While I think corn based ethanol is pretty much wasted effort,
Well, I don't mind the farmers making some more money for once, just like I don't mind oil or mining companies making money. Gosh, farmers start to make some money for once, and all these food processing industries, which sell products for 8 times their input costs start yelling like they are bleeding.
I'm eating a box of Rice Chex cereal, 15.76 ounces for about $3.10.... what did the rice farmer get, maybe 30 cents a pound ?
Anyway, I see 3 major benefits -
1) Creates a capability and some infrastructure for increasing pump octane, which means future car engines can have higher compression - and high compression really boosts the thermodynamic efficientcy. This is a few years in the future, but at least we are starting now.
2) The corn based ethanol creates a small additional motor fuel capacity in the US, which would be very useful if the Persian Gulf were to be shut off for a long time.
3) Ethanol is an existence proof to politicians that something can actually be done in the energy area that has some positive political benefits to them. Note I did not say great net economic benefits.... After ethanol, maybe we can get some action on plug in hybrids, nuclear power, opening up some of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and Rocky Mountain areas, and some form of "effiecient dispatch" for NG based electrical generators.
ACTION on ethanol, which is to a degree misguided, is better than HAPPY TALK about windmills and solar and other renewable fantasies. |
