“Environmentally, ethanol is very much a mixed bag. It takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than the energy you get when you burn it. It ain’t a renewable fuel.”

“Nor is gasohol environmentally friendly. It often leads to vapor lock and is more explosive than gasoline. And while ethanol use might reduce carbon-monoxide emissions, it increases hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide output.”

“Most of the cost contributions from by-products are negated by the environmental pollution costs that are estimated to be $0.36/gal. In U.S. corn production, soil erodes about 18-times faster than soil can be reformed. In irrigated acreage, groundwater is being mined at a rate 25% faster than the recharge rate. This shows that the environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Further it substantiates the finding that the U.S. corn production system is not sustainable for the future, unless major changes are made in the cultivation of this important food/feed crop. Hence, corn can not be considered a renewable resource.”

“The primary concern with the presence of ethanol in the subsurface is its impact on the natural or engineered biodegradation of other constituents in gasoline, namely BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes). Laboratory and field data have confirmed that ethanol will be preferentially utilized in the presence of BTEX under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The implications of this finding in the field are not well established. Conceptually, this means that other gasoline components will continue to migrate until the ethanol has disappeared sufficiently to permit biodegradation of other constituents to occur. The length of BTEX plumes will likely be increased and the magnitude of this increase, while site specific, is expected to be approximately 27% for typical California conditions.”

“David Montgomery, an energy economist for Charles River Associates, estimates that only 30 percent of the cost of ethanol will wind up in the pockets of farmers while about 70 percent will go to processors like ADM (Archer Daniels Midland). So the rule is a ridiculously expensive way to subsidize farmers. And the addition of ethanol will cut imports by only 9,000 barrels out of the eight million barrels a day.”

“Mostly, the subsidy helps prop up corn prices by adding a little to demand. The higher corn price may mean slightly higher beef and chicken prices than otherwise, since the corn is used for feed. ADM, which happens over the years to have been a major source of campaign contributions to members of both parties, likewise prospers.”

“One curious side effect of the ethanol subsidy is to underwrite ADM’s liquor sales. Although Washington does not formally subsidize gin, ADM can use its ethanol production capacity, long funded by Uncle Sam, to make booze. The firm proudly announced last year: “The expansions (in capacity) provide ADM the flexibility to produce beverage or industrial alcohols to maximum capacity, or fuel ethanol depending on market conditions.”

“Passed in 1980 to solve the ‘energy crisis’ but now apparently possessed of eternal life, the 54-cent-a-gallon tax credit for the corn-based alcohol fuel additive represents the worst sort of corporate welfare. Indeed, over half the subsidies benefit one company — Archer Daniels Midland — which for years has bought space on Sunday TV talk shows to generate sympathy for its subsidy... At a time when welfare mothers are expected to make it without federal subsidies, when other farm programs are being phased out, the country still has AFDE: Aid to Farmers Dependent on Ethanol. Iowan voters looking for a signal about a candidate’s willingness to take on the special interests in Washington might do well to look first to reward those candidates brave enough to say no to ethanol.”

“Ethanol has no profitable value on the free market. Ethanol costs almost twice as much as regular gasoline to produce yet creates less power. To make ethanol viable, the American taxpayer pays producers of ethanol 54 cents a gallon for a product that competes with similar fuels that sell on the free market for between 45 cents and 60 cents a gallon.”

“This [Washington’s 54 cent-per-gallon tax break for gasohol] special-interest loophole accounts for the bulk of the more than $10 billion in subsidies to ADM since 1980. All told, [Cato] analyst James Bovard estimates that every dollar in profits earned by ADM costs taxpayers $30.

Ethanol is a poor energy source, costing more than twice as much as the wholesale price of gasoline to produce. Yet gasohol generates less power than gasoline, delivering about 5% fewer miles per gallon.”

“Ethanol, mostly distilled from corn, is more costly to produce than other fuels and cannot be profitably produced without a subsidy.”

“This is probably the most economically inefficient, unwarranted form of corporate welfare in our entire federal budget.”

“The White House ignored a basic tenet of environmental policy making: that governments ought to set standards of performance or attainment and then let market competition determine the most efficient, least costly way to achieve them. In fact, this was the approach agreed to when the rules for reformulated gasoline were negotiated in 1991.

The White House also overlooked its own scientific studies. A draft analysis done for the Energy Department by Argonne National Laboratory indicates that, when you factor in the energy used to grow corn, ethanol costs a bit more than methanol, pollutes slightly more and consumes more oil. In other words, there seems to be no economic or scientific basis for using ethanol.”

“Texas, which needs every dollar it can get to maintain and upgrade its thousands of miles of roads and highways, would have received an additional $309 million in federal highway funds between 1983 and 1994 had there been no ethanol subsidy, according to the American Highway Users Alliance.”

“Cropland erosion results in the loss of $18 billion/year in lost fertilizer nutrients. In addition, there is an estimated $6 billion/year in offsite environmental damages from soil erosion. This amounts to a loss of about $0.23/gallon of ethanol produced. Because the fertilizer applied to corn is estimated to offset about 10% of the nutrients lost by erosion annually, the net loss is estimated to be $0.21 /gallon for erosion. The heavy use of insecticides and herbicides on corn results in an estimated environmental impact of $0.15/gal.”

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Methanol Institute