Ethanol

We hear a lot about ethanol usage recently. They're even planning to build an ethanol plant in our tiny little township.

Yesterday I mentioned that there are two gas stations available in the nearby city that sell real gas. In other words, ethanol-free. My dad asked why I'd want the non-ethanol gas. I said because you get worse mileage with ethanol-laced gas. He asked why I didn't want to support the farmers.

Well, how many reasons do I want to take space for?

For one thing, there's the study released from Stanford University last week. Environment Science and Technology Online reported that E-85 (the high-ethanol gas) actually creates more pollution and ozone, and thus will be more damaging to health than gasoline made from oil. The scientist even projected how many hundreds of people would die annually because of the switch to higher use of ethanol.

Ethanol costs more to the consumer because you need more of it to get somewhere.

Ethanol uses so much fuel in being produced (such as the tractors necessary to do the farming) that the savings in gasoline are consumed in the production of alternative fuel.

And then there's the cost of corn. Sure, high corn prices puts money in the pocket of the farmers who grow corn. But what about the farmers who are buying feed-corn for their hogs and cows and laying hens? They're hurting already, and it's going to get worse.

And then there are the direct food prices. Germans are upset over rising beer prices and there were riots in Mexico over skyrocketing tortilla prices.

Being less dependent on foreign oil is something America needs to work on. But we don't need ethanol. We have oil. We just haven't been willing to put in more pipelines from Alaska or pump more oil out of the Gulf.

As for the choice between ethanol and gasoline, I'm planning to keep buying my real gas as long as possible. It's all for the sake of environmental cleanliness, of course.