[LINK] ethanol and the US drought

[Jan Whitaker]

I don't know what plant materials go in our ethanol production (sugar 
cane???), but in the US it's corn. And what with the drought up 
there, the impact on food prices is massive as a result of a govt 
mandate to have ethanol in all petrol. Wasn't this a Golden Age of 
the Howard Govt initiative?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/ethanol-mandate_n_1799046.html
As for the environmental virtues of ethanol, those were debunked long 
ago. True, gasoline-ethanol blends can lower greenhouse emissions by 
20 percent, and ethanol can replace toxic additives such as benzene 
that make gasoline more combustible. But growing corn is energy 
intensive. Tractors that run on 
<http://topics.bloomberg.com/diesel-fuel/>diesel fuel must plow 
fields, plant seed, spread fertilizer and pesticides (that run into 
local waterways), harvest the crop and haul it to refining plants. 
Unlike oil, ethanol is highly corrosive and can't be transported by 
pipeline. Trucks or trains must carry the finished product to 
gasoline blenders. By some 
<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/ethanol.html>calculations, 
ethanol takes more energy to produce than it yields, negating the 
environmental benefits.


Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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