ADM is at it again. First they ruin our health by getting food processors to put corn syrup and/or high fructose corn syrup in almost every food stuff imaginable
Then they get salmon fish farmers to use corn as feed (last time I checked, no wild salmon has yet jumped out of a river or ocean to hunt down a juicy ear of corn
And now they get those of us searching for alternatives to fossil fuels to think that corn-based ethanol is just the bees knees.
From Organic Consumers Organization:
THE THINGS THEY DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT ETHANOL
In the wake of ever-escalating gasoline prices, the ethanol craze has officially taken hold. Congress has approved $5.7 billion in federal tax credits to support the ethanol market, in addition to the $10 billion U.S. corn farmers annually receive in subsidies. While the corn-industry-lobbying-machine has President Bush predicting ethanol will replace gasoline, the science behind corn-based ethanol seems to suggest this alternative fuel may be more about politics than an actual solution. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, it takes the equivalent of three barrels of oil to create four barrels of corn-based ethanol [emphasis added]. Couple that with the fact that ethanol gets lower miles per gallon than gasoline, and the corn-based solution begins to show its true colors. But other nations are demonstrating that plant-based ethanol fuels can help meet our energy needs. Brazil makes ethanol from sugar-cane, which is almost eight times more energy efficient to produce than the US corn-based fuel. Crops with high cellulose or sugar content that can be easily grown in the U.S., such as sugar beets, hemp or switch grass, make much more efficient fuels. But, in the U.S., where special interests, not the public seem to govern federal policy, it appears the immediate future of U.S. automotive fuel is going to the highest bidder: genetically engineered corn.
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/...
Gotta love them Republican Congress critters. Pittance for research for genuine alternative fuel subsidies like photovoltaic cells or cellulose-based ethanol. No action to raise CAFE standards. Not a dime toward improving the performance of existing vehicles. No consideration of anything that might lead to real conservation, like taxing the oil companies' profits to fund investment in public transportation infrastructure.
But if you want yourself some money to promote nukuler power, with its oh so lovely 250,000 year half-life, plutonium-laced waste with no repositories on the horizon, (even after 30+ years of trying) -- happy to give you a billion or two. If you want yourself some dough to cook up hairbrained, chain-saw-for-slicing-butter schemes like hydrogen-powered cars, just tell us how much. And, clearly, if you're agribiz wiz ADM and you want even more excuses to plant even more corn for non-food purposes, why let's just open the U.S. Treasury and you can have at it.
Just another reason to kick the bums out.