End the Ethanol Insanity: Ed Wallace
Ethanol damages engines and is not a viable alternative to fossil fuels, but farmers and lobbyists don’t want you to know that.
“First-generation [corn] ethanol, I think, was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small.” —Al Gore, speaking at a green energy conference on Nov. 22, 2010
“Ethanol is not an ideal transportation fuel. The future of transportation fuels shouldn’t involve ethanol.” —Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Nov. 29, 2010
It is now conceivable that the myth of ethanol as the salvation for America’s energy problem is coming to an end. And maybe we always should have known it would wind up in italics, underlined, with the real facts of the damage ethanol can do to gas-powered motors laid out for all to see in a court of law. I say that because this past Monday a group calling itself the Engine Products Group, comprising small-engine manufacturers, automakers, and boat manufacturers, filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to vacate the EPA’s October ruling that using a 15 percent blend of ethanol in the nation’s fuel supplies would not harm 2007 and newer vehicles…
It’s no coincidence that Iowa is both the state that grows the most corn and the site of the Iowa caucuses, the first and most critical stop on every Presidential campaign. No one running for the highest office in the nation can go there and say what Al Gore or Steven Chu said at the end of November and hope to win the state. And therefore the ethanol insanity will continue until so many cars and motors are damaged by this fuel additive that the public outcry can no longer be ignored.
The older cars owned by those less financially secure will be the first to go. In fact, that’s already happened in thousands of cases nationwide. Maybe when it starts happening to those on more solid financial ground, then someone will listen: Adding an expensive, harmful, useless filler to gasoline just to win farmers’ gratitude is not remotely the same as having a legitimate national energy poli