Ethanol is nothing but waste.
Clap If You Believe
Ethanol Will Solve Anything
Well sure, it may cost 131,000 BTUs to produce 77,000 BTUs of ethanol, but what's that when it comes to garnering Iowa primary votes? ("More Corn Pone," Review & Outlook, May 20). The most enjoyable aspect of this political boondoggle (for cynics) is that the stuff is completely worthless for cleaning up our air. Some extra oxygen is needed in gasoline to reduce the production of carbon monoxide. Ethanol served as just such an "oxygenator" back when cars had carburetors, but that was long ago, before fuel-injection systems, which automatically provide the necessary oxygen, became standard equipment.
Eric Stork, head of the EPA's Mobile Source Air Pollution Control Program from 1970 to 1978, once said that "the idea of oxygenating gas to reduce carbon monoxide was brilliant 30 years ago. But in cars built in 1983 and later, oxygenates are obsolete and pointless" (New York Times, June 26, 2000). Mr. Stork obviously never wanted to run for president.
Christopher Fountain
Riverside, Conn.
The Ethanol Fable
The ethanol fable is even more pernicious than pure "pork": it creates among the public the impression that something is being done about energy and environment while the opposite is true. The impeccable analysis of Prof. Pimentel was preceded by several similar studies over the past 20 years, demonstrating the negative energy balance of making ethanol by using mainly fossil fuels. Moreover, the largely abandoned Brazilian 1980s experiment where (a) there is much more sunshine than in the Midwest, (b) the crop, sugar cane, is a better converter of solar energy to bio-mass than corn and (c) the agricultural labor is much cheaper, should have served as a lesson.
Mordecai Shelef
Bloomfield Village, Mich.
(The author has a Ph.D. in fuel science, Penn State, 1966.)
The Big Problem With Corn
Not mentioned in your editorial is a basic problem with corn: It is highly susceptible to crop failure due to drought, cold or too much rain. It is unstable as a source for fuel. It's just a cheap political boondoggle.
Harry S. Crowder
Houston, Texas
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