As we approach the heart of summer, families around the country are planning travel vacations. With gas prices approaching $5 per gallon in some places, Americans are looking for anything to decrease the pain at the pump.
The Biden administration says electric vehicles are a solution to decarbonizing the transportation sector while also making driving more affordable. However, its “electric vehicle revolution” operates in an alternate reality where billions of dollars of government spending create domestic supply chain problems overnight. Most EVs are made outside the United States, so many that less than 15 percent of EVs on the market qualify for federal tax breaks.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last year that his state will ban gas-powered cars by 2035. He lives in a fantasy world. These efforts are political theater meant to score political points with environmentalists who have decided that a single solution to our complex transportation needs is the only path forward.
President Biden claims to be seeking an American solution to a problem it is unclear exists. In truth, we already have a readily available solution: American-made ethanol. Not only does ethanol lower prices at the pump but it also decreases emissions. If the president’s stated goal is to pursue cleaner transportation alternatives, then ethanol should be at the top of the list of solutions.
I have visited Iowa several times while running for president. In every town and city across the state, people tell me how important ethanol is in powering their farms, supporting small businesses and providing economic opportunities in their communities. In fact, research shows the widespread use of ethanol would generate $36.3 billion in additional income for American households, save drivers nearly $21 billion at the pump per year, and support 188,000 jobs.
Democrats would respond that boosting jobs and supporting the economy is not as important as saving the environment. However, the Department of Energy highlights that ethanol creates about 50 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline.
Democrats also conveniently ignore the severe environmental and humanitarian nightmares that support the electric vehicle supply chain. Studies show that producing electric vehicles emits more greenhouse gases than fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. Many have warned that the minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries are made under “modern-day slavery” conditions.
Build back better? Not so much.
If the goal is cleaner transportation solutions, let’s be honest and let’s ensure that biofuels, like ethanol, aren’t discounted in this pursuit.
But if we are truly serious about addressing climate issues, we should first focus on getting China to play by the rules. Despite efforts by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, China remains the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases and shows no signs of reform. Right now, the Biden administration’s effort to push electric vehicles is like drinking with a paper straw; it might make you feel better but is doing nothing to change the situation.
Until we live in a utopia where China listens to us and the average electric vehicle doesn’t cost more than triple the average down payment on a house, we must think practically about the best way to fuel our nation. And that, for starters, should focus heavily on making higher ethanol blends available to all Americans and ensuring that American biofuels factor heavily in our transportation mix.
Reprinted with permission from the DC Journal by Larry Elder.
The article reads like an ad for the ethanol lobby. If American wants truly lower energy costs, then return to the Trump policy of drill baby drill and stop vilifying the domestic oil and natural gas industry.
When we switched from 100% gas to 10% ethanol, it appeared that we got about 8% lower fuel mileage. I call it an expensive and environmentally damaging boondoggle.
Who wrote this? Why is the author not credited? While ethanol could possibly be an assist, it isn’t the fix all. And what makes ethanol? Is it the corn product that is used to feed livestock? Feed people? So, if it’s to be used to fuel the country, what does that do to the prices of those things that it can’t be used for because it’s bought up by the transportation industry? I’ve also been to Iowa, where in the small town I grew up in, you could only get ethanol mixtures of gas. My car ran like crap on that stuff. So, if we use ethanol for our fuel products, what’s it going to do to our car engines that were not built for this type of fuel long term? How much will it cost the consumer to either “rebuild” the vehicles fuel system or replace the vehicle? Tend to agree with PaulE. And my father always told me to beware of people that claim to be able to fix things but didn’t want credit. I confess, I don’t read every Amac article, but don’t remember any not crediting the author.” (by Outside Contributor) just doesn’t get it.
Obviously the author is not intelligent enough, honest enough, or old enough (not sure which) to discuss what happened 20 years ago (or so) when there WAS a big push to convert to ethanol. Gas prices didn’t get cheaper, mileage got worse, cars had to be re-engineered to run on ethanol, and the food costs related to any crop used to make ethanol went through the roof. And the impacts were not just here. Since excess crops were transferred to make fuel, exports dropped which had a major impact on poorer nations depending on our food exports. It was just another solution “fad” that proved to be a bust in about 2 years. Those that don’t know te past are doomed to repeat it.
I’ve changed my mind, the author is an idiot.
Hey AMAC, you are loosing credibility with articles like this one, not many ethanol fans here. We need to open up the pipelines and resume drilling.
This thesis is utterly bogus. The energy input to produce fuel from ethanol is larger than the energy output. Check out the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Then there is the moral problem of burning food for fuel instead of feeding people. This is particularly troublesome as we watch the global powers that be attempt to hobble agriculture by limiting fertilizer, culling dairy herds in Ireland, and shutting down farmland in Holland, which is one of the biggest producers of food in the entire world.
Whoever this author is, hiding behind the anonymity of “Outside Contributor”, should be ashamed of himself.
Higher ethanol blends cost more.
Shouldn’t farmland be used to produce food?
Then other resources (oil & gas) provide fuel..
The line that says, “I have visited Iowa several times while running for president” sorta narrows down the field as to who the “contributor” is. Ethanol is as bogus as climate change. If it wasn’t for us taxpayers pumping subsides into the ethanol producers, it all of a sudden would not be so cheap.
Fertilizer used to grow corn is made from oil. Corn used to make ethanol is corn not being available to feed livestock or people. One increases dependency on oil and the other makes food more expensive. Ethanol also damages older cars and lawn equipment as it’s corrosive.
Ethanol is the solution if you REMOVE it from the gas. Ethanol in the gas is actually the problem. It lowers the miles/gallon and it does not burn as clean as pure gas. The plants that produce Ethanol are actually deadly to bees and are contributing to the die off of the bee population. Ethanol can fix all of our problems if we stop using it.
It requires more fuel to plant harvest and process corn into alcohol than what it yields. That has been a freshman engineering project to prove that, since the 1970’s.
Howls of derisive laughter.
Poor choice. Ethanol is not as efficient as gas and producing it would put a strain on food supplies. Just a bad idea.
Ethanol is NOT the answer. It has 20% to 25% less energy than gasoline and does not cost that much less; (perhaps 10%), a loss of at least 10%. Add the additional cost of corn for food and animal feed because of its need in ethanol production. Check your grocery prices now. Simply allowing domestic oil production will solve the problem. Pollution from cars and trucks have been reduced to a very small fraction from only a few years ago. and is equal to, or better than, that of ethanol. Additionally, ethanol is very destructive to many of the materials used in car and truck engines and fuel systems. The added costs of special materials will drive vehicle prices way up. The production of ethanol is in itself a very expensive process, using fossil fuels with the need for much fertilizer derived from oil. Apparently, the author clearly knows very little of this subject. .
If all CO2 was eliminated from the atmosphere, all life would cease to exist. Plant life is dependent on Co2 to grow. Plant life takes in Co2 and emits the oxygen necessary for all non-plant life to survive. I subscribe to AMAC and am disappointed AMAC would publish this trash without doing scientific research. Any Bio-chemist or university with an agricultural school will verify what I have submitted here.
But is it really a good idea to use our food source to supply our energy needs??? China has already bought up a large portion of our food production here in America and is stock piling grains in China. That should be a “red flag” not to compromise more of our food source for energy. Climate has been warming for the past 20,000 years, and we need to learn how to deal with it, at the same time protecting ourselves from more imminent dangers.
Who wrote is lie? He says he is running for president! Please tell us who it is so we can be sure NOT TO VOTE for this moron! We currently have our gasoline diluted with 10% ethanol. Supposedly the ethanol cuts the emissions from our tailpipe. But repeated experimentation and search is unable to verify that claim. In addition the 10% ethanol cuts our mpg by 10%. Example – you own a car that gets 20 mpg on 100% gasoline. You are forced to buy gas diluted by 10% ethanol so now you only get 18 mpg. Thus it now takes 1.1 gallon of diluted gasoline to go the same distance you could go with 100% gasoline. Any 6th grade math student can tell you the 10% diluted ethanol gasoline is going to put the same amount of emissions in the air as the 100% gasoline because either way you are still burning 1 gallon of pure gasoline to go 20 miles!
This is all just a big scam to artificially keep the price of corn and sugar cane higher. Ethanol is of NO BENEFIT to the folks who drive internal powered engines nor is it of any BENEFIT to the environment.
We do have ethanol in our fuel in Oregon. I have to purchase ‘clear’ premium fuel for all my smaller yard tools at $7.49 a gallon. A lot of engines are not designed for this stuff and one season will ruin a carburetor. Also, ethanol only has about 66% of the potential energy of gasoline, so in essence we’re being forced to buy more of the stuff to get the same amount of work done! That’s government screwing around with the marketplace again.
Ethanol is an alcohol which has less energy density than gasoline which becomes a cost penalty for its use. It is also harmful to internal combustion engines, which is also a negative economic factor in its use. It is also highly subsidized with taxpayer dollars and takes prime agricultural land and tax dollars from constructive use -justification based on greenhouse effects has no scientific basis and resembles a myth. Outside of that I am all for it.
Joe Biden lies, plagiarizes, is a thinly disguised pedophile and if the truth be known, was sleeping with Jill while she was still married to a family friend. He is a dyed in the wool piece of excrement.
HorsePOOP! Deny all that prop up ethanol, tax breaks and subsidies then you have a product that is much more costly to make than it is to sell. WHY do we waste our tax dollars when we have cheap fossil fuels to last us centuries? We must force our politicians to remove their heads from their arses and really serve the people instead of screwing us at every turn.
Good comments below. The basic problem is that this whole article is based on a supposed “climate change” disaster, which is nothing but a left-wing scam with no sound scientific basis. Ethanol is a dinosaur in the clean fuel spectrum. It takes about 1 gallon of fossil fuel to make 1.1 gallons of ethanol, and then you get 10% or so less mileage! And you are raising the cost of food in the process! In the famous words of Otto – “Idiots!” One of the long-term answers is biofuels, where biological wastes are turned directly into fuel. Torrefraction is an example, but other processes could be developed and refined if some effort was put into it. Meanwhile, we have ample supplies of oil and natural gas in America to provide cheap abundant energy if the leftists would get their heads out of the sand and wake up.
Does anyone know how much energy it takes to convert corn and other plant matter into ethanol? Is ethanol (energy) used in the conversion process as opposed to fossil fuels? Just curious . . .
Larry Elder must be propped up by the Ethanol Industry. His views and opinions about ethanol are antithetical to every fact-based article on the subject I’ve ever read.
Ethanol costs MORE to produce than it can be sold for without taxpayer-funded price supports. It ruins fuel delivery systems in 2-cycle engines, AND it diverts valuable corn from the food chain.
Given this position on ethanol, it’s little wonder his Kalifornia kampaign crapped out. I’m scratching Larry OFF my list for any future political positions.
Solid loser here Larry.
The contributor is Larry Elder. He is credited at the end of the article. I really didn’t have much of an opinion about L Elder before this article, but I do now. I wouldn’t vote for any person espousing this mularkey. The government is increasingly hammering auto manufacturers to produce vehicles with better mileage numbers and ethanol absolutely diminishes mpg. Engines will need to be re-engineered for higher ethanol content. Just because you see lots of corn in Iowa doesn’t mean it needs to be made into gasoline. Quit trying to save the world by making it worse Larry. Ramp up domestic oil production and let automotive engineers develop more powerful, more efficient and better performing automobiles just as they have for the last 30 years or so. You can get stock 800 HP performance autos now that meet California’s stringent emission requirements. Let them solve the problem and keep the government out of it.
I like Larry but he shouldn’t venture into areas where he is not necessarily knowledgeable. Ethanol does not contain the BTU value of gasoline so much more of it must be burned to create the same energy and producing the corn for ethanol requires a lot of petroleum. I grew up on an Iowa farm and my younger brother still operates it. Most of the equipment is powered by diesel fuel or gasoline and it does require electricity to turn the corn into ethanol. While I am at it I might as well burst another misconception bubble which is extracting the ethanol from corn destroys it, it doesn’t. Brewers grain, the grain left after extracting the sugar, is used to make animal feed so that the corn used serves double duty.
I disagree: if you make corn aka ethanol a huge moneymaker, farmers will only grow corn, not food. And just as it takes tons of minerals dedicated to electric vehicle, how many millions of gallons per day of ethanol would it take to replace oil? Its not realistic anymore than making fuel out of algae from the sea! It simply cannot meet demand!
I read in the past that ethanol burns dirtier and less efficiently than gas from petroleum. Can you cite studies to the contrary. This article reads like PR from corn farmers.
What about converting gas powered cars to natural gas. Some truck fleets and bus fleets did so years ago and supposedly reduced CO2 emissions greatly. Wouldn’t that be a more practical solution for a nation rich in natural gas?
Ethanol is just another gimmick from the green movement. If not for the taxpayer subsidies the industry would have collapsed years ago. Don’t be fooled by the hype do a deep dive on your own, it’s not worth it!
Ethanol is a deal made in Washington by greeedy politicians. Both ethanol and SNAP benefits are included in farm legisation. As a result, the congresstitutes from the Northeast and left coast use it to to get all the SNAP benefits they can and in turn deplorables in flyover country get to grow corn and distill ethanol. It is a no-brainer that these matters should be in separate bills. Then again, that would be an honest approach, something unheard of by our legislators.
Yeah. Sounds a little off to me. The only real value of ethanol (which requires a great deal of diesel and other fossil fuels to manufacture), was in replacing lead as the octane booster added to prevent detonation or “knock”. Since the entire rationale of reducing fossil fuel use is suspect, and the savings in CO2 emissions from using ethanol is minimal anyway I give this author a “fail” for not researching his subject.
The flex fuel package is a available ($ 400-700) for most cars to use E85 or E100fuel. I would argue that if I did that I should not be forced to convert to an electric car.
Which transportation problem are we talking about? We do have the highways and by ways,the whole continent is full of oil and car lots are not empty What am I missing?
Yes, tell them that Ethanol IS the solution but first they NEED TO DRINK IT FIRST! . . . Problem solved!
… if you get 32 mpg in your Corolla, with pump unleaded gasoline? The switch to ethanol, you’ll get 15 MPH. You cruising range with be halved. And, you’ll have to re-engineer your entire fuel delivery system, to stainless steel lines. Unless you modify your fuel injection system, to bigger injectors, you won’t be able to accelerate fast enough to enter the freeway, at 65 mph –
… ethanol sucks. Expect lousy performance, lousy fuel consumption, a substantially reduced range. Ethanol produces an invisible flame. If your car catches on fire, you won’t be able to see the flames. Highly corrosive, Ethanol will eat straight through your fuel lines, eat through your fuel tank, and screw up your fuel injection –
So many people say they don’t know who wrote this, but there is a line that says “reprinted with permission from the DC Journal by Larry Elder”.
Why do we rarely hear about geothermal?
When I purchased my home 5 years ago, my oil heater and central AC were out of date and inefficient. I hate oil heat and gas was not an option because the main stopped 60’ from my house. Connection costs were prohibitive!
My HVAC guy suggested geothermal. I invested $30,600 which sounds like a lot but replacing a 60 year old oil tank, new flue lining, oil heater and central AC unit would have cost me about $18k. I received a $9,000 tax rebate that made my choice easy. I also spent about $2,200 to boost my attic insulation to R-48
Almost 5 years later my electric bill averages about $130/mo. Not bad for an all-electric house.
Why isn’t the government pushing geothermal? Easy. The politicians can’t make any money from it.
Build Back Better when translated from Newspeak to plain English means Build Back Bloat.
The problem with all biofuels and corn is one of the worst is that creating ethanol from corn requires about 10 times more energy than the ethanol produces. Although it has some CO2 advantage it apparently created othe greenhouse gases.
Is this written by Asa Hutchinson? Somebody who is running for president, apparently right now.
This sounds to me like something Ron DeSantis’s campaign staff wrote to sell him in Iowa.
Grain based fuels provide less power and fewer mile per gallon, so they should cost less based on those facts.
Our choice is we raise cattle for food by feeding them corn, etc OR we drive lower powered cars.
Need to produce More & distrib reusing gas stations in place nationwide
no it is not
More ethanol, less food, less gas mileage and more mechanical problems with cars and every engine using gasoline. No way! Bidum can shove another one!
when they started with the 10 % ethanol in NY in the 90s my gas mileage went down 10% and the price went up.
The most recent study I’ve seen showed the energy equivalent of two gallons of ethanol are required to produce one gallon of ethanol. Other comments have described the disadvantages of using ethanol in gasoline engines. Sound extremely inefficient to me.
Turning Food into Fuel is immoral. I used to keep fuel and milage logs and recorded a 9% mileage loss in the wintertime when they switched to the 10% Ethanol blend meaning I burned 9% more fuel. Now it is Ethanol all year around. How does that help the environment.
So they use corn to make ethanol now feed for farming costs more
so its cost more at the supermarket- as well ethanol only has 40% less energy
then regular gas -so you need to buy more ethanol- a complete joke on middle class
I congratulate Larry Elder for writing this editorial. Previously, I had only ever heard Larry denigrate ethanol fuel on his old radio show. I’m very happy to hear he has come around.
Marc J. Rauch, Author of THE ETHANOL PAPERS,Co-Publisher of THE AUTO CHANNEL