Read here. If one desires any proof that the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress could care less about the environment, the legislation to expand the use of ethanol as fuel is all one needs. Almost all proposed climate/energy legislation is blatant big corporate welfare or an attempt to enrich wealthy liberal/left donors who invest in get-rich-quick-on-taxpayer-subsidies green schemes.
The ethanol expansion is a classic case of a gigantic corporate welfare scheme, which a lot of people and groups (both left and right) are now plenty sick and tired of, as the above linked article documents.
And, as we've mentioned before, the ethanol (and other biofuels) solution is just plain stupid for a lot of important reasons.
- Ethanol produces little or no additional energy versus energy needed to produce it.
- Can damage vehicle engines not designed to run on ethanol.
- Result in greater CO2 emissions than fossil fuel.
- Causes rising food prices either directly or by competing with food crops.
- Food riots and hunger have been direct result of higher ethanol production.
- Encourages clearing of climate-stabilizing forest lands.
- Increases use of fertilizer leading to greater runoff and NOx emissions.
- Huge amounts of scarce fresh water wasted to produce single gallon of ethanol.
- Produce less energy than simply burning the biomass to produce electricity.
- Are only commercially viable with government subsidies and forced use mandates.
