The Great Ethanol Conspiracy

Ethanol


We know that ethanol use in this country was based on the needs of national politicians, all of whom want to be president, to cater to Iowa corn farmers. This is why the nation that is supposed to be for "free trade" and NAFTA has a 54 cent tariff per gallon of much cheaper sugar-based ethanol that comes primarily from Brazil. This is also why we all use corn syrup instead of sugar even though California and Hawaii are both sugar producing states.

Here is a great conspiracy to consider though. We are told that we need to use ethanol to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and clean up the air. Here is the problem. It requires twice as much farmland to produce corn-based ethanol than sugar-based ethanol. We have already seen food prices jump recently because of the increase price of corn which was brought about, at least in part, by an increased demand for ethanol (actually an increased requirement since consumers would not buy it of their own free will). Higher prices for corn should mean that increased production will become more lucrative. This, combined with the increased demand for ethanol means that a lot more land will come into production for producing corn. Keep in mind that right now we pay corn farmers not to grow to keep prices propped up.

So now more land in the U.S. will be farmed to produce corn which in turn will need to go through a manufacturing process in order to turn it into ethanol. What will power the tractors, the delivery trucks, and the manufacturing facilities? That's right, more fossil fuels. Not only that, but it may likely take more than a gallon of fossil fuels to produce a gallon of ethanol. This means that the gasoline will be burned quicker and our fossil fuel pollution would actually go up due to ethanol. In the meantime, agricultural production, which would be better used as food than fuel, will be diverted away from food markets, resulting in higher prices for food. This will mean that more land will need to be brought into production to make up for the shortfall in demand for food - requiring more fossil fuel.

If I were an oil company, where would I want to sell more fuel? Probably the place that buys the most, the U.S. And how could I get the U.S. to increase its demand for fossil fuels, thereby driving up prices? I could come up with a scheme that requires an increased use of fossil fuels across the board. And what is seemingly the least likely way to do that which would be completely undetected or unbelieved by the public? Push the production of an alternative fuel that will actually require more fossil fuels to produce.

It sounds fun and obviously like an overboard conspiracy, but have you heard a single oil producing company complain about the U.S. push to switch to ethanol? If each gallon lost at the pump to ethanol represented two new gallons sold toward production, would you complain?