments while producing positive results for the country and consumers aren’t even looked at.

The problem is that the people with all the money and power in the world don’t have any common sense. And why would they? Why would they waste their time thinking or learning how things work, thats what we do, those of us that are beneath them.

They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. What I say is that an idiot is an idiot, there isn’t anything else to be said about it. We need to separate money from power. The more money a person has, the more disconnected they become from reality. Its like they died and went to heaven but they keep coming back down here to earth to tell the rest of us how to run our lives so we can get where they are. But it doesn’t work.

When you have enough money for other people to do everything for you, it makes you a stupid person no matter who you are. The world has become too complicated for lazy stupid people to run it.

Power and wealth don’t count anymore. Most intelligent children could solve the energy problems this country has better than our leadership by simply researching and finding out the facts, then applying to obvious correct solutions, unless they have adopted an air of distinction about themselves as being of class and wealth. Then whatever they come up with will be correct no matter how stupid it is.

But we keep waiting for rich and powerful people to get it right. Here’s a clue. They simply aren’t capable of it, they never have been and never will. The country will keep sliding over the edge of reality until we have all been busted down to a quality of life that allows us enough of a view of of what intelligence represents to remember how to get things right again.

If we can learn the lesson that’s being placed before us, we’ll come out as the world leaders until the next swing of the pendulum comes back our way to see if we are ready to take freedom to the next level that time has readied for us. It all comes down to how stupid or smart we are about the issue of ethanol as a fuel product. Ethanol is the beginning or the end of the free world.

bobbyfontaine@wmconnect.com

So, what is the total environmental cost of ethanol? That’s an interesting question.

For a more libertarian and more sensible solution, the state must get out of the business of heavily subsidizing transportation. The long-distance mass market economy is a product of heavy state intervention in favor of large corporations. These corporations get to offload their communication and transportation costs onto you, as well as on their smaller, regional competitors. Abolishing these subisidies can lower taxes and reduce pollution (there’s two things I’ll bet you didn’t think went together).

In addition, the state has happily separated our home, work, play, and shopping, making a car almost completely necessary outside of the downtown of eastern cities. Abolishing zoning would go a long way towards sensible and environmentally-sound development. It would again lower the cost of living – fewer cars needed, fewer taxes for the extra roads – and improve the environment – fewer roads to absorb heat and slough off water, fewer cars to cough pollution into the air.

The solution to the environment is liberty.

Ethanol derived exclusivly from corn: Not so green after all?

As ethanol is one of the alternative fuels that could reduce fossil fuel use (which is good for energy security and environmental reasons), it shouldn’t focus on one feedstock, as we do now with fossil fuels (oil). Diversifying feedstock is one of the key elements in developing an economically and environmentally sustainable ethanol industry.

What you see now is the development of an emerging industry. Things will go wrong, such as the unintended pollutants that are mentioned in the article. Those are most certainly important issues that need to be resolved, but please focus on the real issue: the United States needs to diversify it’s ethanol feedstock in order to produce large volumes of ethanol in a sustainable way.

Best regards,

Rob

P.S. please show me evidence of corn ethanol production being solely responsible for the increase in corn prices. Take into account other factors such as weather and harvest yields etc. I’m not saying it’s not partially responsible for it, but there is absolutly no proof that it was the leading cause.