The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 392
let's see how it can stand on its own. If all oil subsidies were removed gasoline
would probably cost $15 or more per gallon.
You write that (ethanol) tax credits allowed between "1978 and 2012 cost the
Treasury as much as $40 billion." In the same time frame, oil tax credits cost
the Treasury several times that amount. In addition, over the past century, our
country's dependency on petroleum oil has been responsible for the death of
hundreds of thousands of American servicemen, not to mention millions of injuries - many of which caused permanent disabilities. To date, not one American
soldier, sailor or airman has been killed defending the production and distribution of domestic ethanol fuel. Doesn't the well-being of American servicemen fit
into the National Review's definition of patriotism?
Incidentally, the mandate that you refer to doesn't mandate that corn ethanol
be used, it mandates that a renewable substance be used. Ethanol is simply
the best, safest, and least expensive to use.
You say that ethanol negatively affects the food market and prices. This is false.
The originator of this theory was The World Bank in a report they published
about 10 years ago. The World Bank has since officially retracted that report on
at least two occasions. It is the cost of petroleum oil and its finished fuels that
have caused food prices to rise.
You write that "Vehicles can drive fewer miles per gallon using ethanol blends
than they would with pure gasoline. So Americans end up spending an extra
$10 billion per year for fuel." This is false. The lower cost per gallon of ethanolgasoline blends versus ethanol-free gasoline makes the ethanol-gasoline
blends more economical. Ethanol-free gasoline can cost anywhere from about
50 cents to 3 or 4 dollars more per gallon than an ethanol-gasoline blend. If a
vehicle gets 5% fewer miles per gallon by using E10, but the ethanol-free gasoline costs 20% to 100% more than E10, then the use of E10 saves the consumer money. Higher level ethanol-gasoline blends such as E85 result in bigger
savings.
Incidentally, there is no such thing as "pure gasoline." Gasoline is not like extra
virgin olive oil, it's a combination of ingredients, and in order for gasoline to work
safely in high compression internal combustion engines it must have an antiknock ingredient.
You write that "Ethanol also guzzles 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop, and the
resulting scarcity drives up the price of food." This statement is pure drivel and
