The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 333
should and would probably grow apples. This is not rocket economics (to coin
a term) it is just basic business.
Consequently, if a farmer can make more money growing corn than apples,
why shouldn’t or wouldn’t he do that?
According to your article, farmers are villains for choosing to grow more corn
than other products. You don’t portray them as savvy businessmen, you make
it seem like they are greedily out to hurt people. What the heck is up with that?
And if the U.S. government should happen to provide some financial inducement for a farmer to grow corn, as opposed to some other crop, why is it wrong
for a farmer to take advantage of the financial inducement? Would you vilify a
building construction company for seeking government housing contracts during the national home-building depression? No, I don’t think you would, so why
not use some good old common sense in evaluating the decision/reason to
grow corn?
By the way, I presume you noticed that I haven’t even addressed…yet…the
central point of your article, that biofuels are “Not Worth the Trouble or Cost.” I
now turn my attention to dealing with your misinformed statements about biofuels, but I wanted to point out that since you can’t even understand the most
basic economic issues, then you are not competent to evaluate the value of
biofuels.
In any event, you wrote:
“The argument for mandating ethanol in motor fuel was to help make the
United States energy-independent and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.
Now the inconvenient facts:
• Recent studies show that the total carbon dioxide emissions from growing, harvesting, processing, and burning corn as ethanol are much
greater than those from oil and gas production and use.
• Ethanol reduces gas mileage in cars because it is less energy-dense
than gasoline, and it causes more wear and tear on engines.
• Without subsidies, ethanol is more costly than oil and gas. “
Now, Richard, the facts about your “inconvenient” lies:
• Recent studies do not show that the production and use of ethanol create
more carbon dioxide emissions than the production and use of gasoline. Stories
circulated by the oil industry have attempted to dissect the entire process of
